thinking-through-it-all

Superbowl Commercial That I Was the DP for

Tue, 22 Nov 2011 09:52:00 -0800

Superbowl Commercial That I Was the DP for:

I was the Director of Photography for a superbowl commercial campaign and the Gaffer on two others. Check out the Campaign at crashthesuperbowl.com and search “Doritos In Time”

Awesome Cards On Etsy!

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 21:53:27 -0700

Awesome Cards On Etsy!

"Nuclear power is as safe as any other energy source. Last year we had the BP Oil Spill, the Massey..."

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 15:19:00 -0700

““Nuclear power is as safe as any other energy source. Last year we had the BP Oil Spill, the Massey coal mine collapse, and let’s say a windmill robbed a bank.””

- Stephen Colbert

Originally posted by Invisible Children

Mon, 21 Mar 2011 17:01:04 -0700

Originally posted by Invisible Children

This is awesome! He hits some major points here that seem so...

Thu, 17 Mar 2011 09:14:36 -0700

This is awesome! He hits some major points here that seem so obvious after you’ve thought about it a little.

Looking back on things...

Sun, 07 Nov 2010 00:29:34 -0700

You know, what if we had all become the copies of the people we looked up to when we were younger. I look back on it and I think to myself how different I am now than who I thought I wanted to be. I’m quite happy as to that fact too. If I had become the person that I idolized even two years ago I would be more ignorant have a smaller perspective on the world, and quite possibly have missed out on what may become some of the biggest turning points in my life. Mostly I’m just content with who I’ve become. Not to say that I am done changing or that I’m done gaining perspective or anything. I’m just happy that life didn’t work out like I thought it was supposed to when I was 17. Just saying… I can’t wait for the future… and I will continue to make the best out of what the present has to offer.

Interesting...

Sun, 17 Oct 2010 13:48:41 -0700

Interesting...

"Are our churches and broadcasts and books and organizations merely creating religious consumers of..."

Sat, 02 Oct 2010 10:07:56 -0700

“Are our churches and broadcasts and books and organizations merely creating religious consumers of religious products and programs?”

- Brian Mclaren

New Sufjan Stevens

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 19:54:01 -0700

New Sufjan Stevens

"Scientists and religious Fundamentalists are both trapped not in the heart of Jesus’ teachings but,..."

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:55:56 -0700

“Scientists and religious Fundamentalists are both trapped not in the heart of Jesus’ teachings but, instead, the philosophy of Materialism. Owning a theory in the lab or holding a golden ticket to Heaven because of being in with the “right” crowd aren’t about spiritual things and perceptions at all. More often, it’s about saving one’s backside and what it does is the opposite of knowing “the Truth that will set you free” and more about limiting one’s life and, at the same time, limiting God’s astonishing work.”

- Brian at http://christianmystics.com/

Am I a Mystic Christian?

Sun, 26 Sep 2010 18:18:14 -0700

I have recently been introduced to the formal name of what I think I am… and that is a mystic Christian. Heres a little bit about it from a site called http://frimmin.com/faith/mysticismintro.php

What is mysticism?

To many modern Christians, words like “meditation,” “mystic,” and “mysticism” bring to mind Eastern religions, not Christianity. Certainly Eastern religions are known for their mysticism; however, mysticism is not only a vital part of the Christian heritage as well, but it is actually the core of Christian spirituality. Mysticism simply means the spirituality of the direct experience of God. It is the adventure of “the wild things of God.”

The direct experience of God is a kind of knowing, which goes beyond intellectual understanding. It is not a matter of “belief.” It is marked by love and joy, but it is not “emotional experience.” In many ways, it is better described by what it is not. To describe what it is, we must use metaphors—the marriage of the soul to Christ, the death of the “old man” and birth of the “new man,” being the “body of Christ.”

Jesus proclaimed “I and the Father are one,” (Jn. 10.30) showing the world what the union of God and man can be. Christian mysticism is about nothing else but this transforming union.

Christ is the sole end of Christian mysticism. Whereas all Christians have Christ, call on Christ, and can (or should) know Christ, the goal for the Christian mystic is to become Christ—to become as fully permeated with God as Christ is, thus becoming like him, fully human, and by the grace of God, also fully divine. In Christian teaching this doctrine is known by various names—theosis, divinization, deification, and transforming union.

A common misconception about mysticism is that it’s about “mystical experiences,” and there are many volumes on such experiences in religious literature. But true mysticism is not focussed on “experiences” (which come and go) but with the lasting experience of God, leading to the transformation of the believer into union with God.

a very, very, very short mystical apologetic.

To know God directly shows that mysticism is different from any passive or legalistic kind of Christianity. It means:

That while we honor the Scriptures, we want to know God directly, not just through Scripture.
While we respect our heritage of teachings about God, we want to know God directly, not through doctrines and teachings.
While we gather in communal worship, we want to know God directly, not just through the Church.

Some readers may find this unsettling. Maybe you believe it doesn’t apply to you, because you “know” that your church is purer and more correct than others. Even if that were true, is it a substitute for knowing God directly? Or, you might also feel that trusting the Bible alone gives you knowledge of God directly from the Source. But it was written by mystics, listening to God speaking his Word in their hearts. Is it possible for you to read it directly, without the conceptions of your language, time, culture, and personal history? Are you sure you wouldn’t understand it very differently if you were reading it, say, in third-century Damascus?

The religion we call “Christianity” changes, but God is eternal. Mystical faith wants to know this unchanging God to whom Christianity leads us, the One behind the beliefs and the words, the One whom beliefs and words cannot describe. We want to follow Jesus’ example more closely, and go beyond the religion about Jesus, and take the religionof Jesus: the knowledge of the Father and unconditional love he had, and urged us to have.

what is a mystic?

I believe that everyone who wants to love unconditionally is a mystic. All children are born mystics, and if you were once a child, you were once a mystic. Christian mysticism is following the example of Christ as he followed the Father. And mysticism is not by any means restricted to Christianity: the Bible says, “everyone who loves is begotten of God, and knows God.” (1 Jn. 4.7) God speaks in various ways, in every time and every place to “whosoever will.” Other pages on this site treat non-Christian mysticism.

Mystics range the gamut of walks of life, from intellectual priests such as Frs. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin and Matthew Fox, to laywomen like Bernadette Roberts and Katherine Nelson. The mystic way is old, but timeless—it is alive, and ever-new for each one who chooses it. It may be inviting you to begin this adventure of divine transformation and discovery.

a very, very, very short history of mysticism

The term mysticism derives from The Mystical Theology, a tiny treatise written by the greatest Christian writer of the sixth century, Dionysius the Areopagite, a.k.a. Pseudo-Dionysius or St. Denys [the Areopagite]. But Dionysius is in no way the “founder” of Christian mysticism. That honor belongs to none but Jesus the Christ himself. But there was mysticism long before Jesus was born. God “strolled in the Garden” with man (Heb. ‘adam). Jacob saw heaven opened. God spoke to Joseph through dreams. Moses communed with God on Sinai. David lost himself in dancing for the Lord.

But when Jesus declared “I and the Father are one,” (Jn. 10.30) he proclaimed in himself the union of God and humankind, and he offers it to all who follow him (he gave the power to become sons of God to all who believe. (Jn. 1.12).

From there, the mystic heart is seen in the letters of the apostles: Paul reached the divinized state of losing his “self”: I no longer live, but Christ lives in me! (Gal. 2.20) James wrote that every good and perfect gift comes from the Father of Lights, in whom there is no variation nor shadow of turning. (Jas. 1.17) Peter proclaimed that Christ even descended to hell to liberate imprisoned souls, (1 Pet. 3.19) and John understood the most sublime truth of God’s essence: God is Love! (1 Jn. 4.8,16). This is only the beginning. Every century has been influenced by Christian mystics—from apostles and martyrs, Church Fathers and Desert Mothers, to monks and nuns of religious orders, to the lay mystics—men and women and boys and girls in every century, in every denomination, in every walk of life.

The "Real World"

Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:40:08 -0700

Every now and then I get to escape what has been deemed for me to be the “real world.” I used to be able to escape this world going to church camp and getting some form of manipulated emotional high from that only to be brought back to “reality” that includes home and work and school. Aside from my current cynical view on church camp and other associated institutional church relations, I rather enjoyed those breaks from stress, tension and all the other things that make life so difficult. I no longer can escape to church camp or anything of the sort, instead my life remains a balance between what are seemingly becoming two different realities. One of these realities is contained within my various groups of friends whom I love very much. This reality continually expands as I meet new people and experience new things. Unfortunately at present it seems that this is only the reality that I escape to and doesn’t actually make up the “real world” for me. The second reality is that of my family and all the stressors that are contained in our present situation. This reality is often not pleasant for me to live in and as hard as I try I cannot seem to connect my two realities my two different real worlds. The second reality continually rejects the first and vice versa. Whenever the two seem to align they still have fine lines of separation that do not need to exist but will not seemingly go away even when coerced or helped along. Moral of this story… Reality is a stubborn bitch sometimes.

The Church as an institution (structure) must be changed before we can change other...

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:41:32 -0700

The Church as an institution (structure) must be changed before we can change other structures/institutions and alleviate the symptons of poverty at the community level.

I just finished this website for Operation Liberate

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 01:06:38 -0700

I just finished this website for Operation Liberate

"I can imagine two reasons why evangelical churches would not ordain women who are equally as gifted..."

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 23:37:30 -0700

“I can imagine two reasons why evangelical churches would not ordain women who are equally as gifted as men who are ordained. Fear, for starters. If a man’s masculinity depends on being dominant, then he will feel he’s losing status in the eyes of other men if he is led by a woman. His self-worth is threatened when a woman is above him in a hierarchical system.
Often, of course such reasons against ordaining women are masked by theological rationalizations generated by male chauvinists - and even by some women who find a variety of benefits for themselves in the traditional position that the church has prescribed for women…..”

- Tony Campolo in Adventures in Missing the Point

"Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense..."

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 14:07:25 -0700

““Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable? Quite easily, I should think. All nonsense questions are unanswerable.””

- C.S. Lewis

A thought about the language "Christianese"

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:12:36 -0700

Christianese is not only ostricizing people by creating a church culture, but it is also demeaning and leading to misinterpretation of the Bible amongst “believers.” Such phrases as being “saved” have lead to a generic understanding of salvation without fully realizing the full breath of the words.

"These institutions are accepted in a particular society, of which they are the institutions, as..."

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 11:06:50 -0700

“These institutions are accepted in a particular society, of which they are the institutions, as fixing, with a certain measure of flexibility, the proper conduct of a person in a certain relationship. They define for a person how he is expected to behave, and also how he may expect others to behave.”

- Radcliffe-Brown

"As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behavior. Begin to act the..."

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 16:41:17 -0700

“As you begin changing your thinking, start immediately to change your behavior. Begin to act the part of the person you would like to become. Take action on your behavior. Too many people want to feel, then take action. This never works.”

- John Maxwell

"Are we creating a self-isolating, self-serving, self-perpetuating, self-centered subculture instead..."

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 15:52:31 -0700

“Are we creating a self-isolating, self-serving, self-perpetuating, self-centered subculture instead of a world-penetrating (like salt and light), world-serving, world-transforming, God-centered counterculture?”

- Adventures In Missing the Point by Brian Mclaren