Sweet Spots
Ideas and messages from Len Sweet.
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Imagination
The Christian imagination enchants the world with a haunting presence, not that of leprechauns, gnomes, gremlins and ghosts, but the haunting, gracing presence of the Holy Spirit. We need the Christian imagination to kick in because the world’s imagination authors a story-line not formed by kingdom virtues, values, and views.…
Imagination Redeemed
Imagination Redeemed
by Gene Edward Veith Jr. & Matthew P. Ristuccia
Have you ever wondered why the human faculty of imagination has gotten such a bad rap in Christian circles? In the Church, somehow the black hat of disapproval has been bestowed on imagination and its creative expression in the arts. How did this attitude develop? How can this idea be changed and imagination and creativity be encouraged in the church? The book Imagination Redeemed: Glorifying God with a Neglected Part of Your Mind by Gene Edward Veith Jr. and Matthew P. Ristuccia deals with some of these questions. read more…
My Prayer for You
Christ, Good Shepherd, bread
Divine, show us to your mercy sign.
Feed us still, still keep us thine
That we may see your glory shine
In the kingdom of the good.
Source of all we have or know,
Come and guide us here below,
Make us, at your table seated,
By your saints as friends be greeted,
Co-heirs at the feast of love.
–St. Thomas Aquinas
Ego Tantrum or Tantum Ergo
Ego Tantrum or Tantum Ergo . . . Whenever I feel like throwing an ego tantrum, I do my best to get to my computer and spend four minutes listening to “Tantum Ergo,” the last two verses of St. Thomas Aquinas’ hymn “Pange Lingua Gloriosi Corporis Mysterium” which is often…
Give Yourself Away
If articulation is the metaphor of giving yourself away for the music, then our sound theology must consider great music teachers as some of the best examples of this metaphor . . . and at the top of that list must be French musician Nadia Boulanger.
American composer Ned Rorem said this about Boulanger after her death in 1979, “So far as musical pedagogy is concerned – and by extension, musical creation – Nadia Boulanger is the most influential person who ever lived.” read more…
Backwards and Forwards
God’s Gamble
God’s Gamble: The risk of love is a risk God took when God created humanity. The creation of humans was God made Vulnerable. In Welsh priest/poet R. S. Thomas’ portrayal of the creation of the world, “Making,” God pauses on the fifth day. Something is still missing. God has created…
The Kingdom of God
“The Kingdom of God cannot be embraced by discursive language, but only hinted at in the lines of poetry, the melody of music, the perspective of art and the curvs of sculpture. It’s a commonsense language of weather, yeast, fishing, food and festivities.” John McCarthy, SJ, Do Monkeys Go To…
God-stamped visa
A visa is an authorization to travel to a foreign country. Parenting is the permit process of setting up your kids to obtain a God-stamped visa for the foreign land called life.
Life in Jesus
A hundred years ago, William J. Locke wrote best-selling novels. In one of them, there is a story of a woman who had a huge amount of money and who spent half her lifetime touring the sites and art galleries of the world. She toured everywhere. She saw almost every major museum. But…