When we see the world as an end in itself, everything becomes itself a value and consequently loses all value, because only in God is found the meaning (value) of everything, and the world is meaningful only when it is the 'sacrament' of God's presence. Things treated merely as things in themselves destroy themselves because only in God have they an life. The world of nature, cut off from the source of life, is a dying world. For one who thinks food in itself is the source of life, eating is communion with the dying world, it is communion with death. Food itself is dead, it is life that has died and it must be kept in refrigerators like a corpse.

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.3, p.17

Man must eat in order to live; he must take the world into his body and transform it into himself, into flesh and blood. He is indeed that which he eats, and the whole world is presented as one all-embracing banquet table for man. And this image of the banquet remains, throughout the whole Bible, the central image of life. It is the image of life at its creation and also the image of life at its end and fulfillment: 'that you eat and drink at my table in my Kingdom.'

alexander schmemann, for the life of the world, ch.1.1, p.11

"Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables; the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness."

-David Foster Wallace

via gibbs

After the assassination of Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan, there has been a surge in Islamic orthodoxy, threatening the civilian Government in Islamabad. In the Soviet era, communist states would view dissent as deviation from ideology. In the 21st century, dissidence is being equated increasingly with blasphemy in Islamic countries. For instance, in Pakistan, at least 30 people are reported to be on the death row for alleged violations of the tough anti-blasphemy laws of that country.

via the pioneer, a daily in new delhi, india

in other words, 30 christians are about to die because the one man who stood up to the fundamentalist muslims is dead. they're just waiting until we stop looking. i give them two weeks.

In other words, evangelicals seem to be inherently inconsistent, striking a pose at once adaptable and rigid, progressive and conservative, modern and old-fashioned, at ease and at odds with American ideals. The result of these apparent anomalies is a religion that on Sunday is comfortable with the church looking like the world (such as [Contemporary Christian Music]) and throughout the rest of the week insists that the world look like the church (as in family values.)

D.G. Hart

that old-time religion in modern america, pg. 215.

10 Reasons Why I Should Spend Time with the Elderly:

1. I don’t have better things to do.

2. I have lots of energy and time.

3. It’s one way for me to get wisdom.

4. It teaches me to fear the Lord.

5. It’s obedience to the fifth commandment.

6. It teaches me how to be part of the Church.

7. It fulfills the promises of God and enacts the Kingdom of God.

8. It reminds me of where I’m going (Eccl. 12:1ff).

9. It teaches me to hate sin.

10. It teaches me to long for the resurrection and consummation of all things.

lifted from Toby Sumpter’s blog

via pushlings

1 Corinthians 10:16-17: Is not this cup of blessing which we bless a sharing in the blood of Christ? Is not the bread which we break a sharing in the body of Christ?

Many Christians over the centuries have thought of the Lord’s Supper as a kind of continuing or second incarnation. First the Son gets embodied in flesh, but now that He’s gone away He gets embodied in another material. Nowadays, He dwells among us not in a human body but in bread.

This kind of analogy between the incarnation and the presence of Christ in the Supper has produced all sorts of bad habits. If this is Jesus here on the table, we should bow down and worship Him. We should keep the bread after we’re done, and maybe even preserve a bit in a golden chest so we can go back and venerate it later.

One way to say this is that we should not think of the Eucharist not so much as Christmas – as if the Son were born again in bread – but instead think about it instead in terms of Advent. This table marks a triple Advent: It celebrates the past coming of the Lord; it is the coming of the Lord; and it looks ahead to the coming of the Lord. We commemorate the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; we feed on Him by the Spirit; we proclaim the Lord’s death until He come.

When we view it as an Advent meal, we see that this Supper is about Jesus’ absence as well as His presence; it’s about the future as well as the present. It is a present feast, a feast we celebrate because the Lord has come. But it is not yet a full banquet, because the Lord is still to come.

Dr. Leithart gave this as a Eucharist meditation this morning. convicting, inspiring, and beautiful.

via leithart.com