Alonewithothers's Blog

Smile, without a reason why. Love, as if you were a child.

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  • Vârsta uitată

     

    Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. (G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, Ignatius Press,  1995, p. 65)

  • The Beauty of a Second

  • High Theory, Low Culture

    Can someone compare the melodicity and harmony of Apocalyptica/Metallica with what is called now pop-music, Lady Gaga et. Co?

    Much of recent popular culture appears as

    • permanent carnivalization (though “permanent” in the sense of permanently ephemeral, constantly changing),
    • focused on formations of pleasure,
    • promoting the chronotope type of the new humanity, very artificial —the youth idyll of the style magazine, for example, exhibits no teenage acne, no young people who are not thin and beautiful, no older artists or musicians, no youthful suicide, depression, or psychological breakdown except when angst and neurosis are chic. (p. 13)
    • with an anti-canonical attitude, very close to madness, hysteria, and paranoia (considering the pleasures of horror),
    • and simultaneous arousal of desire and frustration occurs via commodity fetishism,
    • doubtingabout distinction of gender and stimulating a pornographic imagination. (Mikita Brottman, High Theory, Low Culture, Palgrave Macmillan,  2005)

  • Excelența ca un excercițiu spiritual

    Nu știu de ce în anumite comunități este foarte greu de evitat extremele unei superiorități vecine cu aroganța sau ignoranța valorizată ca virtute. Foarte multe comunități eclesiale stau mărturie bolii neacceptării intelectualilor doar pentru simplu fapt că aceștia nu sunt predispuși la loialitate oarbă și, deci, sunt elemente străine, periculoase, ”dușmani ai poporului” (evanghelicii români sunt încă foarte îndatorați perspectivei comuniste a luptei claselor și a superiorității morale/spirituale a clasei muncitoare  față de cea a intelectualilor). Am văzut însă și comunități care au reușit să treacă peste aceste cauzalități pur socio-culturale și au integrat creativ structurile umane diverse cu care Dumnezeu ne-a înzestrat pe fiecare. Rezultatul a fost experimentarea unui colț de rai într-o lume a schismelor și reclamărilor feroce.

    Recomand din inimă cartea lui Andreas J. Kostenberger, Excellence: The Character of God and the Pursuit of Scholarly Virtue (Crosway Books, 2011). Asemenea autorului, cred și eu că excelența a făcut posibilă mântuirea. Isus Hristos a ajuns Cel Crucificat tocmai pentru că nu a cunoscut compromisul. Iar călcarea pe urmele Lui înseamnă căutarea excelenței. 2 Petru 1:3-11 este inspirația și modelul scriptural în căutarea excelenței. Să nu uităm că orice om este chemat întru existență să fie asemenea lui Dumnezeu, să trăiască plenar, să se bucure de excelență, nicidecum de mediocritate. Virtutea și vocația trebuie să fie conjugate, nicidecum disociate, așa cum atât de confortabil mintea noastră le separă. Neîmplinirea acestei cerințe ne lasă pe mulți dintre noi descoperiți în fața minciunii și autoamăgirii. Căutarea excelenței trebuie să pornească din continua căutare a sfințeniei lui Dumnezeu, cea care ne inspiră la o trăire integrală în adevăr, la dependența de călăuzirea Duhului Sfânt. El ne ajută să nu transformăm excelența într-un idol, ci într-o misiune, o unealtă în războiul spiritual. Să nu uităm că tot ce este și face Dumnezeu este excelență:

    • Ceea ce ești precedă ceea ce faci!
    • Sfințenie – devino ceea ce ești!
    • Spiritualitate – spiritualitatea creștină este întemeiată în lucrarea Duhului Sfânt.

    Iată dar pașii pe care trebuie să îi parcurgem în căutarea excelenței:

    1. Excelența vocațională

    • Râvnă – să-ți dai silințele să adaugi credinței rîvnă.
    • Curaj – unește râvna cu curaj.
    • Pasiune – curajului adaugă-i pasiune.
    • Înfrânare – pasiunii adaugă-i înfrânare.
    • Creativitate – înfrânării adaugă-i creativitate.
    • Elocvență – creativității adaugă-i elocvență.

    2. Excelența morală

    • Integritatea – adaugă elecvenței integritate.
    • Fidelitate – unește integritatea cu fidelitatea.
    • Înțelepciune – fidelității adaugă-i înțelepciune.

    3. Excelența relațională

    • Har – înțelepciunii adaugă-i har.
    • Umilința – harului adaugă-i umilință.
    • Interdependența – umilinței adaugă-i interdependența.
    • Dragostea – unește interdependența cu dragostea.

    Când descoperim gândul și chemarea lui Dumnezeu către excelență, atunci cu siguranță că cei prea plini își vor descoperi neputințele și încă mediocritățiile din ceea ce cred a fi realizări excelente, iar cei ce își fac un titlu de glorie/mândrie dintr-o falsă smerenie/umilință își vor da seama că sunt chemați să își dea silințele și să devină integri, să unească ceea ce au separat și selectat discriminatoriu.

    Are you committed to excellence? If so, are you willing to do what it takes to achieve greater excellence for the glory of God and for the good of his people? In this book, I have taken you on a journey traversing various areas of Christian virtue in the pursuit of excellence. In the spirit of 2 Peter 1, I have challenged all of us to make every effort to add to our faith various virtues that together comprise excellence. Think for a moment. Human excellence apart from the excellence of God leads to idolatry, such as celebrity worship. Excellence without holiness and genuine spirituality is technical competence without character. Like a mosaic, excellence is comprised of a great number of concomitant virtues. Diligence without courage is parochial and small-minded. Courage and passion without restraint are mindless zealotry. Restraint without creativity is dull and boring. Creativity and eloquence without integrity, faithfulness, and restraint are dangerous tools likely to be abused. Better to have integrity and be dull than to be eloquent and lead others astray.

    Wisdom without grace tends to elevate the wise. Humility and dependence without service and love may lead to monasticism or godly closet spirituality but fail to inspire, mentor, and impact others redemptively for the glory of God.

    What is eloquence without humility? Passion without grace? Courage without love? Creativity without diligence? The list could be multiplied endlessly, but the above examples are sufficient to illustrate that the pursuit of excellence involves climbing a staircase of virtues that in the end will lead to genuine and continual progress in both the composite virtues and excellence as a whole.

    What is more, as we have seen, excellence consists of vocational, moral, and relational excellence. Plenty of examples illustrate excelling in a given vocation but not matching vocational with moral and/or relational excellence. A golf star cheats on his wife. A Nobel Prize winner forsakes his marriage vows. An eloquent preacher leaves the ministry to pursue a homosexual relationship. Those who would pursue excellence must combine vocational with moral and relational excellence.

    This balance, of course, is hard to achieve. It is much easier to spend long hours in one’s study and to ratchet up an impressive record of scholarly publications while neglecting one’s family. Conversely, someone may be a great father and husband but only a mediocre scholar (though, if a choice has to be made, the latter is, of course, to be preferred over the former). But does a choice have to be made? If God has called you to scholarship, he has also called you to excel in your work. How do you excel in both your scholarly calling and your personal life? As we have seen, there is no magic formula (other than utter reliance on God’s grace in all things), but for a start, we must commit ourselves to the pursuit of excellence in the vocational, moral, and relational realms. While dangers are doubtless lurking ahead, commit yourself to excellence. The God you serve is himself characterized by excellence, and that same God has called you to the pursuit of excellence for his glory and for the good of others. If you pursue excellence and progress in it, you and others will be blessed, and God will be glorified:

    For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they will keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. . . . Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to make your calling and election sure, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. (2 Pet. 1:8, 10–11)

    (Andreas J. Köstenberger, Excellence, Good News Publishers/Crossway Books. pp. 231-232)

  • Mind Control in the Music Industry (Part 2)

    I found in this study some common themes with my interests in what I call ”mediatic messianism”: a very thin line between utopia and dystopia in contemporary art, mind control of the masses through entertainment consumption, but mostly sex, woman as an object of desire for consumer.

    via PARALLAX.

    “As artists we’re highly sensitive people, and this machine around us, this so-called ‘music industry,’ is such a demonic thing. It’s sacrifices people’s lives and their essences at the drop of a dime … I had a manager once say to me, ‘ You know you’re worth more money dead than alive.”’ ~Chaka Khan

    An in-depth analysis of mind-control themes in contemporary pop music (see last week’s Mind Control in the Music Industry ~ Part 1) would be incomplete without addressing Metropolis. Written and directed by German expressionist Fritz Lang in 1927, the cult classic is set in a futuristic urban dystopia.

    (…) Some conspiracy sites (check out Vigilent Citizen’s“Occult Symbolism in Metropolis”) have suggested that the film is a statement made by the elite for the elite, and that the mediator symbolizes the media, which has become increasingly controlled by the same six corporations – in other words, a small handful of wealthy, elite individuals.

    Whatever Fritz Lang’s intended cinematic message, the film sparks interesting speculations. For instance, note that the tool used by the elite (represented by mad scientist Rotwang and city creator, Joh Frederson) to manipulate the masses was a woman dancing erotically.

    Could control of the masses be as simple as sex?

    Click HERE to read the article.