Semi-Coherent Reflections After Reading Some Moltmann

After reading some of the guy on the left this afternoon, I had a flurry of random questions and musings: Does a Trinitarian God have to be metaphysically necessary? Taking the Kripkian approach, am I able to imagine a world in which "God" was not Trinity? I think this is entirely possible. Is "Trinity" an attribute?
When we talk about God it is usually spoken of in terms of singular omni-attributes but how often do we say "Trinitarian God"? Some claim that Jesus is God, even in this sense are we able to coherently say that Jesus is God and God is Jesus? Or what about the Holy Spirit? Each time we seem to be referring back to this "God" who has attributes but what are the essential characteristics of God? These may be more in line with the God of the philosophers.
It appears that the Ontological Argument is rearing its head in a very different way than intended; it makes us realize what essential qualities this "God" possesses. After this I'm left wondering what sorts of arguments can be made in favor of a metaphysically necessary Trinitarian God?

No Surrender: My Thirty-Year War by Hiroo Onoda

So I randomly picked up a book about this Japanese soldier that never surrendered after WWII ended (the first photo was taken a few days after he surrendered in 1974!). He was trained as an intelligence officer and was ordered to stay on Lubang Island in the Philippines no matter what. The book itself is very short (I read it in an afternoon) and is a very fast, good read.

It is an incredible story about a man's loyalty amidst jungle warfare with locals, maintaining his own health as well the health of the two men that stayed with him (the other photo is actually him now living in Japan) and an unwavering intellectual commitment to never surrender in the face of what he thought were continual efforts by the Allies to trick him out of the jungle.

Dark Night Of The Soul

One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.

O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

St John of the Cross

Power

I Love The Onion

Churchgoer Tips God For Excellent Week

CHARLESTON, SC—Churchgoer Brad Thaden, 48, reportedly tipped God a little something extra Sunday, claiming that the Almighty had done a...

I Love NPR

The only reason I listen to the radio is doing a story on young religious leaders.

Selecting A Reader

First, I would have her be beautiful,
and walking carefully up on my poetry
at the loneliest moment of an afternoon,
her hair still damp at the neck
from washing it. She should be wearing
a raincoat, an old one, dirty
from not having money enough for the cleaners.
She will take out her glasses, and there
in the bookstore, she will thumb
over my poems, then put the book back
up on its shelf. She will say to herself,
"For that kind of money, I can get
my raincoat cleaned."
And she will.

Ted Kooser

from I Speak of the City

I speak of summer and of the arrested night that grows on the horizon like a mountain of smoke and bit by bit crumbles and falls on us like a wave,
the elements are reconciled and the night has spread out, its body is a powerful river of sudden sleep, we rock in the waves of its breathing,
the hour is tangible, we can touch it like a fruit,
they have lit the lights and the avenues burn with the blaze of desire, in the parks the electric light pierces through the leaves and falls on us in a green and phosphorescent mist that lights us without dampness,
the trees murmur,
they're telling us something,
there are streets in the shadows that are a smiling insinuation,
we don't know where they go, maybe to the ferry to the lost islands ...
I speak of the long-awaited encounter with that unexpected form, in which the unknown is made flesh,
and revealed to each of us:eyes that are the half-open night and the waking day,
the sea that spreads out and the speaking flame, bold breasts, lunar tide,lips that say sesame and time opens up and the little room becomes a garden of transformation and air and fire bond, earth and water mingle,

Octavio Paz

Kindness

As this West Bank settler is being carried off, his glasses were retreived by one of the Israeli riot police officers.

What Goes On At A Library

Me: I found two books that aren't in our system; Melody is going to love me!

My Boss: Or she'll just hate you less.

Miguel de Unamuno

"My religion is to seek for truth in life and for life in truth, even knowing that I shall not find them while I live."





How hard (or easy) would it be to actually try and live like this? The battle between faith and reason ebbs and flows in such a way through my life that it is perhaps the most "consistent" aspect of my personhood. Liturgy, poetry, art, sunsets: these are things that leave little room to question the divine, but then cogs of my mind begin to turn...