Posts tagged not

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Not have been baptized in lemon juice.

“And whenever you are fasting, do not look gloomy and sour and dreary like the hypocrites, for they put on a dismal countenance, that their fasting may be apparent to and seen by men.  Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full already.
 
But when you fast, perfume your head and wash your face, so that your fasting may not be noticed by men but by your Father, who sees in secret; and your Father, who sees in secret, will reward you in the open.”

Matthew 6:16-18 (Amplified Bible)

…what does Lent “look” like?

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to not have been baptized in lemon juice.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Not just chewing things and spitting them out.

“The Christian idea of marriage is based on Christ’s words that a man and wife are to be regarded as a single organism - for that is what the words ‘one flesh’ would be in modern English.

And the Christians believe that when He said this He was not expressing a sentiment but stating a fact - just as one is stating a fact when one says that a lock and its key are one mechanism, or that a violin and a bow are one musical instrument.

The inventor of the human machine was telling us that its two halves, the male and the female, were made to be combined together in pairs, not simply on the sexual level, but totally combined.

The monstrosity of sexual intercourse outside marriage is that those who indulge in it are trying to isolate one kind of union (the sexual) from all the other kinds of union which were intended to go alone with it and make up the total union.


The Christian attitude does not mean that there is anything wrong about sexual pleasure, any more than about the pleasure of eating.

It means that you must not isolate that pleasure and try to get it by itself, any more than you ought to try to get the pleasure of taste without swallowing and digesting, by chewing things and spitting them out again.”  

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

…intimacy cannot be isolated.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW not to chew things and spit them out.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Not knowing the only restaurant with the best steak in town.

“Now your patient is his mother’s son.

While working your hardest, quite rightly, on other fronts, you must not neglect a little quiet infiltration in respect of gluttony.


Being a male, he is not so likely to be caught by the ‘All I want’ camouflage.

Males are best turned into gluttony with the help of their vanity.


They ought to be made to think themselves very knowing about food, to pique themselves on having found the only restaurant in the town where steaks are really ‘properly cooked.

What begins as vanity can then be gradually turned into habit.”  C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters

…the calamity of vanity.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to not knowing the only restaurant with the best steak in town.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Not to fear beauty.

“A woodpecker with a cry as sharp as a dagger terrifies the lesser birds, while he is himself benevolent and harmless. 

The beautiful kingfisher in dazzling flight rattles like a bird of ill omen. 

So we fear beauty.”  Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

…will I behold what I cannot hold?

I have a GIVENNESS NOW not to fear beauty.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

A door that is not a door.

“The sages, it is often said, can see no answer to the riddle of religion.

But the trouble with our sages is not that they cannot see the answer; it is that they cannot even see the riddle.

They are like children so stupid as to notice nothing paradoxical in the playful assertion that a door is not a door.”  G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Knock, Knock.







…who’s there?

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to a door that is not a door.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

A kiss and not just a kiss.

“It is the passion that is in a kiss that gives to it its sweetness; it is the affection in a kiss that sanctifies it.”  Christian Nestell Bovee

…oxytocin promotes wound healing.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to a kiss and not just a kiss.

What do I have a GIVENNESS NOW to?

Dog (not cat) theology.

“There’s a joke about cats and dogs that conveys their differences perfectly.

A dog says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, you must be God.”

A cat says, “You pet me, you feed me, you shelter me, you love me, I must be God.”


This difference between cats and dogs is very similar to how Christian theology is being lived out today.

We call it “Dog Theology” and “Cat Theology.”  

Dogs say, “Lord, you love me, you bless me abundantly.  You gave your life for me.  You must be God.”

Whereas cats say, “Lord, you love me, You bless me abundantly.  You gave your life for me, I must be god.” ” Bob Sjorgren and Gerald Robison, Cat and Dog Theology

…man’s best friend.

I have a GIVENNESS NOW to dog (not cat) theology.