
Glossary of the Disinherited
Light: by which all things are seen.
Dark: faith more luminous than light (the hole within the whole).
Faith: walking in the dark with intention.
Grace: currency of the non-anxious.
Sound: vibrating layers; genesis of composition.
Noise: propaganda of the chronically-online; the illness of politics; religious compost.
Chaos: evil as it self-organizes around and within the noise; generative as it submits to creativity and catalyzes something new.
Christian: a label increasingly misappropriated by the noise.
New Way of being Human: what a Christian is supposed to signify.
Beauty: diversity in harmony.
Breath: reciprocal; bringing the outside inside, yes, and the inside outside.
Ground: gravitational hospitality; the structural integrity of all that is.
Water: memory of earth—ice caps frozen, now melting, climate change of return? If a return, it’s not to that fabled Eden of Perfection, but to our earthly origins (earth being 70% water) … a rebirthing.
Scripture: a really long and inspired rorschach test.
Neighbor: the scriptural test case of neighbor would be your enemy.
Non-scapegoating: the way of the adult-onset religious.
Evolution: patience with direction.
God: love; the divine entanglement; closer than breath.
Love: uncontrolling, non-binary, non-scapegoating non-violent energy in relationship with and meant for the flourishing of all things.
World: oneness; all of us.
Salvation: either for all of us or none of us.
Atonement: at-one-ment.
Sacrifice: God doesn’t need it, but religious systems do.
Jesus: Son of earth; way of life; the embodiment of love’s risk.
Evangelicalism: blessed compost.
Grief: an absence so intense it becomes a presence (hole within the whole).
Fatherhood: best thing that ever happend to me.
Death: soil of lament; seed of resurrection.
Resurrection: new organism—caterpillar to butterfly. The new organism transcends but very much includes aspects of the past, and if this isn’t the resurrection story found in the gospels, honestly, what is?
Guarantee: there are no guarantees, except … the guarantee of love.
to be continued …
Nice to have Mason Mennenga on the podcast recently.
Hey, my friend, Mark Karris launched his latest book yesterday (SacraSage Press), called Beyond Fairy Tales: A Couple's Guide to Finding Clarity, Doing the Work, and Building a Lasting Relationship.
Speaking of friends, have you read Michael Rose’s Substack? I loved the way he talked about partnering with God in his recent post.
If you found indigo: the color of grief meaingful, you should ponder the idea of leaving some stars on Amazon.
Thanks for considering an upgrade to a paid subscription. I have bills to pay.
Oh wow, I love every one of these, esp scripture as Rorschach test!