Conference of the inner healing
When John wrote about himself he didn’t himself us an evangelist,
a gospel-writer, an apostle, he identified himself as the one
whom Jesus loved.
The situation where John leaned on the Jesus’ chest: we cannot
just read it, we have to have the experience it ourselves. Living
like a wife whose husband left for the far away country
(business, solider) and she doesn’t know she has means of instant
communication, so she just reads his old love letters. We are
just reading the old love letter of Bible instead of the instant
messaging with him.
The biggest spiritual exercise we all need to do regularly is how
to let ourselves to be fools. Perhaps in every situation we don’t
see the expected of our following of what we believed was God’s
voice is our training to be willing to be a fool for Christ.
Perhaps when we leave our shopping in the supermarket and nothing
happens, we should say “Thank you, Lord, that you gave me
strength and courage to actually follow on what I believed was
your voice and that a bit of my pride got shed off.”
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“We are more than conquerors in Christ” (not sure how accurate
quotation this is, and I am certainly not sure my interpretation
is correct). “Conqueror” here as a survivor, somebody who get to
the other side of the story and still lives to tell the tale.
However, we are not supposed just to survive, we are supposed to
live. We may not be the one at the helm of the history (no need
for control freaks, Jesus is the one at the helm), but we should
be changing the flow of history not just follow or react to what
happens to us.
Don’t wear Saul’s armour! We are all unique, we are all special,
we are all individuals (“I am not”), and we all should serve
the Lord according to our special gifts.
Mental and spiritual deprivation:
- if our parents were not Christians, so they cannot teach us how
to live as a child of God,
- too busy, so not enough time (or interest) to deal with the
intimate relationships
- they own vulnerabilities (her father was a solider in the
Second World War)
Deprivation lead to the defensive detachment: standing on the
outside, cynicism, lowered expectations.
Ex 16: gather only as much manna as needed. Those who gathered
more and kept it for themselves, it got mouldy.
Satisfaction: godly (full of gratefulness and thankfulness which
in healthy manner hopes for more) and ungodly (self-sufficiency,
lowered expectations). “As a doe longs for the living waters …”
do we long for more? Do we pray, that God could make us more
thirsty? We are too often satisfied with just what we have, we
have our salvation and that’s enough. It is not easy to recognize
we need to hope for more.
There are some things which are required for small groups:
Equal exchange for everybody — there is no one who would be
above others (not like in the professional psychotherapy
session). We all are equal and all should be very authentic.
Decision to be authentic is very challenging one: no everybody
is the same and we have a great pressure to emulate others, or
even worse the leader. Some small groups are very cold and not
very secure. Only deep relationships allowed deep resilient
against shame, we have to know how others are able to sustain
difficult conversations.
Mutual inspiration and mutual respect. Say “Thank you!”,
simple things. There are many groups which are not like that,
they are more oriented on plans and schedules.
Don’t advise, but lead each other towards God to search your
own answers. Lead each other towards God for confession as
well (provide testimony, but not direct confrontation).
We need to have compassion with other other and for yourself,
so that we could be honest and not judge each other.
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To přece ví každé malé dítě
Někde v nějaké diskusi jsem zmínil, že přece každé malé dítě ví,
co je Geiger a tak jsem neodolal a přepíšu sem příslušnou úvahu
Karla Čapka (ze sbírky novinových sloupků „V zajetí slov“,
Svoboda, Praha, 1969, str. 135):
To přece ví každé malé dítě. To mi řekl jeden
automobilista, když …
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Smashing of Death Eaters?
(my comments on “Canon and the Moral Dimensions of Killing in
War” thread on reddit)
This is no question of agreeing and disagreeing with me. What I wrote
was not exactly my opinion (which I specifically emphasized), but what I
consider the prevalent notion among Europeans. Discussion here is very …
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Religionless universe of Harry Potter
(my comments on the thread “Probably gonna catch some hate for
this. Religion and Mythology and its place in fiction.” on
Reddit by RhysThornbery; edited for this blog)
The question is about the role of religion in the HP
universe, and it is very interesting one. I am a …
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Terms of Matrimony
(my comments on “Terms of Matrimony” by Galad Estel)
First of all, this story has broken link on Fanfiction.net, so
I have had to look up and down all over the Internet to find that
only working copy known to me is at ff2ebook.com link shown
above. Even …
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Ad “A magical love affair”
(my comments on “A magical love affair” by charmed9292)
I have to admit reading of this story was an exercise in
frustration for me. I think the general idea of Petunia and
Severus crying over one another’s shoulder is a great. Both of
them are nicely complicated and somehow …
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Harry Potter and Aristotle
Aristotle in the seventh and eighth chapter of his Poetics
writes:
Now, according to our definition, Tragedy is an imitation of
an action that is complete, and whole, and of a certain
magnitude … As therefore, in the other imitative arts, the
imitation is one when the object imitated is one …
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Dudley has a witch as a daughter
(review of Must Have Changed A Lot)
This certainly works as a one-shot, but as many (most?) fanfics
it is necessary to distinguish between exposition and story.
There are zillion fanfics with at least interesting exposition
(OK, so not only "what if Harry was a girl/has a sister"), but …
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Evangelium království
(kázání pronesené ve sboru ČCE Praha-Braník, 29. července 2018)
Po Janově uvěznění přišel Ježíš do Galileje a hlásal evangelium Boží.
A říkal: „Naplnil se čas a přiblížilo se Boží království;
čiňte pokání a věřte evangeliu.“
—Marek 1:14-15
Když se zeptám křesťanů na to, co je evangelium, většinou dostanu
celkem …
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Loving Vincent
Movie “Loving Vincent” is certainly an experience worthy of the
tickets to go to the cinema. The main idea of it is to make
“animated” film by painting endless number of quality oil
paintings in the style of Vincent van Gogh about the painter
himself. I have been warned that …
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Pokud nebude hnutí ANO trvat na účasti A. Babiše ve vládě, měli bychom …
(odpověď v interním dotazníku KDÚ-ČSL)
Podle mého „na jednání o naší případné účasti ve vládě
přistoupit“. Zde je můj komentář (který se do formuláře nevešel).
Zároveň zcela souhlasím s tím, že lidovci (a každá politická
strana) vstupovala do voleb s tím, že jsou ochotni se zasazovat
o správu věcí veřejných …
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O panu Drahošovi a ozbrojení obyvatelstva
(komentář k diskusi na Facebooku k včerejší diskusi
prezidentských kandidátů panů Drahoše a Zemana)
Byl jsem z té včerejší diskuse upřímně nešťastný (tedy z pěti
minut, které jsem vydržel sledovat).
Ne, proto, že by novinář Primy byl neschopný minimální novinářské
práce a jenom se snažil přivést diváctvo co nejvíce do …
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On Lying
(a comment to the blogpost by Robert O’Callahan)
I think the truthfulness among Christians is overrated. Here,
I said it.
OK, before saying anything else, I have to say that it is very
important, and I know what I am talking about. I had my brush
with an addiction …
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Podpora kandidátů na prezidenta
(z emailové diskuse)
K obavám z roztříštěnosti:
Pokud v prvním kole bude mít Zeman více než 50% hlasů, bude
zvolen. Pak je úplně jedno, kolik hlasů dostane Drahoš
a Fišer. Pokud v prvním kole nedostane více než 50%,
a předpokládejme, že do druhého kola se dostane, pak záleží na
kandidátovi …
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Review of “Escape” and “Mr and Mrs Percy Weasley”
There is a biblical verse from Galatians 3:3: “Are you so
foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected
by the flesh?” What I mean is that “Escape” and “Mr and Mrs
Percy Weasley” started as one of the best fanfictions I found
anywhere. Obviously, from …
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Úvaha postvolební
Co jsem napsal dnes ráno jednomu kamarádovi na IM:
Tak já Ti nevím. Jsem hodně nešťastnej z té včerejší
post-volební diskuse předesedů vítězných stran. Kromě toho,
že jsou morálně radikální názory dost neuctivé k milionu
a půl našich spoluobčanů, tak efektivně dotlačili Bureše
k tomu, že v této chvíli jediná …
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On The Third Way or the Reply to Dave
(Comment to the article by Dave Schmelzer on a Christian and
politics)
Hi, Dave,
let me add couple of comments from this side of The Pond.
First of all, of course, I blame completely confused American
terminology, especially in the political matters. Here Socialists
are not afraid to call themselves …
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Yet another on the infallibility in the Church
(written originally as yet another comment to the blogpost “How Many
Theologians Does it Take To Define Infallibility?” by Melinda Selyms)
First of all: thank you, these are very good questions, which actually made me
think (doesn’t happen that often on blog comments).
Certainly, some rules are necessary even …
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The Holy Protestant Tradition?
(written originally as a comment to the blogpost “How Many
Theologians Does it Take To Define Infallibility?” by Melinda
Selyms)
I am a Protestant, so I am not entitled to bring much to this
discussion, but we were yesterday with my wife in Wittenberg, so
I cannot resist to add …
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On “A Painfully Familiar Reason for Using NFP”
Record of my comment to another nice article by Melinda Selmys.
This is one of those sad places where I am afraid my voice will
be completely ignored, because exactly the people who will most
dogmatically insist on NFP will be the ones who will be the least
likely to …
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Review of Aftershocks
Some thoughts on the fan fiction Aftershocks.
We need to know without a shadow of a doubt that Padma did not
kill Parvati before we can move on.
I am extremely confused about this whole work. On the one hand
there are some parts which are really trully excellent. Whole …
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What We Were Made For: Gratitude For Normal
(unfortunately, FanFiction.net allows only one review per
chapter, so I was not able to add this to my review of
chapter 90 of The Missing Moments by Ash-and-Vine).
When I was something like fourteen I was in hospital for surgery
which made me for a week unable to move …
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What is racism?
With relation to the current affair of kids running on their
father on live BBC News there was discussion on our the
internal email list of my employer. This is one side comment
I made there:
[…] Yes, it is a wrong idea, slightly racist, perhaps, but
these thoughts happen.
(Someday …
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The Problem of Neil Gaiman
So, it happened. I read “The problem of Susan” by Neil Gaiman and
I am completely disgusted by it. Not because Aslan did the White
Witch proper, or because he ate all those lovely little
children. Serves them well, and it is certainly the author’s
prerogative to decide that …
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1. září 1939
W. H. Auden
Původní překlad anglického originálu vytvořil Ivo A. Benda, upraveno.
Sedím v jedné z putyk
Na Dvaapadesáté ulici
Jsem nejistý a mám strach
Zatímco umírají chytré naděje
Ubohého, nepoctivého desetiletí:
Vlny hněvu a strachu
Cirkulují v jasných
I temných zemích světa
A tíží naše soukromé životy;
Nevyslovitelný pach …
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