The Messiah, 8

Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call his name Emmanuel, GOD WITH US.

(Isaiah 7:14; Matthew 1:23)

The Messiah, 5-7

The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His temple, even the messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, He shall come, saith the Lord of Hosts.

(Malachi 3:1)

But who may abide the day of His coming, and who shall stand when He appeareth? For He is like a refiner's fire.

(Malachi 3:2)

And He shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.

(Malachi 3:3)

The Messiah, 4

Thus saith the Lord, the Lord of Hosts; Yet once a little while and I will shake the heav'ns and the earth, the sea and the dry land: And I will shake all nations; and the desire of all nations shall come.

(Haggai 2:6-7)

The Messiah, 2-3

Ev'ry valley shall be exalted, and ev'ry mountain and hill made low; the crooked straight, and the rough places plain (Isaiah 40:4)

And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. (Isaiah 40:5)

The Messiah, 1

I've begun my favorite Advent tradition, which is listening to Handel's Messiah, a lot.

I thought I'd include the words to one piece a day, and see where that takes us. God bless your Advent preparation.

Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplish'd, that her Iniquity is pardoned. The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness; prepare ye the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.

(Isaiah 40:1-3)

New Wonders

New Wonders

by Sandra McCracken

I really enjoy Sandra's music. This is from "In Feast or Fallow" which she calls "new old hymns." You can hear this song and the rest of the album at www.newoldhymns.com

Look again, at the cross

where you are found and lost

Make a new song of praise

Fill you cup, at the the mouth of the spring

and new wonders we will sing

as the Spirit blows the embers of our hearts.

Tell the story, of Jesus, the Christ

and his promises we write

on the doorway of our house

Hold the mirror, and remember your own face,

brother, do not forfeit grace

as the Savior, pleads your pardon with his blood.

Look around, every sparrow, every flower

all creation sings out loud, of a grand design

You are small, but you are filled with breath and life

If you seek, then you will find

as the Father looks with favor on his child.

Oh, the Savior pleads your pardon with his blood.

And the Spirit blows the embers of our hearts.

(c) 2010 Drink Your Tea Music

let me count the ways... to brew good coffee

There are lots of ways to brew a delicious cup of coffee...

Here's cool site brew methods - via one of the brew masters at Coava Coffee in Portland, OR

Red Sox woes

oh boy, two games left in the season and the Red Sox are now tied with Tampa Bay for the wild card playoff spot... it's strange to be rooting for the Yankees

good coffee

check out this new metal cone filter made for the chemex style coffee brewing system.

saw it (and tasted it!) at Coava Coffee Roasters in Portland. Great coffee, great space shared with .

brought home some "David Mancia", grown in Honduras... awesome!

better off?

reposted from "The Restoration Project"

"The world would be better off if people tried to become better.

And people would become better if they stopped trying to become better off."

- Peter Maurin (co-founded the Catholic Worker movement with Dorothy Day)

Aseity and promeity

I came across these two words in some reading online, referencing Bonhoeffer's work among others. "Aseity" rang a bell but had never heard of "promeity." Here's what I've found:

Aseity is God's existing totally independent of anything else.

"Ens a se" - A medieval term for a kind of being , which contrasts with being out of itself ( ens ex se ) and with being that depends upon another thing as the ground of its existence ( ens ab alio ). In medieval philosophy, ens a se is a thing that is completely self-sufficient and depends on nothing else for its existence, and this description is ascribed solely to God. The idea is derived from the biblical teaching that God is the Creator. God is ens a se by existing independent of anything else, but all created things, including human beings, are ens ex se because they depend on God for their existence. The term aseity (Latin aseitas ) was formed from ens a se for the abstract property of being completely independent.

(from Blackwell Reference Online)

As best I can tell, promeity is Christ's nature of existing for us (not independent of us, as in God's aseity), perhaps from the Latin "pro me" (for me), that he as fully God and fully human he is not free from human beings but free for human beings.

Christ is Christ, not just for himself, but in relation to me. His being Christ is his being for me, pro me. This being pro-me is not to be understood as an effect emanating from him, nor as an accident; but it is to be understood as the essence, the being of the person himself. The core of the person himself is pro-me (Bonhoeffer, "Christ the Center", p 47).

This was quoted in a blog, the writer (a Canadian Anglican Priest named Patrick McManus) continues:

"Christ cannot be thought of other than in his being as pro-me. It is only by acknowledging Christ’s promeity that Christology can properly proceed to discuss him as 'contemporaneous' and contemporaneously present only existing as Word, Sacrament, and Church."

This is really interesting, to me anyway. I am looking forward to reading Bonhoeffer's "Christ the Center" (after reading "Sanctorum Communio").