The way of imagination

YEP, I JUST LAUNCHED ANOTHER BLOG!  HAPPY READING! BIEN OUI, JE VIENS TOUT JUSTE DE LANCER UN AUTRE BLOGUE!  BONNE VISITE! Raw Materials: THE LATE SHIFT (a poem)

Explaining the unexpected.   How do you explain something totally unprecedented and counter-intuitive to someone who “knows” precisely what to expect?   How do you explain to someone watching the sun “come up” one morning that it is actually the Earth that is moving, and not the Sun ?   This was the dilemma of the astronomer Galileo, who claimed that his observations of celestial bodies suggested that the Sun, and not the Earth, was the centre of the solar system, and that the Earth orbited the Sun , and not vice-versa.   When Galileo went public with his theory, 17 th -century Europe was completely unprepared for the news.   Jesus also faced a dilemma during his first-century ministry; his fellow countrymen “knew” what to expect when it came to the Messiah, the Son of God.   Whoever the Messiah would turn out to be, he (it would be a “he”) would destroy the enemies of God’s people and establish the kingdom of Yahweh and rule over Israel and the...

Jewish jurisprudence.   Who doesn’t enjoy a good legal drama ?  Think of movies such as A Few Good Men or A Man for All Seasons or To Kill a Mockingbird , to name just a few.  Prosecutors and defense attorneys give impassioned speeches in an effort to sway the jurors towards their interpretation of events.  Today’s Gospel provides us with a scene akin to that of the climax of the greatest cinematic court battles.  Throughout his ministry, Jesus is engaged in legal debates with “the scribes and the Pharisees” – the theologians and canon lawyers of his day.  While it is sometimes tempting to think of Jesus as simply being a “hippie” – a kind of “holy anarchist” – who enjoyed challenging the religious establishment, or perhaps someone who promoted a “religion of the heart” as opposed to a “religion of law”, a closer look at what is going on in the Gospels provides us with a more complex picture .  To be sure, first-century Judaism was very mu...