Rene Girard getting a big voice
I am not one of the firsts on the Rene Girard bandwagon, in fact I was introduced to him in undergrad in one course for one reading and then I never read him again. Then in 2002 or 2003, my wife and I took a class which focused on Girardian thought and it was that course that changed my life and views of Jesus.
Girard helped me see something that Jesus originally pointed out and since then I have been teaching and writing and preaching about cycles of violence as much as I can. I have lead Bible studies at church helping Christians see the Bible and the world through "spirals, circles and cones" which, according to the feedback, has been very helpful for people.
I have been lucky to be have been at a Seminary that was forward thinking enough to offer such a class on Girard and I am forever indebted to Brite Divinity School and Dr. Charles Bellinger.
This morning I was hit in the face with a bit of news that I loved.
Brian McLaren is going to use Girardian thought in his next book!
Even if you disagree with McLaren, you have to admit that he is widely read and will get the Girardian thought out there in ways that Rene Girard as a Frenchman could not.
Here is a little video if you want to see a bit more of Girard (this is also posted on Mclaren's post):
René Girard from Michael Sugrue on Vimeo.
The closer I get, the larger my shadow
There is a great number of writings in the world of religion, and perhaps elsewhere, about light. In Christian circles Light is often a metaphor for the Triune God, which may not be difficult to see the connection if you are a Christian:
Light gives life and without it we would be in the dark and dead.
One of the things we Christians strive for is to move toward the Light. It is also a common teaching that Christians are not the light, but that we are to live in a way that we reflect the Light into the dark places. There is a Jewish teaching that Jews are called to be repairers of the light because when the world was created light was scattered around the world. Jews are to look for the shards of light and return those shards to the source in order to help repair the world.
But one of the things we often forget about God as Light is that the closer we get to the Light the larger our shadow becomes.
Sometimes those who believe they are closest to God forget that they cast a large shadow and unintentionally keep others from seeing the light.
Sometimes when we get so close to the Light we have a greater awareness of just how large our own darkness can be.
So may we become aware of the greatness it is to move closer to the Light so that we might see with greater clarity, but may we also be careful that the closer we move toward the light we can often see our own darkness easier and keep others from seeing the Light.
Light gives life and without it we would be in the dark and dead.
One of the things we Christians strive for is to move toward the Light. It is also a common teaching that Christians are not the light, but that we are to live in a way that we reflect the Light into the dark places. There is a Jewish teaching that Jews are called to be repairers of the light because when the world was created light was scattered around the world. Jews are to look for the shards of light and return those shards to the source in order to help repair the world.
But one of the things we often forget about God as Light is that the closer we get to the Light the larger our shadow becomes.
Sometimes those who believe they are closest to God forget that they cast a large shadow and unintentionally keep others from seeing the light.
Sometimes when we get so close to the Light we have a greater awareness of just how large our own darkness can be.
So may we become aware of the greatness it is to move closer to the Light so that we might see with greater clarity, but may we also be careful that the closer we move toward the light we can often see our own darkness easier and keep others from seeing the Light.
Be the change by Jason Valendy is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.