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24922 Words

A Response to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

FAR MORE IMPORTANT than the literary awards it has won, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time's ability to rock our conception of what is normal or dysfunctional, clear-headed or soft-hearted, significant or insignificant, symbolic or real, speaks powerfully to our “PC” culture. Christopher Boone, Mark Haddon's protagonist, is a benevolent monstrosity. This sounds negative but Chris has just the right blend of what philosopher of horror literature, Noel Carroll, calls ontic ambiguity. Like Frankenstein's monster before him, Christopher lacks a tell-tale human quality – genuine emotional empathy. His limitations, even his inability to understand nuanced feelings and

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534

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Birds of a Feather

Brown-gray mono-plumage fused in groups of precision squadrons come screeching in from the south. We admire these aviators for the symmetry of their flight, the precision of their landing. Their sameness seems a self-chosen conformity. Humans see them through the lens of air show entertainment. We've had too many Blue Angel exhibitions. Birds, unlike our jet pilots, are genetically coerced. Birds make it look effortless because, for them, it is. They fly by instinct - by the radar of the genes, not by the seat of their pants or wits. Only mutations can change the pattern; only dissonance, disruption, and

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274

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Fear of the Lord

IF PERFECT LOVE casts out all fear, how can fear of the Lord be the beginning of knowledge, understanding and wisdom? My experience confirms the returns of love but adamantly denies fear's benefit.

While trapped in circumstances self-constructed or brought on by misfortune, the assurance of being loved has calmed and focused my guilty, anxious mind. Love experienced as an unexpected gift has turned meaningless tragedies into moments of contemplation, gratitude and even 

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1106

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Hearers and Doers of the Word

We have had a variety of experiences in relationship to the Bible that colour how we have come to approach it. Some recall positive experiences of hearing a grace-filled word, others recall negative experiences of being held to account by its . Whatever our past experiences, many of us have been surprised to discover, through various authors or our own reading, that the Bible contains a depth of meaning beyond what we expected. The Word was introduced as an 'incarnate and living word', 'like Christ' in that it actually exists yet points to something transcendent. It is meant to be

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445

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I Believe in Dialogue: A Response to I Don't Believe in Atheists

After the first hour of reading Chris Hedges' I Don't Believe in Atheists, my animus toward the and very popular "fundamentalist" atheists was sated. Like Chris, I have as much disdain for these pompous ignoramuses as I do for narrow religious fundamentalists. Any wrongheaded and stubborn opinion rooted in ignorance ought to repulse us.

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608

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On Kindness

With all our discussions about how to relate responsibly and with spiritual maturity toward society, various themes have been creeping out of my mental woodwork, converging, and making me reflect upon my feelings about society and my attitudes and behaviours toward it.

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758

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Review of Faceless Killers

What does this to do with Swedish author Henning Mankell or his crime mystery Faceless Killers? This is a book response, not a parental rant against the strange world of technology. Kurt Wallander, Mankell's frumpy, grumpy Swedish crime investigator and I have something in common. We are both in danger of becoming culturally irrelevant, maybe extinct; both of us fear this looming prospect.

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2596

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Spiritual Vocation: A Thessalonian Perspective

During a recent Watershed Worship and Discernment service, I confessed my Golden Calf: my creative use of language, my gift of teaching and speaking. The occasion for this confession was Tyler's comment that sometimes what we are overwhelmed by, even obsessed by creatively, can be a gift from God - an expression of our true vocation. To surrender oneself to that creativity seems not the creation of a Golden Calf but rather an enthusiastic response to the divine call. There is an important truth in Tyler's comment that our gifts are from God and that we ought to give ourselves to our vocations as an act of worship.

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The Gold-Bug

Edgar Allan Poe's The Gold-Bug emphasizes the chasm between our perceptions and reality. Poe's ghoulish tone is not merely horror for the "gross out", as Stephen King calls it. The gothic elements in Poe serve the higher purpose of transforming our consciousness. One of the tell-tale signs of a Poe story is that truth is not easily accessible. When we confront reality it does not conform to our expectations. A metamorphosis, in the normal way of seeing things, takes place when we learn to question not only our general perceptions of subject but our own cherished convictions. Poe's horror supplies

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The Light Side of Darkness

Many people label Edgar Allan Poe a horror writer, plain and simple. For them, "The Pit and the Pendulum" is a tale about a victim of the Spanish Inquisition, its terror and atrocities. The readers of the 1843 edition of The Gift periodical, published in Philadelphia, were intrigued by the frightening drama and tension found in the literal telling of this tale. A more rewarding approach, one that is truer to its author's intention, is to perceive The Pit as a poem of consciousness. After pondering The Pit's meaning, I believe that the story's strength and uniqueness lies in the

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3444

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