A few weeks ago, a friend and I got into the old argument about whether it's really possible to be a Christian alone (his opinion) or whether being a Christian inherently involves community (my opinion). I take my point of view on this not necessarily because of any sense of the Church as the Body … Continue reading The Ties that Bind
There is an old and terribly unfunny joke that says "There are two types of people in the world: those who like personality typologies and those who don't." I've long been in the former category. I am fascinated by human personality and — much like the elements I discussed last week — find the different … Continue reading My Type
In the most recent post in this series on Knowing God, I talked about the strange stories in the Scriptures about what it's like for humans to meet God, and how these stories all resort to playful, or even nonsensical, use of language to get across just how much of a jumbled and contradictory paradox … Continue reading Entertaining Angels (An Integral Reading of Genesis 18.1-15)
The past posts in this series on knowing God have insisted on two paradoxical things: First, that our words, concepts, and experiences can never adequately describe God, and second, that God can nonetheless be known. With this in mind, the best word to describe God is probably Mystery. Contrary to what popular literary genres might … Continue reading Mysterious Encounters
Of the various sets of archetypes I've encountered in the past year, the one that has proven to be the most helpful for me in conceptualizing the world has been the traditional western elemental archetypes of fire (creative spark, zest, and passion), air (intellect, argument, judgment and discernment), water (emotions and the subconscious), and earth … Continue reading It’s Elemental
Matthew Root 