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Saturday, October 25, 2008

POLISHING HIS BEADS OF SWEAT

if jesus were not just a great man and a good one but god what would follow concerning suffering ... he allowed himself to be captured tortured executed ... he died ... and transformed the meaning of death ... just as he transformed the meaning of humanity by being born ... the presence of the creator as part of creation is like the presence of the word in meaning ... it transforms it eternally ... and so too with suffering ... the crucifixion transforms it for all time and that means now ... but who recognizes this ... rather we're working under the old dispensation that pain is what it always used to be ... intrinsically immovably bad ... a thing to be put away outside the park as far as can be ... not grappled wrestled and pinned ... what a sweaty smelling thing that is and hard painful ... hit it far down the fairway and sink it in the deepest hole if it can't be changed ... bury it in some black hole for nuclear waste if it can't be redeemed ... but if it is transformed ... if it means something totally new ... then you can put it like a war or a plague or your own death-dealing cancer between your finger and your thumb like a bead or a marble and roll it round and round to glory

cf kreeft, suffering, chs 7 & 8

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