Offering: August 11, 2024
Every creative act is a risk
Hi All, Just a quick note that hitting the like/heart button is a good, free & easy way to support these newsletters! Of course I appreciate you being here, either way.
If you’re looking for ways to support Palestinian people in a direct and material way, consider making a contribution to Mustafa Alkhazendar’s fundraiser—which is extremely close to reaching its goal!—for his sister’s family of four and his fourteen year old brother to evacuate Gaza. Here are words from Mustafa’s little brother Awni: “Many of my schoolmates have contacted me; they are now outside the Gaza Strip to continue their education, but I cannot leave due to the lack of sufficient money to leave Gaza.”
Hi All,
Just a quickie from a darker morning than they’ve been in a while, and some relief that the days are beginning to get a bit shorter. I’m one of the few people I know who actually prefer it this way; I like to feel the sky change in the morning, plus being asleep before sundown’s odd even for me.
I’m still reading Catherine Keller’s Face of the Deep, and it’s making me think about life, and creativity, and risky worlding,1 and indeterminacy. I like how theology gets at big questions. Like is there actually an order to things beyond human will and imagination? Because, I mean, of course there is. But I want useful ways to think about it.
Theologians, from what I can tell, spend a good deal of time arguing about the extent to which a divine creator controls things that happen. Does the divine leave anything to chance, or do they leave some things up to us mortals? The latter may explain how evil exists in a world made and molded by an alleged benevolent force. But if it’s the former, and the divine force controls all, that may be comforting in the face of said evils.
These questions may seem sort of mythic or far-removed but I think they’re relevant to creative and relational life. If at least some creative power is left up to us humans, you may resonate as I have with what Keller writes, that there is always a “risk that the creature will turn malignant, indeed will turn against its creator. Even our own writings, loves, technologies, might turn against our intentions.”