is forgetting a valid solution when there is lack of resolution?

Sometimes when I see throngs of cars on the road, I think about the hundreds (thousands?) of people they contain. Then I think of each of their lives being as complex and complicated as my own, each person wrapped up in their own cosmos unaware of all the others except as other cars on the drive.

It makes them feel big, then small; and then the statement that the God of the universe knows everything everyone's going through seems even more impossible.

Nothing is impossible with God, except contradiction, it's an impossible something.

Another non-update

I've been reading Ulysses. It's a book I've wanted to read for a while, and I've been enjoying it greatly. Somehow, i was unacquainted with the typical response to the book. It seems everyone that finds out I'm reading it wishes me luck. This surprised me at first considering how enjoyable it is. Every time someone wishes me luck, I feel like I'm somehow reading it incorrectly. The writing is dense, but at least for me, it isn't headache dense. It's full of interest. I suppose I haven't been reading for full comprehension, but since when do you fully understand a piece of music on your first play/listen through?

I guess I should wait till I get at least halfway through to make further comment since the sentences are supposed to start looking more and more baffling.

---

It's hard to wrap my mind around the fact that Christmas is two days away.

What would you say is the difference between the practice of Christians coming together around the idea of the church 'body' as a body of diverse parts (people) specifically gifted by God to work together as a unity and being at its best when working together AND secular society which also values things like group work and bringing people of diverse fields or backgrounds together saying that it produces better understandings and results?

When someone in the church gains insight or help from the gifts of someone else in the church it is attributed to God's gifting of the body. If the same thing happened outside the church it could be attributed to the value of diversity.

What are spiritual gifts in this context, when things often considered spiritual gifts (by the holy spirit) within the church also seem to be present and helpful outside of it? Does the typical concept of spiritual gifting (that of 'discover your spiritual gift' questionnaires) need to be narrowed?

connais pas

It's been a long time since I've known (connaitre as opposed to savoir*) God's presence in my life.

Sometimes I wonder whether I've put up a wall or broken through the illusion. The symptoms are too similar.

I suppose this is the point where most people just go with whichever they want, but I'm interested in what is true. Can I ask? Why do you believe?

Of course there's nobody to respond. It's just something I always wonder when I look at people who seem so sure. I used to be sure, but when I ask my former self the question, there doesn't seem to be a good answer.

*connaitre being more of an experiential knowing, like that of knowing a person personally rather than knowing Shakespeare from one's studies. I find that I know of God and all the things in my life that could be manifestations of his presence. I even thank Him for these things when I remember. But it has been increasingly difficult to know Him as a presence in my life.

[19]

As promised, a blog I wrote on the expo!

http://shiftboston.blogspot.com/2010/09/192-countries-represented-at-shanghai.html

Yilan [18]

This summer, my travels around Taiwan were pretty limited. Normally I would visit relatives all over, but this time I never made it down south.

Yilan, although only half an hour outside of Taipei, was probably one of my larger trips. A couple of my coworkers took me there to look at some architect by a well known Taiwanese architect, whose name I have written down but cannot read...

This first building is a gallery building that is still under construction. The concept was to give the essence of driftwood floating in and under the surface of the water. The park behind was designed by the same firm as well:

slides:

The second building was some sort of small commemorative museum. It wasn't open, but look at that 'folded' concrete, something that maybe too many architects get excited about. I like it too. The roof of the room the left folds down and becomes a bench which doubles as a shade for the windows below:

This was the architect taking the typology of local buildings and stacking them on top of each other to form a community center sort of space:

The second floor directly connected to a bridge going off away from the building. The material of the path didn't change so you never got a sense that you were leaving the building until you were already further away. There were a lot of little nooks to sit and look out over the landscape:

The bridge used to be only for cars, but the architects added a pedestrian walkway off to the side and slightly under the existing bridge. It used the structure of the existing bridge.

For being by a roadway, the pedestrian bridge was peaceful. Probably because it was lower in level. So much nicer than sidewalks on bridges right next to the cars that I am used to.:

Rowing machines looking over the river:

Realizing that quirked out form is hard to read. i don't get it.

Last was a trip to another much larger museum. The concept was of a rock sitting in the water. The water around is manmade, but the ocean was right across the street: