INTRODUCTION
On 13 July 2013, a news story ‘went viral’ around the world.
Joao Maria de Souza, 45, had been in bed with his wife Leni when a cow fell through the ceiling of their home in Caratinga, southeast Brazil.
Events like this have always prompted serious questions.
(When I was a high school English teacher back in the 1960s the first essay my classes wrote had the title: ‘Shut your windows, lock your doors, and disaster will fall from the sky’).
* Why does a meteor fall on some people and not others – and most of them on no one at all?
* Is this simply ‘chance’ or ‘luck’?
* Are the powers ‘up there’ – gods or whatever – playing nasty games with us?
This book hopefully provides some answers to these questions, mainly from a Judeo-Christian perspective.
Shalom!
Rowland Croucher
(This Blog: May 12, 2014)
On 13 July 2013, a news story ‘went viral’ around the world.
Joao Maria de Souza, 45, had been in bed with his wife Leni when a cow fell through the ceiling of their home in Caratinga, southeast Brazil.
Events like this have always prompted serious questions.
(When I was a high school English teacher back in the 1960s the first essay my classes wrote had the title: ‘Shut your windows, lock your doors, and disaster will fall from the sky’).
* Why does a meteor fall on some people and not others – and most of them on no one at all?
* Is this simply ‘chance’ or ‘luck’?
* Are the powers ‘up there’ – gods or whatever – playing nasty games with us?
This book hopefully provides some answers to these questions, mainly from a Judeo-Christian perspective.
Shalom!
Rowland Croucher
(This Blog: May 12, 2014)
NOTE: THIS BLOG IS A POT-POURRI OF ARTICLES, NOTES, IDEAS - MANY STILL TO BE FULLY FORMED. I'M DRIBBLING SOME ARTICLES ON TO THE jmm.org.au WEBSITE FROM TIME TO TIME...
DEADLINE FOR FINISHED MSS.: OCTOBER 2014
INTRODUCTION: More...
Have you heard of the ‘Swan-song phenomenon’? Psychologist Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California studied 1919 musical compositions written by 172 classical composers and compared how highly the works were rated by musicologists with how close the creation of those works came to the composers’ deaths.
Main finding: compositions that were written later in the artists’ lives – when, as Simonton wrote, ‘death was raising a fist to knock on the door’ – tended to be briefer, with cleaner, simpler melody lines, and yet scored high in aesthetic significance according to the experts. (Time, ‘The Art of Living’, September 23, 2013, p. 42).
I’m now 76, and it’s about 20 years since my last book was published. This little contribution is my best effort to say in a ‘cleaner, simpler’ fashion what I believe about the most important questions facing humankind. Writers these days can put their words together in a ‘cryptic teasing’ fashion: if the reader wants to know more about something, they can simply check with everyone’s friend Google Search.
As my Gmail auto-signature says…
Shalom! Salaam! Pax!
Rowland Croucher
MORE - Blog: Q&R: The Most Important Questions Ever Asked
Post: Introduction
Link: http://questionsresponses.
INTRODUCTION (ROUGH NOTES) Q&R
TED TALK: MAPPING IDEAS WORTH SPREADING. SUMMARIZED EVERYTHING - EVERYTHING! - IN ? TALKS BY ? WORLD 'S EXPERTS.
OVER THE YEARS TWO COLUMNISTS - GEORGE WILL (POLITICALLY RIGHT OF CENTRE, NEWSWEEK); MORE RECENTLY FAREED ZAKARIA (MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, TIME MAGAZINE) WHO COULD SUMMARIZE A *BIG IDEA* IN AN 800-WORD ONE PAGE ARTICLE.
Just now read Zakaria's summary of one of the world's most intractable problems - issues around forging a deal over Iran's nuclear program - 'No Deal? Don't Just Blame Iran' Time November 2013. Brilliant! French, Americans, Israelis, Saudis, Iraneans - unique incompatible agendas...
OK. If we were to 'map ideas' from the best minds/writers on the 31 most important questions people ask - about life, death, God, evil, happiness, relationships... Whatever. In just 800 words per question... What would that look like?
FOREWORD
Have you heard of the ‘Swan-song phenomenon’? Psychologist Dean Keith Simonton of the University of California studied 1919 musical compositions written by 172 classical composers and compared how highly the works were rated by musicologists with how close the creation of those works came to the composers’ deaths.
Main finding: compositions that were written later in the artists’ lives – when, as Simonton wrote, ‘death was raising a fist to knock on the door’ – tended to be briefer, with cleaner, simpler melody lines, and yet scored high in aesthetic significance according to the experts. (Time, ‘The Art of Living’, September 23, 2013, p. 42).
I’m now 76, and it’s about 20 years since my last book was published. This little contribution is my best effort to say in a ‘cleaner, simpler’ fashion what I believe about the most important questions facing humankind. Writers these days can put their words together in a ‘cryptic teasing’ fashion: if the reader wants to know more about something, they can simply check with everyone’s friend Google Search.
As my Gmail auto-signature says…
Shalom! Salaam! Pax!
Rowland Croucher
Rowland Croucher
jmm.org.au
MORE - Blog: Q&R: The Most Important Questions Ever Asked
Post: Introduction
Link: http://questionsresponses.
INTRODUCTION (ROUGH NOTES) Q&R
MORE - Blog: Q&R: The Most Important Questions Ever Asked
Post: Introduction
Link: http://questionsresponses.
INTRODUCTION (ROUGH NOTES) Q&R
TED TALK: MAPPING IDEAS WORTH SPREADING. SUMMARIZED EVERYTHING - EVERYTHING! - IN ? TALKS BY ? WORLD 'S EXPERTS.
OVER THE YEARS TWO COLUMNISTS - GEORGE WILL (POLITICALLY RIGHT OF CENTRE, NEWSWEEK); MORE RECENTLY FAREED ZAKARIA (MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, TIME MAGAZINE) WHO COULD SUMMARIZE A *BIG IDEA* IN AN 800-WORD ONE PAGE ARTICLE.
Just now read Zakaria's summary of one of the world's most intractable problems - issues around forging a deal over Iran's nuclear program - 'No Deal? Don't Just Blame Iran' Time November 2013. Brilliant! French, Americans, Israelis, Saudis, Iraneans - unique incompatible agendas...
OK. If we were to 'map ideas' from the best minds/writers on the 31 most important questions people ask - about life, death, God, evil, happiness, relationships... Whatever. In just 800 words per question... What would that look like?
Two versions? Check
FOREWORD
When someone makes an appointment to see me, a 'generalist' pastoral counselor, what do we talk about? Short answer: anything at all that's important for them.
Within the first five minutes I invite my parishioner/client to 'give me a headline or two'. And, then, mostly, we jump into the deep end. Some memorable ones:
# 'Rowland, I used to belong to a biker gang. Recently I've started going to church and I heard about the need to 'confess your sins to one another'. Well, I killed seven people during those wild years... And nobody else knows... '
# 'Pastor, I'm in my fifties now, and I've never had a close relationship with a man. I'd love to have been a mother, but it's too late. I have a strong sexual drive and my way of dealing with that is to pleasure myself. My pastor, however, is a fundamentalist who reckons I'll go to hell for doing what I do. I'm scared and often sleepless about it all. What do you think?'
# To a 15/16-year-old: 'Jane, what do you want to do with your life?' 'Oh, that's easy: kill a couple of people.' 'Uh-huh... Anything else?' 'Yeah... burn down the [social welfare organisation's] building: they should have been protecting me...'
# Undergrad student: 'We're doing philosophy, and recently studied the so-called "proofs" for God's existence. My evangelical friend says he's impressed by the "first cause" idea. I reckon there could have been an infinite regression of causes...'
Where do these conversations go from there? Read on. Here are my 31 'big ones': one for each day of the month if you want to give yourself some quality-time thinking about these issues and chasing up the footnotes... (This is the first book I've written post-Google: love it!).
At this point you may need to know just a little about me. General ideological approach? 'Progressive Evangelical Christian'. Not theologically 'fundamentalist' or 'liberal' - I have strong issues with some of their respective presuppositions. My Anglican friends say I'm 'broad church'. Father Richard Rohr and popular Christian writer Brian McLaren are generally OK! Is there truth in other religions? Of course, God's truth can be discovered in the most unlikely places. Is it OK to doubt what authority-figures put into our heads when we were impressionable? Again: of course. How much serious pastoral counseling have I actually done? About 25,000 hours, starting when I was a College Christian student leader in 1957, then within eleven full- and part-time pastoral vocations, etc. etc.
Come and enjoy the ride my fellow-strugglers/learners...
When someone makes an appointment to see me, a 'generalist' pastoral counselor, what do we talk about? Short answer: anything at all that's important for them.
Within the first five minutes I invite my parishioner/client to 'give me a headline or two'. And, then, mostly, we jump into the deep end. Some memorable ones:
# 'Rowland, I used to belong to a biker gang. Recently I've started going to church and I heard about the need to 'confess your sins to one another'. Well, I killed seven people during those wild years... And nobody else knows... '
# 'Pastor, I'm in my fifties now, and I've never had a close relationship with a man. I'd love to have been a mother, but it's too late. I have a strong sexual drive and my way of dealing with that is to pleasure myself. My pastor, however, is a fundamentalist who reckons I'll go to hell for doing what I do. I'm scared and often sleepless about it all. What do you think?'
# To a 15/16-year-old: 'Jane, what do you want to do with your life?' 'Oh, that's easy: kill a couple of people.' 'Uh-huh... Anything else?' 'Yeah... burn down the [social welfare organisation's] building: they should have been protecting me...'
# Undergrad student: 'We're doing philosophy, and recently studied the so-called "proofs" for God's existence. My evangelical friend says he's impressed by the "first cause" idea. I reckon there could have been an infinite regression of causes...'
Where do these conversations go from there? Read on. Here are my 31 'big ones': one for each day of the month if you want to give yourself some quality-time thinking about these issues and chasing up the footnotes... (This is the first book I've written post-Google: love it!).
At this point you may need to know just a little about me. General ideological approach? 'Progressive Evangelical Christian'. Not theologically 'fundamentalist' or 'liberal' - I have strong issues with some of their respective presuppositions. My Anglican friends say I'm 'broad church'. Father Richard Rohr and popular Christian writer Brian McLaren are generally OK! Is there truth in other religions? Of course, God's truth can be discovered in the most unlikely places. Is it OK to doubt what authority-figures put into our heads when we were impressionable? Again: of course. How much serious pastoral counseling have I actually done? About 25,000 hours, starting when I was a College Christian student leader in 1957, then within eleven full- and part-time pastoral vocations, etc. etc.
Come and enjoy the ride my fellow-strugglers/learners...
When someone makes an appointment to see me, a 'generalist' pastoral counselor, what do we talk about? Short answer: anything at all that's important for them.
Within the first five minutes I invite my parishioner/client to 'give me a headline or two'. And, then, mostly, we jump into the deep end. Some memorable ones:
# 'Rowland, I used to belong to a biker gang. Recently I've started going to church and I heard about the need to 'confess your sins to one another'. Well, I killed seven people during those wild years... And nobody else knows... '
# 'Pastor, I'm in my fifties now, and I've never had a close relationship with a man. I'd love to have been a mother, but it's too late. I have a strong sexual drive and my way of dealing with that is to pleasure myself. My pastor, however, is a fundamentalist who reckons I'll go to hell for doing what I do. I'm scared and often sleepless about it all. What do you think?'
# To a 15/16-year-old: 'Jane, what do you want to do with your life?' 'Oh, that's easy: kill a couple of people.' 'Uh-huh... Anything else?' 'Yeah... burn down the [social welfare organisation's] building: they should have been protecting me...'
# Undergrad student: 'We're doing philosophy, and recently studied the so-called "proofs" for God's existence. My evangelical friend says he's impressed by the "first cause" idea. I reckon there could have been an infinite regression of causes...'
Where do these conversations go from there? Read on. Here are my 31 'big ones': one for each day of the month if you want to give yourself some quality-time thinking about these issues and chasing up the footnotes... (This is the first book I've written post-Google: love it!).
At this point you may need to know just a little about me. General ideological approach? 'Progressive Evangelical Christian'. Not theologically 'fundamentalist' or 'liberal' - I have strong issues with some of their respective presuppositions. My Anglican friends say I'm 'broad church'. Father Richard Rohr and popular Christian writer Brian McLaren are generally OK! Is there truth in other religions? Of course, God's truth can be discovered in the most unlikely places. Is it OK to doubt what authority-figures put into our heads when we were impressionable? Again: of course. How much serious pastoral counseling have I actually done? About 25,000 hours, starting when I was a College Christian student leader in 1957, then within eleven full- and part-time pastoral vocations, from 1964 until this week!
Come and enjoy the ride my fellow-strugglers/learners...
Rowland Croucher (rcroucher@gmail.com)
Melbourne, Australia
May 2014
~~
George F/ Will, Zakaria (Time)More important to be reflective than either conservative or radical.
Reflective persons are seekers-after-truth, an asker-of-questions...
The wise person who wrote Ecclesiastes was like this: 'I directed my mind to know, to investigate, and to seek wisdom and an explanation' (7:25)
At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my maths are wrong I'm still going to be OK.
~~
Christianity may be weird, but it has a quiet strength
- MILTON JONES
- HERALD SUN
- APRIL 02, 2014
Over the centuries Christianity is a faith that has caused a huge splash, writes Milton Jones. Source:News Limited
HELLO, I’m a comedian who is here for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. I am also a Christian … and if you are still reading this you may be interested to know there is nothing directly about my faith in my act. But I’ve been asked to write about something I care about, so here goes.
Melbourne’s St Patrick’s Cathedral has a fountain with the inscription, “He that drinks of the water that I shall give, will never have thirst again”.
But no more than a few metres away there is also a sign that says, “Recycled water. Do not drink”. That, to me neatly sums up most peoples’ attitude towards Christianity. Nice idea — but in practice whatever you do — don’t swallow it!
I think God’s creation is like him — inexplicably clever, outrageously excessive and a bit weird. But too many of us Christians just manage the “a bit weird” part (Often that isn’t helped by the media, which tries to find the oddest person with the most extreme views to represent Christianity).
Sometimes the church doesn’t help itself. I mean, run it past me one more time: Jesus came to identify with the suffering of ordinary people and now his chief “representatives” live in huge palaces and wear big pointy hats?
Also, sometimes it’s almost as if Christians can’t cope with the fact that if you really say “sorry”, God really does just let you off — so we have to make up other rules and special ways of talking, to sort of help punish everyone.
Often we Christians aren’t very good at saying sorry ourselves. Apparently, the Pope’s first tweet was “Praise the Lord”. Perhaps it should have been “OMG earth not centre of universe, soz Copernicus LOL” (To me, one of the mysteries of Christianity is why many Christians rarely admit that so much of it is a mystery). Maybe it all appears too weird, too confusing and you can’t take the risk of testing the waters, or possibly even being poisoned. But my point is, can you afford not to? We all have a natural revulsion against clear evil. It’s just if you’re an atheist it’s harder to explain.
Most of us agree, that both good and bad has been done in the name of religion, but maybe the bigger question is why we are talking about bad and good in the first place?
Yes, there’s superstition, fear and even abuse in the name of Christianity, but not everyone who wears the shirt of Melbourne Storm actually plays for the team, do they? In fact, anyone can buy a replica one and behave how they like. They might even actually support a rival team.
Of course, there are other religions and to be honest I don’t know much about them. All I can say is that when I stop still, I can feel the quiet power of a presence within me.
In my experience, to become a Christian is like being a fly buzzing around a room with no exit. Then someone gently guides you to an open window, when in retrospect it would have been a lot easier just to squash you flat in the first place. You’re free at last, but through no good action of your own.
Yes, many madmen purport to speak on behalf of God — some of them shouting in the high street, while others run whole countries. But over the centuries Christianity is a faith that has caused a huge splash, as people have given up their lives for it in all sorts of different ways.
The ripples still go on. I mean, apart from being involved at the beginning of science, systems of government, philosophy, art, schools, hospitals, the emancipation of women, the abolition of slavery, social welfare, helping form the basis of the moral code most people live by and introducing popular notions of justice, mercy, decency and compassion ... what has Christianity ever really done for the world?
British comedian Milton Jones is appearing at the Melbourne Town Hall’s Supper Room until April 20.
From a thoughtful critic - I don't know what is in your book, Rowland, but if your forward overtly saw it so important as to nail your allegiance to Rohr and McLaren to the mast, it's reasonable to assume you will head in a similar direction to them.
~~INTRODUCTION (ROUGH NOTES) Q&R
TED TALK: MAPPING IDEAS WORTH SPREADING. SUMMARIZED EVERYTHING - EVERYTHING! - IN ? TALKS BY ? WORLD 'S EXPERTS.
OVER THE YEARS TWO COLUMNISTS - GEORGE WILL (POLITICALLY RIGHT OF CENTRE, NEWSWEEK); MORE RECENTLY FAREED ZAKARIA (MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, TIME MAGAZINE) WHO COULD SUMMARIZE A *BIG IDEA* IN AN 800-WORD ONE PAGE ARTICLE.
Just now read Zakaria's summary of one of the world's most intractable problems - issues around forging a deal over Iran's nuclear program - 'No Deal? Don't Just Blame Iran' Time November 2013. Brilliant! French, Americans, Israelis, Saudis, Iraneans - unique incompatible agendas...
OK. If we were to 'map ideas' from the best minds/writers on the 31 most important questions people ask - about life, death, God, evil, happiness, relationships... Whatever. In just 800 words per question... What would that look like?
Let's go...
~~
See christianleaders.org - app with list of articles on this iPad.
'Not every question will be your question'... feel free to bounce on to one that is... '
~~
~~
~~INTRODUCTION (ROUGH NOTES) Q&R
TED TALK: MAPPING IDEAS WORTH SPREADING. SUMMARIZED EVERYTHING - EVERYTHING! - IN ? TALKS BY ? WORLD 'S EXPERTS.
OVER THE YEARS TWO COLUMNISTS - GEORGE WILL (POLITICALLY RIGHT OF CENTRE, NEWSWEEK); MORE RECENTLY FAREED ZAKARIA (MIDDLE OF THE ROAD, TIME MAGAZINE) WHO COULD SUMMARIZE A *BIG IDEA* IN AN 800-WORD ONE PAGE ARTICLE.
Just now read Zakaria's summary of one of the world's most intractable problems - issues around forging a deal over Iran's nuclear program - 'No Deal? Don't Just Blame Iran' Time November 2013. Brilliant! French, Americans, Israelis, Saudis, Iraneans - unique incompatible agendas...
OK. If we were to 'map ideas' from the best minds/writers on the 31 most important questions people ask - about life, death, God, evil, happiness, relationships... Whatever. In just 800 words per question... What would that look like?
Let's go...
~~
See christianleaders.org - app with list of articles on this iPad.
'Not every question will be your question'... feel free to bounce on to one that is... '
~~
“If I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes” – Albert Einstein
“If
I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would
spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I
know the proper question, I could solve the problem in less than five minutes”
– Albert Einstein
- Daniel Batt, Nancy Harvey
Moyle, Jessica Killeen and 5 others like this.
- Daniel Batt Good
questions are always better than bad answers.
17 April at 11:38 · Unlike · 2
- Janet Woodlock I've
stolen this off Joanna Hubbard but it's an interesting for anyone
who has the time to read it... Novo Coaching people
might like this too!http://www.cihm.leeds.ac.uk/.../Art_of_Powerful_Questions...
- Janet Woodlock And I
stole the quote from here too:http://joannahubbard.wordpress.com/.../the-art-of.../ Wonderful
blog Joanna
Hubbard... how come I haven't been following you before? My bad...
"If
I had an hour to solve a problem and my life depended on the solution, I would
spend the first 55 minutes determining the proper question to ask, for once I
know the proper question, I could so...
~~
Best
Googled articles-
~~
Anything at all if it's important to them...
women and men - guilt about masturbation (a woman pastoral leader was told by her senior pastor that people who did it were going to hell)
A woman who when a teenager taught her dog to have sex with her
women and men - guilt about masturbation (a woman pastoral leader was told by her senior pastor that people who did it were going to hell)
A woman who when a teenager taught her dog to have sex with her
A mother married to a psychopath was occasionally put into hospital with her injuries. When I arranged a safe place for her and their children, he phoned and threatened to visit me with a gun...
~~
~~
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