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Your True Self: Tossing the Catalogue of Selves
In the parlance of psychology, a person needs two things in order to be emotionally healthy; a sense of being and a sense of well-being. The first seems obvious at first. We look at ourselves and say, “Well, of course, here I am”. But if it were so simple, we would not suffer the crisis of identity, both personally and in the church that we currently endure. A struggle with one’s identity is a battle for a sense of being, and it is reductive to claim an easy or guaranteed path to success in this endeavor. This search for who one is and what one stands for begins in infancy…
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3 Narcissists in the Bible: How God Took Them Out
God doesn’t always kill His enemies individually in the Old Testament, but when He does, they tend to be narcissists. What Onan, Jezebel, and Nabal each have in common with narcissists is an utter lack of empathy for others, overweening greed, and the suspicion that the world is out to cheat them of what should be theirs. Like the personality disorder that each display, they are self-absorbed and dedicated to taking what they want no matter the cost to others. I have always been a little fascinated by the fact that God occasionally called out a few people and pulled them into permanent time-out. When I started looking at them,…
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Every Poem Wants to Be Jesus: Why Christians Need Art
How mysterious is the incarnation of God in man in the person of Jesus Christ! God, who is spirit, makes Himself known in the body of Jesus. Making the word flesh is, of course, the aim of every poet. The goal of art is to turn what is spirit into a poem, a painting, a dance, or a song. It is the same impulse, to turn what is ineffable into something concrete. To turn the abstract into something that can be lived within the body. The Greek word, Logos, which means the Word and the Deed, is an attempt to explain the mystery of metaphor and the nature of incarnation.…
Healing Through Art & Words
