Category: Blog Series
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Non-Abusive Community | The Scaffold and the Structure | Zizek’s ‘Marxianity’
How do we overcome the problem of corp-orations and organ-izations becoming sociopathic and abusive? This seems to be at the heart of the matter whether we are discussing the financial crisis (as Zizek does in First As Tragedy Then As Farce – the springboard for these posts) or the structure of our faith in a…
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Befriending Hitler… Befriending Sociopathic Institutions (Like the Church)
In the previous two posts { [ 1 ] [ 2 ] } I’ve been wondering whether a certain symmetry of relationship is needed if empathy is going to flow between two people. The springboard for this was Zizek critiquing the adage ‘an enemy is a friend whose story I have not yet heard’ by…
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Advent[ures] in Incarnation [12] | The Wondrous Gift is Given
Whenever a gift is given, an invisible cargo is exchanged with it, loaded with semi-conscious messages about power-relations between giver and receiver. Offering an expensive gift to someone can be a power-play: I am rich enough to give you this. Even letting someone out into traffic can carry the same message: I am more gracious…
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Advent[ures] in Incarnation [11] | How Silently, How Silently…
There is only one thing on the children’s minds: presents. There has probably been only one thing on many of our minds these last few weeks: what to buy for who? How much is appropriate to spend? What did they give me last year? How will they think of me if I give them this?…
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Advent[ures] in Incarnation [10] | Brother Hare by Katherine Venn
I absolutely love this advent poem by Katherine Venn. She’s currently doing a Masters in poetry at the University of East Anglia, and keeping a blog of the experience over at Minute Particulars. Brother Hare Born with your clothes on, trembling in your scrape, wide eyes open, soft, as new things are, warm; alone, pressed…
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Advent[ures] in Incarnation [9] | Wait
From ‘Advent’ in The Complex Christ: Our problem today: the space for imagination to expand and take shape is inversely proportional to the speed at which we live. Driven hard and fast, we lack the time to allow alternate worlds and possibilities to form, careering past small turnings and exits, bound to follow the obvious…