Monday, May 5, 2008

Little Break

This week I'm receiving my first full feedback on my book, so I am going to be taking a little break to make some adjustments and such. I have also decided to add a new portion on "Objectification of the Spirit". For those of you familiar with the content of the book, this new portion compares the experience we have in the physical realm of objectifying human beings to what I feel some extreme (and sometimes not so extreme) charismatic groups do to the Holy Spirit. We recognize the extreme beauty and power of God in the person of the Holy Spirit but we never go far enough to discover that person thereby allowing us to objectify the Spirit and abuse the gifts. The same thing happens in our human relationships. When we do not put in the effort to really get to know people, we end up only valuing them for what they can directly offer us. Sometimes it is intentional, other times not.

Some of the things I will be looking into are the charismatic movements over the last one hundred years. I will also be studying 1 Corinthians 12-14 in some depth. It always struck me as odd that wedged in between two powerful chapters on the gifts of the Holy Spirit is a random chapter on Love. I do not think this is an accident and may have deeper implications for warning us of the dangers involved in exercising gifts of manifestation without really getting to intimately know the person of the Holy Spirit. By remaining "distant" in our relationship to the Holy Spirit we allow ourselves to objectify both the Spirit and the gifts. Anyway... much more to come on that. If you have opinions or comments on the topic or if you'd like to join me in researching on the subject I would absolutely LOVE that. If you are not comfortable posting publicly on the matter, then feel free to email me your thoughts.

Much Love,
Debbie

P.S. For those wondering what the heck the picture of the shamrock is... it is the cover I chose for my book. Since my book is about being created in the image of the Trinity I chose the shamrock (St. Patrick used shamrocks in his analogies of the Godhead as three in one.)

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