Class Post #3- Luke Taylor

Vincent Van Gough is one of my favorite artists because I see so much of his original work coming from such a raw place. One of the coolest paintings that I thought we talked about all year was his about the old shoes. Something about that painting reminded of lot of Jesus’ raw love for us. First of all, the shoes were worn out and old but they were USED. I found it profound that whoever wore those shoes got such a good use out of them. I imagined that the shoes had been all over the world seeing and exploring new grounds almost every day. In the same way I feel like Jesus calls us to a life like that. In fact, he tells us to pick up our cross and follow him. As I talked about it one of my earlier blogs I believe we find the most freedom when we hand it all over to Jesus and I think the shoes do a really new job of exploring that further.

        Additionally, I feel like the shoes make a statement to how famous of an art piece they are. They are not new, shiny, catchy, or spectacular… they are just used shoes. I feel like we, in the society today, often overlook beautiful things because we see them as ordinary and then don’t take the time to admire them. I wonder what this world would look like if we just took a brief moment and truly invested in different things- ordinary things. I think Van Gough does a great job of furthering the heart of exploration and how we can be called to fixing our eyes on more ordinary things but seeing them as extraordinary. 

Class Post #2- Luke Taylor

I am currently writing a spoken word for class and it has been so cool in the way that God has spoken to me through it bit by bit. I wanted to share this section in specific because I believe that God spoke through me prophetically in it and I don’t think it was just for me to hear! I was really spired by Heidegger in the way that he discusses the power of words and how art can “reveal truth” in many different ways.

Here it is:

1.      And he says, oh you want to be the boss?

2.      Then stop thinking its all about you

3.      And pick up your cross

4.      Because I didn’t die for soft Christianity

5.      Oh I died for you, don’t get me wrong

6.      But my plan for you was so much greater than some worship song

7.      But it was so that you could save many

8.      Not by your gifts

9.      But by your humility

10.  Not by your flesh

11.  But through my trinity

12.  So stop thinking it’s all about you

13.  Die to yourself and you’ll finally feel true

For me, I believe when we can surrender our lives to Jesus we are called to surrender EVERYTHING in our life. When we can, we find complete freedom in him and a life better than we can ask or imagine. I encourage anyone reading this to give it a shot and ask God to reveal himself to you and I believe he will!

Student Choice #3- Luke Taylor

The past couple months my good friend, Josh Campbell, has been conceding for unity to arise on his campus with the ministries. He, and some other ministry leaders, have been praying weekly together and asking God to move on their campus. I had the privilege of getting to meet up with them today and share my heart with them in hopes to share some wisdom based on previous experience on what I've seen works well and what doesn't.

This is where things got crazy. When we arrived we were waiting on some other leaders to arrive and ran into two random students who happened to be looking for a catholic seminar they were headed to for a class. It turned out that the speaker to their event had cancelled so I invited them on over to join us letting them know that it would be a similar gathering... 
As Josh got the meeting started one of the students who joined us kind of lashed out on him asking why he talked a certain way when talking about Jesus. Suddenly every leader there had a word to say to the two students about how God had encountered them with so much love in their life and how Jesus forever changed them. The presence of the Holy Spirit was so present and we could feel it in our hearts that these new friends were about to meet the Lord!

Sure enough, we asked them if they wanted to receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior and to start a relationship with Him and THEY SAID YES!!!! We invited them to stick around for the meeting and they decided they would! haha, God brought some more diversity in the ministry leader gathering and we had some new saved Catholics with us!

I was SO encouraged by these leaders at Mary Washington. They are stirred with SO much faith and believe whole heatedly that God has such an amazing plan for their campus. Thank you Jesus for continuing to raise up leaders after unity in Christ and a heart that wants your glory to be made 

Student Choice #2: Luke Taylor

Jesus cries out in prayer to his Father before he goes to the cross and prays for the body of Christ to be in complete unity. I believe that when the body can be in this unity the love of Christ will be great emphasized. Think about it, when all God’s children get a long and love one another selflessly, a miracle is being birthed and witnessed by the world. We live in a world full of brokenness and emptiness; a world that rejects those who aren’t “worthy” in the eyes of others. If we could put our selfishness aside and simply LOVE and be unified in that love I believe the world would see more authentic life in the Creator of this world. The unfortunate part to that beautiful plan is how hard it has to be in order to see it happen. So many people don’t want to follow, listen, obey, etc. So many people struggle to remove their own pride, myself included, and because of that we let it hinder us from true freedom and love in the Savior of the world, Jesus Christ. I wonder if one day mankind will finally get it; if the churches will finally understand that it doesn’t have to be so complicated. All we have to do is LOVE ONE ANOTHER and die to ourselves. It is two simple directions but almost impossible to follow. 

Student Choice #1- Luke Taylor

I sit in a friend’s house. Christmas décor surrounds me as Christmas music plays from a nearby speaker. The sun rests its gentle touch on my neck as I meditate on the peaceful serenity of the moment. I wrestle to discover when this sacred moment comes from the generosity and hospitality of a family’s pure adoration or if it comes from the magic of Christmas time. Either way, I realize how sweet this moment is. There is something about the genuineness of mankind that lives in all of us. It reminds me of the time of Noah when God seemingly had plans to destroy the human race when suddenly… he decides otherwise. Was it the pureness and obedience of Noah’s family or was it the mercy of a great God who’s love often over showers his wrath. While justice will one day be served, I realize in this very moment than now more than ever we must love the world the way I currently feel loved. After all, we love because he first loved us… so I ask, what are we waiting for? When we realize the love of God lives inside us it makes everything all the more worthwhile and in all honestly, easier. Love flows fresh streams of grace when we first look to our Father, for he is the creator of it all.

Are primitive societies irrational?

I read an article on Peter Winch discussing if primitive societies were considered to be irrational because of their different belief sets.  There are many different cultures that have different beliefs than Westerners do, and many Westerners disregard these other beliefs because of there thought of their own way of thinking to be the only way.  However there are many more cultures out there that believe many different things, like for example the practice of witchcraft is totally a reality for different cultures in Africa.  I do not think that this should be disregarded to be false just purely based on Western way of thinking.  I believe different cultures are beautiful and we should not impose our thoughts to others in a overbearing way.  Being different is not always a bad thing, we just have to look for the beauty associated with the differences.  Because what gives us the right to think our way is the only way?

Objective Standards for Rationality?

In relation to my last blog post on cultural relativism, I also wanted to raise a few questions for people.  I read a few articles on cultural relativism, and notions of there being objective standards to rationality across different cultures.  What is meant by this is if there are certain things that a society must up hold itself to in order to be considered rational?  I personally do not think that there are objective standards for rationality, and that there is beauty in our diversity around the world.  I would never want there to be objective standards for rationality, because this would limit the cultural freedom that people across the world have.  There is beauty to be found in this diversity, and we should celebrate it.  We should not try and place objective standards for reality upon the world, we should just rejoice in our differences and look for the beauty contained within that.