impressions...FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I was rummaging around in the back of the braille library in the days when my friend Captain RON (Sherrigan) was principal of the School for the Blind in Jamaica. Those were the days when I had an insatiable thirst for knowledge or lets just say I was readinga lot of books. I came across and 'devoured' a few hundred pages of a book titled THE SECULAR CITY....and went in search of THE FEAST OF FOOLS by thesame author...which having found in another library I promptly set about reading. In his fascinating interpretation of contemporary culture and theology, Harvey Cox examines both the loss and reemergence of festivity and fantasy in Western civilization. He evaluates both processes from a theological perspective, defining festivity as the capacity for genuine revelry and joyous celebration and defining fantasy as the faculty for envisioning radically alternative life situations. He asserts that both are absolutely vital to contemporary human life and faith; both are a precondition for genuine social transformation. In a success and money-oriented society we need a rebirth of unapologetically unproductive festivity and expressive celebration. In an age that has quarantined parody and separated politics from imagination, we need a renaissance of social fantasy. It has been said over and over again that affluent Western man has been gaining the whole world while losing his soul. In the face of this Mr. Cox affirms the possibility and necessity of a resurgence of hope, celebration, liberation, and experimentation. The medieval Feast of Fools, from which he has taken his title, symbolizes both the problem and the process. Centuries ago it provided an opportunity for the choirboy to play bishop and for serious townsfolk to mock the stately rituals of church and court. The eventual disappearance of the custom in the sixteenth century, unlamented if not welcomed by those in authority, illustrates the concerns of this provocative and controversial essay. Mr. Cox does not propose that a medieval practice should be revived, but he does argue for a rebirth in our own cultural idiom of what was right and good about the Feast of Fools. FROM HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS ====================== Image is everything Packaging yourself for the job market is a good idea for todays tight marketplace.... but social networking ? what is it anyway? My wife and I last year attended a seminar hosted at a prestigious Connecticut 5 star hotel. We were "wined and dined" as we were 'enlightened' on the fine art of art of INTERNET MARKETING. ...Bottom Line.....you can be whoever you want to be ON THE INTERNET !!!! Used to be I would introduce you to my friend you would shake hands, do some 'small talk' mumble something about no more strangers and that was that. In today's GLOBAL VILLAGE the mingling is wired and sometimes downright weird. here's a case in point She lived in Central Ohio, and she fled to Central Florida, but the story of Rifqa Bary didn't start in either place. It started on Facebook. Bary, 17, ran away from home in July because she believes her Muslim family has to kill her because of her conversion to Christianity. She got on a bus and for 16 days lived in the home of evangelical pastors Blake and Beverly Lorenz of Global Revolution Church after she had gotten to know them through a Facebook prayer group.The Internet has made meeting more people in more places faster and easier than ever before, and churches are taking advantage. A recent Georgetown University study said 87 percent of religious organizations use the Internet to attract new members. READ MORE HERE By MICHAEL KRUSE TIMES STAFF WRITER Publication: St. Petersburg Times (Florida) maybe the SUPREME COURT will get involved before this is all over..... as my dad used to say.... WHAT A WORLD ! +++++++++++++ I seriously hope some of us...a lot of us... would invade these social networks armed with life-changing ideas.....the Kingdom of God suffers violence... THE VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE....Myles Munroe does a good job explaining this. HEAR SOME OF IT HEAR