Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Arthur Holmes-Brown's avatar

Thanks for that. Very refreshing. For decades I thought "I am special and I have an awesome world changing destiny" was the pinnacle of Christian thought. Never mind the Saints and Martyrs. Never mind the problematic things Christ actually said.

I think when we are functioning within the hierarchy in a healthy way we do move in and out of moments of "specialness" - a wedding, a birth, the Eucharist, death...etc. But these are in the context of a community - a body. And they are experienced through participating in that community, not "changing the world".

Expand full comment
Jonathan Gray's avatar

Thank you for this post, Emily. My wife and I were also struck by that concluding picture from Yamada's book. We are currently reading Matthieu Pageau's "Language of Creation", and what immediately stood out to us is that the boy, crowned by his idea, is shown next to (trampling on?) a tree and a clock. According to the symbolic paradigm outlined by Pageau, these are perennial symbols of the dual axes of time and space. And these, in traditional thought, are forces in constant conflict with each other. The only one who can rule over these two forces and hold them in their proper balance is God. And so, that final picture is shocking, for the claim is not just will to any garden-variety power, but that the boy has become like God, mediating between irreconcilable forces, crowned king of time and space. This book is the snake's story, and is just new clothes on a very old lie.

Expand full comment
6 more comments...

No posts