10.10.05

excellent chair


walk-dont-walk-chair
Originally uploaded by Greg Blosser.

Another Sign of the Apocalypse:


louis-vuitton
Originally uploaded by Greg Blosser.
This Louis Vuitton wallet sells for $570. Of course the obvious question: Once we've purchased the wallet, what the @#*%! are we suppose to put in it?

Kabbala, Madonna and the Christ


Madonna and Christ
Originally uploaded by Greg Blosser.
By RACHEL HOAG
Associated Press Writer

JERUSALEM

A song on Madonna's upcoming album dedicated to a Kabbalist rabbi is drawing criticism from other rabbis, the Israeli Maariv daily reported Sunday.
The album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor," is to be released on Nov. 15 and features a track entitled "Isaac" about Yitzhak Luria, a 16th century Jewish mystic and Kabbalah scholar.
Rabbis who oversee Luria's tomb and a seminary in the northern town of Safed are unimpressed with Madonna's musical tribute and see the inclusion of the song about Luria on the album as an attempt by the pop star to profit from his name.
Rabbi Rafael Cohen, head of a seminary named after Luria, suggested Madonna's actions could lead to divine retribution.
"Jewish law forbids the use of the name of the holy rabbi for profit. Her act is just simply unacceptable and I can only sympathize for her because of the punishment that she is going to receive from the heavens," Cohen told the newspaper.
Another rabbi called for Madonna to be thrown out of the community.
"Such a woman brings great sin on kabbalah," Rabbi Israel Deri told Maariv. "I hope that we will have the strength to prevent her from bringing sin upon the holiness of the rabbi (Yitzhak Luria)."
Madonna spokeswoman Liz Rosenberg didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment Sunday.
The singer and actress was raised a Roman Catholic but has become a follower of Kabbalah in recent years and adopted the Hebrew name Esther. She made a much publicized visit to Israel in 2004, when she visited many sites important to Kabbalah, but didn't travel to Luria's grave.


And this from Grace Central last night:

come ye sinners, poor and wretched,
weak and wounded, sick and sore
Jesus ready stands to save you
full of pity joined with power
he is able, he is able
he is willing, doubt no more.



Kabbala rejects "such a woman" because she brings great sin upon Kabbala. Jesus calls "such a woman" SO THAT SHE MAY bring her great sin upon him, and thus recieve mercy, grace and transformation.
The beauty of the gospel as seen in contrast is overwhelming. At least to those of us who understand we too are "such a woman". He is able. He is willing. Doubt no more.

Reading...

"But in all fairness, there is another side to this story, justifiably provoking the contempt of the skeptic. Much of what has passed for the Chrisitian message has been nothing more than frothy God-talk - mindless, thoughtless and in it's exploitation of people, heartless. This too, will not do. Just as so much of antitheistic thinking when scrutinized is sensically impoversished, so also much religious verbiage, seeped in emotional drivel and bereft of reason, can be tossed at unsuspecting audiences in the name of orthodoxy. The ruinous end of the latter, in it's destruction of lives plundered materially and spiritually, may be greater than the ideas perpetrated by the openly cynical. Is there an answer to all this? I sincerely trust there is. And it is to find that common ground of interaction that this material is presented."
- page xvi, Can Man Live Without God
Ravi Zacharias