“Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief” - taken from Anne Carson’s “Tragedy: A Curious Art Form”
The Cheney Sentinel, Kansas, May 29, 1913
–Walt Whitman
This black flamingo was spotted in Cyprus. It is just the second black flamingo ever seen. The first one was seen in Israel in 2014 but experts believe they may be the same bird, meaning that only one black flamingo has ever been seen. The black flamingo is affected with melanism, which is a condition caused by an overproduction of melanin, darkening the skin. An animal with melanism is a very rare sight.
John Baldessari - I Will Not Make Any More Boring Art, 1971
substitutionary sacrifice: why He died
If God is really a loving God, why doesn’t he just forgive everybody? Why did Jesus have to go through suffering into death? Why did he have to be a ransom?
Here’s the beginning of an answer: Jesus didn’t have to die despite God’s love; he had to die because of God’s love. And it had to be this way because all life-changing love is substitutionary sacrifice.
Think about it. If you love a person whose life is all put together and has no major needs, it costs you nothing. It’s delightful. There are probably four or five people like that where you live. You ought to find them and become their friend. But if you ever try to love somebody who has needs, someone who is in trouble or who is persecuted or emotionally wounded, it’s going to cost you. You can’t love them without taking a hit yourself. A transfer of some kind is required, so that somehow their troubles, their problems, transfer to you.
There are a lot of wounded people out there. They are emotionally sinking, they’re hurting, and they desperately need to be loved. And when they are with you, you want to look at your watch and make a graceful exit, because listening to them with all their problems can be grueling. It can be exhausting to be a friend to an emotionally damaged person. The only way they’re going to start filling up emotionally is if somebody loves them, and the only way to love them is to let yourself be emotionally drained. Some of your fullness is going to have to go into them, and you have to empty out to some degree. If you hold on to our emotional comfort and simply avoid those people, they will sink. The only way to love them is through substitutionary sacrifice.
-Timothy Keller, King’s Cross
