#diminishment

[tonreihe]

“And here the paradox discloses its ultimate depth: God’s creativity in God’s diminishment, God’s Resurrection in God’s Death.” (Sister Anke, The Creativity of Diminishment)

[irregularspace]

Space will heal all wounds

[quotelr]

Life is a race. You are racing against time. Your life is such that you are running a race against a diminishing life.

Sunday Adelaja, How To Become Great Through Time Conversion: Are you wasting time, spending time or investing time?

[tonreihe]

“John the Baptist says something amazing: ‘He must increase, but I must decrease’ (John 3: 30 RSV). The Greek text in a literal translation is a very direct statement on our theme: ‘Christ must grow, but I must be diminished!’ in Greek, the passive voice! The paradox is revealed here as a change of dominion: no longer I but He! It is Christ in us, Christ in our world, who must grow, become more and more, He, the Creator, the Lord—and therefore we have to resign, to be diminished in a very real sense. Christ needs our whole being for this growing in us. ‘It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me’ (Gal. 2: 20). Christ now is the active one in growing Himself and in diminishing us. Our part is to let it happen to us, really to become less.”

—Sister Anke, The Creativity of Diminishment

[ourquotesus]

Music and guitar is my religion but don't get me started on how quotable the movie Tombstone is ..

[iarighter-blog]

Daily Thoughts #3 (102716) – Diminishment

I’ve been helping a friend write a college application essay. They’re Desi like me, but they’re completely different, too; they’re more like a UK Desi than a US Desi, what with their low-class background, their extra religiousness, their toughness. They’ve lived so much life in so many different spheres, and they mean so many things to so many people. So when they showed me their college essay, I was shocked; they didn’t exist within their words. They were defensive, apologetic; they covered their failures, instead of displaying their strengths. They minimized themselves. Why does that sound so familiar?

Well… me. I minimize myself all the time. Even when I try to be self-aggrandizing, I come off as meek. I don’t know how to ask for respect, because I don’t treat myself with respect. When I write a résumé, I write a third of who I am; I assume no one wants to know the other two-thirds. But employers might want to know about how I communicate with Ajji through Scrabble and Rummy; how we speak the language of play, when we lack language. They might want to know my experience with Caranatic music, my experience with Western Violin, with pop music from around the world. (For example: I’m getting heavy into Mon Laferte.) People might want to know about my love for ironing, for cooking, how I’m learning to take care of myself; how I explore, actively seeking out the world around me, how I put myself in spaces where I would not belong, normally; how I invented my identity, because I could see no clear role models, how I became and am becoming who I want to be; how I read a book every week, just to see what I can find. I try to imagine an employer – or someone – who would value these parts of me. But the child of immigrants, the self-made explorer, the endlessly empathetic, the overly analytical: these things all feel so general. Sometimes, they don’t even feel like me. And they are general; the specifics are too vulnerable to unpack. I don’t want to be attacked for being me. Which is why blogging seems hard.

I think part of this lack of self is at least partly a colonial thing; anyone lesser in the Matrix of Domination, in the sphere of White Supremacist Cis-Heteronormative Capitalist Patriarchy (that modified bell hooks adage) must feel a bit of this diminishment. (Fanon probably talks about a similar thing, but I’ll write that when I get to him, eventually.) That’s why immigrants scrunch their shoulders into their chests and keep their voices small. That’s why Black people, no matter how strong they are, turn to mush in front of the police. That’s why I turned to mush, when a cop asked to search my bag in a white space. Other people had bags. But I was the only one who wasn’t white. I gave him my bag. I wrote about it endlessly afterwards – was he being racist? Did he understand what he was doing? Did I look particularly suspicious? But mostly: Why didn’t I stand up for myself?

I made my friend the college essayist start by writing everything about their life: the ups and downs and in-betweens, the nothings and the nobodies that gave them community, to write without pause until they saw something that reflected them. I wanted them to feel their self. And from there, we could start cutting.

Today, they showed me four pages, single-spaced. Their pages were riddled with spelling errors and potential, glistening with emotions and comma splices and achievement and redemption. In their twenty-something years, they’d lived a full life. I was blown away. They were, too; they’d forgotten how awesome they were.

We began stitching their essay together. It came out great. I don’t know how their essay will be received – but at least they were there, undiminished. And that’s more than enough.

Bonus Hamilton:

[davisbrotherly]

Birthday Diminishment

Birthday Diminishment #watercolor #oldage #fear #loss #aging

I’m having a milestone birthday today. It’s not like it used to be. Nobody knows what I was like when I was a kid any more. They’re all gone. I won’t have to listen to Dad’s yearly reminiscence that I made him miss breakfast the day I was born; I won’t get a call from Mom either.

Here are some birthday observations:

Things change. Family changes: the old guard that knew more than you did are…

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[saenergygroup-blog]

Biodiversity is the greatest thing we have... Its diminishment must be prevented at all cost.

Thomas Eisner.