“too often, the built world is the wrong shape, and we’re expected to change ourselves to accommodate what we’ve created”
Have been just sitting with the truth of this concluding statement this week. To me it sums up the general difference between God’s creation and ours.
There are times when we move closer to the way that God creates; not often but sometimes. Perhaps the Bible concept for this shift is the Hebrew word “chocma”-- “wisdom” (I’m pondering what The Bible Project’s Wisdom series explains, that this wisdom goes beyond the simple application of knowledge into skillfulness and awareness of God and God’s world -- http://bibleproject.com/explore/category/wisdom-series ).
I can’t help wondering how our worlds would be different if we took James 1:2-6 at its word and simply asked for this wisdom in all our creations and conundrums. (Designing spaces, interacting with humans, responding to a worldwide pandemic, responding to the pandemic at local levels, designing work leave policies, structuring our social help institutions . . . . I’m going to stop listing bcs it’s starting to step on my own toes, haha!)
Some nuns I am friends with told me that the order is often bequeathed houses from sisters’ dying parents or grandparents, but that they usually sell them rather than turn them into convents because most ordinary houses don’t convert to the sort of use the sisters need, with clear delineation between private and public spaces, spaces of silence, and accommodating a chapel. It struck me that it must be a real skill both to design convents and to communicate your community’s needs to secular architects.
“too often, the built world is the wrong shape, and we’re expected to change ourselves to accommodate what we’ve created”
Have been just sitting with the truth of this concluding statement this week. To me it sums up the general difference between God’s creation and ours.
There are times when we move closer to the way that God creates; not often but sometimes. Perhaps the Bible concept for this shift is the Hebrew word “chocma”-- “wisdom” (I’m pondering what The Bible Project’s Wisdom series explains, that this wisdom goes beyond the simple application of knowledge into skillfulness and awareness of God and God’s world -- http://bibleproject.com/explore/category/wisdom-series ).
I can’t help wondering how our worlds would be different if we took James 1:2-6 at its word and simply asked for this wisdom in all our creations and conundrums. (Designing spaces, interacting with humans, responding to a worldwide pandemic, responding to the pandemic at local levels, designing work leave policies, structuring our social help institutions . . . . I’m going to stop listing bcs it’s starting to step on my own toes, haha!)
Some nuns I am friends with told me that the order is often bequeathed houses from sisters’ dying parents or grandparents, but that they usually sell them rather than turn them into convents because most ordinary houses don’t convert to the sort of use the sisters need, with clear delineation between private and public spaces, spaces of silence, and accommodating a chapel. It struck me that it must be a real skill both to design convents and to communicate your community’s needs to secular architects.