Jottings on science, religion, technology, pop culture and faith from the Antipodes.

Faith & Religion

Wings of Fire?

Sometimes I just don’t want to read anymore books or papers on robots or virtual reality or cyberspace or transhumanism or the imago Dei. Just want to read something different to refresh myself. So today I dipped into the desert fathers and mothers, partly to look for something for another project and partly just to imbibe their wisdom. This passage struck me,

John said that a hermit saw in a rapture three monks standing on the edge of the sea and a voice came to them from the other side saying, ‘Take wings of fire and come to me.’ The first two did so and reached the other shore, but the third stayed where he was crying and weeping. Later on wings were given to him also, not of fire but weak and feeble so that he reached the other shore with great difficulty, sometimes in the water, sometimes over it. So it is with the present generation: the wings they are given are not of fire, they are weak and feeble.

You can make of it what you want but thoughts that struck me were what are the wings of fire we are being offered today and will we take them and fly to the farther shore? Or do we wail and gnash our teeth at the world, the church, our lives and settle for something less. The parable of the talents also springs to mind.

Negeb