A Possible Gospel And New Testament

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2007-02-07T17:01:00.000-08:00

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"Darius" aka Paul

Bright Silent Night

2006-12-03T08:57:00.000-08:00

A few of you have seen this; I posted it last December on another blog. But I think most of you haven’t, so thought I’d post it as seasonally appropriate. Won’t be able to check back for a while what with work to do around getting the new blog up and running hopefully in the first quarter of 2007.

It was Sunday, but there would be no school tomorrow. Winter break. It was pretty late. It had snowed all afternoon.

“Hey Mom – can we take the sled to the Pines?”

“I don’t see why not,” Mom said. I was thirteen, Lynne five. Even though I called her “Punko Kid” and “Scrubby Head” around the house, I was pretty responsible for her everyplace else.

We dressed in what you needed: long underwear, big mittens over gloves, layers of shirts, knit sweaters, hats, and heavy coats with hoods. We made our way to the door, closing it hard behind us.

I stepped inside the big old barn that was our garage and flicked on the single light bulb that threw its dim yellow light into the large interior. It felt even colder in there than outdoors, like the air had tried to go inside to warm up but didn’t realize there wasn’t any heat in the garage. Lynne waited near the light switch and I went back for the sled – the good new long one.

We pulled it down the driveway and up to the top of the hill. Under the streetlight, I noticed that the whole road was covered with snow.

“Wanna ride over?” I asked, looking from Lynne back down to the sled.

“Okay!” Lynne tottered stiffly in her snowsuit toward the edge and sort of fell backward. I guess it was really the only position she could have assumed.

I tugged hard once on the rope, and the nose lurched to point forward, then edged gently into the street-snow, packed but frosted over with the fine granular grit of the latest layering, as we left the familiar green glow of the street lamp behind us on top of Mt. Vernon to enter the dark tunnel of Grand Street. All the huddled houses had stopped chatting with each other from across the street like normal, while our metal runners whisked through the snow in fresh impressions that I could just make out when I spun around, still pulling, to find Lynne silently staring upward.

And the running runners started to whisper, This is the only time forever that you will be here together to hear this sound, so low that neither of us could make it out, only the whispery sound of it. But I could see that Lynne was going eye to eye with the stars back there, and that they were taking each other in, because she wasn’t moving at all or even talking. And because every once in a while I’d glance up and the stars would try and catch my eyes too, peeping between the tree branches whenever I looked ahead.

The wind blew. Little storms of ice-flakes rattled against my hood and collar. The deep shadows were standing steep and tall at the next dimly lit intersection ahead, looking cold enough to fall over and break. But they held up all right, their black shafts blending back into the dark tree trunks and limbs that reached up for the forever-dark that was glittering.

Always. Always and forever. Only the trees were speaking now, but not to each other, in a chorus of the same long note that no one could hear except us as I paused at the intersection with Noble to listen for cars before crossing, and there wasn’t a single one. And I pulled Lynne, who was still busy forgetting everything and remembering all, into the heavier playground snow that was never ploughed, and on down the first slope, which was gentle. I could still see ahead from the last outreach of the green streetlight at the final intersection behind us as I pulled ahead toward the all-black where I knew the hill was.

“Ya ready?” Lynne woke up from not sleeping and sat up behind me. “Yup!”

Whoosh… I shoved us off down the steep hillside leading toward the ball field that we couldn’t see but knew it was there, the snow steadily flowering in soft explosions that slowed us down to a short stop at the bottom. We sat there under a broad encirclement of trees that intimated forever, between the short breaths that were ours to hear for only a few more seconds.

“Wanna do it again?”

“Yes!” And we trudged back up for one more short ride down. And seeing that the snow was too soft and thick for much of a sled ride, I said, “We should have taken the toboggan.”

“Yeah,” Lynne said.

So we went home again, passing back the same way through the intersection of Grand with Infinity.

“How was it?” Mom asked, as we shook the last snow off our boots and set them in the tray.

“We should have brought the toboggan,” I replied.

“Pretty good!” Lynne added brightly.

Copyright © 2005 Paul Martin

To All from Paul (aka Darius aka PBS)

2006-10-21T09:29:00.000-07:00

I really appreciate people checking in from time to time and look forward to returning to blogging. It could be as much as a few or even several more months.

Just to clarify, I haven’t suspended blogging because of a downturn in health – that’s been going downhill for over a decade. I’ve been housebound and semi bedridden for years now - flat on my back on the order of eighteen or nineteen hours a day.

So without putting the blogging aside for a while, I’ll never finish a project I need to wrap up.

Without wanting to discourage good intentions, but…

Without wanting to discourage anybody’s good intentions, when it comes to the health problem, if you name it, I’ve tried it – along with a large number of things you’ve never heard of. I have a serious, severely disabling disease that we spent over ten years trying to resolve. We became semi pros at medical research; I traveled extensively, including Johns Hopkins and NIH. I saw world famous doctors.

And it turns out that there are a very small number of folks who have conditions that go beyond rare – they’re never diagnosed. That’s my status. We never gave up hope; it’s just that we tried everything, including every mainstream and alternative medicine people will want to suggest and some it’s unlikely any of you have ever heard of like myotherapy, spray and stretch, the Baldry technique, and even (frankly just to get my well meaning aunt to stop trying to sell me on it!) this deal where I sent my Polaroid photo to a guy in Canada who dipped it in his secret formula and then projected special energy rays at me for a couple hundred bucks.

Some of the boring details you may want to skip but since it sort of sounds like some people are wondering…

Though undiagnosed it’s nothing vague. No good days and bad days. Relentless progression for over twelve years. And while no vital organs are affected, pretty much everything that holds them together is. Findings include severe osteoporosis of the low back and left hip (despite normal hormone levels, which are normally off in men with osteo); skin lesions – only several of them, that developed over a period of years, but highly unusual: “consistent with Sarcoidosis” even though I don’t have Sarcoidosis; wasting away of soft tissue and connective tissue, including the padding on the soles of my feet (try Googling “loss of foot pad” – it’s unheard of); and permanent muscle spasms/taut bands throughout my back, shoulders, neck, and lower legs.

If you can name a relevant disease, I’ve been tested for it. And any disease you come across won’t be a good match for the findings I’ve just cited. The closest thing we found to a fairly good match was Mastocytosis – this was years after the doctors had pretty much given up and my sister and I were going all out on our own looking into rare diseases, what contaminants existed in the EPA clean up site in the hometown where we grew up… every angle you can think of. But I don’t have Mastocytosis. It was a simple blood test. And because one of the many things we learned over the years is that labs screw up tests once in a while, I had the test performed once the next year and once the year after that. Negative.

That’s it!

Thanks to everybody who keeps checking in, but I’ll be back… and with a new blog.

See you soon...

2006-08-20T09:13:00.000-07:00

I'll be back in a month or two and will check in with people when I return. Thanks for all your comments -

No Lie

For Jade and Darren, in memory of Devon

Child, don’t cry. So much
Can make us feel so sad.
Just keep your eyes on the prize
Wide as they can be, making your heart
Soft as strong can be, a steel feeling firmly
How it will not/cannot break. We shall overcome.

It takes some time child,
That I will admit for sure. Sometimes it even feels
God made some big mistakes,
As though he made us just to be
Forsaken. Child! Keep your eyes on the prize.
It’s only you and I sometimes
That stand mistaken, when our eyes
Are filled with pain that seems to rain
On everything we care about,
Blinding us with strain. It’s then that we begin
To turn our eyes beyond ourselves, outside that pain,
Sharing in the grace of greater eyes
And so many lives beyond our isolation.

This much is true, though it can be so hard to know:
We have to grow a while, feeling that small blue of being
No more than ourselves alone
Before we see into the wider blue
Of all that we are up to --
Not clearly yet, but with the powerful sincerity
Of meaning it, roaring with a seeking
Louder, deeper, than our self-deceit.
Cry only for that little while because you must
All of my God’s children, and then see:
It isn’t that God doesn’t care. He oversees us
Each and all, but God is very tall and sees things
Broadly – as you and I may even live to see.
Over our own shoulders, he is seeing every one of us,
And that can make us feel alone sometimes,
But God’s on everybody’s side, eyes already on the prize
So wide he sees it all. God knows already: you and I
My child, are only playing catch-up ball.

Yet each of us can see through those same eyes
That are not quite our own
But each of us may borrow for awhile.
Eyes on the prize, we shall overcome ourselves
The way an ocean’s fingertip briefly
Touches just the furthest reach
Of a shore that everybody seeks
And for a moment warms and brightens underneath the sun
Before it melts and fades within
The sea’s embrace again. And yet
This is a tide that has been rising
Since before the dawn of time.

No surprise, the prize is not specific. Nothing
You can buy, though many try and only waste
Their precious little time, eyes on the lie.
The prize is big. Infinitely greater than Atlantic
Or Pacific. There isn’t any package. If you ask,
You may even think there’s nothing to it
But everything is there, not yet aware
My lovely child, learning to stand tall.
Don’t you be another one lost stalling
When the only One is calling to us all.
Think big thoughts. Love large and wide.
For all of us one day will turn the tide,
And it will be there: waters clear and still,
And you and I will even walk on them: one continent
Where all of us will make a common stand
To find contentment in a Promised Land
Where God will laugh out loud and tell us all how odd
He thought it was we didn’t even know
That each of us is chosen.

Paul Martin © 2005

A Possible Topic??

2006-08-13T18:40:00.000-07:00

“Percy”…

OK, I haven’t really been on blogging vacation. I have this other blog that’s totally wacky. Percy Bysshe Shelley was a leading Romantic era English poet. I love nineteenth century lit, and can even sort of write that way a little.

So I invented this character named Percy Bysshe Silly. It was just to poke fun about a few things concerning writing, romance, and the sexes – for example, the way that poetry, especially if it isn’t “gritty” or “hard edged,” is equated with effeminacy in the minds of many Americans. Percy ends up being this overly pugnacious, flirtatious, and yet loquacious character, all at the same time.

A Big Mistake?

Lately I’ve been running here and there into quite a lot of anti-Islam, anti-Muslim blogging. I made what may have been the big mistake of trying to discuss the topic of bigotry with people who appear to have bigoted attitudes toward Muslims.

A number of things have bothered me about this:

1. A lot of the anti-Muslim sentiment is coming from Christians.

2. Trying to converse with people who are anti-Muslim is difficult. What seems to happen in discussion threads is that I reply to them point by point. They usually respond by ignoring most or all of my responses; and just give more “evidence” for how rotten they think Muslims are.

3. When they do respond to my points, it’s often by misrepresenting them.

4. The responses are often laced with personal attack.

5. With one person, the response has been pure hate. I’ve become included in the apparently quite expansive category of people that this particular individual loves to hate. As a “Muslim sympathizer,” I suppose.

Please Post Here, There, or Bothwheres...

I’ve just done one more post on bigotry on my formerly fun blog:

Romantic

What do you think? Is it useless, or even counterproductive to discuss bigotry with someone who has bigoted attitudes? Despite its irrationality, is it impossible for someone to reason their way out of prejudice?

If that’s the case, is there any way that non-Muslims can constructively take a stand against anti-Islamic bigotry?

1. To leave a “meta-comment” – a comment about the usefulness or uselessness of trying to discuss the subject of bigotry – please leave your comment here on this blog.

2. To become embroiled in actual discussion of the topic, please post to the "Romantic" link above.

Still going with the lazy summer flow...

2006-08-06T07:40:00.000-07:00

We continue to interrupt regular possiblegospel programming while lots of bloggers remain on vacation with stuff like:

Timepiece

Slow-gathering and known
By gravity alone,
A replete drop plops once.
One terse slap, then boundlessly unsounded,
Precisely bookmarked by the universe.

By Popular Demand

2006-07-31T17:54:00.000-07:00

You might want to read the previous post and thread if you expect what follows to make any sense at all. You might also want to skip both.

WARNING: Intended for immature audiences.

The Interlude
A Classical Scene of Arboreal Scandal and Intrigue

“Too sexy for my leaves” –
Thus will sing the nubile trees
At summer’s end (this is a prophecy)
In gusty breezes to perform
That burlesque autumn ritual
Of old: baring branches and revealing
Shapely, stately forms. Beneath one such,
Our Crystal sings a holy Catholic hymn,
And yet with Rachel, who stands near,
Wears nothing but strategic
Low-cut maple leaves,
Some holly in her hair; and leers.
Doug, the pastor, is aghast,
And looks up at the sky real fast
Attempting to see less of leaf and limb.
A simple, private man, and unbeknownst
To most of those who love him, he too
Has thoughts of “goofy sex with trees;”
And yet, like every person of the cloth,
Has taken secret, sober vows
Against such earthly liberties.

The branches shake. From high above
It’s Aidan dropping down upon the ground.
He looks upon the growing crowd
Then sings, with that familiar Beatles sound:
“Why don’t we do it in the trees?”
Gautami and GP are clapping overheatedly,
While Matthew, adding to this sweetly surreal
Scene of floral sensuality,
Holds forth clinically on arboreal sex
In a manner mostly detached,
Somewhat debauched,
Yet somehow scholarly; when ThursdayNext
Sidles alongside, a spy with pinecones
To inquire in a dangerous insinuating way:
“Mon cher Monsieur Matthew –
Parlez vous francais?”

ATTN People Who Read without Commenting

2006-07-30T07:04:00.000-07:00

Crunching the Numbers: Your Vote Counts!

Statistics show that July and August are respectively 25% and 18% slower-than-average blogging months – BS (Bureau of Statistics, 2006).

Since I have upcoming posts on deck that I think are among “Possiblegospel’s” better ones, I figure why not wait until people come back from vacation and meanwhile catch up on business such as taking polls?

The Two Polls: One for Normal Commentators; One for the Vast Silent Majority of Blog Readers Who Never Make Comments

Normal Commentators: Would you like the next stalling-for-time post to be

- About a tree – this would be really good tree-writing…
- About sex – It’s pretty good, but the writing’s less compelling than the tree one.
- Something goofy and/or childish

Vast Silent Majority of Blog Readers:

I have often been told that people read blogs who are not themselves bloggers. PROVE IT! My thesis is that this can’t possibly be true and that hit counters just measure random hits accounted for by the fact that millions and millions of people go online and mistype stuff or otherwise accidentally click onto blogs...

So if there are people reading this blog who have never commented, I hereby demand proof of your existence. You guys must be extremely shy or unopinionated. Then don’t venture anything, just anonymously post a comment like, “Yes, I do exist!”

WARNING: Without mentioning any names for example MATTHEW, I am aware that certain bloggers who leave comments here have certain jocular tendencies that normally remain latent but which a post like this could easily draw out. Please, you guys who normally post, no signing in as Anonymous to try and distort the numbers. I want this to be free and fair voting but can’t afford a UN or Carter Foundation monitor.

SILENT MAJORITY PEOPLE: YOU can help reduce the risk of voter fraud by adding specific, compelling details to your remarks. Example:

Anonymous said… I am a nubile young woman who hangs upon your every word and must blushingly confess that I am as in love with the author as the blog itself.

Or,

Anonymous said… I am a Siberian fur trapper and can tell the difference between the tracks of a Ligerian Double-Pronged Brown Deer and the closely related Great Northern Gap-Toothed Antelope.

Thank you for your anticipated cooperation –

Darius

Gospel, Chapter 16: Scribes, Pharisees, etc.

2006-07-23T10:58:00.000-07:00

On Wealth

Jesus: “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” {= wealth} Mat 6:24.

Jesus: “Truly I tell you, it will be hard for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Mat 19:24.

Jesus entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things. He said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.” Luke 19:45-46.

And Jesus addressed the far-right Christian leadership – the televangelists, mega-ministers, and comfortable priests “Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.” Luke 12:15.

And just to be sure, he added:

“Woe to you leaders of the Christian far-right! For you market false piety, give support to corrupt officials, and neglect the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.” Cf. Mat 23:23.

On Hypocrisy

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.” Mat 23:25-26.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” Mat 23:27-28.

“But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them. Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.” Mat 23:13-15.

Therefore beware of false ministers in shepherd’s clothing who you can easily know by their fruits. A good tree bears good fruit and a bad tree bad. Cf. 7:16-17.

Many preach without practicing. Many who are first will be last. Cf. Mat 19:30.

Many are those who say, “Lord, Lord,” or shout “Mohammed,” supposing they will enter the kingdom of heaven. Yet only those who do God’s will enter heaven, and these are already at the gate. Cf. Mat 7:21.

Those who most indulge in God-talk are among those who know God least.

The prayers of those who are in a position to help but will not do so are blasphemous.

On Lunacy

Render unto God what is God’s and science what belongs to science. Cf. Mat 22:21.

Those who eagerly await apocalypse and rapture are like someone yelling “Beware!” at the foot of a mountain that is prone to avalanches.

Death did not come through sin - silly. The flowers of the field die too (cf. Mat 6:28); yet who has written concerning the disobedience of Adam Dandelion and Eve Petunia in the flower-garden of Og? Because we may perceive death as bad, its occurrence does not mean that an Other-God is punishing us. Let us weed our own gardens, putting away childish thoughts. Cf. Romans 5:12-14.

It is not written, “Be fruitful and multiply until the earth becomes uninhabitable for your children.” Cf. Gen 1:28.

Are you focused on the “unborn?” Then let your concern rest chiefly with the state of the earth that will be inherited from us by the full-fledged and indisputable human beings of the generations to come. Worry more about your grandchildren and less about their fertilized eggs.

Seek but you will not find Bible verses about birth control pills, embryos, stem cell research, or the phrase, “right to life.” Though we find Jesus intervening with love and compassion for the lives of many, none are embryos.

An acorn is not an oak.

Gospel, Chapter Fifteen: Vengeance, Oppression, and Prophesy

2006-07-09T09:20:00.000-07:00

Do not confuse the justice of equality with the justice of revenge. The first heals the world; the second tears it apart.

We keep, settle, and compare scores with one another; therefore many of us have imagined the existence of an Other-God who keeps and settles scores. Yet the kingdom will not come to heaven as it is done on earth, but to earth as it is done in heaven. Cf. Mat 6:10.

Do not judge, for there is one measure; and when meted out in full, there will be no distinctions. Abandon judgment; set aside reward and punishment. For you cannot punish some and reward others, but will punish all. Cf. Mat 7:1-5, Luke 6:37-38, Luke 9: 54-55, John 8:10-11.

Wield the sword of spiritual discernment unsparingly. Unsheathe the sword of violence only if other means have failed, and then wield it sparingly: not for punishment or conquest of those you may be tempted to label evildoers and less human than yourself, but to serve and defend the well-being of the greater good and larger whole. Cf. Mat 10:34.

What is a prophet?

A prophet does not predict the future but may help create it.

In our time we had a prophet named King who helped lead us in a direction away from bigotry. He did not predict civil rights law. He helped create it by way of his life because enough of us listened.

He had begun to speak against poverty but was murdered. It is written that the poor will always be with us (Mat 26:11); but their unsafe and threatened lives, in growing numbers, are a threat to everyone, and a disgrace to those living in luxury.

No prophecy is needed to see that unless we overcome poverty and injustice, it has the potential to overcome us all.

Gospel, Chapter Fourteen: Empire

2006-07-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

Pick One…

It is written: “Whoever is not against you is for you.” Luke 9:50. No crusades necessary.

It is also written: “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” Luke 11:23. Freedom Fries and “Bring ‘em on…” (George W. Bush).

All Bible verses are not equally inspired.

Woes

Woe to the politicized scribes and Pharisees of the age! You imagine that you hide the heights of selfishness behind a fig leaf of submission to what you call the will of God but which is plainly your own as you seek to fulfill social and political agendas of power-seeking and wealth-grabbing. You read scripture like lawyers, selecting verses that support your own notions while ignoring those that resonate for all with ears to hear. Ignorance which is certain of itself is dark indeed, masking hatred and fear that are black with being unexamined and unknown.

Woe to you scribes and Pharisees who attain political office, seeking to render unto Caesar what is God’s and imagining that your hypocrisy is not transparent to many when you insert faith-speak into your political speeches. You execute selfish plans in the name of the Author of unselfishness, deceiving many others. You sow seeds of discord among the faithful of the nations. Truly it would be better for you if you were chained to a great Humvee and offloaded into the depths of the sea. Cf. Mat 18:6.

Little Caesar fondles corporate purses, then salts his sound-bites with unsavory God-talk; and neglects the poor, the homeless, the hungry, the sick, and stewardship of the earth. We are to render unto Caesar what belongs to Caesar; yet anyone with eyes to see, can see that less and less belongs to little Caesar’s sphere.

Jesus did not say, “Hold fund-raising banquets for the rich and cripple programs that help the poor, the lame, and the blind.” He said, “But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind.” Luke 14:13.

The Kingdom Is At Hand

Do not imagine that we still live in a democracy. In 1976 the Supreme Court (Buckley v. Valeo) ruled that spending money to influence elections is a form of free "speech” protected by the First Amendment. Although politicians regularly perform song and dance routines around the idea of campaign finance reform at election time, the ruling is never brought up. They like it. It’s how they got where they are – with money donated by wealthy corporate sponsors

The result is that today we have government of, by, and for big business. At election time, we pick from among candidates not of our choice or making, but as offered up by corporate America. The founding fathers did their best, but the wealthy have figured out how to control democracy’s institutions. Rule by the wealthy is at hand.

Gospel, Chapter 13: The Man in White

2006-06-28T15:07:00.000-07:00

If I Were: The Man in White

A manly man of dread you’d see,
My white hat white as white can be,
But evildoers best beware
Of Johnny Eastwood’s manly stare…

I’d stare into the eyes of guys
And know their souls, it’s no surprise,
Evangelizing on the side
I even speak in strange tongue-ties.

God is love but God is wrath,
And Wrath, by God, is workin’ hard,
And I’m his sword, and I’m his rod,
I love that role - no need to prod!

A silver spoon got in my mouth
But daddy yanked and pulled it out
So standin’ proud, a Texan tall,
Pulled myself up, bootstraps ‘n all,

Became a clever man of words
Of firm resolve, unflinching nerves,
So when those Saudis plane-attacked
I said we’d best take out Iraq

Just like I wanted anyway…
In this and many other ways
I oversee the rule of law,
Like Congress balking - I foresaw.

If I’d spoke to them and tried
Requesting, as the law requires,
Permission for domestic spying,
They might have gone and tried denying.

That’s why I grabbed my zecutive branch
To bushwhack ‘em, like on the ranch.
Amendment fans, just stop yer cryin’,
That first one’s dumb, and I ain’t lyin’…

I tell you that Guantanamo
Lies far outside of my control.
If you’re concerned with human rights
It’s Castro that ya need to fight.

To torture we would never sink
We outsource that, it’s wut… “distinct?”
They signed some notes that say, “We did it,”
Who cares what happens down in Egypt?

I am the axis of the good
God talks to me just like he should,
I’m just a simple Christian mogul
Whose will belongs to Exxon-Mobile.

Gospel, Chapter Twelve: The Right Way

2006-06-25T18:57:00.000-07:00

In a comment recently, Misti asked, “How does one live life?” Without pretending that one person can answer that question for another person, it’s still a good question. So this unplanned post is an attempt to say something in response to Misti’s question that may at least be relevant.

The contents of the two pieces that follow have similarities, but also differences. They help illustrate something about the general answer to the question of how to live as I’ve experienced it. They also show how the answer to this question changes – without, I think, changing direction – according to our stage of life and life circumstances.

Start of the Season

for Laura

I love the way this gangly grade-school girl
Sun-lit, freckle-spangled,

Surprises me with real speed sprinting for first base
Growing into her long legs.

I love the way she makes the God in me
Spread slowly into a long grin.

Broad as the greening lawn, my love rounds third for home
Growing into its own world.

Around twenty years later…

Tenacity Prayer: The Wisdom to Make a Difference

Let me understand that no special arrangements have been made for me by the circumstances of reality to nurture my potential into being, and that I will have to make do with the general arrangements.

Let me acknowledge that in this struggling and imperfect world, I may falter badly or even fail in attempting my love’s best work.

Let me come to fully know our faith that, win or lose, the Whole that holds us all will ultimately be all right.

In light of these understandings, give me this courage: the willingness to do all I can while I can to make what difference I am able to.

Gospel, Ch. 11: The Far Right is Way Wrong

2006-06-21T08:37:00.000-07:00

Ever Since the First Century…

They say that Jesus came not to bring peace, but a sword, Mat 10:34. I say that Jesus came to bring peace; and that those who wrote about him offer us a sword of spiritual discernment through which we may hope to find it. For there is a Jesus to embrace; and a Jesus to disown, doubting the words that have been put into his mouth.

The Christ of Condemnation

“And you, Capernaum, will you be exalted to heaven? No, you will be brought down to Hades.” Luke 10:15. Here the same Jesus who rebukes James and John for wanting to bring fire down on those who would not receive him, and who saves an adulterous woman from stoning, is said to have condemned a city to hell for not accepting him.

“Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” John 3:18

“The one who believes and is baptized will be saved; but the one who does not believe will be condemned.” Mark 16:16

Jesus, allegedly addressing Jews who do not believe that he is the Savior: “Why do I speak to you at all? I have much to say about you and much to condemn…” John 8:25-26.

Christ the Hate-Monger: Blinded by the Log in His Eye (Cf. Mat 7:1-5.)

He supposedly continues as follows: “You are from your father the devil, and you choose to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature for he is a liar and the father of lies. But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me.” John 8:44- 45

Again: “It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, ‘He is our God’, though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you.” John 8:54-55.

Or, in other words: “Liar, liar, pants on fire…” A Messiah who lacks basic social skills? Truly it is to be doubted that Jesus ever said these things.

And again: “If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not have sin. But now they have seen and hated both me and my Father. It was to fulfill the word that is written in their law, “They hated me without a cause.” John 15:22-25.

A world of black and white, of good guys vs. fiendish evildoers who hate truth because it is true and goodness because it is good. Truly, Jesus was ahead of his time; for he was a George Bush Christian.

Christ the Crusader

Jesus allegedly to his disciples: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” Mat 28:19-20.

Go therefore and establish perpetual tension and division between Christians and sincere adherents of all other traditions. Ignore the spiritual wisdom of indigenous peoples the world over, look down upon spiritual traditions East and West more ancient than your own, and revered by millions; and be at war forever with millions more who will belong to the Islamic faith that will arise five hundred years later, many of them just as certain as many Christians are that they own God’s truth because they have it in writing and bought the book.

All Bible verses are not equally inspired.

If the grounds for their respective beliefs that are offered by Jews, Christians, and Muslims are really compelling, then why aren’t all thoughtful and spiritual persons Jews; or Christians; or Muslims? Is it because two out of three of these groups are evildoers that perversely hate goodness and truth because goodness is good and truth is true?

Let us judge with right judgment (cf. John 7:24) and condemn condemnation. Let us stand with Jesus, and not with first century theologians and proselytizers who were willing to put words into his mouth that ring as shrill and hateful as the words of some today who profess Christianity or Islam, yet practice the religion of Us vs. them.

Gospel, Chapter Ten: Sin is Compelled

2006-06-18T07:01:00.000-07:00

Sin Is Compelled through Self-Ignorance

”When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified Jesus there with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’” Luke 23: 33-34. Sin is ignorance. Sin is not chosen.

Indeed, it is compelled. As Saint Paul puts it, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” Romans 7:15.

“Very truly, I tell you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.” John 8:34. It is when we know who we are that our words and actions are compelled by neither a sense of threat nor a ravenous desire that disguises fear.

Reflect Upon Yourself; Do Not Judge Others

“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get. Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbor, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye’, while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbor’s eye.” Mat 7:1-5.

Jesus saved a woman from being put to death for adultery by challenging anyone who was without sin to cast the first stone. The crowd dispersed.

And Jesus said to her: ‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” The woman replied, “No one, sir.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you. Go your way, and from now on do not sin again.” John 8:10-11.

Against Punishment

Concerning some who would not receive Jesus: “When his disciples James and John saw it, they said, ‘Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?’ But he turned and rebuked them.” Luke 9: 54-55.

“Do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned.” Luke 6:37.

Do what is necessary to protect the innocent and strive to enlighten the guilty rather than punish them. Punishment is vengeance. It does nothing to instill a conscience in adults, and only embitters them further.

Judgment is False

All persons are incomparable. Make no comparisons. When you say, “If I were her, I wouldn’t have done that,” and, “If I were him I would have done this instead,” you judge with false judgment. For if you were in fact that other person, then “you” would not be you at all; you would be him or her. Therefore you have no way of knowing that you would not have done just the same. All that you know, or suppose that you know, is that if you were in the other’s situation you would have acted differently; but you may not even know this.

To choose evil over good while knowing evil as evil and good as good is like a farmer who tied his wheat in bundles and had it burned, gathering and saving the chaff for bread. Or it is like someone who went out to buy shoes and rejected a stylish and comfortable pair in favor of odd-looking shoes that pinched her feet. Those who do evil know not what they do.

Gospel, Chapter Nine: Jason

2006-06-14T09:08:00.000-07:00

Eternal suffering or endless joy - well, I don’t know.
But I can plainly see the thin pale weakness of your limbs right now,
Your white face and startled eyelids that flutter open
When your name is spoken
And you wonder if this is the last time you will hear it
From the loved lips of mother or brother.
Even the word of comfort worries now.
A hand upon your shoulder is appreciated but remote,
Worlds away in the world of we who will still be here tomorrow
When your troubles now are deeper even than a doctor’s hand can go.
Jason, the hell is in your tiredness of tubes and vomit,
Of this well meaning albatross of a hospital hung around your neck
When all you wanted was to toss a football after school
And learn to flirt with girls.

And the heaven, oh the heaven is in how
When I returned this afternoon after a summer’s absence to find you
Wheelchair-bound again, you briefly hurled your head up
From the pillow in your lap where it had been
To greet me with your glad voice.
Grown strange and small, it plainly meant to shout – and so it rang.
And I saw fear
had a back door
And heaven
in the breaking of a light through clouds.

When the pain has stopped, may every joy you meant to shout,
Find, fill, flood you when it breaks your borders,
Passing even now into the songs of other lives.

Gospel, Chapter Eight: Saint Satan

2006-06-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

New Readers, Please Note: There is an “About Possible Gospel” link at the right to give a quick idea of where I’m coming from in doing this blog. There are also a couple definitions at the foot of this post. You could call it an experiment. Or possibly, "virtual performance art?” Anyway, since I’m writing more or less in a gospel-style, sometimes I do state things forcefully. But I truly welcome all points of view in comments, very much including those of conservative Christians.

However: if instead of exchanging ideas you find yourself calling me names, sneering, attempting condescension, weeping, wailing, or otherwise gnashing your teeth, your comment won’t go through. Not that I mind being called, “The False Messiah.” (Yes, this was an actual comment.) Rather flattering in its way I guess. But most comments along these lines are more monotonous than humorous, and make for boring reading. So let’s keep it in perspective, conservatives. This is a miniscule blog. Christian conservatism, well-funded, well-organized, and increasingly well-established in America’s government, is in no danger from this little blog, which has maybe 12 regular readers. Twelve? OMG…!!!

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It’s a Tough Job, an’ He’s Been Workin’ Hard for This Administration

On the June 4 post, we noted that the New Testament presents Satan as entering into Judas to make him betray Jesus, allowing for Jesus’ crucifixion and salvation of the world. Satan is actually involved with helping to realize the divine plan from the ground up. For even more fundamentally, so to speak, we find him in the Garden of Eden (Genesis, chap. three), tempting Adam and Eve to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil - creating the very conditions necessary for the free choice that so many Christians firmly believe in today, and that thankfully prevented the human race from living in the innocent and harmonious love of God forever.

Anyway, my main point is that what with Satan going around doing so much good in the world, why blame him for anything?

Theogology

On the contrary – poor, devoted Satan! He is the “fall guy” in Other-God’s plan, doing all the unpopular sorts of things that Og himself would never even think of doing personally; and all for the sake of realizing The Plan. And in return for all his bad/good work, he’s going to hell! And yet what greater love is there than this: that one divine Entity (kind of) should give his life for his divine Entity friend! (Cf. John 15:13)

Satan as “fallen” angel? I think not! Truly the Devil is the veritable Saint of Angels, or even the world’s co-Messiah – and the one with the harder cross to bear!

The idea that in the end, Og sends a Satan who has done so much for him straight to hell would be disturbing, except that I am confident that any theologian worth his salt could be inspired to make up a deeply mysterious reason to explain this. Indeed, perhaps the deepest of all mysteries is the ability of theologians to explain their favorite dogmas in an infinite number of ways. Love is the greatest gift; but theology the most abundant one. Cf. I Cors 13:13

And with all this interaction among the Father, Son, the Holy Ghost, and the Devil, to say nothing of the intercessionary cast of the Virgin Mother and all the saints, I propose taking this opportunity right now to bow our heads and thank Og-the-Father that we Christians are strict monotheists who have left all forms of pagan pantheism light years behind. Otherwise, things would get really complicated - especially in today’s culture. Og would need to employ more theologians to do actual theology, leaving him fewer to spare for political speech writers.

Return to Kansas

Looking for something to really be afraid of? Let’s stop and consider whether we may harbor any unexamined fears or hatred.

But if you remain tempted by the Satan of Og, just click your heels three times and repeat after me (three times, of course): “’Devil’ get thee hence!” Mat 4:10 But be sure to say “Devil” in quotes.

As to the fire, have eyes to see the light: certain Wizards wearing long robes have been blowing smoke all along, not fire and brimstone.

Hell is hatred. Hell is bitter vengeance. Hell is unworthy of the mind of God.

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Definitions – for New Readers:

Og (“Other" or "Objectified" God): The Creator that western religion has imagined as existing separately and in distinction from being, existence, or creation itself.

God: Being, existence, or creation itself - which is itself in-process of creating; the only One in whom each of us truly lives and moves and has our being.

Outcry and Angst

2006-06-08T19:07:00.000-07:00

(Friggin’ Blogger)

My previous post is really the real one.
This one’s a pain; it’s not any real fun.
Once Blogger Inc. was a boon, not a bane,
But now it could easily drive us insane.

If a rival blog-host would step in, I’d jump ship
But when Blogger works well, it’s so easy - a cinch.
So although I flinch every time I log in,
I’m trying to be patient, I’m trying to be thin.

(Needed something to rhyme but have limited time…)

For now please just look at my June seven poem
Don’t bother with this – did the thing even post?
Come on, cut it out, this was only in jest,
Don’t persist to the end; please cease and desist.

Yet I know this remonstrance will never pan out
Connectivity’s fleeting, and readers, no doubt,
Some in faith, some in fear, will be moved to press on
As long as for now Blogger seems to be on.

PS: If comments exceed those of previous post, I’ll explode with reproach; you’ll be virtual toast.

But I’m temporarily OUTA HERE!

Gospel, Chapter Seven: A Child Under Heaven

2006-06-07T16:34:00.000-07:00

I.

One day
Not so long ago, Jessica’s eyes
Opened wide looking at the sky.
“Why’s the sky blue?” she asked her Dad.
Her Dad said, “You’ll learn that in science class someday.”
Her Dad was very busy.

Jessica kept looking at the sky.
It made her dizzy.

Only a few long clouds
Were climbing into that blue
So full of empty. Back outside,
Out loud,
Jessica wondered to the sky,
“So how come you’re so blue?”

“Why aren’t you blue?” said Sky.
Jessica wasn’t feeling shy
And placed both hands on her hips:
“I don’t really need
This kind of attitude from you…”

II.

The air came out of Sky
Swirling

And leaves and twigs got in her hair.
Sky sounded sort of mad
But gentle at the same time,
And the way that he was cold
Made Jessica tingle and feel warm inside.

Sky Said: “Why does mist rise
White in the morning, what makes rubber bands
So snappy or seeing grandma
Make you happy? How come birds have wings,
Why’s chocolate cream pie practically
The very best thing, how come people dream at night
And why does boiling water turn to steam?”
Jessica raised her hand quickly,
Forgetting that she wasn’t in class.
“I know that last part! Water’s steamy when it gets too hot!”

And Sky replied: “And what makes water steamy
When it gets too hot?”
Even though Jessica was sort of amazed
That Sky could keep going on
This way,
Still she wasn’t through:
“Hey! These are all trick questions, ya know…”

III.

“Okay, said Sky, “I’ll ask an easy one...”

“How come crayons make those lines
Pink, white, green, red, brown,
Black and blue,
Anytime you draw?”

“Of course cause they have colors.”

“What makes the colors come out?”

“Because I rub them on the paper.”

“Why do you rub them on the paper?”

“Because I like to draw.”

“And why do you like to draw…?”

“Just because I do, I guess… That’s how I’m made?”

“Phew!” said Sky, letting our a big gust
That drove away a lot of mist.
“I think you might be getting this!”

“Well then, how come I’m made this way?”
Jessica’s hands had just started
To go back on her hips again, when…

“THAT’S the trick question!” shouted Sky.

IV.

Sky widened both eyes and Jessica saw
That blue was just how they were made too.
They were just being blue.
So she replied, “Same goes for you?”
And Sky just smiled.

Then, for just a few minutes,
Sky rained oodles of little “whys,”
Making splashy puddles of word puzzles.
Sky’s sunny smile came back out to dry the last one out
And Jessica helped by jumping in the middle
To see how “whys” go scattering about.
Now Jessica was mesmerized,
Which was a whole new word,
And feeling almost wise
Even though she was only seven.

When I look straight up at you
I almost feel like I could be
That high and wide too, she sighed.
And this reminded her
Of heaven.

V.

Jessica stayed awhile
Staring at the sky. She was feeling
What it felt like being there with Sky
In almost the same place at the same time
And she started to fall asleep
When she heard Sky wind-whisper in her ear:
Everywhere has all the somewheres
From all over stuck together.
Do you suppose that every somewhere
Knows its only home is everywhere?

And Jessica slipped sleeping into a deep dream
About Sky holding her hand safely
Through the swirling leaves and swaying branches.
The sidewalks were made of air
And even the houses were floating around,
But no one in the land was scared.
And she could even slide whole mountains out of the way
Using her free hand.

Gospel, Chapter Six: A Hell of a Problem

2006-06-04T07:07:00.000-07:00

Definitions: Please note the two definitions at the bottom of the post if new to this blog…

Like Og, the devil catches us on the horns of many a dilemma. Examples:

Visiting the Sins of the Devil Upon the Possessed

“Then Satan entered into Judas called Iscariot, who was one of the twelve; he went away and conferred with the chief priests and officers of the temple police about how he might betray him to them.” Luke 22:3-4 Again: “The devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him.” John 13:2

The devil is said to make us sin; yet Other-God still judges and condemns those who sin grievously enough. The sins of the devil are visited upon those whom the devil violates.

The theological reason for this is no doubt “mysterious,” or deeply contradictory. For example, theologians might say that we sin by allowing the devil to enter into us. And this is dark doo-doo indeed. If Judas, for example, had just said no to the devil, then Jesus would not have been crucified and resurrected according to divine plan. Judas had to turn him in. The devil’s work is Og’s.

A Devil of a Plan

The gospels tell us that really bad works are absolutely necessary for the unfolding of Og’s perfect plan; for everything is preconceived and foreordained, down to every detail. Og sees everything ahead of time; so don’t worry, it’s all under control. Things always happen just the way they’re supposed to, even when they look – well, really bad. Here are just a couple of the numerous examples from the gospels illustrating the existence of The Advance-Plan:

“Then he took the twelve aside and said to them, ‘See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and everything that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished. For he will be handed over to the Gentiles; and he will be mocked and insulted and spat upon. After they have flogged him, they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.’” Luke 18:31-33

And:

“His disciples said… ‘Now we know that you know all things, and do not need to have anyone question you; by this we believe that you came from God.’” John 16: 29-30

The gospels suggest that the world is not as an ongoing act of God’s creation in which we genuinely participate, but a divine plan prearranged in all its particulars, including choreographed performances by people possessed by Satan. The books that some Christians call the literal words of the Other-God depict this world’s events as absolutely predetermined by Him.

Evil With a Good Conscience

How then, do Christians who favor a divine plan world-view reconcile it with notions of “personal responsibility” and “free choice” that are often extreme and amount to:

“Because I did this good thing, you could have done it too; because I avoided this evil thing, you could have avoided it too. And ya should of.”

Yet from a divine plan perspective, evil people are just doing what they’re supposed to do. They’re being as conscientious as anybody can be, which is to say they’re walking around doing exactly what they have to do. Kind of like robots, automatons, or zombies.

If those who do bad things do so because they are inhabited by the devil in a manner mysteriously planned for ahead of time by the all-good Og, then exactly what is it that makes evil “evil” at all? And why are those who commit evil blamed and held responsible for it? Seems downright unconscionable.

Definitions –

Og (“Other-God”): The Creator that western religion has imagined as existing separately and in distinction from being, existence, or creation itself.

God: Being, existence, or creation itself - which is itself in-process of creating; the only One in whom each of us truly lives and moves and has our being.

Gospel, Chapter Five: The Problems of Evil

2006-06-01T07:24:00.000-07:00

But Ain’t That Og…

From within the One, the only problem of evil is the real problem of evil: how to overcome it, first within ourselves and then in the world. But a second problem – the riddle of evil – arises when we believe in the existence of an Other-God who is both all good and all powerful. “All powerful” is usually understood as having no limitations or constraints upon his power.

I call this all-powerful and all-good Other-God, the alleged Creator of creation and an Entity supposed to exist in distinction from the rest of being or nature, “Og” - the one with the missing letter who’s got it backwards. The problem that the existence of evil presents for Og is a logical contradiction that can never be resolved. Every proposed solution reduces Og’s power; for no one, understandably, wants to reduce Og’s goodness.

But Og - There’s a Razor Blade in My Apple…

Here are the major walls that we run into when we play, “Og: Escape from Evil:”

First, an Other-God able to pull anything into existence that he wanted like a rabbit out of a hat would have brought his Kingdom to fulfillment from the beginning. We would be in heaven now.

Some say that Og allowed for evil in the world so that we would be free to choose between good and evil; otherwise, it’s said that we would be “robots,” “automatons,” or “zombies,” and not humans. But to assert that Og had to allow for evil is to place a major limitation on his power. An all-powerful Og could have brought about his desired end of fully human beings dwelling with Him forever in heaven without being under any constraint to use a methodology that involves putting many of us through hell on earth in order to get from here to there. No means to his desired end could have been forced on Og. He’s just that kind of Guy.

Why would a Guy like that have needed any means at all? If an all-powerful Og created the world from nothing (“ex-nilos”), then Og could have created the best and ultimate world ex-nilos.

If we want to overlook this basic logic and still insist that Og decided to give us “free choice,” whatever that is - choice in a vacuum, with no influences at all, I guess? - on account of how this was necessary to save us all from zombiehood (Note: “necessary” = “had to” = limitation on Og’s power, but okay, let’s just try and forget about that one…), then surely Og could have created a world in which we were free to choose between good and better. Free choice does not require a choice between good and evil. When we let our young children choose something to play with, we do not include razor blades or knives among the choices.

… And Besides: Zombies Have Feelings Too

Furthermore, to assume that we do in fact have “free choice” is a big assumption. In fact, no one knows whether or what or if we choose; for time moves one way, and there is no going back for a do-over to learn if we really could have done differently at those times when we look back and feel as though it would have been possible. Feeling so is not knowing so. We cannot know that our lives aren’t simply or primarily the determined outcomes of our genes interacting with our environments

We do not know that we have free choice. Therefore we cannot know that, lacking free choice, we would become automatons and lose our status as warm-blooded, passionate human beings whose actions sometimes feel more compelled (someone is holding a gun to our head) and at other times feel less compelled, and even relatively free. (My personal speculation regarding choice vs. determinism is that it’s really something in-between – maybe you could call it, “influenced choice.” There are strong influences on us, but we do appear to have some degree of choice.)

Woe then, to you right-wing Christians who speak of zombies and automatons! For you have watched bad sci-fi and allowed it to influence your theology. Cf. Mat 23

Gospel, Chapter Four: Alpha, Omega, and the Kingdom

2006-05-29T08:56:00.000-07:00

Alpha

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God; and the Word was One with God from the beginning. All things came into being through the Word that was born to give the nameless form; truly without it not one thing came into being. What has come into true being is the life that is the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it. True light has come into the world; and anyone with eyes to see may testify. Cf. John 1:1-9

Omega

We will come into the presence of the One in whose presence we dwelt before the world existed: then, like a flower in the night. And the One will dwell in us as we have dwelt within the One: the circle opened like a flower to the light. Cf. John 17:5

Parables of the Mustard Seed and the Yeast

“The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” Mat 13: 31-32

“The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.” Mat 13:33

Hear the parables: The kingdom of heaven is the fruit of One act of creation. Like bread from yeast and flour, it rises from simple things.

Here we stand – yet all is in ferment. The tree will rise to greater heights, casting wide branches and catching flights of life greater than any that have come before.

Runner

Therefore tell not the tall tale of an Other-God with a divine plan and preconceived notion. We are the ones with divine plans and preconceived notions. God is just going, just running; knowing the direction.

God may be looking for a running partner.

Runner II: Seabiscuit

There is something transcendentally earthbound about a horse hurtling down a track, racked through the heat and dust with a desire that imposes its whole must upon a body trippingly muscled forward, bent low as a bullet train but on the fast track of a rippling four limbed ballet that flies through time in moments that can’t last long, his perched jockey an alert evanescence of finesse all soundless and slender in the teeming air while lending his own light and guiding leaning into that same twelve hundred pounds of really meaning it, and nothing else. At best, every man and beast is a hot dream that sometimes startles dust pounding down the rails, like comet trails that leave no trace of us, echoing the blind and blinding thunderblast that once crashed earth blazing into being, and still wills creation’s run in us by our sheer love’s must running down a dirt track, faith-first, a gathering strength of momentum spending itself vanquished and perfectly mindless with calm fury.

Amen

Gospel, Chapter Three: The One

2006-05-24T15:40:00.000-07:00

God is the One in whom “we live and move and have our being.” Acts 17:28 God is the Wholeness of the whole story that holds the story of each little life; the greatest Context that exists. God is the only One that is: Being in the immensity of its full power for inclusiveness and creativity, including and yet beyond what we are able to know.

“A mediator involves more than one party; but God is one.” Gals 3:20

The One and Only says, I AM; and before that One there is, nor has there ever been, an Other. Long before the idea of Other-God ever was, I AM. Cf. Ex 3:13-15, John 8:58

When God spoke from out of the whirlwind, it was with the whirlwind’s voice. God is the Whirlwind. Cf. Job 38 There is one true god, and there is no Other-God before the One. Cf. Exodus 20:2-3.

Other-God is from pantheon central casting: full of vanity, jealousy, vengeful wrath, and self-centered conceit. If it is not worthy of you, how much less is it worthy of God?

Worshipping Og is like a man who carved a figurine of himself, perfecting his own face and form, and then lost it crossing a field. Later another man inherited the field, found the carving, and admired it. He called out to his family and they fell huddling to the ground, adoring the small figure until its image filled their sight. Their worship darkened and replaced their awe in the face of the blue sky, the green earth, the round of the stars, and the spirit moving over the waters.

Seek amazement and not worship. The being of the only One is awesome, and in that awe, there is knowledge of God. Worshipping Og is like a child playing with a toy and imagining that it knows the things known by those who have put away childish things. Cf. I Cors 13:11

Gospel, Chapter Two: The Anti-Creed

2006-05-21T16:00:00.000-07:00

Intro: This is only a statement of disbeliefs that I’ve posted because commentators were wondering where I stood in relation to the subject of belief. It is meant as an overview and by no means fully substantiates its assertions. I’m not asking anyone to accept these disbeliefs on my say-so! That would make it a creed and not an anti-creed.

For me, religious life is primarily about loving others, loving God (not Og, as per below); faith; and our experience, in undertaking this way, of an identity shift away from the self alone and toward experiencing our own identity with the One in whom each of us truly lives and moves and has our being.

1. Jesus Was Not God: It is doubtful that Jesus, as a wise and deeply sane person, could have thought that he was God - that his particular human body and personality were somehow specially identified with a Supreme Deity. Identifying oneself with God in this manner, and that later variation on the theme in which people have sometimes thought they were Jesus Christ, is not a hallmark of sanity.

2. This Is No Crusade: I reject the largely externalized view of Jesus’ message that resulted from this misunderstanding on the part of the early Christian church and which to date has been embraced and promulgated by the church as an institution.

I am committed to seeing through and past these dogmatic aspects of my tradition, which the larger world will never embrace, to identify and emphasize its truth and wisdom. Here is where Christianity can connect with the wider world rather than continue with its perennial delusion of expecting to conquer it. I look to Christianity’s powerful words and symbols to engage with others and not to preach to them.

3. Faith Is Unmediated: I recognize no Christ to worship and adore as God, but see Jesus as having tried to point us toward the way he undertook: loving others and loving God (Mark 12:29-34, Mat 22: 38-39) in a direct and unmediated experience of faith (Gals 3:20); and, in our own lives and persons, moving in a direction of increasing identity with the only One who is more than ourselves alone, and yet in whom each of us truly lives, and moves, and has our being (Acts 17:28).

4. God Is Not Other: I reject the West’s externalized view of God as Other as a misapprehension of Reality. Judaism’s embrace of a single externalized God was a step toward true monotheism; yet Reality is One, not two. There is not a shred of evidence for a Creator existing apart from creation. Creation is creating. We are steeped in God, we swim in God; and this one and only living God, God as Reality-Itself, is bigger than the anthropocentric attributes with which we have tried to invest it. Let us stand in awe of actual God and not fall to our knees adoring the god we have made in our own image.

Tell me: who knows the full context of WHAT IS?

Is this the only universe? Is “a universe” the only thing, or kind of thing, that exists in all-reality? We have not begun to grasp the fullness of what we are doing here.

5. The Cross Is Not An Other's: Life is suffering. I expect to participate not only in the joy of being here, but also to take the way of a cross I shoulder willingly.

6. Words Are Not Dictated: There is no such thing as scripture. The idea of scripture is a literal-minded outcome of belief in the Other-God. Jews, Christians, and Muslims have each imagined that the words of their most revered texts are the words of the imaginary Og; and, moreover, that theirs are the words of Og in some special and direct sense that elevates them above all other writings. This has set the stage for perpetual religious conflict, which ought to be a contradiction in terms.

Everything that has been written has been written by people. All versions of divine dictation, no matter how sophisticatedly rendered, are fictions. Yet there has been and will be further inspired writing. The more inspired the writing, the more the writer speaks from out of and for the sake of More than self alone.

7. The Spirit Is Not A Parrot: The ongoing relationship of human beings with the only living God, and no text, has been and remains the primary source and wellspring of inspiration throughout the world. It is given to all persons and all peoples.

Gospel, Chapter One: Angel

2006-05-16T19:58:00.000-07:00

Small towns in northern New England tend to feature playgrounds and ball fields, but few large parks. Cemeteries can be one of the best places to jog or walk.

I am twenty-three or twenty four years old, pedaling my bike toward the two adjacent cemeteries where I jog. It’s a clear and chilly autumn night, the pre-dawn hour, when silence seems to gather, deepen, and pause. Stars are everywhere above and the moon is full.

The rare car is a fast, rushed glare of headlights, then back to such a concentrated quiet that the earth seems as alert and expectant as a meditating mind. I hear only the slender grating of my bike chain when I coast, how trees seem to breath the wind and toss back their branches in their sleep; and the odd dry leaf with curled stem, face downward, scuttering crab-like along the darkened pavement. Each sound is steeped in the meaning that comes with paying close attention, and I am steeped in dreamy air streams of autumn’s ancient pungencies: coldly warm, earthy but without form, seeming to implicitly remind me of things I never could have known but may somehow live to tell. I warm to the ride, pumping and gliding under intermittent streetlights past the gray and glassy stares of shuttered windows.

Entering the back gate, I am engulfed by the black cemetery grounds. I pass through the haphazard chatter of scattered leaves flattening beneath my tires, then knock the kickstand down unseeing into a soft leaf-pile that I can only feel has been raked into place there. I’ve parked beneath one of the dozen or so angels standing on pedestals at the ends of rows.

These are angels that I have known a long time, familiar figures from childhood summers. My cousin and I would roll down and play around the steep grassy hillside, while here and there among the rows our grandmother placed the bright, assorted flowers that we’d cradled over in her car.

Tall and white in the distance from which we usually saw them, the angels were imbued in meadowy greens and yellows when we happened to glimpse them through the shifting patterns of shade and swaying leaves in summer’s lazy breezes. Up close, these sentinels were plainly earth angels, with flakes of blonde-green lichen here and there along their robes and in their faces and hair. Fine brown weathered lines covered their surfaces, and they stood on unpretentious pedestals of brown or tan brick.

Now, in the dark, I look up into the angel’s face where I have parked and find myself transfixed. This sight is so loud it startles silence. She is luminously white, ablaze under a reeling backdrop of stars scattered like shimmering speckles among faint clouds and wispy strands of distant galactic mists. Her radiance seems not so much to reflect but to glowingly transform the moon’s borrowed light, making it her own, only frosted over some degrees colder- as the moon takes sunshine and turns it into moon-glow.

She is a beacon shouting directly into my face from out of all-engulfing space. Her plain eyes, pupiless, directed straight at me, give her the attitude of someone wide-awake but sleeping, like she is seeing everything without telling me. Shiveringly I too glow with something I have borrowed, not knowing how, making it warmer, making it mine; then step out across the lawn to start my run.

Gospel, Final Premise: A Spoken Word

2006-05-14T13:29:00.000-07:00

"And call no one your father on earth, for you have one Father--the one in heaven.” Mat 23:9

“Everyone who is fully qualified will be like the teacher.” Luke 6:40

“And why do you not judge for yourselves what is right?” Luke 12:57

Here and in the posts that will follow, I judge for myself what is right and what is wrong, seeing that everyone is salted with fire (cf. Mk 9:49); and that, as noted, inspiration-by-definition is uninspired. Inspiration does not confine itself to books designated as scripture by church councils and hierarchies. The spirit moves broadly over the waters. (Cf. Gen 1:2) The Word invites us to speak and does not sentence us to silence.

To write in this manner may even be to engage in a process similar to that which produced those writings that the church has labeled “scripture.”

Consider:

As we saw in the 4/24 post, The New Testament was written decades after Jesus’ death by anonymous authors with access to second-hand verbal and written materials which were handed down to them. They wrote what came to them on that basis.

So will I.

The writers of the various books had distinctive perspectives. In John, for example, composed late in the first century and last to be written of the four gospels, we find a Jesus who has become more God than man. The scene of sorrow at Gethsemane where Jesus asks that if possible the cup pass from his lips is replaced with passages like John 12:27-28, where the Christ is portrayed as saying in effect that he does not suppose for one moment that the cup should pass from his lips. John’s Christ does not die with the agonized outcry of “My Lord, why have you forsaken me,” but with the simple and declaratory, “It is finished,” of John 19:30. Mission accomplished.

I too offer a distinct perspective.

The Koran so clearly draws on the Bible that scholars are certain that Mohammed was familiar with it. The angel said to have dictated the Koran to Mohammed in a cave was working with someone who was certainly inspired by the Bible as well.

I also find the Bible inspiring.

To me, much of the material in the gospels and the New Testament as a whole rings true, or nearly so; and much of it rings false, as though these authors, and probably Jesus’ contemporaneous followers, did not always have ears to hear. (Cf. Mark 4:9, Luke 14:35) Therefore I will not only quote freely from the gospels, but will ring changes on many verses; write others that are inspired by gospel and other New Testament passages; and add original material.

They say Mohammed had a real angel. Mine is made only from stone - as we’ll see next post with Possible Gospel, Chapter One.

Gospel, Premise 3: Salt Still Has Its Taste

2006-05-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

In order to separate the wheat from the chaff, we need to bring discernment to the words that we encounter. And in order to discern what is truly inspired, we need to recognize the elements of originality and wisdom that are present in true spirituality.

Jesus was the son of a carpenter. He was not a scribe, Pharisee, or priest of his day. And despite the heavy incorporation of church dogma and theology into their texts, the gospel writers seem to give us glimpses of certain strands from the oral traditions which they inherited concerning Jesus, which suggest that Jesus himself both demonstrated and spoke to the originality involved in genuine spiritual inspiration.

“He came to his hometown and began to teach the people in their synagogue, so that they were astounded and said, ‘Where did this man get this wisdom and these deeds of power? Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all this?” Mat 13:54-56

“They were astounded at his teaching, for he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” Mk 1:22

Then there are Jesus’ cryptic-sounding remarks about salt and fire:

“For everyone will be salted with fire. Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” Mark 9:49-50

“I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!” Luke 12:49

“Salt is good; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure heap; they throw it away. Let anyone with ears to hear listen!’ Luke 14:34-35

To have ears to listen to these verses is to hear that Jesus speaks of finding our own tongues; and so I adapt these verses into one as follows:

Salt has salt of itself or it is good for nothing. How can you season it? Therefore have salt in yourselves that is not borrowed. This salt has saltiness like light from fire, and lights the world.

Gospel, Premise 2: The Necessity of Discernment

2006-05-07T18:22:00.000-07:00

Jesus said: “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” John 3:5-8

Jesus, speaking to the Pharisees who quote scriptural laws against working on the Sabbath: “I ask you, is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to destroy it?” Luke 6:9.

Jesus himself does not seem to have perceived the Bible as a legal document, but a text to be read discerningly.

Jesus, teaching in the temple: “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgment.” John 7:24

Similarly: “Pay attention to how you listen; for to those who have, more will be given; and from those who do not have, even what they seem to have will be taken away.” Luke 8:18

Not all Bible verses are equally inspired. Those of us from scripture-based traditions cannot avoid the responsibility of bringing discernment to God’s Word as we encounter it both inside and outside the scriptural texts. Jesus asks us to bring our own hearts, minds, and experiences of life to the table in order to hear the Word rightly.

Before we think of judging the perspectives of others, we who come from scripture-based traditions might first want to reflect on how we pick our verses: what we emphasize, and what we decide to minimize or overlook.

On Belief: A Clarification of Yesterday's Post Prompted by Dale's Comment

2006-05-04T08:21:00.000-07:00

The Great Divides

First, I’d like to clarify that I’m casting no aspersions on church leadership past or present. In posting yesterday, my aim was not to imply that the only or primary thing that church leaders have been concerned with is their hold on spiritual authority and power – as if they don’t really believe what they’re telling people. Although there are hypocrites in every sphere of religion and spirituality, I feel certain they are in a minority. I think church leaders have for the most part sincerely held to the definitions, doctrines, and theologies they have propounded, even at the same time that doing so has effectively promoted the church’s authority by discouraging further sources of inspiration by definition and fiat, as per yesterday’s post.

Religious beliefs have and continue to work well for many people – but they also divide us; and a few, with no understanding of their faith, harm others in the name of their beliefs.

Religious beliefs are inherently divisive. For example, either Jesus is resurrected Savior and God, or he isn’t. People generally adhere to those beliefs they grow up with. These beliefs are not demonstrably true to others. So even though religion and spirituality, of all things, ought to bring people together, there’s a limit to what it can do toward that end so long as we make our beliefs the centerpiece of what we think it means to be a person of faith and spirit.

Other Absolutes and Baby Steps

True: Not everyone spends 40 days in the desert, which is to say that not everyone has a religious vocation. We need religious institutions that people can turn to for guidance.

We could be guided toward authentic connections, to borrow Dale's phrase, that are already there to be made - referenced by every world religion. These truths have no inherent or necessary relationship to our varying belief systems. And these truths are absolutes.

They are absolutes of experience that all of us know as human beings. It’s just that many of us don’t know that we know; or our knowledge of them is not as clear as it could be. Take, for example, love. Or faith. Or work. Of course today, most of us equate faith with holding to a belief system whose veracity can’t be demonstrated. But for myself, certainly, I have learned that this is not what faith is.

I hope there is a day when religious institutions offer guidance to people not in the form of propounded certainties and Truth claims that the whole world will never agree on; but on knowing what love is, what faith is, what work is all about, and what sorts of changes in our identities we can anticipate when we follow in the way of faithful love, whatever our background and tradition. If this ever happens, it will take generations. Before we can get there, we will first have to learn to thoroughly respect each others’ beliefs and disbeliefs as a baby step.

Gospel Premise 1: The Spirit Isn't Congealed

2006-05-03T07:22:00.000-07:00

Inspired by Definition

The author of the Gospel of John writes at a time when the early Christian church is reaching the end of its first century of existence. In John we see Christian theology solidifying. And he clearly presents us with one idea of divine inspiration.

No longer does the spirit move over the face of the waters (Cf. Gen 1:2). It becomes concretized and personified – ready to become the third Person in a Holy Trinity:

“And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for ever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you. John 14:16-17

And how do you know who is filled with this true Spirit of genuine inspiration from God? Simple: anyone who espouses the belief that Jesus is Savior is filled with the Spirit; and nobody else:

“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God.” I John 4:2-3 {Note: Scholars believe that I John was written by the author of the Gospel of John.}

Inspired by Edict

What do you think? To me, it was clearly in the early church’s interest to write books stating that, by definition, inspiration consists of adherence to its belief system. Once the church had grown into a more powerful institution, it was equally in its interest to declare these books “scripture” in the sense of constituting the official words of God. And it has manifestly been in the self-interest of the church, and later the churches, to declare the edicts and pronouncements issued by their own hierarchies in their own time to be God's infallibly inspired word and outlook on the issues of the day.

Yet there have been far too many examples of official church positions which the church itself over time wisely came to rectify, to suppose that all its present pronouncements can possibly be inspired. Indeed, those who imagine that the church is already perfect are a stumbling block to the church as it seeks perfection.

Official spiritual inspiration is a contradiction in terms. People with fresh, creative insights in any field are not typically bureaucrats who rise through the ranks to wield organizational power. Nor are staff meetings and committees generally the avenue by which such works arise. In religion and spirituality, those who substantially modify, transform, or initiate religious traditions, are those who experience some version of their own forty days in the desert. Their spiritual experiences, from a founder like Buddha or Mohammed, to an innovator like Martin Luther, are highly original. They go through something first-hand and in their own persons.

Spirited

Usually we define things in terms of the properties and processes that we can see characterize them; then we stick to that definition. For example, we agree that an apple is a sweet, thin-skinned fruit that grows on trees. Likewise, inspiration is usually known by the qualities that seem to best describe it: it usually occurs to individuals in a spontaneous manner, generally when they are alone, and often following a period of intense struggle with an issue or problem. The outcome of the process is highly original and creative; and, in the case of spiritual inspiration, wise.

Of course it’s possible for a group of people to replace the definition of a concept according to those properties and processes which best describe it, by some other definition that they all like and agree upon. For many Christians, it has therefore been acceptable to understand “the inspired” or Spiritual as that which accords with their beliefs. But Christians need to be aware that this is what they are doing, and that any element of what the rest of the world calls “inspiration” which may be behind – I would say, is behind - their own tradition’s concept of inspiration, is in danger of being disregarded or even lost.

Spiritual authority is living water. Religious authority follows prescribed channels where it stagnates when not refreshed.

Gospel Preface 3: Inspiration and Scripture

2006-04-30T17:02:00.000-07:00

Blog-Back to Benjamin, 5/1/06 addendum below

Consider the following New Testament quotations:

Jesus speaking: “The kingdom of God is not coming with things that can be observed; nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There it is!’ For, in fact, the kingdom of God is within you.” Luke 17:21

Jesus speaking: “There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory.” Luke 21:25-27

“Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ; not only while being watched, and in order to please them, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart. Render service with enthusiasm, as to the Lord and not to men and women, knowing that whatever good we do, we will receive the same again from the Lord, whether we are slaves or free.” Eph 6:5-8

“For which of you, intending to build a tower, does not first sit down and estimate the cost, to see whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it will begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to wage war against another king, will not sit down first and consider whether he is able with ten thousand to oppose the one who comes against him with twenty thousand? If he cannot, then, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for the terms of peace. So therefore, none of you can become my disciple if you do not give up all your possessions. (Italics mine.)” Luke 16: 28-33

The first pair of quotations is contradictory. The second indicates an aspect of culture in Jesus’ time and place that almost anyone living today would emphatically reject. The term, “non-sequitur” (or, “Huh – How’s that again??”) applies to the third.

Are all writings which the church has declared to be scripture equally inspired? In what sense are they inspired? Do any verses lack inspiration?

Blog-Back: God-Nominees

Benjamin comments: “Its funny - to believe in God in terms of the way the writers of the Gospel believed in God would be regarded as mad nowadays; as schizophrenia.”

But Benjamin’s comment isn’t mad. Consider:

Even at a time and place where supernatural phenomena were given broader and readier credence than they are today, someone claiming identity with God in a special and unique way – “I am literally God, in person, in my own flesh and blood”– would have gone well beyond the supernatural norms of the day.

Jesus was obviously an impressive person. Whatever we may or may not believe about him, we know that after he died a bunch of people decided he was God, and set this belief down in writing several decades later. This doesn’t happen to many of us.

But it did happen to the Buddha. Or almost. (I always forget his real name. Buddha, like Christ is a title, but it means “the awakened one.”) Unlike Jesus, the Buddha lived into old age, and he expressly rejected a movement among some of his followers to divinize him.

During the Middle Ages, we have the phenomenon of Christian mystics who were burned alive and/or under threat of this for speaking in terms that suggested they’d experienced unity with God. In retrospect, it’s pretty obvious that they were speaking from out of their experiences of contemplative prayer (the same process, leading to the same sort of wordless experience, as in Buddhist meditation and the contemplative traditions of other world religions - except Buddhists don’t use the words God or Christ to talk about it afterward).

Assuming Jesus was a deeply sane person, I think this is a fair question: Did Jesus himself believe that he was one with God not in the sense that other deeply sane persons have experienced a profound state of unity with the more-than-self-alone, but in a some special way in which God was totally involved in his body, blood, and personality?

Or is it more likely that followers with no first-hand spiritual experiences themselves of the kind that the great Christian mystics and that the Buddha described, and which he encouraged others to seek, didn’t have ears to hear what Jesus was really saying in terms of becoming one with the Father and losing our lives to find them?

Entirely speculative to think so; but so is practically anything regarding the historical Jesus as distinct from how he was interpreted by the only people who wrote about him.

Gospel Preface 2: The Last Word?

2006-04-26T12:15:00.000-07:00

“Blog-Back” addendum 4/30/06 below.

A Closed Book?

Scripture. The word of God. The age of divinely inspired writing. Last post, we noted that the idea of writing a gospel or testament today raises many questions. Here’s another: Is God’s word a closed book that ended 2000 years ago - or perhaps1500 years ago? For Muslims believe that Mohammed was the Seal of the Prophets. While they honor the Old Testament prophets and regard Jesus as a prophet, they believe that the Koran was divinely dictated to Mohammed by an angel some 500 years after Jesus’ death. For Muslims, Mohammed is the culmination of prophesy, and the Koran represents God’s last best word to humankind.

In religious matters, it seems that everyone has wanted to have the last word. I wonder if this is really such a religious tendency; or might it be a human kind of thing.

In reality, will any of us have the last word? Can we expect that two or four thousand years from now religion will look just like it does today? Is it true that from now until the end of time we should expect that God will never again speak to anyone directly?

The End of an Era? (Using Whose Calendar?)

Did prophesy really come to a sudden end some 1500 years ago, 2000 years ago, or earlier, according to whether you’re Muslim, Christian, or Jewish; or did cultural changes take place over the intervening millennia in how we view one another such that perceiving a person as a prophet is no longer possible? Is it possible that in our time we have not perceived great leaders like Martin Luther King and Gandhi as prophets because we have known too much about their lives to tell believable stories to each other that involve them with angels, resurrections, and voices from the sky?

Has God changed or have we changed? Remember that the West’s most important takers of divine dictation, prophets, and even that person whom Christians decided was God himself, were ordinary people of their day. Did God, 1500 years ago or earlier, abruptly decide to stop speaking to carpenter’s sons, shepherds and caravan attendants (Mohammed), and folks like those anonymous early Christian church members who wrote to tell others of the good news which they had come to believe had been revealed by God to fishermen? Did God decide a couple millennia ago that he would transmit all further major communications bureaucratically through church councils and official pronouncements by men who would rise in the ranks to occupy high positions in church hierarchies? Is this really how God behaves in the world; or is this really how people behave once they have power?

What is “God?” What is the nature of true spirit? How do we discern it? And what of the whole world of non-western religious traditions?

Blog-Back: Global Cooling of the Divine Ethersphere?

In the comments section, Kevin posits that there was indeed a kind of Age of Prophesy (my phrase) ending 1500 or so years ago (with Mohammed) in which God communicated to us more directly and powerfully than He/She has done ever since; providing us with what Kevin calls some “basic instructions” in the form of scripture. Such a view, it seems to me, is implicit to any scripture-based belief system. It appears that God addressed humankind much more directly way back when.

My position is that we live beneath the same broad light of day that existed 2000 years ago, and that the reason we no longer perceive gods, goddesses, or prophets walking the earth and taking divine dictation is because changes in society and world-view in the intervening millennia have made it impossible for most of us to view other persons in such terms. I'm not aware of any evidence for a global cooling of the divine ethersphere that could account for God failing to continue making fiery, unexpected appearances in small towns and cities of the Mideast every now and then. But there’s plenty of evidence that our world-view today differs from that of the Mideast a couple thousand years ago.

So I don’t think that God really started relating to us differently once Jesus and Mohammed had completed their work, bringing some sort of "Age of Revelation, Prophesy, and God-Come-To-Earth in Much More Concrete Terms than Just the Holy Spirit" to an end. I think we just lost the capacity to view other persons as prophets or as God him/herself – or, conversely, gained the perception that other people always turn out to be other people.

If I’m right about this, then nothing that a person could say or do today could convince us that he or she was God, or a prophet in some kind of special and direct communication with God. (Unless maybe we were members of a cult, which most of society would see as – well, a cult, with all the implications of that concept for being misled.)

If I’m wrong about this, then someone should be able to tell us how we’d be able to recognize a genuine prophet. This could be an important skill. In terms of Major Western Revelations on a history of religions time-scale, it really hasn’t been all that long since the last one. Maybe we’re about due.

Gospel Preface 1: The Gospel Truth

2006-04-24T10:19:00.000-07:00

Thumbnail Sketch

Jesus was crucified and was buried. From here the essential facts are as follows:

Several decades passed. During this time, oral traditions about Jesus’ life and ministry were told and retold, and Christianity emerged as a small Jewish sect believing that Jesus had been resurrected and was the “Christ” or Savior. Over the second half of the first century, anonymous members of this earliest form of Christianity - men who had never met Jesus in the flesh and face to face – began to set these oral traditions down in writing. Some wrote gospels under the names of particular disciples because they regarded themselves as students and followers of these individuals – a common practice of the times.

It is inferred from the similarities among Mark, Matthew, and Luke, that among these early Christian writings was an additional piece, now lost to history, which the authors of these three gospels utilized. Their similarities have led scholars to refer to them as the “synoptic” gospels, meaning written from similar points of view. They are contrasted with John, the last gospel to have been written, and thought to have been composed late in the first century.

No – Really…

If you have doubts about this thumbnail sketch of the essential generalities concerning the composition of the New Testament, consult a religious scholar at any leading divinity school; for example, Harvard, Yale, or the University of Chicago. These are the findings of the best that religious scholarship has to offer and not a “secular” or “anti-Christian” point of view, as some Christians may wish to categorize it. In fact those who conduct scholarly research in this area are usually Christian ministers who have dedicated their lives to scholarship as well as ministry, and who personally believe in Jesus as the Christ.

The Spirit Moves Over the Hierarchies

To continue: The unknown authors of the gospels declared their words inspired by God. And as the tiny Jewish sect differentiated into a distinct church and grew in power and organization over the coming centuries, it would select and officially certify these and certain other early church writings, and not others, as being of divine origin, putting them together in one anthology which we know as The New Testament.

Over subsequent church history, the church, and eventually the churches, have each declared their understandings and interpretations of these selected writings to be themselves inspired by divine authority, establishing competing hierarchies of bureaucratic inspiration.

What is inspiration and how do we know it? Is it still possible to write a gospel? Should it be? How can we know what is or isn’t possible?

“With God, all things are possible.” Mark 4:27

About “A Possible Gospel”

2006-04-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

IN BRIEF: (Details are in the first several posts following this one.)

1. Concept: A) This site is definitely not marked “For Christians Only.” B) Applying terms like “gospel” and “testament” to something written today raises questions for anyone, such as:

Q: Do you have a Messiah complex?
A: No – you’ll notice nobody’s writing a gospel about me.

Q: Do you have a prophet complex?
A: I can’t predict the future. But I’m pretty sure the earth is getting warmer.

Q: Do you think your writing is inspired?
A/Qs: What do you mean by “inspired?” Do you mean the way that scripture is inspired?

2. Content: Things we’ll take a look at include:

1. What do we mean by “God?” Whether or not you believe in God, what is it that people are trying to talk about with that word?

2. What is love?

3. What is faith?

4. What is scripture?

5. Are the Gospels and The New Testament uniformly inspired, or are some parts a lot better than others?

6. What is a “loaded question?”

Since #5 was a loaded question, yes, I’ll be trying to sort the wheat from the chaff. Some of you will want to lend a hand. Others will go, “Hey! Hey! It’s all wheat!”

Basically, the Possible Gospel half of this blog is like reading the gospels (along with the letters of Saint Paul) through the prism of my glasses. The truth may set us free, but it’s imprismed by all of us. The half titled, “A New Testament” is the text of an original book manuscript reduced to a series of blog posts.

Whatever your point of view on religious and spiritual matters happens to be, it’s welcome here. I do ask that people express themselves in words that are respectful of others’ outlooks and feelings.