Year Zer0

The fourth Sunday of Advent provides the opportunity to ask more questions, something which no doubt delights you. Our search for Truth is scheduled to end at 11:59 pm this coming December 25. and that begs a question I have yet to have an answer for, What happened that reset the record of human history? As you read through this Wikipedia article about the Common Era in which we presently live, you may find yourself asking what happened to everything B.C.E.? When there is no shortage of explanations or answers, that initiates the process of seeking the truest, the most honest, the most accurate answer of all because our survival depends on choosing the most correct answer. You and I agree that today we've had the best Christmas ever! Why is that? I think there may be an answer to that question that justifies our continuing search for it which is:

What happened?

Let Your Light Shine!

First, thank you for being such an inspiration! Not knowing what I'm even talking about is but one of many things about you that inspire me. This is going to be my first Christmas without Dad and that is surely upon my mind. Your great grandfather has been remembered for many things since his death last April 7, but as we proceed through Advent toward Christmas, I believe that his greatest gift to all of us was his Christmas Eve Candlelighting Service. Dad was appointed to the Arvada Methodist Church, then located at 57th and Webster in the town of Arvada (population of about 2500) in 1955. During my short ministry, I was appointed to six different parishes. The Arvada church was Dad's third appointment from which he retired thirty-five years later in 1990, making it most extraordinary in the annals of Methodist appointments. Employing this method of calculation I have twice the experience of Dad's in terms of moving to new appointments, but I digress.

The Christmas Eve custom at the Arvada church had been a cantata performed by the church choir. I remember surprisingly little about Christmas 1955. Kim and I somehow contracted Measles during the June move south from Platteville, and I managed a diagnosis of Nephritis from physician "Bart" Campbell, also a  member of the church. Mom managed a birthday party for me in the dining room of the parsonage on Grandview Avenue. I remember Scott Price, Susie Wright, and the Townsend sisters, Nancy and Alice, being present. Only looking back now has given me the perspective to realize how many changes occurred by Christmas 1956. Lloyd M Collins was elected mayor of Arvada in 1955 and his wife, Blanche, had been acquainted with Dad at Colorado State College of Education at Greeley (now the University of Northern Colorado). Mrs. Collins became the church organist (and my organ teacher in seventh grade) and worked in concert with Dad until her retirement in 1976.

My memory of Christmas Eve 1957 is much clearer. All three children of Alex and Ethel Hanna (Esther, Dale, and Earl) and their seven grandchildren were present for Dad's first Christmas Eve Candlelighting    Service at Arvada Methodist Church. Earlier in the Fall, Dad drove home to a new parsonage in a brand new two-tone blue and white Ford Fairlane four-door.! Uncle Dale was the most generous man I've ever known, and that included making sure that his younger brother always had a good car to drive. That afternoon the four of us headed north to Longmont to visit great-granddad who was living home alone at age 96! Dad redesigned the chancel area of the sanctuary so that the minister, organist, and choir were more clearly visible to the congregation. The new addition of an education wing was complete and a twenty-eight tradition was born.

Dad was the author, director, and producer of one of the most theologically progressive congregations in the metropolitan area, "a church where life, science, and religion are compatible". After adding an education wing to the building at 57th and Webster in 1957, he embarked on the building of a five-acre campus that included a new sanctuary and education wing with ample parking for the growing number of worshipers. Designed by Arvada architect and church member Harold R. Carver, the congregation moved to 6750 Carr Street in May 1963. No one knew then that President John F. Kennedy would be assassinated on November 22, 1963. I bring attention to this fact because the first Christmas Eve Candlelighting Services queue literally streamed out of the new sanctuary doors! One of the justifications for a new building was that multiple services were already required at the current location.

Masterfully weaving scripture, poetry, and choral, Dad engaged those attending in the powerfully profound experience of witnessing the light of a single candle lit in the dark and then passed person to person throughout the congregation to illuminate the cavernous new sanctuary. I include myself among the thousands whose lives were transformed in one way or another by the experience. I include myself among the thousands who miss him dearly, and who thank him for so wonderfully revealing a truer understanding of what Christmas really means.

Everywhere, everywhere, Christmas tonight

...let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven...(Matthew 5.16, NRSV)

The Joy of Giving

 Your Lego Advent Calendar starts today. Christmas is coming! The growing pandemic is the principal driver of the Zeitgeist that is changing our whole world, which seems to me the perfect time to change our worldviews as well. A simple question begins our journey to the creche. What does Christmas mean to you?

What I like about Christmas is its opportunity to give presents to others. I like birthdays for the same reason. This is not saying that I don't fully enjoy receiving gifts on these occasions, as well, because I doubly do! But what I call the thrill of receiving is quite different from the Joy of giving.

Gratitude Is Key

Psalm 9

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;

I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.

There are a million and one legitimate reasons to find it hard to be thankful right now, until...

...we are reminded of the million and one real reasons we have to be thankful!

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Soundtrack of My Life

It is tempting to say that we’ve come full circle, but I fear that we have not. The specter of death looms larger than ever, and the reporters of current events are emphasizing that we are on the brink of something significant, perhaps in human history. We might even consider the election of Joseph Biden as our country’s 46th president as a step forward, but we cannot let our mindfulness of the existential now fail to impress us with how many steps remain, not to mention extreme caution not to take any steps back. Genuine progress for humanity right now requires a paradigm shift that completely abandons our species’ past to open our eyes to each other in ways we never before thought possible.

If any of what I’ve thought, felt, or expressed so far makes any sense to you, then you have already spotted the clues in my opening lines that point to the fundamental changes we must make to better our human relationship with God.

In the April 5 post that began all of this, Life + Death = God, I supposed that, given our current understanding of science, a model based on simple physics might illustrate a singularity containing opposite charges required for its existence.

The other model I referred to, Music, holds a great deal of meaning to me because at heart I'm a musician, just not a good one. When I was born, Dad* was in his first year at the Iliff School of Theology, having just graduated from the Lamont School of Music at the University of Denver. Among my earliest memories are Christmas carols. Mom** met Dad when she was a Senior at Fountain High School where he was giving music lessons after his discharge from the Army Air Force Band at Ent Base in Colorado Springs.

When "Great-Uncles" Paul, Rob, and I headed east to our freshman year at Nebraska Wesleyan University (yes, we somehow all three managed to enroll) it was my intention to major in music as that was my focus when I graduated Arvada West High School. Music is one of the most profound connections with my Godself, and it is this connection I would like to explore more fully with you as we journey in search of a more perfect union in our relationship with God. Only you know your thoughts. Only you know what mindfulness means to you. As humans. we attempt to share with others that which is truly known only to ourselves. #AloneTogether is such an appropriate expression of where we all are finding ourselves right now. Unless! We together accept God's invitation to Life and our world truly becomes the whole people of God!

Here is an example of what I mean:

Click here to listen on YouTube Music> The Balance < A Question of Balance, The Moody Blues

And his feet were sore,

And he was tired

He came upon an orange grove

And he was tired

And he rested.

And he lay in the cool,

And while he rested

He took to himself an orange

And tasted it,

And it was good.

And he felt the earth to his spine

And he asked,

And he saw the tree above him,

And the stars,

And veins in the leaf,

And the light,

And the balance.

And he saw magnificent perfection,

Whereupon he thought of himself in balance.

And he knew he was.

Just open your eyes and realize,

The way it's always been

Just open your heart and that's a start

And he thought of those he angered

For he was not a violent man

And he thought of those he hurt

For he was not a cruel man

And he thought of...

In all fairness to the Moody Blues, I share their trilogy from which the above lyric was taken:

Click here to listen on YouTube Music> In Search Of The Lost Chord <1968

Click here to listen on YouTube Music> On The Threshold Of A Dream  <1969

Click here to listen on YouTube Music> A Question of Balance <1970

You are a wondrous miracle of God!

On Christmas day (night, actually), 1949, I was literally born into the Methodist Episcopal Church. Dad was a new student at the Iliff School of Theology, and being married to Mom made them eligible to live in Taylor Hall, relatively new housing being provided for returning WWII married veterans. I will never know whether my birth was "planned" in the way that some are today, or whether I was just a Christmas surprise, but either way, my introduction to the music of Christmas came early.

Click here to listen on YouTube Music> Away In A Manger  < John Denver, 1975

Click here to listen on YouTube Music> Silent Night, Holy Night < John Denver, 1975

Click here to listen on YouTube Music> Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer < Gene Autrey, 1968

Read> The History of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer < from NPR

Glossary

As you can tell, I am not a very good blogger. I first want to thank Wikipedia for being an accessible reference. I know the concerns about Wikipedia’s format, but for reference to the terms I point to in my posts, I find it to be reliable and informative.

This is important because the Zeitgeist I referred to in the first post is currently so dynamic that I’m having a hard time keeping up with it. I have set forth a pretty far-out-there concept of God that is definitely not mainstream. As I encourage you to establish a positive relationship with God, that brings us full circle to the original question, “Is there a God?”

You alone will discover the answer that is fundamentally between you and God. You alone experience God, just as you alone experience Life itself. This is your Sacred bond with your Creator, and you are completely free to do whatever you want with it, even ignore it. Human beings are not God’s puppets.

A critical component of my own relationship with God is experience, and that is why my blogging is going to take an autobiographical twist. Each of us has our personal story to tell, and when shared it can meld into like-mindedness or worldview. No one experiences others, just as your experience is unique to you. There is tremendous power, however, when many individuals believe they share the same worldview.

Glossary

Anthropomorphism

Authority

Brain

Conscience

Good

Electricity

Evil

Experience

God

Love

Metaphysics

Mind

Morality

Music

Oath

Pledge

Promise

Soul

Spirit

Theology

Truth

Unified field theory

Vow

Water

Worldview

Yin and yang

Zeitgeist

Do you have a...

...conscience? Of course, you do! I have had the rare privilege of watching yours develop from the beginning until now, and I can’t help turning to Scripture to describe what I’ve seen: “And the boy grew up and became strong and was filled with wisdom and God regarded him favorably.” Anyone familiar with this verse from Luke 2:40 will quickly recognize the unfamiliarity of the wording I’ve taken from the Scholars Version translation which uses today’s English. How it applies to you is that you are on the threshold of abstract thought, something that will make more sense when you get there (which I think you already are). You’ll begin to wonder if the Mind is a product of the Brain or visa versa. You’ll begin to seriously wonder about where you came from and where you are going, and what is this conscience thing anyway?

I started writing this to you for two reasons. One, I don’t want you to ever be afraid of God, whether you believe in It or not. God is Love, and there is nothing scary about that. Two, because God is within you, you will never have to fear being alone. Beyond this, however, it’s pretty much between you and God. Let me point out that in the passage I quote, it says nothing about Jesus believing in God, only that God regarded him favorably. My connection to God is my conscience. I can find no evidence that it is not. My relationship with God is troubled and imperfect, but the most horrible mistakes I’ve made in my life have not severed the connection.

If there is any truth in the idea that each and every human being is an individualized expression of a God that comprehends Life through our collective experiences, it is not to be found in orthodox conventions. Even unorthodoxy doesn’t capture the extreme heresy of such thinking. Your connection with God is yours alone, just as mine. This partially explains the mystery of our relationship with God, and supports that all Life is, indeed, Sacred!

At this point, we enter the realm of Theology. To proceed further is totally your choice. Although each of our experiences of God is uniquely personal, our challenge is to look at someone else as having their own unique personal experience and to recognize that its source is the same as ours.

The Golden Rule

If it feels right, I suggest a time of mindfulness before we continue.

The following is from World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts. It can be found in Chapter 2: Divine Law, Truth, and Cosmic Principle; The Golden Rule, page 114:

The Golden Rule or the ethic of reciprocity is found in the scriptures of nearly every religion. It is often regarded as the most concise and general principle of ethics. It is a condensation in one principle of all longer lists of ordinances such as the Decalogue.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Judaism and Christianity - Leviticus 19.18

Whatever you would wish that men would do to you, do so to them. 

Christianity - Matthew 7.12

Not one of you is a believer until he loves for his brother what he loves for himself.

Islam - Forty Hadith of an-Nawawi 13

A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated.

Jainism - Sutrakritanga 1.11.33

Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence.

Confucianism - Mencius VII.A.4

One should not behave toward others in a way that is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other activities are due to selfish desire.

Hinduism - Mahabharata,Anusasana Parva 113.8

Tsekung asked, “Is there one word that can serve as a principle for the conduct of life?” Confucius replied, “it is the word of shu--reciprocity: Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you.”

Confucianism - Analects 15.23

Comparing oneself to others in such terms as “Just as I am so are they, just as they are so am I,” he should neither kill nor cause others to kill.

Buddhism - Sutta Nipata 705

One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts.

African Traditional Religions - Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria)

One who you think should be hit is none else than you. One who you think should be governed is none else but you. One who you think should be tortured is none else but you. One who you think should be enslaved is none else but you. One who you think should be killed is none else but you. A sage is ingenuous and leads his life after comprehending the parity of the killed and the killer. Therefore, neither does he cause violence to others nor does he make others do so.

Jainism - Acarangasutra 5.101-2

The Ariyan disciple thus reflects, Here am I, fond of my life, not wanting to die, fond of pleasure and averse from pain. Suppose someone should rob me of my life...it would not be a thing pleasing and delightful to me. If I, in my turn, I should rob of his life, one fond of his life, not wanting to die, one fond of pleasure and averse to pain, it would not be a thing pleasing or delightful to him. For a state that is not pleasant or delightful to me must also be to him also; and a state that is not pleasing and delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another? As a result of such reflection he himself abstains from taking the life of creatures and he encourages others so to abstain, and speaks in praise of so abstaining.

Buddhism - Samyutta Nikaya v.353

A certain heathen came to Shammai and said to him, “Make me a proselyte, on condition that you teach me the whole Torah while I stand on one foot. Thereupon he repulsed him with the rod which was in his hand. When he went to Hillel, he said to him, “What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor: that is the whole Torah; all the rest of it is commentary; go and learn.

Judaism - Talmud, Shabbat 31a

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?” Jesus said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and prophets.

Christianity - Matthew 22.36-40

I don’t know about you, but I get the impression this might be important. It might actually work, who knows? As a rule, I think the majority of humans don’t think it will because they don’t believe that they are individualized expressions of God and believe that God is “out there” somewhere. Still, it’s worth thinking about.

Truth

You inspire me! Your joy, your open-minded inquisitiveness, your love of Life! Wanting that to continue for the rest of your Life is what nearly compels me to share with you what little I know about how that might actually be possible. We have reached the point at which we really can’t proceed without trying to understand as best we can the concept of Truth. I don’t have a complete understanding of Truth, any more than I have a complete understanding of God, but the two are somehow related by our quest for the latter.

“So you are a king!” said Pilate. “You’re the one who says I’m a king” responded Jesus. “This is what I was born for, and this is why I came into this world: to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth can hear my voice. “What is the truth?” says Pilate. (John 18:37-38; TSV)

Again, I asked Google “Does Truth Matter?”  Again, about 622,000,000 results came back in 0.43 seconds. This is a huge, perhaps incomprehensible, diversity of opinion that exists freely, independently, and equally for every Human on Earth, the Sacred home of all Life in the infinite Cosmos! And that means you! If you choose to think about your answer to the question, that is your first step of mindful contemplation. If the question doesn’t spark any personal interest, move on! There are so many questions that you will want answers for, mindfulness (which I accept as another word for prayer) is the very first step of a process which eventually may lead to the discovery of your “connection” with God.

There are some, likely many, who will tell you that I am not telling you the truth about any of this. In my mind, I am. Thank God the choice is yours! I will close with the words of Euripides, “Question everything. Learn something…”

Do not murder, anyone!

I am still trying to process the disappointment of losing my May 24 post due to my own ineptitude, but I am also realizing that the Zeitgeist will not permit my initial impulse to “suspend” our quest for the Truth about God.

The United Church of Canada published a religious education curriculum that I used for years under the title, The Whole People of God. I like the inclusion of all humans being of one God. Monumental challenges serve to skew such a vision into impossibilities. The issue of death made paramount by the global pandemic has now been amplified by the murder of George Floyd. We started out by agreeing that all living things die. That is what defines Life. There is one form of death, however, so vile, so heinous, so evil that it absolutely defies everything we are saying is true: homicide. Take a look at the Wikipedia article and learn about humankind’s original and greatest sin, the sin that allows us to question whether God even exists.

Let’s continue…
16 Jun 2020

I just asked Google, “How does evil exist?” Google responded with about 183,000,000 results in 0.45 seconds. This tells me that the question is viable. It also serves as evidence that a myriad of worldviews exists. It also tells me that I am free to offer my own explanation which is what I call an electrical model for, not of, God. Within the Wikipedia article are listed the scientific properties of electricity. You will see that electric current is the result of opposing positive and negative charges. I find these properties of electricity to help construct a model for God:

1. Electricity preexists humans

2. Electricity is a singular phenomenon containing positive and negative charges which create a current;

3. Electrical current can be controlled by creating open and closed circuits;

4. We are familiar with our ability to use a circuit by opening and closing the current with a switch;

5. In our current world, it is possible to access an electric current by plugging into an electrical outlet.

This is about as far as we need to go with this analogy if it helps us to understand our concept of God better. With this model, God is not anthropomorphic, but a singularity accessible from the beginning of time to all Life. I find that the ancient Chinese philosophy of yin and yang is complementary to this concept with its emphasis on a singular whole. A far more complex model, music, is another brilliant example of the infinite diversity contained within the whole. If we overlay a moral compass I find this to be a viable means of discovering our conscience, another subject that empirical science isn’t yet equipped to deal with. If my concept of our God-self is true, then this is my clue for where to look for my connection. Finally, this model can open our minds to the possibility of a whole God encompassing Good and Evil as a singularity, and the possibility of obtaining a new, unorthodox worldview focused on how we human beings move toward a more personal relationship with God, the creator of Life on Earth, and each other.

Life + Death = God

I clearly remember the moment you told me that you don't believe in God as one of the most wonderful in my life! Some people who have known me as their pastor would be surprised by this reaction, but my happiness was witnessing you thinking for yourself!

As the Christian celebration of Easter approaches amid the Novel Coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, people will once again turn to their beliefs which conform with their understanding of God. Since this is a global pandemic, many humans around the world are doing the same thing from the perspective of their own worldview. We humans have yet to genuinely comprehend monotheism. For that very reason, I cannot say that I believe in God either!

Instead, I know that God exists!

This seems to be the time that I've been waiting for my whole life, the time for me to explain how I know that God exists. It is based on my interpretation of Jesus' life, teachings, and death as outlined in Protestantism, and my own personal experience.

First and foremost is the comprehension that you and I are individualized expressions of God, without whom Creation does not exist. This is the common denominator of all life. We find our connection to God within ourselves which can lead to our discovery of its universality.

I think that all humans recognize their soul, their spirit, at birth, at the very same time we are bombarded by the miracle of Life itself. I call this our God-self, our God-connection, and every human in the world has it. It is who and what we are.

Nothing is more personal than our relationship with God. God sees through our eyes, thinks through our minds, and experiences what it is to be human through our living. From all such experiences, God comprehends the totality of Life on Earth.

Mathematical probability makes life elsewhere in the cosmos likely, but for now, planet Earth is the only proof that it exists. This fact, that Life exists only on Earth, is what makes Life sacred. There is no proof of Life anywhere but here and that is what makes it incomprehensibly precious and rare.

This is more than enough to open with. Your great grandfather pursued an endless search for Truth (ways to connect with God). His concept of praying for alignment differed from the more popular prayers of petition while it broadened the horizon of ways to connect with God.

There are no words to fully express how grateful I am for the faith in God he nurtured in me. This is how I can make the bold claim that I know God exists!

We are living at a time when many people are seeking God's attention. I want you to know that I found the connection within me (just like Jesus said I would) not because you are supposed to imitate me (my connection with God is far from perfect) but because I simply want you to know that this is something to think about; see if you can be mindful of your spirit, your soul. There you will discover your unique relationship with God and understand why you are never alone.

Death is humanity's common destiny along with all Life. Humans appear to be unique in that we can think about our own death in the context of knowing that it will someday be our own personal experience. I think that this is again proof that God exists in and through us. The question becomes whether or not our connection is lost when we die.

P.S. Your great grandfather, Earl K. Hanna, mentioned above, died April 7, 2020. Today is my seventieth Easter, the first without Dad. That surely sheds new light on how to proceed from here. Happy Easter, Jack! We don't lose the connection!

Let's continue...
April 10, 2020
All Life dies. Death is fundamental to the miracle itself. No one, past or present, knows what happens when we die. One function of religion is to try to explain. With many worldviews come many explanations, none of them correct or incorrect, because no human knows what happens when we die. It is Life's final experience.

Death is the ever-present backdrop of our life experience, which has been greatly amplified by the Zeitgeist emerging from the global pandemic being experienced now. The one constant that I am observing under our current circumstances is that human beings do not want to die. I will go so far as to say that this one characteristic alone may define human life as distinctive from All Life on Earth

Let's continue...
April 12, 2020
Who are we? When you click on the question, it will take you to the Wikipedia page on Personal Identity which explains the variety of approaches to answering the singular question, "Who am I?" You can go to the Wikipedia page about René Descartes who concluded, "I think therefore I am". Wikipedia has pages about the Soul, the Spirit, and the Mind. Finally, Wikipedia's article on Anthropomorphism is really very important for how we proceed in our proof that God exists. I'm not expecting you to read these articles in detail, but to peruse them to better understand the vocabulary of the various points of view (worldviews) about who and what we are

I started this post on April 5, 2020, which was Palm Sunday on the Christian calendar and the beginning of Holy Week. This was the Christian worldview of almost two millennia couched in the context of an unprecedented global pandemic with a greater loss of life than any time in living memory. Christian Tradition was foiled by the exigent need for the common good of social distancing which prohibited large gatherings, the hallmark of Easters past. With the collective worldviews of the human population of Earth all focused upon this unprecedented specter, the question of what happens when we die may become universally raised in a way never before seen.

Let's continue...
May 11, 2020
What timing! TIME magazine just published this article examining how some Christians may be viewing the pandemic through the lens of Tradition: What Jesus Really Said About Heaven and Hell. The Wikipedia article about Fear of God may help familiarize you with the concept from several biblical and religious viewpoints.

Let's continue...

May 15, 2020
The specter of death is the focus of our world still, and that brings us full circle to where we started. You know something is going on, and that what is raising alarm is the unusually high number of people dying. I can think of no more important time than now to ask you to be open to other ways of looking at death, and especially the way you understand God. Instead of asking your mother to say her prayers at bedtime, I just asked her to be still and take some time to talk with God. I guess you can ask her how that worked.
More than anything else, I don't want you to be afraid! When you discover your "connection" you will understand why we don't need to be afraid and how that frees us to make this a more blessed world with our God.

Death is the ever-present backdrop of our life experience, which has been greatly amplified by the Zeitgeist emerging from the global pandemic being experienced now. The one constant that I am observing under our current circumstances is that human beings do not want to die. I will go so far as to say that this one characteristic alone may define human life as distinctive from All Life on Earth.

More than anything else, I don't want you to be afraid! When you discover your "connection" you will understand why we don't need to be afraid and how that frees us to make this a more blessed world with our God.