Lent is the forty-day Christian observance preceding Easter meant to be a time of self-reflection, contemplation, and meditation, particularly with regard to our relationship with God. This is not the exclusive purview of Christianity, so let us open our minds to the universality of this process as a way for all who strive to be faithful.
Palm Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week for many Christians. I personally find it to be one of the most disheartening stories in the Bible.
This is our third Ash Wednesday of the COVID-19 pandemic. Russia has invaded Ukraine. The spiritual darkness is ever-present and needs desperately needs to be understood as the universal dynamic of what created you and me. It is our choice to follow the light of Truth as it reveals to us the way ahead.
"You're different, aren't you?"
I'm the first person from Colorado you've met.
Rick and I were on break at our construction site in Coral Springs, Florida.
"No, that's not what I mean. You really are different from anyone I know, but in a good way, ya know?"
I know. The kindest synonym for "different" I can find is "distinctive" but the rest can and have been used. I am different and always have been. Now as I progress through my seventy-second amazing, astonishing, astounding year on Earth, I would like to offer an explanation for why I think I am the way I am. My current understanding is that what I have referred to as our worldview forms in us at birth and remains with us until death.
On my presumption that we actually are individualized expressions of God created for the purpose of experiencing the gift of Life, it is my present thinking that our initial personal perception emerges simultaneously with our God-self into what I have labeled our "Lifeview". The very first experience of all life, therefore, is acceptance or rejection. The very fact of existence confirms acceptance. Rejection many times is Life's brief and final experience.
This label, "Lifeview", might benefit from a name more easily recognizable, and in support of President Biden's societal and spiritual aspirations to save our nation's, let's instead call it our "Soul". I think that our Soul is born with us and therefore, I presume, dies with us.
When we started this journey I encouraged you to spend a little bit of your mindfulness contemplating the existence of God. Now I want to tell you why, again couched in the confidence that anything I have said thus far is not a bunch of malarkey, I think and behave the way I do.
I was about Wesley's age when, from my crib in the Platteville parsonage, I inexplicably became aware of a presence in the room with me. There was nothing hidden about the silent, neon-colored "pansy-like" apparition that remained until instantly disappearing when I called out for Mom. The waking dream of a toddler is an explanation difficult to refute and acceptable to me as just that. All I know is that what may have been my first awareness of my Soul, my life has never been the same since.
I accept God within me as my Soul, as the ever-present, ever-experiencing, and ever-comprehending part of me. I am confident that I am a child of God born to experience the gift of Life to its fullest!
I know and accept the reality of my Soul and its Source. Employing the metaphysical principle of First Cause allows me to look at my Life through a meaningfully theocentric lens that logically puts God first!
This is the Truth by which I attempt to live my Life. God is not my co-pilot because no one is piloting but me. God, instead, is my faithful companion residing in my Soul, experiencing, comprehending, but never directing my actions because that would violate the gift of volition. I am a child of God included among the whole people of God!
My thinking, fortunately, is not mine alone. It is a composite drawn from the great minds to whom I am indebted for their profound contributions to the Truth I strive to live in concert with:
This is the moment I've been waiting for! Since the issues heretofore legitimately raise the question of my credulity, I offer this blend of metaphysical, existential, and process thought to seek clarification of our relationship to and with God, thereby making it theological as well.
The first distinction in our quest to clarify is that between our brains and our Minds. Where do we think? How do our thoughts affect us? Who knows our thoughts and what they mean to us? Are there humans who can "read minds"?
As we eventually learn more about brain activity and its correlation to thought, might we find more effective ways to communicate those thoughts personal to us? Is it even possible for anyone other than yourself to know the authentic you?
We've asked many questions so far, and there are many more ahead. I consider this an important one: What the heck is imagination? I know you imagine because you tell me about your imaginations.
Here's another question of distinction to help clarify, maybe? Is there a difference between our imaginations and our dreams? And how are the Knowledge and the Wisdom we acquire through the process of learning distinct from our imaginations and dreams?
Consider this: Our newly elected President, Joseph R. Biden, campaigned to “Battle for the Soul of America”. Fundamentalists and literalists are immediately going to encounter the issue of interpretation which they are literally and fundamentally against. So, freeing our Minds from any such constraints, let’s use our imaginations to perceive, comprehend, and interpret (everybody does) what he Means:
The siege of our nation’s Capitol (the first since our mortal enemy, The British, did so in 1814) occurred on the Christian holiday of Epiphany. Other than maintaining my reputation as a religious fanatic, the ancient feeling of epiphany is of particular significance to me in the context of what I have learned about the teaching ministry of Jesus because it was the way of his early followers to express their understanding of “the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus the Christ.
What was their epiphany, and what has become of it over the past two millennia? For me, it provides a universal meaning for Christ as Immanuel and confirms that God is us and we are God! I find no more plausible explanation for Life on Earth than God, and my personal epiphany informs me that a fuller understanding is worthy of my continuing exploration. God is not dead. God is not good, bad, nor indifferent, because God simply is.
I cannot remember a time in my life that I haven’t experienced God within, throughout, and as George Harrison might say, without me. We started out with my telling you not to be afraid of the pandemic and what may still arise from it. I have told you that you are never alone because God is with us from the beginning of our lives to their end. What I have told you is a blatant, delusional lie if there is no God. Through these posts, I have tried to establish that God is more than real and that the key is our own personal and unique epiphany through which we experience it for ourselves. It took one-thousand, six-hundred and thirty-seven years after 0 [zero of the Common Era] for Descartes’ epiphany, Cogito, ergo sum, to emerge to human consciousness to which I humbly submit the epiphany of the Christ, Dei puer, as the clarification of God’s message to the whole human population of which we are part.
So, there you have it! I am a child of the same God you are as is every human being on Earth! With the myriad of problems that arise from such a statement, I still find it to be our best hope of survival. Just as every citizen has the constitutional right to vote, every human being has the right to life with liberty and death with dignity because s/he is truly a child of God!
I owe you this explanation of where I’m coming from lest you think I’m weird :-) especially since I’m temporarily turning my attention to my pathetic attempt to incite a global Lovelution! I encourage you to seek your connection with the whole people of God so that all of us can start loving one another as we are loved creating a better tomorrow for our whole world!
One way we can make 2021 better is to make it a Year of Jubilee! I don't think we need to be Jewish, but anyway, Jesus was and I think it has potential!
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:
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.
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.
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!
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
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.
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
Vow
Water
...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.
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.
Electricity preexists humans
Electricity is a singular phenomenon containing positive and negative charges which create a current;
Electrical current can be controlled by creating open and closed circuits;
We are familiar with our ability to use a circuit by opening and closing the current with a switch;
In our current world, it is possible to access an electric current by plugging into an electrical outlet.
