Green Apocalypse

I speak perhaps of a personal epiphany and it has to do with the Book of Revelation/Apocalypse. If you have read this blog in bits and pieces you will no doubt know how I do not like or understand why the Book of Revelation got tacked onto the Greek Testament. It seems more like hateful propaganda than anything that would have come out of the mouth of Jesus.

There is an entertainment show on Cable TV called the “Naked Archeologist” hosted by one Simca Jacobovicki who is not an archeologist. Mr. Jacobovicki is no doubt well read and self taught which I hold in higher esteem than all the diplomas that rich people can afford to buy their children these days.

A quote from the show’s website:

“My goal,” says Jacobovici, “is to demystify the Bible in general, and archaeology in particular, to brush away the cobwebs and burst academic bubbles.”

I have disagreed with many of his quaint and or crackpot theories. One is that the Jewish Exodus coincided with the volcanic destruction of Thera/Santorini about 3500 BPT (before present time). Thera is or was a good candidate for the basis of the Plato fable about a place called Atlantis.

Never the less, looking at something from a fresh or unprejudiced and not prejudiced academic point of view is something I look for in this present stifling infant global world with its lack of creativity and growing non-open economic, religious and cultural points of view.

My personal epiphany came last night on a show about the Jewish community in ancient Rome. Simca is standing in a Jewish catacomb and sees what he thinks is a Christian symbol amidst the seemingly exclusive Jewish burial place. His guide and professional academic refuses to acknowledge the possibility of the symbol being Christian. Simca has to make a living and is looking for sellable tangents to add to and in accordance with the flavor of his show.

I know that feeling. You don’t have a Doctor of Divinity from Yale or Harvard. What makes unimportant you think you have any interesting theological question to ask me on my divine academic pedestal?

Enough with background and with some thanks to Simca helping me break through a wall regarding the book of Revelation and my opinion that it is originally a Jewish document or fragments of many Jewish end of the world themed documents not unlike the bulk of documents found and labeled as the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Book of Revelation, as Protestants call it, or the Book of the Apocalypse as the R.C. and Orthodox Christians label it, seems to me to be a green or recycled text co-opted for Constantine’s official Christian Church. That maybe the true break between Christian and Jew was not a religious break among brothers. Maybe the split between Christian and Jew was an official political decision for the greater glory of the Roman General/Emperor Constantine.

Not being a professional academic, I base my logic more on timelines and critical symbols in the book of so called revelation.

The biggest symbol in the book is the “666” figure of the anti-Christ with most scholars these days agreeing that the numerology is about Nero.

You have this story that the Christians tell about how an incredibly small unknown cult of Jews called Christians got singled out as the scapegoat for the fire in Rome 64 C.E.. The Christians are so important in Roman propaganda and in a state that eventually elevates the Christian Messiah to the level of a Roman god under Constantine.

Before Simca, I had already thought that maybe it was the Jews, with a few Christians mixed in, that Nero went after in 64 C.E. That maybe those tensions and aftermath and backlash worked its way back to the holy land and was the basis of the start of the great Jewish Revolt starting in 66 C.E.. That revolt led to the destruction of Jerusalem and the second Temple in 70 C.E.. Look at the timelines.

I think that until the time of Constantine, Jews and Christians are inseparable in terms of shared traditions and living in the same part of town, towns.

There is a great deal of recycled Old Testament prophetic symbolism in the Book of Revelation and the thought occurs to me that when there is a warning to seven churches in Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea, that before it was a warning to Christian basilicas, maybe it was first a warning to the Jewish communities in these cities just as or right after the destruction of Jerusalem occurs. Like there were no Jews in the biggest cities of Asia Minor – yeah right – and that only the Christian communities existed there alone - sure.

And of course the end of the book has the supreme Jewish symbol of a New Jerusalem topped off with the second coming of Christ as Messiah at the end of this very long, tedious, nasty, symbolic pile of possibly green recycled words currently known as the Book of Revelation.

Oh well. Just a thought. Thank you Simca for part of the inspiration.

King David's Fall from Grace

There is an artist, who is a bit off the wall from what I hear, but I am absolutely moved by the artist Rufus Wainwright and the song he sings “Hallelujah”.

The background to the song is David and his seduction of Bathsheba and the Watergate like cover up of King David’s sins of covetness, adultery and possibly murder. It is he, as king, who comes to terms with the consequences of his own actions. The people and his court officials were no doubt whispering the truth long before the king understood the magnitude of his going off course in his life. They say he wrote Psalm 51 as a result of his fall from grace - asking God’s forgiveness.

The song in modern secular terms is Art Imitating Life and reflecting man’s capability, capacity to do the wrong thing at the wrong time and to hurt the ones you love including yourself.

The Psalms are songs that David supposedly wrote and sang to the music of a lyre. Was David an artist and a singer? I cannot say for certain.

I can say that the Hebrew Testament is filled at times with a lustiness and brutal reality not similarly displayed in the Greek Testament.

Wainright’s song also has an allusion to Samson and Delilah with the cutting of hair lyrics. It is a bit like an historical movie with a lot of good bits mixed together to make a better story.

Sometimes good comes out of evil. Perhaps the megalomaniac of David slowed downed, consolidated his base and made it possible for his son Solomon to eventually build the first great Temple. In reality, I think David did not want to give up the military budget to build a temple but that is just my opinion.

The rest is history and the timeline that comes straight down to us to this day.


“ I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah

Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty
in the moonlight
overthrew you
She tied you
To a kitchen chair
She broke your throne,
she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah”


Live and Learn. Live and Learn.

Face of God

What does God look like? Does he have to look like anything? Does man’s visual ability apply passed death when the spiirit separates from the body?

There are a thousand different questions about the basics of religious and or spiritual beliefs. If you sat down and had the average Christian, asked them to fill out a questionnaire, you would likely get many different answers to the same question.

While I know what traditional Jesus looks like with his Nordic ashen blonde hair, blue eyes and perfectly chiseled face, it might not be the person I get to meet in the afterlife. What if I walk up to the gates of heaven and see a long line and sit down on a cloud and then start shooting the breeze with a stranger taking a smoke (smoking is forbidden in Heaven – don’t you know that?), then the stranger walks back inside the employee’s gate without having to slide his ID card through the gate-key and then I find out that that was Jesus (for Christ’s sake!). And then I have to go through St. Peter’s gate and metal detector. What if Jesus talks about my contempt for organized religion? What if my name magically appears on a “do not admit” list? All this because I did not know what J.C. looked like?

Of course anybody might get the boss’s son wrong in a line up but what if I encountered God up there or even down here.

There is this concept of a “personal God” I have heard about for many years and I never looked up the definition because I thought I knew what it meant. The definition is something like giving human attributes to a non-human entity. It is not unlike making cartoon characters and giving them animation and voices and well you can fathom what I am talking about.

I always thought that a personal God was the person, God, I was talking to inside of me when debating the direction of my moral compass. Heresy you say. Well let me say this. There is an awful lot of money and power out there in the name of the creator of the universe. There is not a lot of heart among the bureaucrats feeding off the good life in God’s name. I think I can at least trust the good inside of me and not the wolves in sheep’s clothing out there.

Going back to something I have probably said before, faith in somebody else’s faith is extraordinary faith indeed. I may be standing alone on a street corner so to speak in my quest for spirituality in a very non-spiritual materialistic world. The organized meal-ticket christians may sneer at me but do you know what?

The divine spark within me is lot more comfortable and real than the whole cacophony of religions today. I may only have my own faith in what I perceive to be the divine things of this world. I am not worshipping the personal Gods and obsolete insights of long dead prophets, biblical kings and saints.

I know what God looks like. He, or she if you prefer, looks a little like every one of us.

What If Simple Prayer Departs? (with the Death of the Whales)

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What if simple prayer departs?
(with the death of the whales)

What if -
the largest creatures left
in the sea, in the sea
disappear for the sake
of imagined enemies?
Sonar, Sonar,
Ping, Ping,
Bang?
-
What if -
the sound of the large creatures
makes a heavenly noise
that only God hears first
coming from the planet?
Prayer to you. Prayer to you.
Thou whom are greater
than me.
-
What if -
the survivor of the Age of Saurs
the little mammal rodent
and now a monkey king
forgets or does not know
a similar sweet sound
to offer the great figure
in the sky?
-
What if -
monkey prayers are mixed
with the mighty whales'
and when the whale departs
forever - sounds to heaven
will be drowned out as
in silence and heard
no more above?
-
What if -
the great fathers of justice
slam the door on the whales
and the upward spiral
of thought, prayer, being -
slam the door shut on
the beauty of possibilities?
Slam!
-
What if -
the whales appeal
and the monkey fathers
shout "Get over it!"
your day has passed
is not important
in the present monkey
scheme of things?
-
What if -
one last whisper goes up
and is not heard.
But God to his assistant says.
"Funny I thought I heard
what once sounded like Saurs
at play and in prayer
to me?"
-
What if -
yesterday - 65 million years
turns full circle?
What is left to master?
And perhaps the monkeys
will finally learn to sing,
to swim - in the sea -
again?
-
(This in order to re-establish a balance
- and to be truly heard above again?)

American Fear, Hate and Jesus' Love

There is an awful lot of friction in California and Utah over Proposition 8 which was a referendum on the concept of Gay Marriage.

I personally do not see the need for marriage for gay people but if two consenting adults want to be bound in the traditional marriage contract, well, it is uncomfortable to me at first and over time I guess I will get over it. The future has arrived. Hey, was getting over slavery a hundred years ago anything like this?

The Mormons and their giant Joseph Smith cult that hid out in the wilderness until civilization reached them in that wilderness; it saw Jesus in it's own particular light and interpretation. They were pretty much your average fanatical fringe christian religious group that also practiced polygamy.

The polygamy started in time of war when troop numbers were down so why not get more bang and soldier for the buck. Same thing happened in Islam in the beginning. The temporary need to produce safety in numbers never quite got wiped off the books.

The Mormons of course had to officially renounce polygamy to get U.S. Statehood in the 1890’s but it still is practiced by many to this day off the books so to speak. I don’t see any referendums on getting rid of the last vestiges of the medieval concept of polygamy. Which leads to the cliche about people in glass houses throwing bricks at their neighbors.

Well the Mormons have got a holier than thou bug up their ass and who have this peculiar thing about sex and marriage and whatever - spent $18,000,000, 4 out of every 5 dollars spend on promoting or opposing this California Gay Marriage thing.

The Gays are protesting all around California and in Salt Lake City. Now I see from today's news that Gay Protestors have also picketed the mini-pope Rick Warren’s mega church and their opposition to this minority seeking basic civil and human rights.

Jesus did not hate the people and the amazing thing about the four Gospels with all the hands and committees that touched the official propaganda story of Jesus - Jesus the man, Jesus the mensch never condemned homosexuality.

Enough said.

Jesus loves!

All Beliefs are Local

I go back to a discussion I had some years ago about Christianity in it’s alphabet soup days and the sacred text “Acts of the Apostles” with a friend – not a scholar – he had mentioned how Christianity has splintered from the beginning and going all the way to the present.

I suddenly see his point as I look at least at the American point of view. Many splinter groups call themselves “Christian” – cling to obscure passages and interpretations of sacred text and well – Alphabet Soup Christianity is the best you get some days – most places - these days. The only glue holding the old Chi-Ro thing together is perhaps the ancient Constantine creeds.

If I had to categorize Christianity today, perhaps it could be as a multicolored beach ball bouncing around here and there. It is a franchise product so to speak and marketed differently from country to country and within countries as well. When I hear the term Christian I have to be wary and recognize that a one size fits all bill on the protestant side of the equation is not much different than the catholic equation fitting into every culture as best it can and absorbing local pagan customs and turning local deities into born again saints.

I choose to paraphrase the late Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Thomas “Tip” O’Neill. His assertion was that “All politics is local”. So too I see that all beliefs systems are local as well. You believe what you feel comfortable with to yourself, with your family and within your community, culture, region, country. “Paris is worth a Mass” Henry IV said when he renounced his protestant beliefs in order to ascend the catholic throne of France.

In that light, many variations of Christianity exist all over this planet. Whether the message of Jesus in the Gospels is taught correctly, or is PC or relevant to social norms is another matter entirely. That the American Catholic Church in perhaps too much zeal, to make brownie points, to conform to Vatican policies in the sixties turned off a whole generation of church goers with iron fist tactics. The response in Italy or France to the ideas of birth control were no doubt dealt with and received differently by the local community.

In any case, the secular world is of primary purpose and dominant to many westerners today more so than any ancient sacred concepts of world order.

The multi colored beach ball is as good as any metaphor beyond the traditional cross to describe the ever rich but still alphabet soup of Christian beliefs and scholarship.

Maybe this is a good thing.

The Man Jesus

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I think that a certain theme has developed in this blog as time goes on, as I examine or question all the many aspects of the Christian faith in a lifetime that has seen many changes and great upheavals.

I do go back to the basic Jesus, the community organizer. That title “community organizer” was a term sneered at by “me christians” at the Republican Convention in ironically the city of Saint Paul in Minnesota in early September.

What I have learned over the years and or felt important is the concept of empathy in the gospels telling the story of Jesus and his ministry. I think that the true christianity of this or any age should be that of “we christians”. Empathy is not specifically mentioned in the gospels but implied with the concept of love thy neighbor or going the extra mile so to speak.

There is a whole bunch of cultists out there that believe in some “kool-aid christianity” and believe in some rapture and escape from reality at the end of a world that they do not like or cannot handle living in on a day to day basis.

The real christians, the real people of God, who believe in one God and try to live a decent life within the context of a greater community are down here on the ground and not up in the air with any fantasy Jesus or strange prophesies in the questionable last book of General Constantine’s approved testament.

Getting back to community and community organizing is the hint in the gospels that Jesus was more feared not as the son of God but as being capable to overthrowing the dictatorship of pagan Rome by inspiring and inciting the masses to secular justice. Jesus had a divine mission and God was, is, the author of that mission on Earth.

In that context, Jesus, the man who would be messiah or savior or deliverer of an oppressed people, he started the spark of present Western Civilization whereby the individual, with a soul and worthy of dignity, is the most important part of any political, religious, economic or moral equations.

Of course, Greece had its democracy of elites. Jesus was, is and will always be the basis of hope and human dignity, the spokesman and soul for all people and all times. He is truly the alpha and omega, first and last and one of the people always.

Get out today and vote with your conscience.

God bless our democracy!
- -

In Search of Jesus

In one of those rare moments of coincidence, I ran into an old copy of U.S. News and World Report April 1996 in the laundry room of my apartment complex about a month ago. The title of the magazine was In search of Jesus.

A great deal of the article had to do with the Jesus Seminar, a group of christian scholars who with their various historic research and linguistics decided by committee vote what parts of the New Testament seem more valid than others.

If you in fact get some new bible and words in red denote the words of Jesus you probably have this professional elitist meal ticket christian enterprise to thank.

It is quite easy to dissect the faith. I have done it here and as a hobby for many years. I want to know the basic Jesus. I try to live the simple Christian message.

What irks me most about finding this magazine is how it got published and how only a few elite made a significant mark on modern cultural society and then blended back into the academic woodwork. That I on my own personal journey was perhaps mirroring some clues spewing out of the Jung’s cosmic unconsciousness related to the same subject.

What irks me is that as an elder in a Lutheran church, over a decade ago, I mentioned to the Pastor how I had read something in the past about this red balling and black balling of the so called words of Jesus. He did not throw any crumbs back to this dog in any part of the dialogue as if he was ignorant of the Jesus Seminar. He was not. I did not have a collar and was not part of the comfy smug club member’s only section of elites in the Christian church.

Well so much for elitism. I believe there is a job application out there on the Internet if you want to join the Jesus Seminar to add prestige to your scholarship and resume. First question is how many PhDs you have and in what areas are they in. That leaves me out in the cold for that job. Of course it may not pay anything to speak of. It is the prestige.

Why if you can chop the Lord’s prayer into three or four iffy segments of who was likely to have said this or said that – isn’t the Jesus Seminar more an autopsy of the Constantine Christian church and if so – why are some of you elitist ministers attached to this project – why haven’t you taken your collars off if all that is left of Christianity is you and your sterile academic input? Salaries and pensions would seem more valuable than the simple words, message and heart of Jesus’ ministry of so long ago.

Where is your faith?
-

The Unity of Diversity

The unity of all things diverse

( in the universe

of things too great to count )

is God

Happy Secular Holiday (Halloween)

Halloween is a secular holiday – corruption of original language Hallowed Eve of a holy day - All Saints day - November 1. I see that that the Swedes do the weekend thing making all saint’s day on the first Saturday of November, a secular manipulation of a once sacred day in the past.

The Church in the past has merged local customs and let the pagan festival stuff outside the church building proper. In many ways the church did not convert totally so much as it coexisted on certain levels with local customs and local religions.

Halloween came to the United States via the Irish immigration in the mid nineteenth century as a part secular and part sacred tradition. The costumes children might wear on all hallowed eve would be of angels and saints and the like. Kids like dress up and an excuse to stay up late and whatever.

The custom in the USA grew with marketing from regional custom to national custom via the old 5 and 10 cent stores and Woolworth’s selling cheap costumes – anybody remember that defunct chain of stores?

For some reason, the Brits or the Brit kids got a hold of Halloween – kids, trick of treat – candy – the American culture is addictive in many ways wherever it spreads. I’ve have heard some Brits complain about how their traditional Autumn festival Guy Fawkes Day, November 5, is watered down with a merging in time, close dates with Halloween. I guess British children cannot get too much of good things.

In many ways, the problems the USA has in its foreign policy has to due with secular culture, marketing and such interfering with the sacred and in many cultures where sacred is indistinguishable from the secular. These other cultures might call themselves theocracies but in the bottom line of any government is power, taxes and crowd control. They have their own secular festivals and any thing foreign might be misunderstood or considered taboo.

Growing up in Philly, Halloween was no problem to the religious community. It was a local and a kid’s thing. I have seen in the past decades how some mentally ill fundies want to turn Halloween into some sort of Satanic thing. No doubt, the child in many fundies is an eternal prisoner of fear. This end of the world stuff and wanting the power and money of medieval popes is what I think is behind the drive, attempt, at banning a secular kid’s custom such as Halloween.

Great thing about Halloween, is that it spreads year to year, century to century and country to country. It must be a good and a human enterprise. Joy and fun should not be only in the realm of children. Or celebrated only one night a year.

Happy Halloween.

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Inspirational Drawing #9

"Aura of Four Trees and other Life in a Garden" - an inspirational drawing (#9)

Perhaps you can print it out and use it as a focus point in meditation as I do.

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Obama and Nostradamus

I am of course fascinated by the prophets of the Old, New and Arabic Testaments. They tend to deal almost exclusively in the realm of the Sacred.

On the Secular side you have many carnie trained wannabe prophets like Edgar Cayce and some aging TV evangelists - but I won't go there.

And then there is Nostradamus.

For your reading pleasure/displeasure. Take of it what you will.

I ran into some incredible bullshit on the Internet with fake so-called bible codes about Obama (masked rascism and hatred) – from the fringe element of the human condition.

Then I ran into this quatrain from Nostradamus in his first century grouping that might fit the bill of present world history.

Century 1 : quatrain 76

"D'vn nom farouche tel proferé ƒera,
Que les trois ƒœurs auront fato le nom :
Puis grand peuple par langue & fai¢t dira,
Plus que nul autre aura bruit & renom."

"The man will be called by a barbaric name
that three sisters will receive from destiny.
He will speak then to a great people in words and deeds,
more than any other man will have fame and renown."

I researched a bit and found this synopsis segment of a published book.

http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewArticle.asp?id=35978

"Obama went to Kenya hoping to learn more about his dead father. His half sister Auma and his aunt Zeitumi met him and took him to meet Aunt Jane and other African family members"

The “three sisters” I look at are African sisters. One half sister and two aunts, sisters of his father Obama Sr.. Oh well it was a very rainy day yesterday. Too much time on my hands so to speak. I put both the French and English versions down for you French scholars. “Barbaric name”, I define in its most generic definition as a name of foreign or alien origin.

Prophecy is something that the modern age has not applied too much scientific analysis to. Prophecy belongs in a nineteenth century parlor game category to many. Who is to say if some of us do or do not have gifts to see beyond the day to day struggle of human living.

Belief systems are varied and of all colors of the spectrum. In most cases, we all believe want we want to believe and sometimes find so-called "proof" from ancient texts or medieval almanacs.

Whether the above is an accurate prophecy from the past- Whether it is about present events- It has been a very long vetting process for the Americans to choose their father/leader.

The future is what you make of it- Just like the present. If you are searching, you may:

"Seek and you shall (might)find".

Bless us all.

OMG Are you a Wal-Mart Christian?

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OMG Are you a Christian? What kind of a Christian? How about a Wal-Mart Christian?

I mentioned earlier in one of my articles about how Christianity is assembling in a number of abandoned department store buildings in malls or in obsolete sports stadiums. Something about bigness in the American way of thinking that spells success. I don’t know how fundamentalism is spread around in other countries but I cannot but feel that the secular nature of American culture presently dictates some of its spiritual culture.

Looking at a TV evangelist in an auditorium of 15,000 souls, I am struck by the fact that Jesus in his entire lifetime probably did not preach to 15,000 souls. That Size and Success are the basic factors in the new Evangelism. Not enough to be a big church but we must build a medical center or a university in the name of our success. I mean in the name of Jesus and God. Whatever.

I listen to the telly and wait to hear the preacher’s words of wisdom since he has an audience the size of Jesus and his first century marketing capacity. I listen and all I hear is Pop Psychology. I don’t think psychology comes out of the spiritual side of any equation as much as it comes out of the secular side.

You are successful because you are successful and God would not dare to keep you from more success. Come again? Where are the thee-s and the thou-s and the Jesus part and the soul and the reward in heaven thingy?

Like I said, what passes for spirituality these days is a Sunday morning at Big-Mart, a cathedral of materialism and commerce. The old church buildings of the nineteenth century are being converting into condos and fitness spas and mini grocery marts. In the comfort of seclusion and the bubble of my home and armed with a channel changer as my only defense against evil, I listen and must turn off the preacher in wolf’s clothing.

Jesus’ message is simple and understandable and not something automatically discounted hour per hour. The secular nature of America is closer to the myth of Satan these days with it’s greed, envy, covet ness, and empty material non-spiritual success.

I sound a bit pompous but forgive me. I grew up in another age and have my own set feelings about God and spirituality. New is not better. Repackaged is not better. Big is definitely not necessarily a better thing.

Where ever two or more are gathered in my name, there I am also.
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Our Lady of Tucson

A rather unknown form of folk art from primarily Mexico is the Retablo.

Originally, this art form was a primitive, religious icon painted onto wood. These items became more commonplace in the nineteenth century when most icons or sacred images were painted onto small squares of tin. These images adorned many a house with a small votive light in front of the image.

The image above is reminiscent of the standard Christian icon image of Mary. I label the image both in the English and Espanol – Our Lady of Tucson, Nuestra Senora de Tucson.

Having lived in the southwest for a number of years, one gets used to the standard pastel colors and desert themes of cactus and coyotes and Kokopelli petroglyph style images. In a way the sacred petroglyphs of some ancient unknown but native American culture such as Kokopelli have been reduced to the present secular culture that inhabits the same land as the ancient and greatly unknown and greatly undocumented culture that has come before.

The above image was suggested to me by a connect the dot sort of thing I saw on the side of a mountain. Only a Christian might see the image of Mary, not a vision, in a french fry or on dirty window panes or the shadows on the side of the mountain as I once witnessed for a moment. People from other cultures do not see through the same lense of interpretation. Standard iconic images suggest divinity but are only really a reflection of it. We see, feel, out from our soul and in a Christian iconic prism to interpret the universe.

Every culture in every time and place sees and hears the universal message of God but such images, if allowed, or such words, if interpreted correctly and in a cultural context manner only reinforce the local culture’s view of the world and beyond the world.

Every culture in every time and place has a valid but small and seperate focused interpretation of the eternal.

As the global culture expands, the things of similarity with the universal common message or program will reveal a new window, image, interpretation of us and the meaning of us against the current backdrop of the universe.


.

Mary - Mother Earth

In the back stair unofficial R.C. story telling culture of nuns in my youth, the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe was one of those strange but miraculous stories that sticks with you the rest of your life. Stories, myths, legends come and go and bind cultures. Mary fills a lot of niches in our global diversity.

Through my casual studies of esoterics and myths over the decades, I keep coming back to Our Lady of Guadalupe.

Wikipedia makes mention of the concept that Mexicans have faith in only two things, the National Lottery and the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Of course eggheads and historians will tell you that the Marian apparition of Mary on a hill just outside Mexico City is in fact an overlay of the Mexican goddess Tonantzin, or Mother Earth. Etc. One has to wonder sometimes why one image, one icon sticks out and stays with the human spirit and culture.

As being pretty much a Cultural Christian from the Protestant side of the spectrum, Mary, the mother of Jesus has been relegated very little space, comment, devotion since Martin Luther’s reformation.

In my Catholic youth, the Mary Icon, (not an idol) was a major part of all R.C. church architecture and devotion.

I do not venerate saints. I pray directly to God.

Some years ago, I thought that from a cultural or an artistic point of view, the image of the Virgin of Guadalupe would be a great idea if you scraped away a lot of the added on silver paint and cherubs which were added after the appearance of the original image.

A streamlined Virgin of Guadalupe I thought would be a good cultural christian icon. It would be something to match so much of the pagan add-ons since the early church and the basic Jesus – to be a useful secular, cultural, not sacred image.

The above image would fit into that agenda image concept of mine.

Of course I do not feel comfortable with Marian apparitions especially when people see Mary in a french fry or on calcium stained windows on an office building of I think in Florida.

Icons in Christianity are part of the mysticism of getting into a spiritual mood or feeling. This is not unlike breathing exercises in yoga or Buddhism. What ever works in a spiritual sense changes from geography to geography and culture to culture.

In any case, I show great respect to the beliefs of other people, cultures and religions. I expect the same measure of respect in return.

Have a thoughtful day.

Prayer of Francis of Assisi

Lord,
make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Lord,
grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.
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Cornerstone of the New Global Village

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Jesus said, “Show me the stone that the builders rejected. That is the cornerstone.”

Gospel of Thomas 66, Psalm 118:22-24, Matthew 21:42, Mark 12:10-11, Acts 4:11-12, 1st Peter 2:6-8

We travel further away, some of us, the older of us, from the village of our youth.

Some of us carry that image in our minds and our hearts till we die.

There will always be generational gaps as there are now between the manual past and the new improved and current virtual world of today. It is hard for someone such as me to recognize and try to travel between the different worlds and cultures and the times we encounter in a lifetime.

Most people do not seem to make any effort. They seem to just blend into the times.

I believe that Jesus as a native of Nazareth or as the Son of the Most High had a strange to us but normal to him view of the village of his origin.

As we get more complex in our interface with so many ideas, concepts, feelings, and results of an increasingly complex existence, we should take time out to think and wonder as to what we are in the midst of it all.

At the center of Jesus and his simple message, is the message of the village, planting and harvesting and the everyday joy of living. Sometimes I think that Jesus was more French in his outlook on life than we Americans. (That is a bit of Jesus related irony or humor – I am trying to see Jesus as a man of many dimensions and humor - is something that does not translate from age to age and especially from millennium to millennium – over all human nature has not changed – so humor is valid - is good. )

The modern western world seems at times to be out of sync with the new sterile global village already built but not easily lived in.

The past half century of extended family has in many ways replaced the nuclear family, a concept coined in the nuclear age, to denote the old fashioned concept of parents and children and to be in contrast to current realities. The new extended family of the west, rising like a Phoenix out of the ashes of traditional family concepts, came about because of divorce and step parents, step siblings, and weekend visitation rights. Our present culture, if you look hard at it, isn't the same fabric of Norman Rockwell paintings and idealized bygone eras.

Looking all about at the cultural flux, the collapse and building of many carnival like structures, economic and social, of post WWII America, and the new global culture, one has to wonder if Jesus in his primitive age could understand all the economic or moral challenges of this brave new world.

This new age is built on the concepts of the brain. The mind can calculate money, figures, enterprises, legal compromises with traditional morality.

The heart more than likely touches the soul. Jesus in my view would seem to be more of heart kind of guy than a braniac.

The point is that no matter where you live in time or space, in a village or a city, in a moral or amoral society, the individual must and usually does carry the village of one’s beginning in one’s mind and in one’s heart. So much else does not matter in the scheme of things.

My choice, my heart tells me what is fair or right or wrong or moral.

The individual, as opposed to the traditional group, is the building stone the builders of the past rejected.

The individual is the cornerstone of the new global village.

Today, the decisions of mere individuals affect not millions but billions of others in our new global reality – the New Jerusalem – of Heaven present here upon this earth.

Be mindful and of heart in the everyday decisions that affect both ourselves and our neighbors.
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Goodbye to the Age of Chronic Luxury

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I have, in my mind and in some other spots, framed this naught decade and the decade before as an age of chronic luxury.

Goodbye age of chronic luxury.

It was too much to ask for shelter or our daily bread.

A house in the slums grew to great value when the street signs also had an add-on saying “historic district”.

There is more than enough guilt or culpability for the fantasy world of finance and wealth and well I never did quite buy into it all. Maybe I was born too late or something inside me, as a student of history, knew that the bubble would pop any day now.

Mea Culpa. Mea Culpa. Mea Maxima Culpa.

The bubble in America and perhaps the planet is going to do some adjusting to a lesser standard of things now.

Perhaps shelter and one’s daily bread will gain in virtue, retrieved and or recycled from the dumpster of this recent past.

One thing missing in the virtual world of the new and now amended economics has been brotherhood and a sense of who one’s neighbor really is.

My bubble world wraps around my heart and simple things.

The basic Jesus message of loving oneself and one’s neighbor may go out of fashion from time to time.

The classic message will always remain.

Imagine

Of some of the direct comments I get as e-mail from an occasional reader – some are not quite sure what I am trying to say. I do try to say things in a manner that does not offend any occasional reader. I try to communicate as clearly as possible.

What I also hear is that we are all “looking for something” or that (we) “think we all essentially want the same thing in life”. Many of us see the world differently but perhaps we are listening to some same “collective unconsciousness” that Jung tried to describe.

Nobody seems to have many answers to the many questions regarding life.

I ran into the following some time back.

“It seems to me that the only true Christians were (are?) the Gnostics, who believe in self knowledge, i.e. becoming Christ themselves, reaching the Christ within, the light is the truth. Turn on the light. All the better to see you with, my dear.” John Lennon – Skywriting by Word of Mouth

Of course the so called Gnostic gospels were discovered in a clay jar near the Egyptian town of Nag Hammadi in 1945. The Nag Hammadi library is the Christian era equivalent of the Dead Seas scrolls found two years later in 1947 in caves near the Dead Sea.

I find the coincidence extraordinary that these two lost repositories came to light in an age when they would be treasured and not ignored or destroyed by sheer ignorance.

I will not comment on the Dead Sea Scrolls but rather on the Gnostic gospels which represent more a philosophical and cult approach to the ministry of Jesus. As an amateur reader of the NT, I did not feel comfortable the first time I tried to read translations of these lost texts. The ministry of Jesus is far clearer in the Constantine Bible (NT).

There is one Gnostic gospel, the Gospel of Thomas that I think more readable than the rest but it is short and only a listing of 114 sayings attributed to Jesus. Some of the sayings you recognize as being in the synoptic gospels of the NT. One saying in particular stands out for me.

That is:

His followers said to him, "When will the kingdom come?"
"It will not come by watching for it. It will not be said, 'Look, here
it is,' or 'Look, there it is.' Rather, the father's kingdom is spread
out upon the earth, and people do not see it." - Gospel of Thomas 113

Of course many would debate if Jesus truly said this.

Getting back to John Lennon’s quote about being Christ-like and being responsible to what one sees or feels like the divine spark within, I am reminded of a word from the Buddhists – Bodhisattva.

A Bodhisattva is supposed to be an enlightened person on one well along the road to Enlightment. This individual takes the time and energy to share wisdom and help others on the road to enlightenment.

Perhaps somewhere on the road to the future of Christianity is a mix of Sacred and Secular, of Jesus, John Lennon and Jung, and the spirit of Bodhisattvas everywhere.

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To Serve Man

There is a thing called karma in eastern philosophy and religion. It speaks of your energy being sent out into the universe and following a law of physics, that energy and or your actions eventually come back to you.

In other words, if you send out a negative energy, that same negative energy will come back to you, in some way and in some time. So too if you send positive energy out there, then that is what comes back to you.

Of course this karma thing is attached to a concept called reincarnation whereby your soul makes many journeys through many lives and bodies on this prison-like planet. I do not believe in reincarnation. It is not nor has it been taught as part of the basic Christian religion package.

I also do not want to come back if that is the deal. Once is enough. For me. Why must we constantly be tested as to our loyalty? If we must, then God seems quite imperfect and insecure.

What is God's plan for the universe? I do not know. But I confess that sometimes I think I feel I know what that plan is and it is a simple plan to just live a simple life and enjoy the simple pleasures of living. Sounds like the French who got so fed up with religion and exploitation over the centuries, they just ground an irritant into the dirt.

There is a book out there called “The Secret”. It talks about the energy thing and about success. Like all you have to do is find the right words and make the right wish and zingo – Magic happens. This book is secular. No where is there a mention of God or other basics. Is the book godless? Secular is not necessarily godless. I pass regarding judement on the matter.

This blog has in many ways enlightened me and it has also presented me with challenges. Looking at the American culture, this subculture of religion has become some sort of code word or code project to test the sheep and see what sheep are worthy “To Serve Man” – a recipe book of sorts or just another rule book.

That what you believe is somehow a DNA test of sorts if you are the right sort and have the right stuff to be about this land. It is a lingering eternal delusional cabin fever hangover thing from the crazies that came off the Mayflower and started to chomp through forest after forest until they got to nowhere which is the Pacific Ocean. The drive is still there but there are no more virgin forests to rape and plunder.

I have not addressed the concepts of atheism and agnosticism in this blog and I am not ready for it. I have over time shied away from atheists because most of those whom I have met or see on telelvision all seem to be seething with anger against religion. The whole God debate is a laborious thing with them and I for one do not want to waste my time here on earth on riddles, ideas and unsolvable matters. For me, my faith in God is inate. Also, there seem to be few atheists in America comfortable in their own skin. Little wonder with quasi witch hunts that the loonies can’t give up on to kill time or fill their purpose driven lives.

I do believe that in this secular society, you are allowed to believe anything. Considering the mental dearth of the Jesus freak crowd, less is far better than more.

What do I tell my children? I believe that they, if they are near college age, have already formed their own opinions. It is their life to examine and explore.

How you view religion, God, yourself seems to differ greatly depending on what side of the east-west dividing line you happen to be on of this planet’s geography.

Getting back to the karma thing. If it truly exists, then I believe that you get feedback in this one life from the deeds and energy you manufacture. I also give myself a discount and karma debts not paid in this life just don’t get paid – period. Enough is enough.



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Thoughts on the Bible from a homeless guy

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I ran into this on the Internet. It speaks volumes to me about my search to say or find what I think are both the stumbling blocks and possible foundation stones of the future of a Christianity that travels along the road of life into the 21st century and beyond.

The words out of context hit me between the eyes and I have to consider them as something to think about on my travels on that road of life.

I also have to consider them as from a “homeless guy”, not unlike Jesus or the Apostles – and on that homeless man’s blog.

The line that struck me most and as a Cultural Christian that I took greatly to heart was about the Fundamentalist Christian messsage:

“...Instead of having a relationship with God, they have a relationship with the Bible...”

That is something worth repeating in any conversation these days about the road that Christianity travels into the future or into oblivion.

More from the article and the article itself for your reading:

“The Bible is not perfect, and there is plenty of reasonable proof of its imperfection. But, really, does the Bible have to be perfect? I don’t think so. God is still God, with, or without it. For some, though, their faith is founded on the Bible... Instead of having a relationship with God, they have a relationship with the Bible. And instead of developing a life in relationship with God, they spend all their time trying to defend the Bible, defend their faith, defend “Christianity,” etc., etc. But, God needs no defenders. God is perfectly capable of defending himself, and desires for us to instead spend our lives doing His will. A real Christian is not one who makes signs to the world that they are Christian, but is one who feeds the hungry, shelter the cold, provides for the needy, etc. A person who spends all their time trying to convert the already converted, and ignores or neglects their needs, is nursing a dead faith.”

- Kevin Barbieux

http://thehomelessguy.wordpress.com/2008/02/09/thoughts-on-the-bible/
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The Awakened

How joyful to look upon the awakened
And to keep company with the wise.

Follow then the shining ones,
The wise, the awakened, the loving,
For they know how to work and forbear.

But if you cannot find
Friend or master to go with you,
Travel on alone –
Like a king who has given away his kingdom,
Like an elephant in the forest.

If the traveler can find
A virtuous and wise companion
Let him go with him joyfully
And overcome the dangers of the way.
Follow them
As the moon follows the path of the stars.

-from the Dhammapada
translated by Thomad Byrom,
Teachings of the Buddha

edited by Jack Kornfield

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Opening The Heart

“When the eyes of the heart open, we can see the inner realities, hidden behind the outer forms of this world. When the ears of the heart open, we can hear what is hidden behind words; we can hear truth.

Opening the heart means coming closer to God. God said through Muhammad, ‘I who cannot be fit into universes upon universes, fit into the heart of the sincere believer.’ The heart is a temple that can house God. All hearts are temples, and to open our hearts is to allow in the divine presence.

The heart of hearts in each of us houses a spark of the Divine. This is the meaning of the biblical (and also Koranic) quote, ‘And God breathed the breath (ruach) into Adam.'

The primary meaning for the Hebrew word ruach is ‘spirit,’ so this sentence might be more accurately translated ‘And God breathed divine spirit into Adam.’ As our hearts open, we come more in touch with the wisdom, love, joy, and inspiration from the divine spark within.

All wisdom is already within us; all love is already within us, all joy. Yet they are hidden within us until the heart opens.“


- Essential Sufism,
by James Fadiman, Robert Frager
HarperSanFrancisco, 1997
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Christians Arn't Perfect

Photo courtesy of Christian Montone:

http://christianmontone.blogspot.com/
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He walks with me - He talks with me -

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I have not necessarily felt good in the things I wrote about the R.C. church in the preceding articles. I do not, should not judge anybody specifically. “Judge not lest ye be judged”. (Matt 7:1)

I do not put myself up on a pedestal. I feel for people, small people, old people, who will be lost in the chaos of some economic downturn that takes a lifelong place of worship and it gets tossed into a trash bin. An economic decision, a mere pencil mark on a spreadsheet moves with the force of an earthquake for some. The sacred can turn into the secular in a quick and ugly way.

What would Jesus do with spreadsheets? He would tear them up and find a human solution to deal with any problem. Human is not divine but in many ways we can achieve God’s work on earth if we try together. Together as male and female, young and old, sacred and secular we can be an instrument of God’s plan for this planet. In any age it is difficult to define that plan. Most definitely, God's universe has a plan and function.

A tree has many parts: roots, base, trunk, branches, leaves. The tree of life is life. We are life. How a tree grows depends both on nature and how we treat the environment in which that tree grows.

There is no hiding from the global culture anymore for anybody. It is best to deal with it from a local point of view, make up local rules and a local mission statement and push back. This corner of the world is not so easily, no longer, available to your global exploitation.

Age old institutions should recognize where they are, where they stand, what they represent in this modern world. If you stand on a thousand year old mission statement and cannot see the new, the vitality, the change, maybe it is best to fade into the dust and history and be forgotten.

If you and or your institution cannot help to integrate the human element into an interdependent world, or help move humanity to it greatest potential as an element of God’s creation, then godless is the right word and let the godless fall and be forgotten.

I, in an allegorical and or metaphoric sense, am putting my feet in the shoes of prophets past without claiming divine sanctions. I claim as my right as a believer in the one true God and in his special Messenger Jesus, the right to knock on the Temple doors and yell “foul” whenever I see foul things about in a world sacred or secular run amuck.

You all in your own way, in the fight, must push back godless globalism. You must take a stand and defend yourself and others not as strong as yourself. It is the Christian way.

Those prophets, those critics of old were immensely unpopular with the wrongdoers and those in power of their day. They were also immensely popular with the little people before the printing press, freedom of the press etc. and in the confining realm of living in dictatorships and fascist states ruled over by cronies and kings.

In a modern age there is no need to sit back and take it especially when all this blog stuff is there to let off steam, express opinions and in a unique sense gauge the pulse of the population. We all have our rights and responsibilities. Let us exercise these elements wisely.
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