Doing the Best that We Can

     There is a scene in "Men in Black" where Agent "K" says something quite profound. He says, "Fifteen hundred years ago, everyone 'knew' the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everyone 'knew' the Earth was flat. And fifteen minutes ago you 'knew' that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you'll 'know' tomorrow." Were those people in the past correct in what they "knew"? Current knowledge says "No." But they were doing the best they could with what they knew and had at the time. They weren't any more right than physicians 1500 years ago still revering Galen's texts as the definitive authority on medicine, but it was the best information that they had until someone proved their "knowledge" wrong.
     I am not the same person today that I was when I was younger. There were things that I "knew" were right at that point in time, and I acted and spoke based on what I "knew" was right. The older I get, the more I realize that's all you can really ever ask of someone, that they do what they know is right, and that they do their best. Someone can only really act on what they "know" to be the truth, whether it corresponds to reality or not.
     I can think of many times when I acted based on what I thought to be right, or even just innocent. Yet when I remember those incidents now, an involuntary shudder passes through me that I did or said those things. I did not know that I was actually hurting or harming people at the time, but I was doing my best to act on what I "knew" to be right. The person I am now wouldn't do those things, but this person "knows" that those things done before were harmful to himself or to others. This person too is doing the best he can at doing the right thing even if it is at times the opposite of what the person I was before "knew" it to be.
     We all can only do our best based on what we "know" to be right. But what we "know" to be right can be and often is challenged by new information, new understanding, and new perspectives. We are all on a journey during our lives, and we are all progressing along that journey at our own paces, and sometimes along that journey, we make different stops from one another, and pass through different villages and towns from one another. We meet different people, and experience different things. Yet still, we continue on the path we're taking, and where we progress to is not where we came from, nor should it be.
     The Eleventh Doctor from Doctor Who said right before his regeneration, "We all change, when you think about it. We're all different people; all through our lives, and that's okay. That's good. You've gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be."
     When you look back at who you were, when I look back at who I am, when we look at where someone else is right now, we all must keep in mind that that person then and now is doing the best they can with what they "know," just like you and I did and still do. It may be frustrating, painful, and traumatic to observe, but still, that's all you can ask of them to do. And knowing this, we can forgive them and realize that their journey isn't done yet either.

Think Differently

 Think differently.
     If your church preaches that God is loving, merciful, forgiving, and compassionate and yet that same church condemns people for their differences and mistakes, then think differently. You cannot love God whom you cannot see and hate your brother, or anyone else for that matter, whom you can see. God is not hate. God is not fear. God is love. The person who doesn't love doesn't know God, because God is love. If love is not present within a person, within their words, their behaviors, then neither is God. And if love is not present within a church's words and behaviors, then neither is God. And if God is not present within a church, then that church is not a church, it is not a gathering of disciples of Jesus Christ, it is something else. It is a cult that worships an idol of their own making and slaps the name of God on it like the Israelites did with their golden calf.
Think differently about what it means to be a Christian. Think differently about what it means to follow Jesus Christ. Think differently about what it means to worship the God of Scripture. If you notice that what Scripture actually says and what your church preaches and practices don't match, then question it and think differently. If you truly want to seek after God, if you truly want to cling to Jesus Christ, if you want to pursue the truth, then open your eyes and open your ears and see and hear what is truly going on. Have eyes to see and ears to hear. Take the red pill. Unshackle from the cave of shadows and step out into the sunlight. Look at things with an honest eye, without fear.
     Think differently.
     If your church shames you or ostracizes you for being different, think differently about it. If they question your faith or devotion because you question their hypocrisy and pretense, then think differently about them. According to the oldest practices of the church, those who didn't live what Jesus taught weren't even considered Christians.
     We spend far too much time and too many resources trying to conform to church communities and organizations that themselves don't actually live as Christ taught; that themselves are more about maintaining the status quo instead of manifesting Jesus Christ, and among whom Jesus Christ Himself would not be welcome were He to show up unannounced and anonymous.
     It is more important to follow the Teacher than it is to fit in. It is vastly, infinitely more important to hear the Teacher's voice than that of your pastor, elder, deacon, or fellow church member, and moreso that you echo or channel it. Manifesting Jesus Christ for others is what being a Christian is all about in the first place.
     Think differently.

Upon the Mouth of Two or Three Witnesses...

"Upon the mouth of two witnesses and three witnesses every spoken word will be made to stand." -2 Corinthians 13:1, Deuteronomy 19:15

"Because where there are two or three gathered together in My name, there I am in the middle of them." Matthew 18:20

One of the most striking things when one reads the Gospel of Buddha, or the Tao Te Ching, or even in Chapter 10 of the Bhagavad Gita is how much agreement there is with the Biblical Scriptures in many places. There is disagreement to be sure, but that there is agreement at all should give one pause to think and reflect. Lately, I've been reading a book called "The Enlightenment Project," which is about the author's findings and techniques he learned after spending decades interviewing "enlightened" people such as Mother Theresa, the Dali Lama, Ram Dass and others. The chapter I just read this morning was about what he called "Relationship Yoga," and about using one's intimate relationship to further their progress along the road to enlightenment or awakening. Thing of it is, I am finding that several of the things he says are things which I have heard coming from my own mouth when counseling relationships, things which I could and can take no credit for at the time but the Spirit of Christ was doing the speaking, and what I read in this chapter feels like it echoes Paul's sentiments in the beginning of 1 Corinthians 7.
      If God is who the Scriptures says He is, then doesn't it follow that He would have communicated to those who diligently sought Him, even like Abraham not really knowing who they were seeking or following, and that what they left behind would have reflected that in some way? As Christians, we tend to forget what the Scriptures themselves say regarding the agreement of witnesses as applied to various spiritual writings from around the world. When both Jesus and Buddha say similar or even the same things, we need to pay attention. When the Tao Te Ching and John the Apostle are describing similar concepts, we need to recognize that it might be the same Mind behind both. Or even when the writings of the Stoics reflected the same Mind behind Paul's writings, shouldn't we sit up at take notice? Where two or three witnesses are in agreement, then we need to listen, pay attention, and take their testimony seriously.
     It is my opinion that the Holy Scriptures, the writings of the Old and New Testaments must be given priority over all others (Prima Scriptura), but that when those others agree then the same Mind behind them must be recognized. When the priority is placed on love, compassion, mercy, and the letting go of one's ego or self in spiritual writings the world over including in the New Testament, doesn't it follow that God was revealing Himself to those other people in ways that they could digest, even if that revelation might not have been to the full extent as was given to the descendants of Abraham? Yes, He spoke to them face to face and they received His direct rule, attention, prophets, and more. Does that imply that He spoke to no one else who might have been seeking Him even not knowing His name? Jesus Himself said He had other sheep who weren't from Judea's fold. He had other sheep who would recognize His voice and follow it. How would they have recognized His voice if they hadn't heard it before?
     Christians tend to run the risk of the same exclusivity which characterized the Judeans of the 1st Century. We tend to think that we alone have the Scriptures. We alone have the Christ. We alone have the truth. We do indeed have all of these things, and yet the same warning Paul gives in Romans 2 applies to us as well. And the same warning Jesus gives to the Judeans, "God can raise up sons of Abraham from these rocks here." God can provide for Himself "Christians" from the rocks outside. Just because you believe, just because you attend a church, or were born into a "Christian" culture means nothing except that you had certain advantages. How have you made use of them? Is God Himself confined to only "Christian" things? As Paul also wrote describing us as wild branches which have been grafted into a cultivated olive tree, if He did not spare the natural branches, then be careful, He may not spare you either, "Christian" or not.
      Where there is agreement, we need to sit up and pay attention, because God is trying to tell us something important.

No One Comes to the Father Except Through Me

 

“ΛEΓEI AYTΩ IHCOYC, ‘EΓΩ EIMI H OΔOC KAI H AΛHΘEIA KAI H ZΩH, OYΔEIC EPXETAI ΠPOC TON ΠATERA EI MH ΔI’ EMOY.’” - John 14:6

     Jesus is here speaking as the Logos, the Tao, Om, or the Cosmic Consciousness Himself. He is speaking as the One who cannot be named or even described by mortal lips and mortal understanding; the One for whom it is impossible to be illustrated or portrayed in any representation comprehensible by a human mind. As I wrote previously about the Logos:

“The Logos was both the conscious rational mind of the individual, and the conscious rational mind which governed the cosmos, operating in both. When it was physically embodied, the Logos existed as pure ΠNEYMA (“breath,” “wind,” “spirit”), which is easily synonymous with our modern concepts of manifestations of energy like fire, which was also the animating force of all animals and human beings. In a way, as I think about it, a modern analogy of the Logos might be “the Force” from Star Wars, existing as both the “Cosmic Force” ordering and maintaining the universe with a will and mind of its own, and the “Living Force” interacting with and cooperating with living beings. Though certainly divine in nature, it wasn’t seen as a “deity” per se, or like one of the “gods” in the Roman and Greek pantheons, but even these had to submit to its order and will.”

      The message He was trying to convey in John 14:6-11 completely guts any argument that Jesus Christ never claimed to be God, because from a first century perspective, He was here, and with John’s identifying Him as the Logos, claiming far more than just mere divinity. The Being He was claiming to be held power and dominion over even the gods, and those gods had to obey His directions. He was claiming to be the Being, the Existence above even the mortal concepts of divinity that both ordered and created the entire cosmos as well as being one with that Being. If you had known Jesus Christ, you had known the Father as He is. You had known His personality, who He is and what He is like. When Philip asks, “Show us the Father,” while innocent, it is woeful ignorance because Jesus had been showing and explaining the Father to them from the moment they met Him.

      No one comes to the Father, has seen the Father, or has known the Father except through the Logos who explains and demonstrates Him. No one comes to that Cosmic Consciousness separated from It. And as John writes in his first epistle, that Cosmic Consciousness, that Being is love, and the person not loving doesn’t know Him, can’t know Him apart from that love. There is no possible way to know Him except through love, and that love, that Being incarnated, Jesus Christ. He alone is the Way because love alone is the Way, but He is also the destination, the prize and the goal for which we run this race as Paul described. This race begin with love, love is the track we run on, and the goal is love because God is love, and the goal is God through Jesus Christ who is love incarnated as a human being.

We are of Two Minds

We are all of two minds. The first is the one with which we are most familiar. This is one produced by the brain, and conforms to what we might call "self" or "ego." It is largely concerned with protecting itself, however it defines itself, in any way possible, and with furthering its own existence in any way possible. The second is that with which many of us have only felt whispers of, traces at the edge of our conscious mind. This is the mind devoid of ego or self. This is the mind which we might call spirit or consciousness, and it is not produced by the brain but exists independently of it, and will exist long after the brain is dust. This is the mind that is not concerned with protecting itself, because it does not recognize a "self" to protect. This is the mind for which love and compassion towards all others as oneself is a natural, given state because it recognizes no difference between itself and the other. This is the mind for which union with God is its normal state of being.
     And these two minds are at war within the human being. The mortal, neurological mind reacts to nearly everything with fear, anger, and satisfying bodily cravings. The immortal mind reacts first with love, then joy, peace, patience, and so on. The mortal mind seeks to protect its own self-identity, or how it defines itself with its likes, dislikes, personal beliefs, interests, and so forth. The immortal mind has no attachments to any of these because they are all transient and will blow away like dust on the wind. The mortal human mind, in comparison with all other animals on Earth, is malfunctioning from a DNA error which happened thousands of years ago. The immortal mind cannot malfunction.
     For those under the control of the mortal mind, there is no way to not cause harm, even if harm is not intended, because the mortal mind has created an illusion of insularity from everyone and everything else. For those whom the immortal mind is in control, they are under no such illusion.
     I think it's really long past time I stopped allowing my mortal mind as much free reign as I do. It does nothing but cause fear, anxiety, doubt, and is the source of a lot of my panic attacks, migraines, and even stomach issues as it tries to protect what it thinks it is or should be. And all the while the immortal mind waits patiently, trying to console, comfort, and push me further in the direction I need to go to find healing, answers, and even hope.

New Agers and the Human Flaw

     It's almost a given that NDEs are typically relegated to the category of "New Age" along with past life memories and other experiences which fall outside the realm of accepted Christian experience or teaching. What's most interesting about NDEs, ironically, is that the person who appears most often within them is Jesus Christ Himself. Not always, and not with everyone. But as one YouTuber that focuses on such interviews commented, "He's the hardest working person on my show!" Because of how often He becomes a part of them.
     One consistent thing which is reported from NDE accounts is that those experiencing them are either told or come to their own conclusions during that experience that no one religious belief has it all correct, but neither do they have it all wrong. There are parts of the reality which they experience and learn during their NDE which spread among the various religions. This "coexistence" teaching does tend to lean towards a more New Age view of things.
     But one thing I have observed about the more New Age believers or practitioners is that they do not generally subscribe to the idea that all human beings have a fundamental flaw. Whether one calls it "sin" or, as I do, a "malfunction" or an "error," this tends to get glossed over in favor of the pursuit of enlightenment or union with God.
     This flaw in human beings is clearly observable in human behavior as, while it can be compassionate and loving, it can also be incredibly selfish and self serving depending on what the human being in particular believes is the "right" course of action for them. As a result, while there are some that dedicate their lives to helping others, the collective actions of human beings over the millennia has brought both our own species, and our habitat itself, to the brink of self-destruction.
     In my opinion, rejecting this understanding of human beings is a mistake in their thinking, and one which leads to many different kinds of abuses and problems. By only promoting the goodness and evolving perfection of human beings, as this spectrum of teaching tends to, they fail to take into account the human propensity for selfish, biology based thinking, and potentially fail to check themselves for causing harm even where they don't mean to. What is interesting in relation to this is that, in at least one NDE and I believe others, the person reporting their experience said that Earth was under a kind of quarantine from the rest of the universe.
     Like with everything, it is my thought that there needs to be a balance between these two understandings: the pursuit of enlightenment or union with God and the fundamental flaw in human behavior which afflicts every human being. Focus too much on the latter produces judgmentalism, hyper-morality, and causes harm; yet focus too much on the former without an understanding of the latter produces abuses of its own as can be seen with the end result of many New Age gurus who essentially became cult leaders abusing their followers. Focusing only on our flaws without the pursuit of deliverance from them into theosis causes harm. Focusing only on the pursuit of theosis without an acknowledgment of our flawed behavior and understanding also causes harm.
     Jesus Christ understood that human beings were flawed, and that they had an inherent problem. Paul understood this as well, and wrote about it in detail. But rather than just focusing on and judging this flaw, and condemning the people for it, both Jesus and Paul taught the way around it through union with His death, burial, and resurrection with the goal being a full realization of theosis or union with God. Jesus Christ didn't condemn those who were fully aware of their flawed behavior and seeking to turn around, but He did chastise those who refused to admit their error in the attempt to get them to turn around.
     New Agers are absolutely right when they talk about the Way being love. That much is written across the New Testament as well, and that this is what Jesus taught can't really be denied except by those for whom such a teaching is antithetical to their own beliefs. But the error in the human brain needs to be kept in mind, or else it ends up completely ruining any good they might have to give just like it does for everyone else. This is why Jesus Christ gave us a way to bypass it through His Spirit.

Thoughts on Luke 20

      Opened up to the beginning of Luke 20 in my GNT just now. This is the passage where the high priests, the scribes, and the elders come and question Jesus, shortly after He tosses the merchants outside the temple for the second time, "by what authority are you doing these things, or who is giving you this authority?" To this Jesus responds with another question, asking them where John's authority came from, God or human beings. They of course, sensing a trap, respond politically, "we don't know," because they were afraid of either the crowd's response, or Jesus' own.
     Thing is, they knew perfectly well where John's authority came from, and Nicodemus in John 3 states this in no uncertain terms because, "No one can do what You are doing unless God is with him." They were neither blind nor ignorant that the only source of Jesus' demonstrations of power could have been God Himself, no matter what they said publicly. They knew and they still actively worked to discredit and destroy Him because He wasn't doing things their way. He wasn't teaching what they considered to be sound, Torah based teaching. And, most grievously, He was calling them out for not following the Spirit of the Torah themselves, but only pretending to.
     Understanding all of this though, this wasn't just Jesus trying to one up them, be clever, or even humiliate them. This was Jesus giving them the chance to turn around and admit the truth publicly. This was Jesus with an outstretched hand saying, "repent and turn away from this path that you're on. Just tell the truth and admit what you already know."
     And with their answer, they slapped that hand away and refused to admit it. It is after this that He tells the story of the deranged tenant vinedressers who beat the servants and murder the son of the landowner who is just trying to collect what he is rightfully owed. Why does He tell this story? He's warning them about what is about to happen to them if they keep going down this path they're on. They do, and it does. Forty years later, the temple is torn to the ground brick by brick, and those Judeans in rebellion are slaughtered in what has been called a Roman holocaust. If we were to take the metaphors of the story as they are, then the armies of the landowner coming and destroying those tenants represent Titus and his legions coming and ending the province of Iudaea and the hypocritical abomination which the temple worship had become.
     All they had to do was turn around and follow what Jesus taught. Had they done so, Rome would have had no need to keep its legions in Iudaea, and would have sent them somewhere like Germania or Britannia where they were more sorely needed. But they refused to give the Owner what He was rightfully owed.

Eternity, Time, the Soul, and Doctor Who

      When it comes to things that happen within the spiritual realm, we tend to place events which occur in order as though on a timeline. There is cause and there is effect. This should come as no surprise, because this is how the human brain is designed to work. It is designed to process everything within the context of four temporal spatial dimensions, one of which is a one dimensional vector of time. This is how we as human beings experience this world, and experience reality as a whole. We think, we must think in terms of past, present, and future because this is how our physical brains work within the four dimensions of our reality with which we constantly interact. Thus, judgment day is in the future in reference to our current “present.” The creation event or events are in the distant past in reference to where we are now. And there tends to be an assumption that those who came to be in the Lord’s presence 2000 years ago, have literally spent two thousand years in His presence.
     Here’s where this assumption gets wonky. Time, cause and effect, and the motion of time don’t exist in an eternal state. One of the most interesting things about light and the speed of light, is that the closer you get to the speed of light, the more time slows down for the object traveling. And for an object traveling at the speed of light, time stops altogether. Another really interesting observation is that spatial distance becomes meaningless for the object traveling at the speed of light. One could say that such an object, let’s say a photon, traveling at the speed of light is literally everywhere and "everywhen" all at once. This is true from the perspective of the photon even if it is not true for the observer of the photon.
     The Greek word in the New Testament for “eternal” is “aionios.” It doesn’t mean “forever” in its strictest sense. Rather, it carries more the meaning of “into the ages,” “ageless,” or “timeless.” That is, the thing which is “aionios” cannot be affected by the motion of time. Thus, no time can have passed in eternity because time itself is not in motion in eternity. A soul or consciousness which is in eternity doesn’t experience the passage of time, because there is no time to pass. Furthermore, all motion of time which we might experience might be seen in eternity as a line or a path which can be entered and engaged with at any point no matter where a soul or a consciousness might have left it.
     Consider the implications this might have for my previous thoughts on reincarnation. There is literally no reason that the consciousness of a person born in the 1900s could not reincarnate into a human being born say in the 1200s. There are already documented cases of children born in the late 1900s or 2000s claiming to be a person having been born in the 1800s. This seems more tenable as it is presumed the soul or consciousness just waits for that long to be reborn. But perhaps it didn’t wait at all, but was immediately reborn from eternity at a different future point along the timeline.
     While inherently flawed, one useful analogy in order to get the gist of this might be the concept of a personal time stream such as from Doctor Who. That is, each soul has their own chain of cause and effect local to them, and so experiences the events of the motion of time global to the creation much like a time traveler such as Doctor Who might. Thus each soul would experience each lifetime in a personal sequence out of sequence with the global order of events, and potentially carrying the baggage, emotional pain or spiritual growth, from each one to the next. There would be little risk of timeline contamination because the default for each new birth appears to be intentional amnesia for the conscious memory, with a relatively few exceptions, though of course the subconscious may be aware of the previous experiences. Another potential consequence might be the same soul at two different points along its local time stream inhabiting human beings that are contemporaneous within the global timeline. This would be something akin to the Tenth Doctor and the Eleventh Doctor running into each other at the same point in the global timeline.
     This could also fall in line with the experimentally verified observations from quantum physics that events in the present can affect events in the past in what is now termed by physicists, “retrocausality.” I’d be lying if I said I fully understood everything about this, but the experiments had to do with “present” observations affecting “past” outcomes.
     What this also implies, whatever one’s theology might be, is that from an eternal perspective, every frame, every snapshot of time’s motion is happening at once. I am both sitting at my desk on a farm in Kentucky as a 47 year old man, and I am a 4 year old boy having escaped preschool and walking two miles across a bridge over a deep gorge to get home, and I am both of these all at once from eternity’s perspective. Likewise from eternity’s perspective, both the raising of the pyramids and the general resurrection of the dead are also happening simultaneously.
     These are just my thoughts over the last couple of days. For me, it offers a greater perspective on my life and existence as a whole. Can I prove it? I could go through and do the research paper defending the concepts with more evidence and data, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Those who can accept it will, and those who can’t won’t. If it is reality, then it will continue to be reality whether someone believes it or not. If it isn’t, then it won’t.

About Having to Prove Myself

I have a confession to make. I was arguing with people from my past in my head today. It's not the first time I've done this, and it probably won't be the last. In reality, I know I'm just really arguing with myself, and specifically the person I was when I knew and interacted with those people. Those people I argue with in my head are really a psychological metaphor for who I used to be. I'm hoping I'm not the only one who does this, otherwise my sanity may be in question. In particular, I was arguing with them, as I often do, about where I am spiritually, and the truths I now accept. And I argue with them feeling like I have to prove myself to them in some vain attempt to be accepted by them. The truth of the matter of course is that it is a vain attempt. Those people I argue with in my head didn't really accept me to begin with, no matter how hard I tried to conform myself to their expectations.
     And this I had a kind of epiphany. Of course it shouldn't have been an epiphany, but today it was. I don't have to prove anything to anyone. Not to those people who exist in my head. Not to who I used to be. And not to anyone today who may echo their sentiments. While I will always look at the evidence and facts, while I will always look at the data, I have no real need to prove anything to anyone.
     "Why?" One might ask.
     Because if what I say is merely my opinion, than that's about as much as it is worth. It can be taken or left, argued with, accepted or rejected as much as it might be worth. Because it is just my opinion, and such things are really only smoke on the wind anyway.
     But if someone hears the voice of Jesus Christ in what I write or what I say, then He will speak to them and they will pay attention because it is Him and not me. If someone experiences Jesus Christ through me, then it has nothing to do with me trying to prove anything. The Spirit of Christ Himself will manifest and leave the person who hears or reads profoundly impacted to where they cannot ignore it.
      I have nothing to prove because it's not about me, my opinions, or whether I am accepted or rejected by myself or anyone else. It is only about whether or not it is the Spirit of Christ speaking through me, and His voice will always carry weight and power behind it, and no one who hears His voice will leave unaffected. The only thing I have to do is leave myself open to Him speaking and acting through me, and not argue with it or take back control.
      As I ruminated on this, it occurred to me that this is what Paul meant when he wrote to the Corinthians about coming to them and ascertaining the power of those disturbing them. When Paul first came to them, He says he knew nothing among them but Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and that his message was not preached with human wisdom, but with the Spirit and with power. When Paul spoke, he knew it had to be with the voice of Christ and not his own ideas, opinions, or rhetoric, because it was the Spirit of Christ speaking through him that carried power in His words. It wasn't Paul's own great arguments or evidence.
      So, attempting to prove myself to anyone is really a fruitless and pointless endeavor, especially to ghosts from my past who wouldn't accept me anyway. As long as someone hears the voice of Christ in what I say or what I write, then that is enough, because that is all that really matters.

The Fear of the Lord

     It occurred to me that most of the methods of evangelism which are taught in churches, such as the "Romans Road" are based on instilling fear in the person. Fear of punishment and fear of God. Also, really, most of the verses which are used are ripped from their wider contexts.
     Thing of it is, trying to scare people into conversion isn't love. It was the love of God radiating from Jesus Christ which drew people to Him. It is love which comprises the most important commandments according to Jesus Christ. It is love which must be present above all other things according to Paul. And according to John, love brought to completion tosses fear outside. Love (agape) and fear cannot coexist in the same space. It's one or the other. By encouraging people to be afraid of God, we hamstring their conversion and discipleship from the start.
     Bible verses are not magic spells, and neither is the Bible a spell book. You can't just rip sentences or fragments of a sentence out of the context of the passage where it is found, quote it, and expect it to magically transform a person into a Christian, or win an argument, or do whatever you're using it for. Know the passages and apply them to yourself first. Manifest Jesus Christ first. Then let Him bring the Scriptures to your mind as He sees fit.

…

     “The fear of the Lord is wisdom.”
      A friend of mine recently quoted this to me using Job 28:28 in response to my post about different evangelism methods taking Scriptures out of context to instill fear of God and fear of punishment into people in order to encourage conversion. It’s not just found in Job. It’s also found in the Psalms, Proverbs, and even The Wisdom of Ben Sirach (Ecclesiasticus). It would certainly seem, from this text that fearing God is to be encouraged.
     Except that’s not what the original Hebrew text says. Like with many English translations, most of which were based on Tyndale’s work, this reading follows the Latin Vulgate (“timor”)instead of the Hebrew original, or even the Greek Septuagint translation (LXX) made in the second century B.C.E. or so.
     The word here translated as "fear," “yirah” actually means "awe, reverence, or piety." A quick Google search on the meaning of “yirah” (as my Hebrew pales woefully in comparison to my Greek) brought this up, "Rabbi Lew describes yirah as 'the fear that overcomes us when we suddenly find ourselves in possession of considerably more energy than we are used to, inhabiting a larger space than we are used to inhabiting.' It is also the feeling we feel when we are on sacred ground." The word which the LXX translators used is telling in this regard as well. Rather than "phobos," which means “fear, panic,” they used "theosebeia," which means "piety or service to God."
     So, with this understanding of the original language, and what those translators in the second century B.C.E. understood the original language to mean, let’s look at this sentence again. “The reverent awe of the Lord is wisdom.” Not panic. Not fear as we understand the word in modern English. Not as an abusive father ready to strike for the least infraction, and not as a sky-god Zeus figure ready to throw a thunderbolt if we step a toe out of line.
     Wisdom is recognizing and experiencing the reality of God around you. Wisdom is being overwhelmed by how infinitesimally small and frail we are as mortals in comparison to the infinite power and presence of Yahweh. Wisdom is taking Yahweh seriously just as a child takes his or her parent seriously even as that child loves their parent and trusts in the love of that parent. In the context of the passage in Job, much of Job talks about the power and majesty of God, His role as creator, and His mastery over all of creation. Standing in the midst of all this, and contemplating the sheer awesome infinite majesty of Yahweh is what surrounds this saying “The reverent awe of the Lord is wisdom.”

Thoughts on 2 Corinthians 1: God is for you.

I opened my GNT to 2 Corinthians 1 today. "Blessed is the God and Father of our Owner Jesus Christ, the Father of compassionate actions and God of every advocacy, who advocates for us upon every one of our afflictions for us to be able to advocate for those in every one of their afflictions through the advocacy with which we are advocated for by God. Because just like the sufferings of the Christ overflow into us, so through the Christ this advocacy of ours also overflows. Yet either we are squeezed from the pressure over your advocacy and deliverance; or we are advocated for, over your advocacy which is energized with the endurance of their sufferings which we also suffer. And our hope for you is stable and secured having seen that in the same way you are in communion with these sufferings, so also with the advocacy."
     The word which I have translated as advocacy is "paraklesis" and its cognate "parakaleo." Literally, "parakaleo" means "to call someone to the witness stand to testify on your behalf," or "to invoke a witness for the defense." The word which I have translated as "compassionate action," "oiktirmos," literally means "pity, mercy, compassion," and all of its cognates have to do with taking pity on someone who is in a bad way.
     The first thing which comes to my mind in this is that God is on our side. God will bring Himself to be our friend who not only encourages us, but will actively go to bat for us when we're in a tight squeeze (literally what the word for "affliction" means). And through His advocacy for us, we are able to advocate for, go to bat for others who are in a tight squeeze. To be identified with Jesus Christ is also to be identified with His "pathema," a word which can be translated as "suffering" but also "emotion, affection, or feelings." To live or walk by the Spirit of Christ is to be in communion with Christ's feelings and emotions as well. This includes both His positive feelings as well as His negative ones. As just as we are in communion with His negative feelings, His sufferings, so also we are in communion with the Father's advocacy through Him, His consolation, encouragement, and going to bat for us.
     But the chief takeaway here is that God is on our side and will go to bat for us through the Spirit of Christ. Mercy, compassion, and that love which has no boundaries is who He is as a Person. He's rooting for us to succeed, and wanting us to win the race each one of us is running. God is for us, each and every one of us. And the person who is most against us, really, is we ourselves as we trip ourselves up. Our competition, our struggle, is against ourselves first and foremost as we fight to submit to the Spirit of Christ and walk in Him, remaining in and making our home in Him.
     The Founder and Foundation, the Source of all existence wants you to succeed in the Way which He laid out through Jesus Christ. He is on your side. He speaks your language even when no one else seems to understand you and He will go to bat for you. And in His going to bat for you, He enables you to go to bat for others, to have pity, mercy, and compassion for those around you.
     God is not against you. Don't be against Him.

How did I get here?

"How did I get here?" This is a question I stop and ask myself, sometimes more often, sometimes less often. Considering the point where I started from, coming from a conservative Evangelical Christian church, and graduating from a conservative Evangelical Bible School, how exactly did I end up where I now find myself, embracing and knowing what I know and embrace? I certainly wasn't taught this way, and if you had told me that, for example, I would be writing essays defending reincarnation from Scripture 27 years after I graduated from that Bible school, I would have believed you had lost your mind. I thought I had been taught everything I needed to know, and there was nothing about Scripture I couldn't understand based on the doctrine and theology I came home with.
     The truth is, I know the path I took very well. It was certainly not a rejection of Scripture, or Jesus Christ. Nor was it a rejection of the Christian faith. No, the path I took was actually a pursuit of all of these and anchoring myself to Him as a sailor might tie himself to the mast of a ship during a bad squall to keep from getting dumped overboard.
     For me, the deciding factor in this path was that every time I came up against something which contradicted my Evangelical Christian indoctrination (though not my devotion to Jesus Christ), I was moved to head that direction and learn from it. The part of me incited by fear, in particular fear of rejection, would flare up and send up red flags and stresses which would cause migraines. But I would do it anyway, almost as if a spectator, a passenger cooperating with the driver of the vehicle. There were so many times I would be skeptical, but a peace would come over me contradicting the fear, and push me to pay attention and learn. How many times did I pray for the words to speak, or for Him to guide my thoughts and take control of my actions, and then the next thing I know I'm defending past lives, NDEs, quoting the Tao Te Ching, and more which I would never have even dreamed of 27 years ago.
     And the crazy thing which I never could have predicted, I feel closer to Jesus Christ than I ever did as that conservative Christian bible school student, or even the Old Catholic priest almost twenty years ago now. I ask Him to speak through me, to write through me; I ask for these words to be His words, and the next thing I know, things are written which "I" have to go back and read for myself, because it's teaching me too.
     And when those same conservative Christian objections come back up in my mind, they produce only fear, confusion, and doubt, whereas when I just follow where He leads, and let Him take control, it produces peace, love, and a growing sense of wholeness which I didn't have before.
     So, how did I get here? I got here because this is where the Spirit of Christ has led me, against everything I was taught He would way back when. This is where, as St. Ignatius of Loyola wrote, the Spirit of Consolation is strongest, and going backwards is where the Spirit of Desolation resides. It's not what many, if not most Christians would accept, but it is where the fruit of the Spirit is being most productive in my life.

More Thoughts on Philippians 3

 Today, my GNT opened to Philippians 3. I think that might have had something to do with the natural crease which formed there from holding it open on that chapter so much. I suppose there are few passages in the New Testament which I've come back to over and over again as many times as Philippians 3.
     This is Paul writing a few years before his execution. The very last letter he would write would be his very personal second letter to Timothy. He is writing from Rome around the time of his first acquittal before Nero. After he writes this letter, he will go on to Hispania, and if I'm right, will see the home of his youth for the first time in nearly thirty years. He will be executed on his return trip, after the great fire of Rome, and after Nero blamed it on the Christians.
     Paul's not really writing to correct anything, unlike his letters to the Galatians and the Colossians. Instead, he's really just giving them a thank you for all the support they had given him while he was in chains. Along with the thank you, he is classically Paul. That is, once he begins speaking about being a disciple and about Jesus Christ, he simply either can't stop or doesn't know when to stop. So, what was intended as a simple thank you received the fire hose treatment from its author, and everything he had endured becomes a teachable moment in discipleship. In truth, he hadn't been to Philippi itself for well over two years, almost three, by this point, and Philippi was the first church he had planted upon entering Europe through Macedonia. He's probably in his late forties, and the man and disciple he is now is far removed from the man who immediately went into the Synagogues to preach that Jesus was the Son of God upon receiving back his sight.
     The man who wrote Philippians 3 had lost everything several times over, and was good with it. When he says he had lost everything, he's not exaggerating. It got to the point where even if he would have acquired some few possessions or a stable place to live or even stable companions with him, within months it seems like he would be stripped of all of them as he was made to keep moving on, frequently not by his immediate choice. What is the point of holding on to anything if you're just going to lose it again? And so he writes that he has lost everything, and brought his thoughts to consider everything which he had lost "crap" so that he would gain Christ; so that nothing would interfere with the Spirit of Christ being the source of his behaviors and words. Just as Jesus said when He talked about the conditions of discipleship, anyone who doesn't let go of anything or anyone which could come between that person and Christ can't be His disciple. Paul had become driven through circumstances and choice to make sure he could be His disciple. This became, throughout his life, the one thing, the only thing, which drove him.
     And then after laying out this passion, this drive he tells them in no uncertain terms, "Become mimics of me, brothers, and scope out those walking in this way just like you have us for a type." This drive, this life, wasn't just about Paul, but his instructions make it clear that this race which Paul was running, stripping everything else away to reach for the prize, was what it meant to be a Christian, and was what he expected from the Philippians too. This pursuit of discipleship, this pursuit of Jesus Christ manifest within is in fact the hard fought race which each one of us who claims to follow Him must run. And of course he tells them to find and watch people who are, like himself, chasing after the Way, and actually being a disciple, in order to learn from their example too.
     Philippians 3 is the Path of being a disciple of Jesus Christ in a nutshell.

Thoughts on John 1:19-28 and John being Elijah

John 1:19-28 is a really interesting exchange between John the Baptist and those priests and Levites sent from the Pharisees. Especially since the first question which is recorded that they asked was "Who are you?" For the record, of course they knew "who" John was. He was the son of the former High Priest Zechariah, and should have himself become a priest being of the Kohanim. Clearly, John did not. I sincerely doubt the story of what happened there was forgotten by that point in time among the priests and Levites, or that John's father was forgotten so quickly. Until a certain age when he made the choice to head off into the desert, John would have been raised in and around the temple. Some of the men questioning him might have even been his peers as a child. So, these most likely weren't strangers. So, when they ask him, "'who' are you?" They're not asking him for his ID.
     What's also interesting is the possibilities they offer for him to be, "The Christ," "Elijah," or "The Prophet." There, by that point, had been a few guys who had risen up claiming to be "the Christ," and then after causing trouble, they came to nothing and life went on. Clearly, John wasn't raising an army or doing anything typically regarded as messianic in nature. He was just preaching and baptizing people, something which priests did in order to cleanse people from being unclean so that they could enter the temple grounds. That he was doing it at the Jordan River, far from the temple, was a bit strange though. "The Prophet" in question is generally assumed to be The Prophet spoken of by Moses at the end of Deuteronomy. What's interesting here is that "The Prophet" and "The Christ" were considered to be two different people by those versed in religion and theology, whereas in modern Christian theology, they're generally regarded as the same Person.
     The really interesting possibility they bring up is Elijah, who was prophesied by the prophet Malachi to come before the great and terrible day of the Lord. In the Old Testament, Elijah didn't actually die, but was bodily assumed into heaven. Regardless, he left the earth. Given that they knew "who" John was as far as his ID was concerned, why would they ask if he was someone who hadn't been seen for seven to eight hundred years? John denies being Elijah, or the Prophet, or the Christ for that matter and just calls himself "a voice shouting in the desert, 'make the Lord's way straight." Further frustrating and confusing the priests and Levites questioning him.    This becomes even more interesting when, later on in the Gospels, Jesus completely contradicts John's own testimony about himself and says, "If you can accept it, he is Elijah."
     So, according to the Son of God Himself, John the Baptist was Elijah, and according to John the Baptist, at the very least, he himself didn't know it. But let's just focus for a minute on the fact that Jesus said flat out that John was Elijah. He didn't say that he was 'like' Elijah, he didn't say that he came "in the spirit and power of Elijah" as some preachers like to teach. Jesus Christ said that John "was" Elijah. John didn't know that he was Elijah, but Jesus did; much like He knew things about other people in the Gospels which no one had informed Him of. John knew what his mission was, but he didn't know who he was.
     There's another interesting passage where Jesus asks His disciples who the people are saying that He is. His disciples reply, "John the Baptist risen from the dead, Elijah, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets." At the very least, most people knew that His name was Jesus ('Yeshua' in Aramaic and Hebrew). Many probably knew He was from Nazareth in the Galilee. Again, why, or better yet how would people think that this Jesus of Nazareth was a prophet from the Scriptures walking among them again? In both cases, why or how would the general populace assume or even question whether or not either man, whose origins were known, could be a person who had lived hundreds of years prior?
     The answer is simply that reincarnation was a common belief at the time. We in the modern Western world like to think that reincarnation is a fringe belief of Eastern Religions, but in truth it was described by Plato in his Socratic Dialogues three or four hundred years prior to Christ's birth. Like many other philosophies and belief systems that found their way around the Hellenistic world, the idea of a soul returning from the Underworld to be reborn in this one was commonly held as a possibility. Even today, it is held as an accepted belief within Orthodox Judaism. And all this being understood, Jesus not only did nothing to correct this belief, He confirmed that John was Elijah reborn, even if John himself didn't know.
     In the end, of course, it didn't matter if John himself knew who he was or had been in a past life. He still fulfilled his purpose for returning, and heralded the coming of Yahweh made flesh.

More Thoughts on John 1:1-18 and the Logos

EN APXH HN O ΛOΓOC…

At the start was the Logos…

      I decided to just open my Greek New Testament randomly again this morning and it fell open to John 1. John 1:1-18 talks about the “Logos”, referring of course, to the Person of the Trinity we call God the Son, incarnating into the Man, Jesus Christ.

      John choice of words here is really interesting. The word Logos, as it is used in this text, in the first century Mediterranean world was pregnant with meaning, and held particular meaning in the ancient belief system of Stoicism. But this meaning was not just confined to Stoicism, as it permeated Jewish theology and philosophy as well in the writings of Philo. Nearly everyone at this time would have understood to what John was referring by using the word “Logos.”

      The Logos was both the conscious rational mind of the individual, and the conscious rational mind which governed the cosmos, operating in both. When it was physically embodied, the Logos existed as pure ΠNEYMA (“breath,” “wind,” “spirit”), which is easily synonymous with our modern concepts of manifestations of energy like fire, which was also the animating force of all animals and human beings. In a way, as I think about it, a modern analogy of the Logos might be “the Force” from Star Wars, existing as both the “Cosmic Force” ordering and maintaining the universe with a will and mind of its own, and the “Living Force” interacting with and cooperating with living beings. Though certainly divine in nature, it wasn’t seen as a “deity” per se, or like one of the “gods” in the Roman and Greek pantheons, but even these had to submit to its order and will.

      It is this latter understanding, the position of the Logos in relationship to even the Olympians (who, while immortal, were still limited beings in the pagan mind), which makes John’s statement in the very first verse of his gospel so meaningful, not just to the Jews, but to everyone across the Roman world: “At the start was the Logos, and the Logos was right next to God, and the Logos was God.” John identifies the Logos itself, and everything which this word implied, with the God of the Jews, as both being in His immediate presence and God Himself simultaneously.

      And then he says in verse 14, “And the Logos became flesh and camped out among us…” This Cosmic Conscious Mind which orders the universe as well as the conscious minds of individual human beings, and identified with Yahweh the God of the Jews, incarnated as an individual Human Being and chose to go camping among us (literally “lived in a tent”) for a while. Understand what John is saying when he’s calling Jesus Christ, most likely his own first cousin, the Logos become flesh and blood.

      Again, a modern analogy to what John is saying here is if, in the Star Wars universe, the Cosmic Force chose to incarnate itself as a human being. Not just cause the birth of a human being, but to, itself, become a human being in order to manifest itself as an individual person. This is akin to what John is saying in the first eighteen verses of John 1. That would have been just as mind blowing to those reading this in the first century as it would be to the Jedi of the Star Wars universe, and just as controversial.

      And the purpose of this incarnation John states in verse 18, “No one has seen God at any time…” The word ΘEON, “God,” is first in this sentence, meaning that this is the word which is to be emphasized or stressed, perhaps as “No one has seen God Himself…” or “No one has seen God as He truly exists…” John then says, “...that one of a kind God who exists in the embrace of the Father explained Him.” The purpose of this incarnation of the Logos was to explain who God is as a person, to show human beings what He’s really like and who He really is in a way they could understand and relate to. This is something which Paul restates again later when he describes Jesus Christ as “the [mirror] image of the unseen God.”

      John wasn’t just writing to Jews, as many now teach. From the very beginning of his gospel, he uses terms and concepts which both Jew and non-Jew would understand, and the miracles he records later are all personal rebukes to the Greco-Roman pantheon demonstrating the Logos-become-flesh’s superiority and mastery of even them. But in order to understand and get that, you have to step outside of the Old Testament Scriptures and Rabbinic Jewish culture and learn about the wider 1^st century Hellenistic Roman world and culture. John didn’t write in a Sunday School color card vacuum, and to assume that none of the authors of the New Testament wrote with the broader ideas, concepts, and common understandings of the place and period is to anachronize the New Testament into a closed system narrative that it was never intended to be. And to do this, is to do a grave injustice to those authors, and the overarching Author of the whole, who intended these writings for the whole world.

 

Thoughts on Acts 13 and the Apostle Paul

I just randomly opened my Greek New Testament to Acts 13. It's been a little while since I looked at Acts, but the truth is I wasn't really aiming for any one passage or book. Just something to connect with.
     Acts 13:1-4 is an interesting passage. First, Paul (Saul) was either a teacher or a prophet in the church at Antioch. He'd been there for several years by this point after Barnabas picked him up where he'd been deposited in Tarsus of Asia Minor. I'm guessing he was a teacher, though I'm sure the lines were always blurred just a little. Just this is telling though. The last Barnabas had seen of him in Jerusalem, he'd been a relatively new convert (for oh about 3 or four years or so) stirring up trouble at least ten years before. He was sent to Tarsus for his own protection as well as to get things in Jerusalem to calm down. Paul had a way of doing the firehose thing, and his filters didn't always work quite right. That is, he wasn't really that much of a diplomat when he talked to people. He liked people, he just wasn't great with social cues, and didn't know when to stop talking. So, in a way, he'd already been "banished" from the church in Jerusalem once. But, Barnabas came and got him and brought him to Antioch where he integrated with the church there, became one of its leaders, and found himself a new family.
     During the course of regular worship liturgy and fasting, the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, says, in effect, "Banish, right now, Barnabas and Saul for the work which I am calling them towards." The word "aforizo" literally means "to set apart, to separate, to mark off by boundaries," and within the context of a group can carry the alternate meanings of "set apart for special purpose" or "banish, excommunicate."
     Consider the affect this might have had on Paul for a minute. He'd just spent ten years in Tarsus by himself. There's no record of him planting or being a part of a church there. He was a disciple of the Way on his own, and ten years later was still a disciple of the Way without a church family. But now he has one. He's been a part of that community in Antioch for years, and now the Spirit of Christ is telling them to banish him and Barnabas from their church. It's for a good reason, it's for a specific work, yes. But nevertheless, it's clear that their stay in Antioch was over. They're being ejected from the church. With the church's blessing, for a specific work, but there's no appeal on this just like there was no appeal when Paul was sent to Tarsus. In verse three, that this was actually a separation or "banishment" is rendered by the term "apoluo" where it says "and having put their hands on them they 'undid' them." Apoluo has the meaning of "to undo, to release, to set free, to untie." In other words, they cut their ties with them. Paul and Barnabas were on their own for now, and weren't permitted to remain.
     I think this is something which needs to be considered. They weren't "sent out" by the church as we would normally think of it in modern ecclesiastical terms. They were set outside the church because the Spirit of Christ told them to. Imagine Paul's feelings on the subject given his recent past history. On the one hand, his goal was to serve Jesus Christ, but on the other hand he was forcefully being pushed out of his found family and not really being given a choice in the matter if he wanted to be obedient.
     In the passage in Acts, they aren't really given a direction either by the Spirit of Christ. It's just, "you're done here. Get out." So where do they go? They head for Cyprus, where Barnabas was from. What's interesting is that they don't head for Tarsus. In fact, Paul never returns to Tarsus again in the book of Acts. One would think that if he had family or contacts there, it would at least be a stopping point at some time or another, and it wouldn't have required passage on a boat from Antioch. This lends support to my thinking that Paul wasn't actually from Tarsus in Asia Minor at all, but rather Tartessos (Tarshish in semitic languages, which sounds an awful lot like Tarsus when pronounced in Greek or Latin) in Hispania Ulterior. He literally had no reason to return there. So, they head for Barnabas' home country in Cyprus, probably because they don't know where else to go and Barnabas does have family and contacts there. That they stop in Salamis and begin preaching in the Synagogues there suggests that this is probably Barnabas' home town and they were staying with his family. The text also suggests that this is where they picked up John Mark as a helper before continuing on to traverse the whole island.
     Imagine how they're feeling though. What we call "the first missionary journey" was Paul and Barnabas being literally kicked out of the church of Antioch onto the street by the Spirit of Christ and then feeling like they've been left to their own devices half the time, not knowing where they're supposed to go, or what they're supposed to do. And Paul himself has to wrestle with losing another family, another group of connections. First, his group of friends under Gamaliel as a Pharisee, then whatever welcome and community he had hoped to achieve with the church in Jerusalem was denied him and he was sent somewhere he knew no one not knowing if he was ever going to reconnect with anyone. And then after achieving a found family where he had a place and a purpose he was cast out again and told to move on.
     Anyone seriously think he didn't struggle with this? Anyone seriously think he didn't feel just a little lost at times and cried out "why me?" The man who wrote the letters of the New Testament hadn't formed yet, and this was a part of the process, but no one said it wasn't painful, or that it wasn't like trying to find his way blind through all of it. Anyone seriously think he didn't have a breakdown or two because of all he'd been through?
     Saul who was also called Paul would find his footing, and he would go on to do pretty much the same thing for the rest of his life. Never really settling down in any one place for more than a few years. He never really saw Antioch as 'home' again either. He returned once for a few years before being called away again, and then the last time he tried to return, it wasn't long before he rejoined the disciples in Ephesus (this becoming a home base of sorts for him), many if not most of whom were transplants from Judea including the Apostle John and Jesus' mother, as well as Priscilla and Aquila, and a number of others. And then from there, returning to all of the disciples in the churches he had planted by just showing up without having a plan or a clue in their cities. In a way, these became his home, his larger family, even when Antioch was no longer.
     You don't get to where Paul was by remaining stationary and comfortable. He was constantly losing everything and leaving it behind. While he had many friends across the empire, and no end of "couches to sleep on," he never owned his own house. He rented them when he needed to, but he never owned one, and it was never permanent. The emotional toll it took on him was considerable as he was conditioned again and again to let everything go, and the transient nature of things was reinforced for him tangibly again and again. It got to the point where he realized there was just no point in trying to have a stable home, possessions, and so on. Not for him, and not for what the Spirit of Christ had called him towards. Not every disciple was so transient as he was, but few of them were really permitted to be stationary anywhere for very long.

The Two Fundamental Principles of Medicine and Healing

I've been ruminating on medicine and healing for a while now and it seems to me there are two fundamental principles:

1) The physician cannot actually heal or cure anything. He or she can only assist in creating the optimal conditions for the body to heal itself, and this is the primary goal of medicine of any kind.
2) if the physician cannot do anything to help create those conditions, at the very least, he or she must do no harm to the patient or contribute to conditions which are adverse to the body healing itself.

     It occurs to me that this is true no matter what kind of healing we are talking about, whether it is physical, psychological, or even spiritual. Without miraculous intervention, the only person who can heal a creature is that creature itself. Someone else can help create the optimal conditions for healing, but they cannot do the healing for the creature in need of healing. The immune system has to seek and destroy invading germs. Damaged cells have to be destroyed and replaced. The psyche must work through the trauma in order to put the trauma behind it. No one can do these things for the injured mind and body, the mind and body must repair themselves.
     As Christians, and just as human beings really, it should be our practice to always create the optimal conditions for healing for those around us, regardless of the nature of the wound or trauma. This involves simple compassion and a willingness to set aside one's own needs for the well being of the other. It involves being willing to see the injury the other person or even animal has sustained and to recognize the symptoms of injury. Even if we cannot actively help, we should be careful not to cause further trauma as much as we are able. Our mindset should be that of genuine physicians that truly care about those injured around us, and to be mindful of our own injuries and care for those as well. What physician is able to care for a patient when they themselves have festering wounds?
     There are those who do not need our help, those who are frankly beyond our help, and those whom we can give help to. Part of doing no harm is to recognize who is who accurately. This comes with experience and mindful observation over time. There are too many who might write off a grievously injured person as though already in the grave. Still, there are too many who would seek to "help" those who just don't need it.
     In any event, regardless of the nature of the injury, we must seek to do no harm to those around us. This is especially true because we frequently cannot see the wounds or trauma which they carry because of how well they might hide them. Those who are clearly hurting can be tended to right away, but those who hide their wounds for fear of being injured more must be actively looked out for and assessed accordingly.
     Finally, we do not want to kill the patient. This, ultimately, is the motive behind "do no harm." We do not want to make their condition worse, and we do not want to push their injury to where it becomes terminal. And with many injuries, this is all too easy to do. The wrong treatment, a misdiagnosis, neglect of the wound; all of these can send the patient's condition off of a cliff. Therefore we must approach each and every person or creature which crosses our path with the utmost respect, compassion, and mindful awareness of both their trauma and our own limitations. It is all too easy to do harm by way of one's own ignorance in attempting to do the right thing.
     Creating the optimal conditions for the mind, body, or spirit to heal itself should be our goal with each and every creature with which we come into contact. Doing no harm to them if we cannot should be ever present in our conscious mind.

Why is Salvation by Faith?

     Why is our salvation through Jesus Christ by faith? This is a fundamental tenet of the Way taught in the New Testament, that our deliverance from our inherent human malfunction is by faith as opposed to achieving it through our own effort.
     Belief creates reality. This is the lesson which Quantum Mechanics teaches. To observe an outcome is to collapse the wave function of any other possible outcome, rendering it nonexistant. The classic illustration is Schrodinger’s Cat, where the cat is either alive or dead in a sealed box, and the outcome isn’t known until the box is open and the cat is observed. Until that point, the cat exists as both alive and dead at the same time. By observing the cat, the outcome is created by the observer. To observe is to know. Therefore, to know an outcome is to cause it.
     To believe something is to know it, whether or not it has been observed with one's sensory organs. Therefore, to believe something is to create the conditions for that thing to exist, at the very least, for you personally. If you know something to be true, you will of course behave in a way that corresponds to this thing being true. Therefore, the same will hold true if you actually believe something to be true.
     Therefore, if you believe that the Spirit of Christ is grown together with you, you create the conditions for that entanglement to happen. Furthermore, if you believe that He is the one in control, you create the conditions for that to occur. In the same way, Fear, Anger, Cravings, and so on can interfere with this belief, this knowing, and the beliefs generated by these responses can also create the conditions for the outcomes associated with them to exist.
     It is not a stretch to say that you are what you believe you are. You act and speak according to what you believe to be true, and create the conditions for that belief to become manifest in the real world. So, if your beliefs are governed by fear, anger, cravings, and so on, then those outcomes will become manifest. If your beliefs are governed by trusting in the Spirit of Christ within you, then those outcomes will become manifest.
     Thus, salvation is through faith, because it can be no other way. Nothing else will change the reality we experience except belief.

...

     Here is a thought. Everyone is technically entangled with or in possession of the Spirit of Christ. Every human being. The "we" which Paul uses when he is writing is inclusive of all human beings unless otherwise specified. But the Spirit of Christ must be activated within us by faith that we are in fact joined to Him. That is, we must know that we are joined to Him in order to engage with His Spirit, and we must voluntarily accept His control over what we say and what we do, and surrender our own at the same time. In order to do that, we must know about it and believe it.
     Baptism is the Sacrament of Faith. That is, it is the Rite of Initiation into the Way of Jesus Christ. It is a public declaration that you have in fact died with Him and are choosing to surrender yourself to the control of His Spirit. It is the psychological "switch" if you will that activates His Spirit and makes Him accessible. Therefore, as many of us as were baptized were baptized into His death, that just as Christ died and was buried, we too publicly declare that we have died and were buried with Him. And just as Christ was raised from the dead, we too, under the control of the Spirit of Christ, would be living our lives in line with His life as a part of Him.
     Belief activates the Spirit of Christ, but He is already present in each and every human being because of His being born human, joined to every descendant of Adam by becoming Himself a descendant of Adam, and His death, burial, and resurrection. When Paul writes about having the Spirit of Christ or not having Him, it is this surrender to Him of which He is speaking, or perhaps another way of expressing it is being voluntarily possessed by Him and in cooperation with Him.
     Just some thoughts this morning.

Why Am I Posting These Things?

A lot of folks may be wondering why I've been posting things speculating on and even supporting reincarnation. Even more so, they are probably wondering how I got to the point where I'd even be willing to consider it, considering how, at one time, I wrote against the very possibility and tried to present some evidence for my argument. It is evidence that I want to discuss, not just for this, but for a number of directions I have gone in my journey which have deviated wildly from where I was at one point.
     I believe Holy Scripture speaks the truth. I do not believe it is the only source of truth, but what it speaks, when it speaks, is true. But even when Holy Scripture is true, our understanding of the reality it describes may be far more faulty than we like to admit. Frequently, that understanding is colored by culture, and the theology and doctrines of the churches and religious beliefs we grew up in. We are taught that a given verse or passage in the Bible means a certain thing, and frequently we are taught that is the only thing it can mean. This becomes problematic when evidence arrives to challenge that meaning which we have been taught. We are told the choice is binary, either Scripture is true and the evidence is false, or Scripture is false and the evidence is true. Of course Scripture cannot be false, so the evidence must be. But herein lies the flaw in this logic: it is not Scripture which must be true or false, but our interpretation of Scripture which must be true or false. Scripture of course must be true, but our understanding of what it means is not Scripture itself. We cannot equate the theologies, doctrines, and interpretations of Scripture, no matter how sacrosanct, with the words of Scripture itself. Otherwise, we fall into the trap of teaching the traditions of human beings as absolute commandments.
     There is, for example, a tremendous amount of evidence for the evolution of life on Earth. There is so much evidence in fact that it is overwhelming, both from the fossil record and even from DNA. This is why the scientific world, and most mainline denominations have moved on from young earth creationism, and so have I. I fully believe that God created the heavens and the earth, and the interpretation of Genesis 1 I have come to accept supports both a literal six days as well as four billion years of evolution. I can no longer defend something which the evidence does not support. Is Scripture false? Absolutely not. But our understanding of what it's trying to say frequently is, and it is this understanding which must evolve and be willing to adapt and to do the hard work of reconciling both, because the Scripture cannot be untrue.
     This brings me back to the subject of reincarnation. Now, I am not supporting the Hindu, or even Buddhist teachings regarding Karma induced reincarnation. Just the concept that a person's consciousness or soul might be, but does not necessarily have to be, reborn in a second human being after the death of the first one. But more and more, as I have been reading and learning about the experiences people have, and especially with the massive number of case studies which have been done, the documented evidence for it appears to again be overwhelming. Not theory. Not mere theological speculation based on philosophy or an ancient text. Thousands of documented interviews of people's experiences which can literally be explained no other way by any reasonable person. I can either bury my head in the sand and pretend those don't exist, which would be dishonest on a number of levels, or I can accept that these things exist and then examine how I have interpreted Scripture in a faulty way, because the Scriptures cannot be false.
     In this case, the Scriptures themselves do not negate the possibility of reincarnation. They do not support karmic reincarnation, but they do not negate reincarnation itself. In fact, Jesus Himself appears to suggest that Elijah had been reincarnated as John the Baptist, and concerning the man born blind in John 9, the disciples ask Jesus who sinned, the man or his parents that he should be born blind. Think about what they just asked. How could the man have sinned and then be born blind because of it if he did not exist prior to his birth? Furthermore, consider that Jesus does not negate this possibility, He only says that neither his nor his parents' sin caused his blindness from birth. I believe I have brought all of this up before in my writing, as well as how reincarnation does not conflict with the New Testament teaching on the resurrection of the body.
     But the point is that while the Scriptures cannot be false, our understanding might be, and we should never take our understanding, our interpretations of the Scriptures as inerrant and infallible, even if the Scriptures as they were written, in the languages and cultures in which they were written, and to whom they were written might be. We cannot admit the inerrancy of creeds, theologians, and the traditions of various churches and denominations if we are to admit the inerrancy of Scripture. It is logically impossible. We have to be willing to adapt and evolve our understanding of what they are saying with each new piece of evidence and verifiable data. We cannot uphold Scripture and uphold the immutability of our own churches' positions, most of which were established hundreds of years ago and based on the philosophical and scientific understandings of their day. One such case in point is Galileo's conflict with the Roman Catholic Church over the issue of the Earth revolving around the Sun, and not vice versa. Galileo had evidence to support his assertion. The Church still condemned him because what he was saying went against their established doctrine and worldview even though it did not go against the Scriptures themselves. Only their interpretations of the Scriptures.
     I believe in Prima Scriptura, that is, the Scriptures are the primary source of Truth. But they are not the only source of truth, and were meant to supplement the general revelation of truth found throughout the creation and which can be observed and experimentally verified. I intend to hold the Scriptures high, and not the interpretations of it which can be demonstrated to be erroneous when compared to reality.
     At this point, this includes accepting that reincarnation happens, and that there is evidence for it. This makes my previous position faulty. That's okay with me. Tomorrow, more evidence may present itself, and my positions may have to adapt again. Again, that's good. That's healthy. That's called learning, growing, and increasing in understanding. Yes, it requires a change in thinking. Again, that's no bad thing. That's called moving forward, and not staying stuck or moving backwards.
     Being a Christian, and following Jesus Christ, also means having a dynamic, living faith which can adapt to new truths which are presented just as He is a dynamic and living God, not a myth, a statue, or just a picture on a page. Either He's real and active, or He's a figment of someone's imagination, and you probably know my position on that. And if He's real and active, then that understanding of Him must change and grow as a relationship with Him matures, and one gets to know Him better. It must be more important to know Him dynamically, than to remain a part of a church or denomination which is stuck in their own interpretations and doctrines about Him. That is, they are stuck in worshipping an idol of their own creation and imagination, and not knowing Him as living and active.
     I choose to know Him, and whatever He chooses for me to understand next.

Thoughts about "Before" by Jim B. Tucker, M.D.

     I finished reading "Before" last night. It is two books, "Life after Life" and "Return to Life," by Jim B. Tucker, M.D. wrapped in a single volume. For those who didn't read my previous posts on the book, this work essentially summarizes for the layman what has been sixty five years of research by Dr. Ian Stevenson and his team from the University of Virginia, of which Dr. Tucker became a part in the mid-nineties, on reports of past life memories by children between the ages of 2 and 5, give or take. In all, 2500 cases were documented from countries and cultures around the world. A special focus is given in the book to those cases which they regarded as "solved," that is, ones in whom the deceased previous life was positively identified through statements made by the child (which knowledge the child could not have possibly obtained through normal means). The researchers are facts oriented, look for other "normal" explanations, and are painstaking in doing everything they can to keep their subjects free from bias or "contamination" by outside influences. In spite of their no-nonsense approach, the cases they describe are nothing short of impossible if reincarnation of some kind has not occurred. They also made it a point to not approach this work from any kind of a religious bias of their own, the author himself having originally come from a Southern Baptist background (which denomination clearly repudiates and forbids a belief in reincarnation of any kind, as do most Christian denominations).
     First off, let me say that this book is not for everyone. The case that the author builds from his research for the reality of reincarnation is, at the very least, rock solid and built on those decades of research, interviews, and case studies. If you find this threatening to your religious beliefs or worldview, then you may want to think twice about reading it. Second, the author, after presenting his evidence, also talks about quantum mechanics and its relationship to consciousness and the nature of reality. Once again, he builds his argument logically from the known facts, verified by experimentation, of the physics of the quantum realm. The conclusions he comes to based on these facts will also disturb and upend a person's belief system because of the evidence and solid argumentation he presents. Third, there are many that will classify this book and their research as "New Age nonsense" and dismiss it out of hand. While an argument can be made that it falls in line with some branches of New Age thinking, that is neither the viewpoint nor the intention of the author, who reads as a serious, dedicated scientist only interested in facts and data. And it is this last bit which has made the biggest impression on me as to the integrity of his and his mentor's research. While I've learned the hard way to keep an open mind, I don't consider myself easily persuaded by nonsense (though of course some would argue this point). Dr. Tucker's thoughtful and facts oriented writing has seriously impressed me and given me a great amount of thinking to do.
     There is one thought which occurs to me after finishing the book. I have written before that "pneuma o theos," "God is spirit" in John 4:24 can reasonably also be rendered "God is energy" based on the understanding of "pneuma" at the time it was written. What has occurred to me is that, also based on the understanding of the word "pneuma," it could also be rendered "God is Consciousness." And the whole verse could be rendered, "God is Consciousness, and it is necessary for those prostrating themselves [worshipping] before Him to prostrate themselves [worship] with consciousness and with truth." Which is in the context of the question of whether or not God should be worshipped on Mount Gerazim or in Jerusalem on Mount Zion, and Jesus' answer that a time is coming when those genuinely worshipping the Father will do so with consciousness and with truth, because the Father is seeking such people as these to worship Him. This also reminds me of what God says through the prophets in the Old Testament, where He is adamant about actually doing what He says with sincerity of heart, and not just bringing sacrifices and burnt offerings in religious ritual. It also reminds me of the prophecy of the New Covenant in Jeremiah, where He says He will write His Torah on their hearts.
     Within more New Age writings and media, the Being of God is frequently called "Source" in order to divorce Him from a Judeo-Christian understanding (through which churches many such people have been hurt and removed themselves from). In a way, "Source" isn't so very different from Jesus calling God "Father" or more generally, "Parent." It also is little different from referring to Him as "Creator." It indicates the relationship that one was born of, made, or generated by the Other in some way. While Christians may be uncomfortable with the term, it is nevertheless perfectly accurate to describe the Being, and person of the Trinity we call God the Father as "Source." I am coming to think that it is no less accurate to describe Him as "Consciousness" as well in the sense of "Consciousness Himself," and also "The Source of Consciousness."
     Finally, my thoughts turn to what is meant by human beings being created "in the image of God." If each one of us is, ultimately, a consciousness which can exist apart from a physical body, and God is ultimately the Source of Consciousness, then this is what is meant by human beings being the image of God, that we are each of us individual consciousnesses born of and still connected to His consciousness.
     These are just thoughts generated by my recent reading. As for me, it changes nothing where discipleship to Jesus Christ is concerned and the need to submit to and surrender to His Spirit with whom we are joined as opposed to our own malfunctioning brains.