"Are You Happy?"

 "Are you happy?"
Honestly, this is a question I don't like to be asked because, at least for me, it's always a complicated answer no matter what my circumstances. There are things I enjoy doing. There are quiet moments when I look around at where I'm at, I listen to the waterfall on the lake, I smell the fragrance of the trees, the grasses, and yes, even the animals and I take it all in, and I feel... somewhat at peace or at least restored to it. When I interact with or play with the animals, the dogs, the goats, and even the chickens I feel a sense of... what? Joy, happiness, pleasure?
     But am I "happy"? The truth is, I don't know that I really know what that means. The older I get, the more I realize that there is a depression at the center of my psyche that has been there for as long as I can remember. When I was younger, it was broken up occasionally with short highs that I wouldn't necessarily call "mania" but they got to the point where I became incredibly uncomfortable with the swings, and so I intentionally tried to force myself onto an even keel emotionally. I would say this was right around mid to late High School for me. I became sort of afraid to express too much "happiness" or reveal that I really liked something because of how it was expressed when I was younger, and the older I got, the more that was ingrained into my behavior.
     Now, I am pushing fifty and middle age is upon me, and more recently I have been confronted with this question as someone else pointed out that I am going through my own version of a mid-life crisis. And the truth is that I had kind of given up on achieving "happiness" a long time ago. Instead, I think I tried to replace it with just trying to do the right thing, to be the right kind of person, and so on, just waiting until my time here on Earth was done. Ironically, that usually didn't go as planned either, as my intentions to do and be the "right thing" to do and be almost always went sideways on me.
      Emotions come and go. Happiness and sadness are like the tides that come in on the beach and go back out again because they are emotions. But there is a deeper thing here than just momentary happiness or sadness. The depression that lies at the heart or core of my psyche has made me so worn out, so tired, and this accompanied by the various stressors which I have had in my life have taken their physical toll on me too, more so that they probably should have for a man my age.
      I've never considered happiness to be a necessary thing, but I think I'm coming to learn that it is a part of my own mind's health which I have neglected for far too long. There is an idea in Buddhism that the body must not be catered to, but it must be cared for like an injured limb. It must be fed, clothed, washed, and generally taken care of or else, like the injured limb, it will not heal properly. In neglecting the necessity of this deeper happiness, my own mental health has not healed properly either, and at time it is showing.
      I need to do a better job of caring for my own mental health, or else it will continue to impact, not only myself, but those around me negatively. By caring for my own mental health, I am also caring for those around me who love me, and even those with whom I interact even if they don't know me, and even those with whom I have no interaction but those who know me interact with.

Why Am I So Critical of Sola Scriptura?

  Why do I get so critical of Sola Scriptura? It is because of the extreme to which many churches and individual "Christians" take it, often with a view to a particular translation of the Scriptures. It becomes so entrenched that the Bible itself becomes an idol. The thing which was meant for our good becomes an instrument of our downfall because of our inherent human malfunction.
The real problem comes when these churches and individuals put the Scriptures on such a pedestal to where it becomes "adoration," that is, worship ascribed only to God Himself, in the same way they accuse Catholics and Orthodox of the "adoration" of Mary, something which Catholic doctrine explicitly forbids. While both sides would deny any such thing, "Bible Christians" do not worship the Bible, and Roman Catholics do not "worship" Mary, nevertheless from all appearances of liturgy, worship music, and arrangement of their sanctuaries, they certainly both give the appearance of it. And so the Bible Christian accuses the RC Christian of Maryolatry, and the RC Christian accuses the Bible Christian of Bibliolatry.
Here's the thing as well, I accept the authority of the Scriptures, but in their proper contexts. I personally hold the Scriptures in a high enough regard to where I have made it a point to seek them out in their own languages and to understand what they are saying on their terms, and not anachronistically on mine. I honestly don't understand why, if someone holds the opinion of Sola Scriptura, they wouldn't do the same. If this book is that important to you, why wouldn't you engage with it in its own tongues and on its own temporal and cultural terms? Why wouldn't you pore over it again and again and again in those languages to understand what is actually being said? If this book is that important, and if it contains the message of deliverance and salvation, why would anyone do anything else?
And yet frequently those who claim Sola Scriptura adhere to one particular translation in their own language, and it's usually the one which supports their own particular systematic theology, or their church's. Yes, I'm looking at you, KJV. NASB and ESV, don't go anywhere. And what really happens is that it is their own systematic theology, supported by this preferred translation out of which they are really making an idol and lifting high, symbolized by their preferred edition of the Holy Scriptures. Much like the Pharisees made an idol out of their own interpretations of the Torah, symbolized by the Torah itself, and something which Paul wrote copiously about trying to untangle and expose.
The first authority for the disciple of Jesus Christ needs to be the Spirit of Jesus Christ with whom they have been made one. It is Jesus Christ Himself, grafted together with the disciple, who must first instruct and interpret everything for the disciple. But the problem which comes in is that many claim to be following His Spirit and yet clearly act according to their own malfunctioning fear, aggression, and bodily cravings. It takes time, practice, and a sincere humility to learn to "hear" and cooperate with His control. Yes, we have the writings of the Prophets and Apostles, but the Apostles in particular were assuming that their readers already knew what they were talking about, and they were as much relying on the Spirit of Christ interpreting what they wrote for their intended audience as they relied on Him for writing it. It was always meant to be about the Spirit of Christ, and not the letters on the page. This was true for the Torah as much as it was true for the New Testament. Those writings in particular were meant to provide guidelines for disciples to know when they were operating from the Spirit and when they were operating from their own flesh, and the importance of understanding the consequences of both. The Spirit of Christ Himself however was meant to be the first authority, the first canon, the first rule.
Of course Scripture has an authoritative place, but the first and most importance authority and source of action, word, and thought for the disciple is the Spirit of Jesus Christ Himself.

More Thoughts on Sola Scriptura

      The doctrine of Sola Scriptura, which originated with the Reformation in the 1500s, says that all one needs for correct theology and Christian practice is the Holy Scriptures, that is, the Holy Bible. There are so many churches and denominations that claim Sola Scriptura as a part of their fundamental creed that it can be said that it is the prevalent or dominant teaching of doctrinal authority among the Christian churches today.
     The problem with it is that, while it sounds great in theory, it doesn't work in actual practice. In virtually every church and denomination which holds to Sola Scriptura in their statements of faith, in practice, there is always Scripture "and" commentaries, Scripture "and" the works of Luther, Scripture "and" the works of John Calvin, Scripture "and" [fill in the blank] in order to bring the preaching of those Scriptures in line with the doctrinal stance of that church, pastor, or denomination.
     Why is this? If the Scriptures alone were sufficient, then there would be no need for any extraneous sources.
     The answer is that Sola Scriptura assumes something about the Scriptures which simply isn't true, as any cursory reading or perusal will attest. Sola Scriptura assumes that the Scriptures are written like an instruction manual, a systematic theology, or some other work where the theological doctrines of faith are clearly laid out and said plainly. This is just not the case at all.
     The Holy Scriptures are 66 (72 if you're Catholic or Orthodox) individual works representing over forty different authors, three languages, a fifteen hundred year time span, and multiple genres of literature such as history, poetry, private letters, prophecies, proverbs and anecdotes, and so on. It gets even more complicated when you realize that the very first five were likely translations from an older language into Hebrew and heavily redacted or even paraphrased. They were all written from the worldview of the authors at the time, which meant some of them honestly thought the Earth was flat, while other later authors understood it to be at least round or a sphere. None of them were ever meant to be taken as a systematic theology, and in many cases (especially the N.T. letters), the authors assumed the reader would know what they were talking about to begin with.
      The truth is that when taking the Scriptures on their own, without any theological presumptions, they reveal a progression of theological thought interspersed among their narratives, prophecies, and personal writings. There is in fact a single narrative which emerges, but it is a narrative, not a systematic theology. It is a story, not a doctrinal outline. It was meant to exist as special revelation within the general revelation of the natural world, and to work set in the context of history, culture, societies, worldviews, and what we can deduce from what the natural world tries to tell us. It was never meant to "operate" apart from them or ripped from their contexts. It was certainly never meant to be confined to this or that theologian's ideas about what God should look like.
       I personally have come to the conclusion of "Prima Scriptura" where Scripture is the primary authority, set in its proper contexts, but not the only authority divorced from them. And my thought is that interpretation must remain fluid and dynamic, not because the Scriptures change, but because our understanding does.

On Self-Righteousness

     Self-righteousness helps no one, least of all the person who is self-righteous. Why? Because it's a lie the ego/mind/identity tells itself in order to stay relatively sane in its malfunctioning state.
     The EMI is driven to attachment to that which is likes, agrees with, and thus accepts as "good." It is also driven to aversion to that which it dislikes, disagrees with, and thus rejects as "evil." It treats these things as either survival necessities or survival threats and the brain responds accordingly. Self-righteousness reassures the EMI that "I am 'good'" and thus not to be rejected as "evil." When the EMI registers the self as "bad" or "evil," it registers itself as a threat and therefore to be rejected, feared, driven away, or destroyed. This causes a "panic" in the system because of the contradiction which must be resolved. The like/dislike or "good/bad" must be adjusted to compensate, which we call "justifying oneself." It is this panic and the complex difficulty in resolution which is the source of many if not most psychological disorders.
     Self-righteousness is the lie the EMI tells itself that, if you follow these rules or this code of conduct that you agree with, then you will be "good" and thus a survival necessity to be protected and/or hoarded. Self-righteousness is a lie because it does not actually fix the underlying error and cannot. It is literally the error trying to compensate for itself and failing miserably. It is also harmful because it cannot easily take into account moral contradictions where following the rule or code of conduct results in harm to someone or an undesirable outcome which is deemed a threat to the EMI. It produces a nonsensical result to the EMI which then triggers that same existential panic which must be resolved in order to maintain relatively normal operations.
     This is why where Paul writes that "The Torah is good," he is absolutely correct. There is nothing wrong with the codes of conduct laid out in the Torah (at least in the society of the ancient world). Not murdering people, not stealing, not craving what isn't yours, and loving your neighbor as yourself are in fact good things to practice. If there was a code of conduct which could have delivered someone from their malfunction, then it would have been the Torah, as Paul writes. The problem isn't the Torah. The problem is the malfunctioning EMI that takes the code of conduct, agrees with it, and then decides that there's nothing wrong with itself as long as it keeps those rules. But because it is not actually governed by those rules, but by its own like/dislike, that is what it considers to be a survival necessity or a survival threat and either craving or aversion in reaction, it cannot hold. "Because the Torah is 'spiritual,' but I am fleshly, sold as a slave subject to the malfunction." Attempting to define your goodness, your own personal right state of being, by keeping the Torah, the instructions of the New Testament, or any moral code of conduct only triggers the malfunctioning EMI to more malfunctioning responses whether in compliance with that code of conduct or defiance of it. The moral code of conduct can do nothing, absolutely nothing, about the hardwired human malfunction which afflicts each one of us.
     Thus, self-righteousness from rule-keeping of any kind, or anything which allows the EMI to place itself in the category of "good," is a self-deception produced by the malfunctioning EMI in order to maintain its own relative sanity (in the programming sense).
     In order to actually deal with the malfunctioning EMI, it has to be bypassed altogether, and a new origin or source of responses and behaviors inserted. Thus the cross, the union with the Spirit of Christ, and the voluntary ability to submit to and cooperate with the Spirit of Christ so that it is He who acts and speaks through us, thus giving those words and actions a genuinely, correctly functioning source from His genuine right state of being.

A Response from the Lord to a Comment About an Attack on "Christian Values"

    Friend, being a disciple of Jesus Christ has nothing to do with defending "western values" or even "Christian values." Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is about one thing, Jesus Christ and the continued practice of imitating Him, that is, submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ with whom we are one just like He submitted to and cooperated with the Father with whom He was One. It isn't about enforcing a moral code or "values" on everyone else or even ourselves. Paul is very explicit when it comes to this. 

     It's about disengaging from our own devices, our own moral codes, our own flesh originated fear, aggression, and bodily cravings; it's about learning to not submit to our own malfunctioning physical minds, and to engage with and submit to the Spirit of Christ, operating from Him as the source of our words, actions, and so on so that, just as Jesus Christ didn't say or do anything that the Father didn't say or do through Him, so neither we say or do anything that Jesus Christ doesn't say or do through us. All those functioning in this way, thay are not subject to any law, any moral codes, any set of "values" because it is Jesus Christ who acts and speaks and is the origin of their responses and He does not error. He does not sin. That which is born of God does not sin. 

     By focusing on "values", you distract from the whole method, practice, and purpose of discipleship, coming into full synchronization with Jesus Christ. Would Jesus Christ practice witchcraft? Would He consort with demons? If He is acting through you, neither will you and it doesn't matter what stories you enjoy or media you consume. All is permitted, because Jesus Christ acting through you does not and cannot sin, if you are submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ with whom you are one. If you are not, then you are trying to keep rules, regulations, moral codes, and "values" in order to do what is right, and failing miserably because without Him we can do nothing but "sin". 

     You are focusing on the wrong thing and defending the path of the Pharisee trying to invoke fear of breaking a rule or moral code instead of invoking the Spirit of Christ to act and speak through the person, which is marked, not by fear, but by love, peace, patience, trust, kindness, courtesy, self-control, forgiveness, and so on. If you're going to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, then be a disciple of Jesus Christ and not a disciple of conservatism. That was the path of the Pharisee.

     Friend, re-read what I just wrote. 

     If it is Jesus Christ acting and speaking through you then He is not going to "sin" through you. Herein lies the difference, neither laws nor moral codes nor values have any ability to actually change behavior because the source of that behavior, the malfunctioning human brain/mind remains the same. The only thing they can do is make you feel guilty and afraid as they trigger that very same malfunctioning mind. The only way for behavior to actually change, the only way for correct or "right" behavior to happen is if it is Jesus Christ doing it through you, and the Father, the ultimate source, through Him. 

     For the record, He ate with prostitutes and other "sinful" outcasts and still didn't sin. Pretty sure He could walk into a strip club and come out without sinning either. If He is the one in control, then Scripture is clear, what is born of God does not sin.

Writing What I Have Seen and Heard

 "...what we had heard, what we had seen with our eyes, what we watched happen and our hands felt..."

When I talk about submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ, and my inability to do anything else but error or malfunction when operating from my own devices, I am not writing from theological theory or hypothesis. I am not just rehashing what some other spiritual writer or theologian has said. While I may occasionally quote others, when I speak about these things, I am speaking from experience. I am talking about "...what I have heard, what I have seen with my own eyes, what I watched happen, and my hands have felt..." I think this needs to be made clear if it hasn't already. I am speaking about what I myself have experienced, and what others have commented on when they have seen me in both states, functioning from the Spirit of Christ and functioning from my own malfunctioning flesh, both before and after my neurofeedback treatments. I am writing from my own observations as well as the observations of others.

     When I am operating from the malfunctioning flesh (which is far more often than I like or want, but I too am still working towards staying put in the Spirit of Christ on a constant basis; I'm not there yet, it's still more intermittent then I want), I am operating from my own fear, and the personal traumas, cravings, likes or dislikes which trigger that fear. I get angry, jealous, offended, judgmental; I can start yelling, I can even become physically violent, though thankfully that is generally directed towards inanimate objects like walls. I can get resentful. I can get argumentative, factious, depressed, scared, and all of this comes out to affect those around me negatively, triggering their own flesh responses of fear, anger, and bodily cravings. I am neither a nice or sometimes even safe person to be around when I am operating from my own malfunctioning survival responses. From my own devices, I still have a lot of difficulty reading others, or socializing, and get overwhelmed way too quickly thus also feeding into the fear, frustration, and anger. Put simply, I cannot do anything else but error or malfunctioning responses when I am operating from my own malfunctioning brain or mind.

     When I am operating from the Spirit of Christ, my thoughts may still be rampaging, but as long as I do not engage with them, my responses are kind, patient, self-controlled, loving, giving, self-sacrificing, forgiving, trusting, and so on. When I am submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ, what people see is Jesus Christ with my face. What people hear is Jesus Christ with my voice. As long as I do not re-engage with my own fear, aggression, or bodily cravings, and continue to be engaged with the Spirit of Christ, it is Christ who acts and speaks through me, and not my malfunctioning ego/mind/identity.

     This is what salvation and deliverance through Jesus Christ is all about. This is what it means. Not that somehow I become "holier than thou," not that somehow I myself do everything perfectly, but that I step back and work with Him so that it is He who is in control, and not me myself. It is a dichotomy of personality in some respects. There are two psychologies at work, one based in the neurological framework of the physical, fleshy brain, and one deeply rooted and originated in Jesus Christ, and through Him, God the Father.

     It is the fundamental purpose and goal of discipleship to practice staying put in the Spirit of Christ and disengaging from the malfunctioning flesh based mind in order to ultimately be able to remain there without breaking from it, just as Jesus remained in His Father without breaking from it. This is what we strive to do and to be. And this is why I harp on it all the time. Not because I found it in a book and thought it was cool, but because this is what I myself have experienced, seen, heard, and felt with my own senses.

A Rant about Forgiveness, License, and "Claiming the Blood of Jesus"

 The problem isn't God's forgiveness. He's more than willing to forgive when we come to our senses and turn around from the path we were on. He's practically begging us to. No, the problem is that people don't really want forgiveness, they want license. They want to be told they can act in any way they want, as selfishly as they want, be able to hurt anyone they want and still "go to heaven," or get a "get out of hell free card" because they profess to believe a certain theological teaching.

     God doesn't do that. The Israelites acted that way with the sacrifices according to the Prophets, especially Isaiah. They hurt anyone they pleased, acted as selfishly as they wanted to, and thought they were safe because they offered the sacrifices and kept the holidays of the Torah. According to Isaiah God couldn't stand it, and told them their observances were making Him sick to His stomach. Pretty sure that's how He feels about "Christians" who "claim the blood of Jesus" while lying, cheating, gossiping, and leaving the widow, the orphan, the foreigner, and the homeless out in the cold.

     The terms of the New Covenant were laid out at the Last Supper. Jesus was clear what was expected, and what would happen if the New Covenant wasn't kept on our part. It goes something like, "Make your home within Me and I within you. You're like a branch that makes its home in a grape vine. If you make your home within Me, you'll produce a lot of fruit. If you don't, then without Me you can't do anything at all. If you make your home in Me and my message makes its home in you, then you can ask whatever you want and it will be done for you. If you don't make your home in Me, you'll dry up like a branch cut from the plant, and then be collected to be tossed into a fire to be burned like a dried up branch." Making one's home within Him can is only done when a person comes to their senses and turns around. This is actually the way to turn around, recognizing that you can't do anything else but cause harm operating from your own devices. And God willingly and quickly forgives those who turn around.

     But this isn't what people want. They want to be the prodigal son who comes home, is welcomed with open arms by his father, and then continues to live his profligate lifestyle in his father's tent while his loving father pays for it all. They don't want a solution to their problem of not being able to do anything else but error, they just want to escape the potential consequences of their deranged, harmful actions. They claim the blood of Jesus while trodding on Him and everything He taught.

     That's not how this works. That's not what Jesus Himself taught. It's not what Paul, John, or Peter taught either, and James was explicit about having "faith" without the works to back up your supposed "faith."

     If you don't even try to follow what Jesus taught, then you don't believe Him, or even believe in Him. You might believe that He lived, died on the cross, and rose from the dead, but guess what, so do the demons. They were there. You can't say you believe someone or believe in someone and then blow them off. That's called "lying." It's one thing to make mistakes while you're learning to imitate Him and keep the covenant. It's another entirely to not even try and to actively do the opposite, encouraging others to do to opposite of what He taught.

     You can profess all the correct theology you want. You can go to church every Sunday. You can tithe. You can make yourself appear squeaky clean to the world. But if you're not making your home in Him, if who He is, the love that He is and taught, doesn't manifest itself through you, if you don't live as He taught and walk as He walk, then none of the theology you supposedly profess to believe matters in the slightest. All of it is absolutely worthless, and less than worthless, it is crap. Even Jesus said that you will be judged based on how you treated "the least of these." "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice." "Do to others what you want them to do to you." "Love your neighbor as yourself." These are what makes a disciple of Jesus Christ. These are what makes a genuine Christian in the eyes of God.

     Don't you dare "claim the blood of Jesus" if you're going to treat Him with such disrespect as to blow off everything He taught. Otherwise, you're going to be in for a cold, utterly dark, and deeply painful surprise. And you will have chosen it yourself.

Letting Go of Ancestral Wrongs

I'm not entirely coherent right now for lack of sleep, so bear with me. I'm not certain as how to express this thought in words.
     In 1948, the modern State of Israel came into being, and with it the displacement of Palestinians and the launch of the Israeli settlements, more or less. It is now 2024, The settlers have been there for generations, taken root, and built homes and families. The same is true on the opposite side of the spectrum. Yes, at one time, this land was the home of the ancient Kingdom of Judea (Israel/Judah), and the ancestral land of the Jews. But in that time period, not only Jews, but Arabs, Syrian Christians, and European Christians also settled there and blended in some part to become the Palestinians. They too took root in that land, and built homes and families that have been there for generations. Even if they are only the descendants of Arab workers, they've still done the same thing, making their homes there for generations.
     In North America, slaves were brought over from Africa and forced to work on plantations. It was a horrible violation and crime against those people, as was the breeding of them like livestock. Hundreds of years from when it started, their descendants have also built homes and families, many of them are of "mixed race" with their ancestors' slave owners, and virtually none have ties with their ancestral African communities.
     I have previously written about the original state of human beings, and the impossibility of return to that state both biologically and in terms of society. It would be catastrophic and would cause the deaths of millions if not billions were we to try.
     There is, in our nature, the desire for reparations for ancestral wrongs. The desire to avenge the wrongs done to our ancestors, and make things "right." We feel guilty for what our ancestors did, or enraged for what someone else did to our ancestors. We see this on both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. We see it in the movements for reparations, and even the misguided attempts at repatriation for the descendants of former American slaves. We also see it in the same attempts on behalf of the various native American tribes who were badly mistreated by the U.S. government. What Vladimir Putin is doing in Ukraine and with the former Soviet Republics can even be seen as, in his mind, trying to avenge and "make things right" for the beloved country of his birth, the U.S.S.R.
     The problem however is that, like with what happened with the human race and Eden, there is no going back. There is no "making things right." Any attempts at doing so in the name of long dead people who were wronged only hurts the people who are living who had nothing to do with the original violation. Another example might be persecuting the Jewish people living today for what the Judean religious leadership did to Jesus 2,000 years ago when those living today had nothing to do with it. Yet another would be both Muslim anger toward European (and by way of ancestry, American) Christians for the Crusades, and European Christian anger towards Muslims for their historic conquests.
     Love, as the Scriptures teach it, lets go. It keeps no account of wrongs. It does not live in the past. It does not seek vengeance. It exists in the here and now, and deals with what is, and not what was. Love doesn't see the wars that were fought hundreds of years ago, or the atrocities committed by those people. It only sees the child, the family, the mother, the father, the siblings, that is, it only sees the people who are here, now, today as its direct objects. Love does not care what a Palestinian family's great grandparents did eighty years ago. Love does not care what an Israeli settler's great grandparents did eighty years ago. Love does not care what slaveowners did 200 years ago. Neither does love care what Muslims did in the past, or Europeans, or Americans, or Black people, or Hispanic people. Love holds nothing against the modern Japanese for what their grandparents did during WWII. Love keeps no record of wrongs done, and does not punish the children for the offenses of the parents. If we go far enough back, everyone on this Earth is a descendant of someone who committed some heinous atrocity against another person or group of people. Love does not hold that against them.
     This is a hard subject to write about without it not coming off wrong. But as disciples of Jesus Christ, we must practice the letting go of what was, no matter how egregious, and love the person and people that are, right here, and right now, in this moment. We must respect the right of the Palestinian to live at peace in his own home without fear for his life, and the same is true of the Israeli settler, We must allow people to move on with their lives, and not tie the sins of their ancestors to them like chains. We must love the person in front of us as he is right now. Not as his ancestor was.

The Original State of Human Beings

"Consider the birds, they neither sow nor reap, have neither storehouse nor barn, yet God feeds them. How are you any different from them?"
     Imagine a world where all anyone has to do to get food and water is to go out and look for it. The weather is always warm and temperate so you only need relatively light shelter, and you don't have to worry about keeping clothed, because there's no need for clothing. The only job you have during the day is finding enough food for yourself and possibly your little ones, either gathering it from trees and bushes, or hunting game. No one is obese because you can only gather enough food for the day, there are no processed foods which encourage obesity, and the process of just gathering enough food keeps you lean and physically fit.
     This is the picture of human beings, homo sapiens, in their earliest state somewhere in Africa before spreading out into the Middle East, the southern shore of the Black Sea, and the Persian Steppe. This is the state in which God created us, hunting and gathering omnivorous primates that had no other concerns physically beyond finding food which was relatively abundant, and reproducing. This is the state in which our ancestors lived prior to the malfunction from eating a toxic piece of fruit they were told not to. This is the state in which we were in balance with the rest of our environment, and the one we were meant to occupy in the world.
     Modern human civilization is a product of the malfunctioning, imbalanced human mind. It is because of this malfunction, this interpreting everything that pleases oneself as a survival necessity and hoarding it or craving it, and everything that displeases oneself as a survival threat and trying to push it away or destroy it; it is because of the social structures which evolved influenced by it that people go hungry, many people can't support themselves no matter how hard they work, and a very few control the vast majority of life sustaining resources.
      And we can't go back. Ever. The malfunction and millennia of civilization make it impossible without massive suffering. And even if somehow we did, it would only start over again because of the malfunction which is hardwired into the surviving homo sapiens brain. It would be both unkind and fruitless.
     As I was reflecting on what Jesus was saying in "Consider the birds," it occurred to me that, at one time, human beings didn't sow or reap, have either storehouse or barn either. They didn't spin fibers and weave cloth for clothes either. They lived exactly as God intended for them, and they survived just fine, several different species concurrently no less, for hundreds of thousands of years, and so did this planet and its other species.
     We have to acknowledge the serious deviation we took, and the internal problem we all are still hardwired with. We have to be honest with ourselves about it and understand where it's taken us, both as a species and with each one of us individually.

More Thoughts on the Language of the Hebrew Bible

One of the problems with assuming the current texts of the Hebrew Old Testament were originally written in Hebrew during the traditional time periods to which they are ascribed is the homogeneity of language found in those texts from Genesis to Malachi. These texts are supposed to represent a time span of writing of around a thousand years.
     Consider the language change English has undergone in the last thousand years. Thousand year old English is known as Anglo Saxon and is completely unintelligible to the modern English speaker without learning it as a foreign language. Koine and Byzantine Greek are nearly mutually unintelligible. Why would we expect anything different from a thousand years of language change between Moses and Nehemiah? It would be as if a thousand page book had its first six sections in Anglo-Saxon, eight or nine in Middle English, ten or so in Elizabethan English, and the rest in the speech of 18th century Jane Austen with a few passages written in German. Yet the language used in the Hebrew Bible is so mutually intelligible between authors (with the exception of those few passages written in Aramaic), representing pre- and post-exilic Hebrew that it is virtually identical across each book. The exclusion of the deuterocanonical books only reinforces the artificiality of the written language, because these were at least originally written in Greek and Aramaic in accord with the period in which they were written.
      This doesn't even bring in the fact that Hebrew didn't exist prior to 1000 BCE, but developed between the time of the conquest and the kingdom period of David as a variant of Canaanite. For reference, Moses lived approximately 1500 BCE and was trained to read and write in Middle Egyptian and probably the more cursive version of hieroglyphic called "Hieratic." How could he have written in a language which didn't yet exist, and wasn't trained to read and write in?
     The counterpoint will be brought up that the Hebrew scribes were meticulous in their copying of the Scriptural text, counting every letter and destroying those scrolls that contained mistakes. But this practice didn't begin until at least after the Babylonian exile, as even the Scriptures themselves record that the Torah had been lost for a time during the kingdom period when Judah had reverted to polytheistic worship and had to be rediscovered.
     This is why it's important to let go of the idea that the Hebrew text has remained exactly the same since Moses, David, and all the prophets penned them. The internal linguistic evidence just isn't there. What we have, at least in some large sections, has to be, at the very least, translations and attempts at modernizing the text at some point before 1 CE when Hebrew was still a true colloquial language.
     All this being said, this does not make the Hebrew Scriptures worthless by any means. Those translations and possible edits were made to try and preserve the text, the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets for the people of Israel so they could read and understand where they came from, and what the heart of God was all about. They were just as necessary as New Testament translation and commentary is necessary today for the person not acquainted with the ancient tongue, history, and culture. But we have to be careful to keep these things in perspective and not get to the point where we lift the text of Scripture so high that, like the snake on the pole, we begin to worship it rather than the One who breathed it.

Thoughts on the Properties of the Fruit from the Tree of Life

      Spurred by an article I recently read about aging and death, and the causes, I've been thinking over the last couple of days about what exactly the compounds from the fruit from the tree of life did to stretch out human life indefinitely in the Garden of Eden. An interesting fact about the Tree of Life, is that, like immortality, the Flood and dragons, its iconography is found in some form in virtually every ancient culture and mythology surrounding the Black Sea for a thousand miles or more, and frequently flanked by two unknown figures in those cultures. In many cultures, the Tree of Life or its functional equivalent is guarded by a dragon, like the tree of the Hesperides in Greek Mythology. This does bear some resemblance to Eden, and thus the Tree of Life, being guarded by a Kheruv after humanity's expulsion.

      The only fruit God told Adam not to eat from was the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil." From this I think it can be assumed that he and Eve, or what family group there was at the time, were already consuming the fruit from this tree. It has been my hypothesis that this is the reason for "Adam's" increased lifespan of 930 years as well as every one of his recorded descendants through Abraham that demonstrated longer than usual lifespans, though decreasing with each generation. Once this fruit had been removed from their diet (by removing them from its location), while the effects lingered from generation to generation, they did eventually succumb to natural death.

     In the article I was reading, in an interview with him, Molecular Biologist Venki Ramakrishnan says, "Aging is an accumulation of chemical damage to the molecules inside our cells, which damages the cells themselves, and therefore the tissue, and then eventually us as an organism. Surprisingly, we start aging when we’re in the womb, although at that point, we’re growing faster than we’re accumulating damage. Aging happens throughout our lives, right from the very beginning. The body has evolved lots of mechanisms to correct age-related damage to our DNA and to any poor-quality proteins we produce. Without ways to correct these sorts of problems, we would never live as long as we do. Still, over time, damage begins to outpace our ability to repair. Think of the body as like a city containing lots of systems that must work together. Once an organ system critical to our survival fails, we die. For example, if our muscles become so frail that our heart stops beating, it can’t pump the blood containing the oxygen and nutrients our organs need and we die. When we say someone dies, we mean the death of them as an individual. In fact, when we die, most of ourselves, such as our organs, are alive. This is why the organs of accident victims can be donated to transplant." (DuLong, Jessica. "Why do we die? The latest on aging and immortality from a Nobel Prize-winning scientist." CNN.com, Tue April 9, 2024.)

     In an online Chemistry textbook from Western Oregon Universtiy, it says, "In multicellular organisms, the response to DNA damage can result in two major physiological consequences: (1) Cells can undergo cell cycle arrest, repair the damage and re-enter the cell cycle, or  (2) cells can be targeted for cell death (apoptosis) and removed from the population." (Flatt, P.M. (2019) Biochemistry – Defining Life at the Molecular Level.  Published by Western Oregon University, Monmouth, OR (CC BY-NC-SA). Chapter 12.3.)

      Speculating a little bit, it stands to reason that the fruit of the tree of life held a natural compound that supported and induced these repair responses in such a way so that the natural cellular repair systems were able to keep up with DNA damage at the molecular level and not be outpaced by it once the person who ate it had reached physical maturity. Thinking about it, I do wonder if it supported the second response of apoptosis more than the first. I say this because I have seen some pretty dramatic physical healing in brain tissue when apoptosis is induced, both through fasting, and through a couple of different machine methods using both light and sound. One of Tressa's doctors, and the one who helped her the most, had a machine which used sound waves to induce apoptosis with her damaged neurons. There was apparently no risk of the healthy neurons being damaged through this process. But the results could be dramatic, and are largely responsible for all of the progress she has made in the last four or five years. Heidi's forty day fasting stints where she induced hard ketosis also did something similar in that it induced the body to remove damaged cells. This was also a large part of why the plaques on her brain causing her MS dwindled to nothing from one MRI to the other.

     My thought here is that, what if the fruit of the tree of life induced the mechanisms within the body to remove the cells with damaged DNA far more aggressively than normal, effectively scrubbing them on a regular basis after being consumed. With no damaged cells, the mature adult would not age, and thus would not die from old age. They would be effectively immortal as long as they continued to eat from this tree on a regular basis, barring physically fatal accidents. Also speculating, I would suspect that aggressive apoptosis or ketosis induction was not the only effect this fruit would have, but it would possibly be the major one in terms of anti-aging, and thus anti-dying properties.

     My other thought on the subject is and has been that the reason why the fruit from the other tree had such an effect on the human brain was because those who ate it at the time were also eating the fruit from the tree of life. There was something about the toxin in the other fruit that, when combined with the compound from the fruit of the tree of life, altered our limbic system and the amygdala and hypothalamus specifically, causing them to malfunction from their original state. I tend to think it was a cyanogenic compound, and the other fruit a stone fruit of some kind. As far as is mentioned in Scripture, it was only Adam and/or his family group that were eating from the tree of life, and it was only the other tree which they were warned off of, possibly placed there as a food source for another animal for whom it was not toxic and would not have deleterious effects because the other animal wouldn't be consuming the fruit from the tree of life, placed there as a food source for Adam and his kin as it was.

Small, Seemingly Insignificant Things Can Have Catastrophic Consequences

      It doesn't take much to achieve catastrophic results. There is an old quote that I had thought originated with Pascal, but is apparently anonymous, which says:

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

      Often, we tend to only consider the “big” things. The things which are obvious to us, or are so large we can’t ignore. But the catastrophic chain reaction, so to speak, always begins with something small, something we wouldn’t consider or even notice. Deadly diseases begin with tiny viruses or bacteria. Cancer begins with a single random mutation of a gene. For want of a nail a rider is lost. For want of a bolt, a door is ripped from an aircraft at altitude. On an assembly line where a robot must line something up with precision to within a thousandth of an inch, a .001 deviation can go unnoticed as the robot continues its work, but the entire line is ruined. A single unkind word can cause a chain reaction from person to person over time until nations are devastated.

      Any deviation in the human brain from its normative neural “configuration” can have serious consequences, most often behavioral. Can it adapt? Yes, but it is never the same and neither is the personality of the affected person. Therapy and the road back are difficult to walk, and many don’t reach the goal. And there are many things which can cause such deviations, even self-inflicted.

      When I talk about a toxic piece of fruit ingested by our ancestors being the cause of our common human neurological/behavioral disorder known as “hamartia,” I am not talking about a major brain deviation from the original state. I am talking about a small, probably epigenetic change, a “switch” that was flipped from the introduction of the toxin into the human system which caused a slight enlargement of the amygdala, affecting how and when the hypothalamus’s survival responses are triggered. It doesn’t sound like much, and realistically, it isn’t. But that very slight change to our genetics fundamentally altered our behavior to be ruled by fear, aggression, and bodily cravings over and beyond what other animals are. That change to our behavior caused a catastrophic chain reaction which, over the course of a hundred thousand years, give or take, led to mass extinctions, ecological destruction, and massive amounts of suffering.

      Human beings were naked hunter gatherers once that had no moral thinking, no perception that something might be “good” as distinguished from “evil.” Like animals today, they had no sense that something was "right" or "good," or something was "wrong" or "bad." There were also a lot fewer of us, and more species of us, not just races, living at the same time. When our human malfunction happened, it threw everything about us out of balance with the rest of our environment. A hundred thousand years later, there is no return to Eden. Not just because of our inherited neurological disorder, but because there are eight billion of us, all of whom depend on the technologies we developed to avoid death and working hard. A return to the state of Eden would cause mass chaos, starvation, and death on a grand scale because of the changes which have happened to us over the millennia, and the changes we in turn have inflicted upon other animals through millennia of breeding livestock and pets making those animals dependent on us. We, the last species of Homo on the planet, are fundamentally out of balance and continue to push this world out of balance to somehow compensate, trying to force it to accommodate our lack of balance. There is, unfortunately, only one eventual trajectory for this. We might be able to stave it off, but not forever. And all because our ancestors didn't listen to a warning about a toxic fruit tree that wasn't meant as food for us.

 

What's in a Name?

What difference does it make what name we use for God?
     "What’s in a name? that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet;" (Romeo and Juliet, Act II, scene ii). So asks Juliet the question about Romeo himself. What difference does his surname, Montegue, really make? It doesn't change the man himself, only the idea or perception of him. The first words of the Tao Te Ching are, “The Tao which can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name which can be named is not the eternal name” (Dyer, Wayne W., Trans. & Ed.). The truth behind these words is that once you name something, you project your own idea or perception of the thing onto it, and so the word reflects your idea or perception and not the thing itself. Nowhere is this more true than the Eternal Source and Foundation of all existence.
       In the ancient world, people’s names were just words or phrases which were given to reflect either the parent’s hopes for the child, their mood at the time, to commemorate something, or perhaps as a perpetual pun. For example, “Daniel” means “my judge is God” in Hebrew. “Paulus” essentially means “shorty.” “Mosheh” (Moses) means “drawn out,” so named because he was “drawn out” of the water. This is similar to the naming conventions of native Americans still somewhat used to this day. My own last name was originally “Bear,” a relatively common Cherokee surname in the late 1800s, before my grandfather or great-grandfather changed the spelling to disassociate from his Cherokee heritage.
      So, what name do you give the unfathomable? What name do you give the Source and Foundation of all creation and existence which would do Him justice? Even the pronouns of any human language fail here. The words for “god” in most human languages refer back either to other ancient pagan deities, such as “El” or “Deus.” Even the word “god” itself simply means something like, “thing to which you sacrifice” in its original Indo-European root. What do you call that which cannot be adequately expressed in human language without causing a misperception or error? As the Tao Te Ching says, “the name which can be named is not the eternal name.”
     In the book of Exodus, God seems to be keenly aware of this problem when Moses asks for His name. Moses literally “cards” God for His I.D. The name He gives is a reflection of the failure of human language. In Hebrew, it’s YHWH, a third person masculine singular imperfect form of the ancient verb “hawah,” the later form being “hayah,” which means “to be.” What this translates to is something like “He Continuously Is,” though we know it more famously as “I… Am.” God recognized that no word, phrase, or even book of words could adequately name Him, and so He doesn’t even try to explain who and what He is. He just says, “I… Am.”
      In principle, this Being whom we are trying to name and describe doesn’t change based on what we call Him. He remains who He is regardless if we use YHWH, Allah, Zeus, or Dave. But our perception of Him does change based on what name we use, even if it doesn’t affect Him in the slightest. In a way, naming Him is a kind of idol creation. He understood that too, and He was trying to avoid it by choosing the simplest most effective explanation of Himself that human beings could comprehend. “I just Am. Don’t bother trying to figure any more out about it. You won’t get it. I just Am.”

The First Easter When Yeshua Bar-Elah haKhai Died and Rose From the Dead

 

 

     Jesus Christ, Yeshua the Anointed, died. He was crucified and people watched him die of heart failure nailed to a wooden cross. It wasn't comforting. It was horrific. It was grisly. And it was beyond brutal. Those who loved him were in shock and traumatized. No one was really thinking clearly after that. No one could really believe He was dead, even when they saw his lifeless body covered in blood. No one wanted to believe it.

     Then, on the third day afterwards, Mariam comes running back to the house and pounds on the gate to let her in. They do and she practically screams at them, "He's alive! I saw Him! I held Him! He's alive!" Everyone wanted to believe her, and no one wanted to believe her because they were too afraid she'd snapped from seeing Him die.

     Throughout the day their world keeps getting turned upside down as the tomb is empty, Yeshua's body is nowhere to be found, and His burial shroud and head wrap are the only things left behind.

Then, finally, right after yet another report by two men whom you trust saying that they spent hours with Him without knowing it was Him, He appears right there with you and the gate to the house courtyard is barred shut. You don't know what to think or feel or say in that moment. Your mind can barely register it. Someone screams, and then you realize it's you. And the first words out of His mouth are "Shalom aleichem."

     This was the first Easter.

     Jesus Christ, Yeshua the Anointed, rose from the dead.

      His brutal murder was witness by hundreds if not thousands. His death was logged and noted by the authorities at the time. That was the only reason they removed His corpse from the crossbeams upon which He was executed. The Roman executioners, whatever their other faults, were professionals and knew when a man was dead or still alive, and it was their job to ensure that He was dead when He was removed. If they had any reason to assume He wasn't, they would have taken a dagger and slit His throat for good measure. Death was their stock in trade just like any modern executioner. Yeshua's execution was a successful execution.

      And then He appeared alive the third day after His signed, sealed, and professionally delivered death. Even if you don't believe in the authority of the New Testament, you can look at what happened to every one of His original apostles and disciples. Nearly every one went to their deaths refusing to tell any other story than that they had seen Him alive after He succumbed to His wounds and died. After the Romans had certified His death, ensuring it by stabbing His heart with a spear. Even if He had somehow lived through the trauma of scouring and crucifixion, no one lives through a lacerated heart. No one.

      And yet every single one of those who had walked with Him for those three years, and every single person who had known Him longer than that, His family and childhood friends, swore until the day they themselves were executed that they saw Him, not once, not twice, but many, many times, alive. And this wasn't a secret. They write that others saw Him too. He wasn't discriminate about who saw Him alive after His death. He appeared out in the open several times to the frustration of those who had orchestrated His death. He walked the distance with them on the road between Jerusalem and Bethany. His appearance wasn't a hallucination. They saw Him, they ate with Him, they felt His solid flesh, and saw the marks, scars, and holes from the wounds inflicted on His body when He died. The same wounds which had any other living man carried them would have kept him dead or killed him right there.

      Yeshua the Anointed, Jesus Christ, was seen alive. Do you really think that news would have been kept quiet by the disciples? Do you really think it could have been? The reports flew across Iudaea, Samaria, and Galilaia with or without their help by those others who saw Him alive. This wasn't some secret knowledge passed down. This was public report, gossip, and rumor weeks before Pentecost that the High Priests tried desperately to silence, and couldn't. They had to lie to the people and tell them that the disciples stole the body because everyone knew, they knew, that the tomb was empty. They knew by the rumor mill that people had been seeing Him all up and down the countryside. It became a little like the latest sighting of Elvis. When the Apostles went out and preached the resurrection, they weren't saying anything the people hadn't already heard or could even challenge. The people in Jerusalem already knew that Yeshua hadn't stayed dead, at least that's what everyone was saying even if they hadn't seen it themselves.

      Did Pilate launch an investigation? A half-hearted one. He already wasn't keen on crucifying a potential demi-god and angering the God of the Jews. A stupid man he was not. When the news of His resurrection reached Pilate's ears, I'm pretty sure he left it alone. He was probably smirking as the High Priests were beside themselves trying to cover it up. I can imagine Pilate saying, "Good for Him."

This is why the Way, the earliest Christianity spread like it did. The resurrection was living memory, and a lot of people remembered it, not just the twelve. No one challenged it but the Sanhedrin, and they essentially became the laughingstock conspiracy theorists because everyone knew without a doubt that Yeshua beat them. Yeshua rose from the dead.

The Legalist Cannot Comprehend the Gospel

Those who espouse legalism and the keeping of moral codes simply do not and cannot fathom the message of the Gospel, and the teaching of Jesus Christ. They do not understand what it means to be His disciple. They see what is written in the New Testament as well as the Old and add it to the lists of rules not to break. They make the same grievous mistake which the Pharisees made and tried to enforce upon the earliest churches with their infiltration, something which Paul fought against vociferously. For them, it is all about right and wrong, good and bad, white and black, law keeping or law breaking.
They don't understand that it is this very mindset which defines the hamartia malfunction at its very root and core. They don't comprehend that separating things between "good" and "bad" is an effect of eating the fruit in the garden, and was not "God-given." We did it to ourselves against His express wishes, and we and the rest of this planet's inhabitants have born the increasingly disastrous consequences ever since. They don't understand that it hardwired every living human being so that we can never do anything but "sin," operate according to this malfunction, from our own neurological and psychological devices. And adding more rules and laws only makes the problem worse, not better. Look at the animals, they have neither rule nor law, yet they all function in their place in the environment and ecosystem, and they do so in innocence.
The message of the Gospel, the teaching of discipleship, makes no sense to the legalist. When being a disciple is explained to the legalist, to the person operating from his own devices, he immediately assumes you are advocating for anarchy and running riot in the streets. Of course not. He immediately starts quoting Biblical passages about how great the Torah is, and how wise someone is to follow it, completely misplacing the historical and cultural context of the Torah as well as its purpose. He cannot fathom God's solution to the human problem.
He cannot fathom the idea of God Himself being the source of one's actions and words so that this malfunction becomes impossible to affect them while so doing. He cannot fathom that just as Jesus Christ cooperated with and submitted to God the Father so that everything He said and did originated with Him, so also the path of discipleship is cooperating with and submitting to the Spirit of Christ with whom we are joined so that what we say and do originates with Jesus Christ as the Head to the members of His body. Would Jesus Christ commit murder? Would He steal? Would He lie? Would He commit adultery or crave what isn't His? No, of course not! God forbid! As Paul observed, there can be no moral law or rule against what the Spirit of Christ produces. And as John observed, what is born from God does not "sin." He cannot fathom that our true salvation through Jesus Christ is our salvation from this behavioral malfunction of ours through union with Him.
And so He assumes that our salvation is from punishment for breaking "God's Law," which he then raises up onto an altar and worships as though it were God Himself, always fearful that God will strike him down if he doesn't do everything written therein. He assumes that our salvation is only about being forgiven for our offenses. But then are we really forgiven for everything? How could God forgive "this" grievous offense? No, not even God would forgive that! He does not realize that he is still under the firm control of his malfunctioning mind which can only understand black and white, right and wrong, good and bad. And so his conception of God, what he experiences as God, is distorted by his malfunctioning mind into something which more resembles the way he himself thinks. And he ends up worshiping a shadow which strangely resembles himself, an image, an idol which looks nothing like the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. An idea of God that has nothing to do with God.
The disciple of Jesus Christ is governed by love, joy, peace, patience, trust, kindness, courtesy, and self-control because he is governed by Jesus Christ Himself. The disciple of Jesus Christ takes little thought for laws, rules, and regulations because he himself is not governed by them, but his words and actions originate with God the Father through Jesus Christ and out through the individual. What law could possibly restrain God who is love Himself? What law would need to?
To be a disciple of Jesus Christ is to practice channeling Him, quite literally, in every moment. It is to practice being His conduit and relinquishing control to Him. It is to make one's home in their union with Him and stay put there. Laws cannot be enforced where there is no possibility of lawbreaking. Laws have no purpose with the person whose actions originate with Love Himself.
And this is, and has always been. the chief heresy within the Church, that it is about keeping moral codes and laws because the legalist, the man functioning from his own devices, cannot comprehend the true nature of the Gospel.

Reflections on Firm Foundations, Syncretism, and My Own Journey

     When I was going to school with New Tribes Missions, one of the things they taught us about was their teaching curriculum called "Firm Foundations." They developed this curriculum for missions work in remote tribal settings because they had found that attempting to teach the people the biblical stories and narratives and getting them to understand them in the way they were trying to teach wasn't going as planned. What was happening was they were filtering the Biblical stories through their own tribal worldviews, which could be radically different from tribe to tribe as much as it was from our own western, Christianized worldview, and coming up with very different perspectives and conclusions in a process called “syncretism.” They realized that if they were going to get the tribal people to understand what they were teaching the way they wanted them to understand it they were going to have to start from the very beginning and rebuild their entire worldview and cosmology so that when it came to the Gospel narrative, the tribal people would be on the same page.
     While I don't necessarily agree with all of NTM's theology anymore, what this did teach me was that attempting to introduce a new spiritual teaching or understanding requires either that you work within the worldview of the listener, or you do the exceptionally hard work of relaying the foundations and structure of the listener's world view, and this is difficult, tricky, and you have to be careful with it or else you could totally pull the rug out from under that person's foundational beliefs and assumptions of the world. This kind of disillusionment can totally destroy a person psychologically.
      People have three potential responses to challenges to their worldviews. The first is to just reject and dismiss the new information outright as fabricated or false, regardless of the evidence. This is a fear response. The second is to do the opposite, and accept the new information out of hand whether the evidence supports it or not. This is also a fear response. The third is to do the hard work of examining the evidence, whether it is genuine or not, and if necessary changing one’s worldview to fit the evidence at hand.
     In the Scriptures, part of why we see what we see is because God chooses not to attempt to re-lay the foundations of the people’s cultural worldviews. Instead, He frequently works within them without passing judgment to interact with and teach the people, only revealing new information to their worldview gradually over time, even centuries. He always works with people where they are at psychologically. And so He does not correct the idea that the Earth has corners or that it sits on pillars. He does not correct, at first, the idea that there are other gods, He only demands that they not be worshiped or followed, and is addressed as the “God of gods.” He does not initiate the idea of blood sacrifice, He only works with the already established understanding of it to alleviate guilt and offer some kind of assurance of forgiveness to the deranged human mind, later saying clearly that He didn’t want the sacrifices to begin with. He does not forbid slavery, but establishes clear laws for their humane treatment. He does not demand equality for women at first, but again establishes laws within the cultural context so they are not mistreated. God understood that syncretism was a thing, but rather than immediately try to correct everyone’s misunderstanding He used it and worked with it to accomplish His purposes.
     As I think about these things, they become immediately pertinent because I tend to write about things which challenge many people’s worldviews. I do this because, after the things I’ve studied, I think it necessary to challenge them to re-establish an authentic, first century Christian faith and practice. Just that idea alone is potentially a rug pulling challenge to a person’s belief system, that what they’ve been taught is not what was first taught and held, and is the product of two thousand years of “drift.” Looking back, I know I can come off as more heavy handed and combative than I mean to. The truth is, when I do, I am arguing more with who I used to be and what I used to adhere to, the demons of my past, than I am with anyone else. It is sometimes hard to remember that not everyone had taken the journey I have, studied the evidence I have, and that this kind of a journey terrifies many just to think about. I know, looking back, it terrified me at times, and sometimes still does, necessary though it may be. My own foundational beliefs were laid bare, changed, and frequently replaced as genuine evidence presented itself along this journey, and I do remember the very real difficulties I encountered with incorporating the new data. In truth, I couldn’t be just given the new information all at once either, or else I would have just rejected it all outright too. It had to be done slowly as I was ready for each step.
     But sometimes it is frustrating. Sometimes I think, “If you only knew what I know,” or “if you’d only seen what I’ve seen,” or “if you’d only experienced what I’ve experienced.” 

Was Christianity an Invention of the Fourth Century?

     There is a pernicious idea out there now, that has gained traction far beyond what it is worth, that Christianity and even the Holy Scriptures were originally invented by Constantine and the Ecumenical Councils in the fourth century. The truth, like with most things of ancient origin, is far more complex than this. Was Christianity a product of the machinations of a fourth century Roman emperor?
     The answer is both a definitive "no"... and a qualified "yes."
     I will address the qualified "yes" first. What we know as Christianity today, that is, "modern" Christianity very much has its origins in Constantine and the Church Councils. It was those Councils  that gave us the codified doctrines of the hypostatic union of Christ, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, the one among many lists of books and documents accepted as Holy Scripture, the Nicene Creed which forms the standard of orthodox belief, and so on. All of these things form the bedrock of all modern Christian churches and denominations to one extant or another as well as the inherited bias and need to eliminate any teaching or doctrine that deviates from that which was canonized at the Councils for one reason or another. One can either assume that the Councils and Constantine could do no wrong and were each one a Saint, or one can demonize them up one side and down the other. However, the fact remains that virtually all Christian churches from Eastern Orthodox to Roman Catholic, from Baptist to Evangelical, and from Presbyterian to Pentecostal to Anglican trace their lineage back to Constantine's desire to unite the seemingly fragmented Christians into a cohesive whole, and the seven Ecumenical Councils starting with Nicea.
      But the answer is also a definitive "NO." What Constantine shaped into the "One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church" was originally something that looked very different from the grand spectacles of the organized Church, but it very much existed prior to the fourth century. We know this because of all of the writings which those early Christians left behind, both as what became the New Testament, written in the first century, but also what are known as the writings of the "ante-Nicene Fathers," that is, those Christian leaders and thinkers that lived between the first and fourth centuries.
     How do we know that these writings were written when they were supposed to be written? And by whom? We know this from the dialects of the languages in which they were written, both Koine Greek (the majority) and pre-Ecclesiastical Latin. We know that each of these documents clearly had their own author with their own use of syntax, vocabulary, and style which is like a fingerprint to an author (It is frequently how authors today can be identified even if they're writing under a pseudonym). And we know that the language used fits the time period in which they were purported to have been written. What do I mean by this? Eighteenth century British English is worded differently from twenty-first century American English. One only has to peruse Jane Austin or Charlotte Bronte to understand that we do not speak like they did almost three hundred years ago. The differences grow greater the farther the distance in time, as anyone who compares Shakespeare and Beowulf to modern English will attest. Fourth century Byzantine Greek cannot be mistaken for first century or even second century Koine. And had someone attempted to do so, it would have come off as "wonky," anachronistic, and just "not right," compare the King James Version of the Bible (1611) with the Book of Mormon (1830-40) and you'll see what I mean. Those who make such claims about the late or even pseudo-authorship of the Holy Scriptures or the Early Church Fathers do so from a position of ignorance about the language of the original texts, not being able to read and compare them, or not bothering to.
     The earliest Christians only wrote and taught what they had seen and heard happen. The documents of the New Testament, all of which demonstrate socio-linguistic authenticity to the period, attest to this. When they wrote about Jesus rising from the dead, it was because that was what happened, and every one of them went to their executions (except John, but not for lack of trying) refusing to recant what they had personally seen. They taught what Jesus Himself had taught them, and those after them attempted to do the same. No more, and no less. Yes, they wrote about the miracles Jesus did, as well as being able to perform similar things to Him. What's really interesting about this in the later writings, those of the second and third centuries, is that they write about them to non-Christians under the assumption that, not only did these non-Christians know what they were talking about, but could verify what they said through their own experiences. They also talk plainly about these demonstrations beginning to grow rarer towards the end of the third century and into the fourth.
     The earliest Christians focused heavily, not on theological doctrines of what someone had to believe about things they couldn't verify or see, but on how a Christian was to live their lives. For them, a Christian was only a Christian if their behavior matched that of Jesus Christ. If they "walked as He walked." And this was true regardless of what theological speculation they spouted. There were a great many speculations and disagreements about the nature of God, Christ, their relationship, and so on in these writings, but they nearly always agreed on this central point, that in order for a Christian to be a Christian, he had to demonstrate it by acting like Jesus.
     This was something Constantine, being a pagan Roman, didn't understand. He only saw the chaos of speculations, and not the common unified understanding. Unfortunately, too many bishops and pastors of the churches were too caught up in these disagreements as well by this point, and they jumped at the chance to have official, if managed, recognition within the empire. Yet, prior to and even afterwards, both heretics and "orthodox" were tortured, executed, and martyred because of their adherence to Jesus Christ and what He taught. Unfortunately Constantine's reasonably understandable, even commendable efforts to bring order to his empire by bringing order to the "chaos" of Christianity, something he didn't really understand, missed the point entirely.

The Individual Personhood of Animals

 In my observations and interactions with animals throughout my life, I have learned that the best way to approach and interact with an animal is to respect their "personhood." That is, to treat each animal as an individual person with their own individual personality, mind, will, emotions, desires, and so on. 

     Animals are not human beings. You cannot "anthropomorphize" animals and project onto them the emotions, intentions, or pathos of a human being. This being said, animals are however "people." But they are a different kind of "people" from human beings. Each species of animal has its own kind of emotions and feelings which are similar to, but also alien to a human beings. They have their own kinds of intentions, their own kinds of thoughts that might be akin to a human's, but are nevertheless alien in that they are not identical to a human's. They are their own, and this fact must be respected.

     Right now, I live on a farm with over two hundred animals: Goats, Chickens, Ducks, Guinea Fowl, Dogs, Cats, a Rabbit, Gerbils, and Parakeets. No two chickens have the same personality. Some are homebodies and prefer to stay close to the coop. Some are more adventurous and venture outside the fence. Some don't like to be touched. Others walk right up to you expecting to be picked up, and at least one rooster will launch himself up to your shoulder and expect to be carried around. 

     There was one Buff Brahma hen the other evening as I was heading out to close the barn coops and put the chickens out there to bed. All the other chickens had gone to the coop. But as I entered the pasture on the way to the barn, this one hen comes running up to me looking for all the world like she was lost and confused because she couldn't find her flock. I talked to her and asked her, "Are you lost? Do you want me to take you back to the coop?" She came closer as if to confirm it. I tell her, "Okay, sweetie, let's go. I'll lead you back." And as I start for the coop again, the hen saddles up right next to me and doesn't leave my side until she sees her coop with her flock, and only then does she head straight for it.

     In the mornings, we've been training our LGD Great Pyrenees with our barn flock. Getting a dog to watch out for chickens and not try to play with them or eat them is a challenge depending on the breed, but they've been doing well just watching and doing their own thing in the mornings while the chickens are being fed. A little while ago, we introduced a new rooster that was having trouble adjusting to the flock. It kept getting into fights with the other roosters, especially Aero. One morning, we had the dogs out and the new rooster was also out. The dogs were doing their own thing just watching and wanting to be petted. Lexie I think was eating some pecans that had fallen on the ground from a nearby tree. All of a sudden a knock down drag out fight began between the new rooster, Jake, and the other roosters. Lexie calm but alert, observed the new goings on and discerned that the fight wasn't what we wanted and it was causing problems among the flock. She calmly walks over and tries to help us by gently taking Jake by his tail and starting to pull him away from the fight, knowing he was the new element and was the one causing problems. She didn't try to actually harm him, she was just trying to separate him from the other roosters. It's not the first time she's tried to help us with the other animals, especially getting the goats back into their own pens.

     There are numerous accounts and even videos of animals displaying their own individuality and personality. I remember watching one of a squirrel on a hot day who came up and asked in his own way for some water from a guest at the park he was at. When the human understood what was happening, he bent down with his water bottle to where the squirrel could reach the water, and it drank long and deep before making a gesture that almost appeared to be gratitude and then scampering off. Other animals, wild animals no less, remember the humans who helped them and even return with their families to visit, appearing to show gratitude. The Grear Apes are well understood to be able to learn to communicate their wants, needs, and even "thoughts" using sign language with human beings. I remember watching a documentary about an Orangutan who literally asked and received advice on how to court a female Orangutan from the woman who raised him using sign language because he didn't know, having been raised in captivity. Elephants are also well known for their intelligence and empathy, as are dolphins. I remember even a story about two male lions who, when a little girl had been attacked and kidnappes, came to this girl's rescue, drove off her attackers, and waited with her, protecting her, until the authorities arrived. Then they wandered off into the forest peacefully, leaving the girl to the police. 

     There is so much observational and anecdotal evidence about the individual personhood of other species of animal that it is overwhelming, and it is what I see every day here on the farm in Kentucky too from the goat kids that just arrived to our six housecats, four dogs, and every animal in between. Even our "gimpy" rooster Penguin went into depression and his own kind of mourning after the guinea that he had bonded with and protected passed away.

      But their thoughts and emotions are not human, they are alien to us even as much as they can be similar or familiar. Not the least reason for this is the fact that every other species of animal is innocent, from the most dangerous predators to the least dangerous herbivore. They simpliy have no concept of moral "good" or "bad" like human beings do. They can feel when someone is angry or upset with them, they will take action when something appears to be a threat to them or theirs, but an action being "good" or "bad" morally speaking is as alien to them as innocence really is to us. But their innocence does not negate their personhood.

     The Native Americans, some tribes at least, in their traditional cultures referred to the animals around them as "brother" or "sister." They understood and respected that personhood of these other creatures, even when they had to hunt them for food, clothing, and materials. It was never done for sport, or just for fun. They understood the life, the personhood, they were ending was sacred and they meant to honor that.

     It is then my opinion that the best way to interact with an animal is to recognize that individuality, that personhood, in the other species around us, and to treat them also as I myself would want to be treated, with respect, compassion, and understanding.

Forgiveness, Salvation, and the Prodigal Son

      Our salvation through Jesus Christ isn't about forgiveness, but this does not preclude forgiveness. If God isn't willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance, then that is exactly what is going to happen. Salvation isn't about forgiveness, because God isn't worried about the offenses. He's the Father who runs to the prodigal son, not the pagan god that demands blood and then might "consider" forgiving.

      God's main objective for all human beings is that they come to their senses and come home, and this will happen for all human beings sooner or later because this is His will. It is His objective to bring them out of the darkness, and into the light, but He will not force it. It must be voluntary or it destroys the person He is intent on rescuing. And so yes, He allows them to be tossed into the outer darkness within Eternity, but eternity and forever are two different things in the Greek language in which the New Testament is written. He allows them to be subject to servitude and starve while pigs get more food than they do. Why? So that the person, the consciousness, will come to their senses and come home, and God is patient. Time has no meaning for Him except for what passes through Him, but He Himself is not subject to. 

     What is easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven you," or "get up and walk?" Jesus was clear that the miracle was not the forgiveness of sins, that's easy for God. The miracle was getting the lame man to walk, and so this is the miracle of salvation, getting us human beings to "walk in the Spirit" of Christ. To submit to and cooperate with the Spirit of Christ just as Jesus Christ submitted to and cooperated with the Father so that, "if you have seen Me, you have seen the Father." The son who never left home and to whom everything the Father has belongs is this one who has gotten up and walked. Everything the Father has belongs to the one who is in submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ.

     The parable of the prodigal son is the message that He's not holding any of our offenses against us, and it's only our persistence in the darkness of our own minds that is keeping us from Him. All He wants is for us to come to our senses and come home. And once we have done this, our salvation in this life is Him making it possible for us to "get up and walk."

Christian Nationalism is Antithetical to the Kingdom of God

      The problem with Christian nationalism is that it fundamentally misunderstands what the Kingdom of God is. The Kingdom of God is not a place, it is not a political entity with laws, borders, and institutional structures. The Kingdom of God is all those in submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ. The Kingdom of God are all those connected to and receiving instructions from the Head as the parts of the body are connected to and receive instructions from the brain. The Kingdom of God is all those through whom Jesus Christ acts and speaks, and through Him the Father. 

     This is the reason why all attempts at "establishing the Kingdom of God on Earth" or "ushering in the Kingdom" are faulty and will fail, because the Kingdom is already here. This is also why the belief that Jesus Christ returning to set everything right, or at least according to the "right" belief system, is itself faulty. As long as His people through whom He acts and speaks are here, He is already here manifested through the people of His kingdom. In this sense, He has never left but has been with us the entire time. 

      The thinking that one can hasten or force His return through bringing about apocalyptic conditions is itself also faulty, misguided, and in opposition to what He taught. If He has to return bodily to impose order on Earth, it means there is no other hope left, and it means His body is no longer here. It is the work of His kingdom to forestall that day by manifesting Him and teaching others to manifest and connect to Him. As long as we are here, He is here.

     The idea behind Christian nationalism that all laws must be brought into alignment with the Kingdom of God is fundamentally flawed, because the Kingdom of God needs no laws for its people, because its one law of love is written on their hearts and minds through union with the Spirit of Christ. Forcing others to obey religious laws isn't the spread of the Kingdom of God, but an admission that you are not acting as a part of it but acting according to your own malfunctioning survival responses of fear, aggression, and bodily cravings.

      The Kingdom of God passes no laws for its citizens because there is no need. Laws are made, not for those in submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ, but for those under the control of their own malfunctioning survival responses. Those through whom Jesus Christ acts and speaks do no harm, but instead manifest love, joy, peace, patience, trust, kindness, courtesy, and self-control. Would Jesus Christ commit murder through someone? Would He steal? Commit adultery? Or do anything to harm another? Thus the drive to impose “Biblical Law” on national governments is antithetical to the Kingdom of God.

Random Thoughts About Non-Linear Reincarnation and "Seeing" the Future

      I was thinking again a few days ago about non-linear reincarnation. This is something I hypothesized about a little while ago under the assumption that once a soul or consciousness is separated from the body it enters eternity. Eternity itself is non-linear, all times, all moments along the common "time-stream" we experience are happening simultaneously. Therefore, were reincarnation to be a genuine possibility, there is no reason why a soul should need to continuously reincarnate along progressive points of that common time-stream. That soul's personal or "local" time-stream would be independent from the common or "global" shared time-stream, and thus could re-enter the global time-stream at any point along it, not just the successive one from the previous. 

     Thus, one person's "past life" in their own soul's local time-stream might actually be a future event from the perspective of the global time-stream which everyone experiences. This can be made all the more possible due to the observed total or partial amnesia of one's previous lifetime which occurs at birth and solidifies around the age of five or six. A total amnesia of a past life lived in a future time would not risk the global time-line, as there would be nothing from the future past-life which could be shared and disrupt those future events.

     My thought this morning regarding the non-linearality of reincarnation has to do with those who might only have a partial rather than total amnesia upon re-entry into time, and can seemingly predict the future, though inconsistently. My though was that, rather than actually "predicting" a future event or "seeing" the future, they are remembering an event from their previous lifetime. Because this memory is necessarily vague due to the aforementioned amnesia, the details on the future event are also frequently necessarily vague, because it relies more on feelings, impressions, and difficult to access sensory details which the "seer" in question may not understand the context in which they are set. It would also explain why not all such "prophecies" from such "seers" come to pass, either because of a misinterpretation of the information, or because the seer, not understanding the source of the correct information, believed they could really tell the future regardless of event and then proved they couldn't. 

     Just some random thoughts again a few days ago.

Thursday, February 29th, 2024

 I haven't written a Ramble or a blog post for a little while. The truth is that it still feels to me like I'm repeating myself over and over again, and not adding anything new.

     I'm almost done with the first full draft of my new novel, "The Missionary," to be published through Amazon KDP when completed. Inspired by the Fallout RPG series by Bethesda, it follows the journey of Jeremiah Smith, a pastor and former missionary, in the year 2254, over two hundred years after multiple apocalypses (nuclear, viral, civil war, and climate) have decimated and changed the earth, and America in particular. Jeremiah is the descendant of those sealed within Cheyenne Mountain's complex "when the bombs fell." In his journey across western America and back, Jeremiah must confront his perceived failure as a missionary, and become an involuntary ambassador to the newly contacted Republic of California to determine if they're on the level about why they want Cheyenne Mountain's help. Suffering catastrophe at the outset, all he wants to do is to return home to his family and keep his promise to his eldest daughter when he is caught up in post-apocalyptic politics, espionage, and the remnants of a civil war which refuses to end.

     Things are going well on the farm here in Kentucky. We've all pretty much survived the winter, and we're expecting our pregnant does to kid in April. Egg production is back up to about two dozen eggs a day on average. Heidi and Cindy are preparing the front gardens for planting. Tressa has completed her purchase of her tiny house, and the builder, an Amish man, has finished it. All that remains is for us to find a contractor who will lay the foundation for it in the east pasture. This is proving to be more challenging that it should be. Aidan and Arcadia, my son and new daughter-in-law will be visiting next week. Phoenix is making good progress on his YouTube channel, something he's been agonizing over for two years now. Aside from my new novel, I've reactivated my Facebook group, "Wounded Sheep, Wounded Shepherds," and am trying to do a better job with being its admin. I may collect all of my more recent Rambles into another book after my novel is finished.

     That's pretty much it for now. 

     

What is the Actual Ancient Christian Faith?

"There are two Paths. One of Life, and one of Death, and there is a huge difference between the two Paths. The Path of Life is this: You will Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of you strength, and with all of you mind, and you will love your neighbor as yourself. Do to others what you would want them to do to you, and whatever you don't want others to do to you, don't do likewise to them."

      While not a direct quote, these are the first lines of the Didache, the oldest known Christian catechism, or teaching manual for new initiates. In the mind of the author, these were the understanding, practice, and commitment of what Christianity was all about. These were the first and most important things to teach those new to the faith. These things are what defined a Christian, and everything else was explanation and commentary.

      Today is Sunday, and as I was thinking about what to write, I wrote down a sentence and then deleted it. I wrote down another sentence, and then deleted it. And then this came to my mind again. What was understood in the first century church to be the most essential thing for new Christians to understand? That there were two paths a person could take, one of life and one of death. Paul also talked about these two Paths frequently. He wrote in Romans that one could either enslave themselves to their own malfunctioning flesh leading to death, or they could enslave themselves to the Spirit of Christ and the right state of being resulting from it which leads to life.

     The author then describes what the Path of Life is, and anyone who has read the Gospels will recognize this as the core of what Jesus taught: Love God, love your neighbor as yourself, and treat others the way you want to be treated.

      These lines described the core understanding of the ancient Christian faith hundreds of years before Nicea and the Ecumenical Councils were even a random thought in Constantine's mind, and over fourteen hundred years before Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli. Before the practice of the Path of Jesus Christ was turned into Orthodoxy and theological doctrine, before penal substitutionary atonement was even a glint in the Reformers' eyes, within the living memory of the Apostles and Jesus Himself it was about the two Paths one could take and what they looked like.

      And the Path of Death? He writes, "first of all it is derangement and full of curses, murders, adulteries, cravings, prostitutions, thefts, idolatries," and so on right down the same lists of the works of the flesh which Paul gives in many of his letters, especially Galatians 5, but also Colossians 3. The Path of Death is what happens when one disengages from the Spirit of Christ and through engagement with their fear, aggression, or bodily craving responses submit to the control of their malfunctioning flesh.

      This understanding is the ancient faith, the true ancient creed taught to initiates and catechumens and explained further in the writings of the Apostles and their successors, the Early Church Fathers. For those who truly want to get back to what was originally taught, this is where you start, by following the Path of Life and turning away from the Path of Death; by cooperating with and submitting to the Spirit of Christ so that He is the one who acts and speaks through you, and by disengaging from and thereby neutralizing one's own flesh's malfunctioning survival responses.