Thoughts on 5-31-24

 I'm taking a break from working on my Confessions today. Honestly, it's been taking a toll on me. I've been forcing myself to be brutally honest with the things I've done, and my ego/mind/identity isn't happy with me. I've been dragging all of it into the light and putting in print, and it doesn't want to be. I've been getting headaches, been a bit more irritable and out of it, and it's just been a hard several days. And I've only written about who I was up to the age of eighteen. I've been trying to keep a reasonable cap on the length of the chapters, so I haven't included everything that has come up, but enough to build a fairly representative picture. 

     It's not about whether or not it's forgiven by God. That isn't even in view at this point. It's the fact that I did them. It's the fact that I hurt people among other things. It's that up to this point, I have intentionally pushed this person that I was away, hoping to forget him altogether. I had an aversion to this person, and the person I was at other stages of my life, to where I wanted nothing to do with him. But I've come to realize that my aversion to who I was at those times also triggers anger and aversion towards those now who remind me of who I was, regardless of whether I'm aware of it at the time. My aversion to myself is translating to an aversion to others who remind me of myself. I think my purpose in writing this, beyond just writing an honest, even cathartic memoir, is to work on accepting that person, those people whom I was at those times without judgment, without aversion, and without trying to push them away. And in learning to love those different people that I was, maybe it will clear the way to loving others that are just like I was. 

     This is a person I'm describing who, to be perfectly honest, I have shuddered and cringed almost any time one of these memories surface. It is something of a genuine miracle I didn't end up dead or in juvenile hall when I was younger. I do not like being reminded of him. Although, to be fair, in writing it out I think maybe I'm coming to have a little more compassion for who he was and what he had been through to bring him to those choices and the direction he was taking. 

     And while I already knew this, it became very clear to me when writing it out that it was only God's direct intervention in that direction which changed the path I was on. It wasn't an evangelist, it wasn't a friend, a pastor, a mentor, or anyone else who initiated that change within me when I was fourteen. It really couldn't have been, because I kept myself away from other people most of the time, and usually didn't want anything to do with them. I felt a lot safer enmeshed in my fantasy and science fiction books, comic books, games, and was so far into my own head that my greatest aspiration at one point was to go running naked in a forest with a pack of wolves. A lot of people questioned my sanity, and they were right to. 

     But this is where I was at. And it was God who moved me from there, putting it within me to start taking steps to climb out of where I was. He reached out to me first so that I would eventually reach out to Him. I didn't really know or understand anything an Evangelical church would have considered a requirement for being "saved" at the time. My relationship with God began before all of that indoctrination, and it was sealed one afternoon during the lunch period at Bolsa Grande High School with the agreement between the two of us that He would be my Father, and I would be His son. This understanding came first really, before the Trinity, before "accepting the Gospel," before anything else. And it was enough to build a foundation on between the two of us.

     The next chapter will focus on my two years in Bible School in Wisconsin, and possibly the year and a half following it.

Near Death Experience Life Review and Judgment

      In listening to the testimonies of people that have Near Death Experiences, there are many, many common features among all of them. So much so that it really can't be considered coincidence, or just the delusions of a dying brain (one experience in fact was reported by a neurosurgeon who was, for all intents and purposes, brain dead for a week; Eben Alexander, M.D., really interesting stuff). Among these common features is what is referred to, somewhat understatingly, as a "life review." Notably, this life review doesn't appear to occur for those who have a hellish Near Death Experience until they literally cry out for help from God and are rescued. Howard Storm's NDE is a prime example of this.
     This life review frequently takes place with Jesus Christ Himself, or some other friendly, empathetic deceased relative or loved one standing right there next to the person, though not acting as a judge, but rather a friend or comforter, and it is wholly unique in that you experience your entire life again but through the eyes and senses of everyone else you've ever interacted with; every single person you've been kind to, every single person you've hurt in some way. Suddenly, you become that person who is on the receiving end, and then you become the judge of your own actions from the perspective of that person.
     During these NDE life reviews, one's condemnation or even forgiveness by God is never in question. This too is an interesting feature, even though it flies in the face of many belief systems. It exists, in some way, as a kind of trial by fire, a purification of sorts if the results are anything to go by. And according to those NDE testimonies, it is the most difficult thing they've ever had to experience reliving all the pain and suffering they caused other people exactly as the other person experienced it. Many if not most break down in tears and have to pause for a while before it continues, and it does continue until it finishes. They have to face every kind or unkind word they've ever spoken. Every time they've hurt or injured another person, and feel the pain from that hurt or injury. Everything they've ever done is laid bare for them from the perspective of the receiving party.
     Honestly, I think this terrifies me more than if it were a courtroom determining my eternal fate.
     As I began again recently to sketch out my life in a potential memoir or confession, I noticed there were a lot of things which I did that I just couldn't type out. I didn't want to see them in front of me, even though they occurred some forty years ago. I am so ashamed of many of the things I've done in my life, and the ways I've hurt other people, that the thought of even writing it out brings on a panic attack that threatens to nearly shut me down. My mind, my ego, my identity doesn't want those things brought into the light and exposed for everyone to see. It wants to forget that they ever happened. Some days it succeeds, until it doesn't and something triggers a memory which makes me shudder and cringe in horror at my own actions. The thought of having to relive every moment from the perspective of the receiving end is absolutely terrifying to my ego/mind/identity even if there is no eternal punishment to go with it. The reliving of it and exposing all of it is enough.
     Nearly every person who has undergone such an NDE and life review has come back changed. They are never the same person again. Every atheist that goes into it comes back proclaiming the existence of God and the absolute importance of loving one another. Howard Storm was one such man. He was an atheist professor who died on the table after a heart attack. He returned from that NDE a Christian man, and became a pastor in the United Church of Christ. The experience is so profound, and so transformative that most of the people who come back bring with them the mandate of loving other people and teaching that love to other people regardless of what religious tradition they end up in.

God Doesn't Want Worship, He Wants Intimate Relationship

     Has anyone really stopped to consider that God doesn't actually want what we call worship? He doesn't want that distant ritualism mindset that keeps us separate from Himself. What God wants instead is intimacy and relationship with each one of us as a parent with their child. Even the greatest command to love Yahweh your God with everything you've got implies intimate relationship.  
     But the thing about intimate relationship is that it assumes a kind of equality between the two parties of the relationship in some way. Either the one must be brought up to the level of the other, or the other must descend to the level of the one in order for that intimacy to work. Everyone knows the pitfalls of being "unequally yoked" in some way, and how difficult it can make relationships, regardless of the type. There is always an understood barrier there be it social, class, financial, or intellectual.
     There's a reason that Jesus came, not as the conquering king demanding worship, but as, essentially, everyone's best friend and brother; the man who knew you intimately, and whose genuine care for you could be seen in His eyes, His speech, and His body language. The man who would tell you the truth because He cared, no matter how much it might have offended, because He genuinely wanted you to come home. The man who would never, ever give up on you.
     Religion has a habit of reinforcing those artificial barriers to intimate relationship with God because it takes what is known of God, of Jesus, of the Saints, of some bit of theology, and puts it on such a high pedestal as for the perception of it to become an idol to be loved, praised, and feared rather than fostering the intimacy and interaction with Yahweh Himself. The rituals can be a gateway to doing so, but they can more often than not become a barrier just as the Pharisees' own interpretations of the Torah became a barrier to actually recognizing Yahweh in the presence of Jesus Christ.
     What God wants is family, not subjugated slaves. He wants His prodigal children to return home to His arms, not to relegate them to the slaves in the fields.

More About Being a Disciple

     Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not safe. It's not supposed to be. Even Jesus told those listening to count the cost. You can't play it safe and be a disciple at the same time. The two are mutually exclusive.

Playing it safe is a fear response. It's an understandable fear response, but a fear response nonetheless, and because it's a fear response, it is a product of the malfunctioning ego/mind/identity created by the "flesh". It is not safe, that is, it feels extraordinarily threatening to turn your own words, actions, and responses over to another entity entirely and to not act on your fear, aggression, or bodily cravings. It feels threatening to hear yourself speak words that didn't really originate with your mind, especially if those words contradict what your EMI wants at the moment.

      Too many churches, pastors, and church members believe "playing it safe" is the right way to go in response to change or "turbulence" in the world. Too many translators of the Scriptures look to the "tried and true" to render the Scriptures into English, regardless if the Scriptures actually say something different. The cry is, "When the storm is raging outside, secure the sails and the rigging, batten down the hatches and ride it out!" and also, "We need to stay the course we've always been on!" But this was not the example given in the Gospels. It was during one such bad storm that Jesus came walking on those same turbulent waters towards the boat. And did He call out to them to secure themselves and ride it out? No. Instead, He encouraged Peter to get out of the boat and come walk across the water to meet Him! Think being a disciple is about playing it safe? When Peter and John were arrested, instead of playing it safe and going along with the Sanhedrin, Peter accused them of Jesus' murder to their faces!

      If your practice of Christianity is about playing it safe, then you're not practicing the Way which Jesus taught. You're engaged with and dictated to by your own malfunctioning flesh.

       Being a disciple of the Way isn't about getting it right the first time. No one, no matter how talented in a thing, doesn't need to practice their discipline. Learning to disengage from your own fear, aggression, and bodily craving, and to engage with and submit to the Spirit of Christ, is no different in this respect. You have to learn how to discern when it's you and when it's Him, and which "voice" to engage with. This takes practice and making mistakes in order to learn what not to do.
     It is no different from the martial artist who must practice the same punch, kick, or throw a hundred times to train his muscle memory, each time being corrected by his sensei or sifu when a mistake in the form is made. He practices it a hundred times, and then he practices it a hundred more every day and continue to practice it so that it becomes and remains instinctive, and his responses are without conscious thought.
     There are tells and signs that will inform you of when it's you and when it's Him. When you are responding from fear, aggression, or bodily cravings, it's you. When you are responding from love, joy, peace, patience, trust, kindness, and so on, it's Him. This is an oversimplification, but it is essentially how Paul described it. We learn to be aware of what the source of our words, actions, and responses are, and what they "feel" like. St. Ignatius of Loyola described this as the Spirit of Consolation versus the Spirit of Desolation. And like with any other discipline, it requires that you be paying attention and focus on what's going on within you.
     God doesn't expect perfection the first time, or the second, or the third. He is the One who brings that perfection when we are engaged with and submitted to Him. But what He asks is that we continue to practice this submission to and cooperation with Him, admitting when we've made a mistake, and learning from the experience, so that it eventually becomes instinctive and will be practiced without conscious thought.

Why Did God Put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden to Begin With?

  "If God knew the humans were going to eat from it, why did He put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden to begin with? Why not just keep it far away and out of their reach?"
This is a perfectly fair and legitimate question which people ask about the Genesis account, because if God is in fact omnipotent, then it was perfectly possible for Him to either remove it, or not have it grow where he was going to put our ancestors in the first place. So why was it there? Why put something so potentially dangerous to our species within arms reach knowing that they would eventually eat from it? A common answer is that it was a part of God's larger plan for human beings. But then this also has the consequence that God Himself had agency for, and is ultimately responsible for, the fall of Adam, something which is, quite frankly, absurd. And, more directly, it assumes that God has an overarching plan at all.
God exists, and time and space are dimensional vectors which move through Him, not vice-versa. He knows what has happened, what is happening, and what is going to happen from our perspective, because He is already, constantly present in the happening. Nothing happens without His knowledge because nothing in time or space does not pass through Him when it does. There is nothing, no particle of matter or energy with which He is not already intimately in contact because they are ultimately formed from His own Being, being the source of all energy in existence. So of course He knows what will happen and every possibility of what can happen.
But knowing what will happen or is already happening is very different from exercising agency in the happening. Knowing what will happen or what is happening is very different from planning it to happen. And assuming that everything which happens is a part of some overarching plan of God's removes all responsibility and agency from the sentient beings, the human beings, who made the choices which initiated the happening. Knowing that they are going to make those choices is very different than planning for or causing them to make those choices. Just because God knew they were going to eat from the Tree doesn't mean God planned for them to do so. It wasn't God's choice for them to totally ignore His warning about it and do it anyway.
As I have written before, God respects our individual free will more than we do, and actually interfering with that free will, directly "reprogramming" on the fly against that person's volition, so to speak, is anathema to Him. It's not something He will do. Our choices are what define us and make us the individuals we are, and whether those choices were from before this Fall or after it, they are still ours to make for either benefit or harm. When He created us, one way or the other, He didn't set out to direct our lives like a puppet master. He created us and then let us do what we were going to do, acting, speaking, and responding as we were going to without any direct puppeteering from Him. These actions of ours, these words, these responses set the ball in motion for all of human history entirely without plan or direction on His part, though not without His interjection at times.
While the overarching direction of human history was left to our choices and responses as individuals, God did act in response to mitigate the damage and teach us how to work around and deal with the damage and consequences of our choices. He did act to provide for us a solution to our behavioral malfunction brought on by our poor choice in the garden. This is the plan which God had from eternity, not to direct each and every one of our lives like a puppet master, but to give us the tools to bypass our inherited malfunction so that it didn't have to impact everything we did or said, but still keeping it as our choice whether or not to make use of it.
As for why God left the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden? I suspect it was because it was a primary food source for a particular animal that lived in the area. Rather than change everything, it made more sense and would cause less disruption to just give the new residents a warning not to eat from it. Yeah, He knew they would eventually not listen, but they didn't know that, and they did listen for a long time until someone chose not to. But even that choice, fraught with disastrous consequences as it was, was honored by God as their choice and one He wouldn't take from them.
Just because God "can" do something, doesn't mean He will. Just because He has, by His very nature, the ability to rewrite the fabric of reality on impulse, doesn't mean that's something He would do if, for no other reason, than it would mean the loss of every unique person and individual involved as they are rewritten. Think of it like a saved game on Skyrim or another RPG. You spend hours and hours working on a character, leveling him up, buying or building a house, getting him married, getting him kids, and investing in his life. And then you decide to start a new game and overwrite the save file. Everything that character was is lost. Now imagine if it was an AI character doing it all on his own, making his own choices, fighting his own battles. Sure, it's your game. You could start a new character and overwrite the old one, but everything he was would be lost. He would have no say in the matter. Wouldn't that be almost tantamount to murder? Maybe even worse, because at least with murder, the consciousness or soul survives even if the body doesn't, but here, not even the intelligence or "consciousness" would survive the overwrite. There are things God can do, but won't do because He loves, and because He cares about each one of His creations individually. He would rather that individual make his own choices, even the harmful ones, and be who he is than overwrite him and wipe him from existence by taking his own free volition from him.
So, yes, He knew about what would happen. No, it wasn't a part of His plan because there wasn't an overarching plan to begin with. There was just a bunch of human beings in a garden paradise who were left to be who they were going to be. No more, and no less.

The Flesh is Innocently Malfunctioning, Not Evil

 The misunderstanding which all too often occurs is to label the flesh, the malfunctioning ego/mind/identity as evil, or bad, and anything which is from it as evil, bad, or immoral. It isn't. What must be understood about it is that it is trying to do what it was designed to do, but that it is in fact malfunctioning. In this respect, it is as innocent as any animal can be.

     Years ago, I was working as a laser technician for a company in Oregon using laser drilling equipment to bore microscopic holes onto circuit board layers. These holes would then be filled with copper and the layers joined to one another to create more possible connections where a one layer board would run out of room for both traces and components. These holes had to be alternately either .04" or .06" in diameter, and .04" deep with nearly perfectly straight sidewalls. To achieve this, the laser had to hit it with perfect precision in location on the board, power, and number of pulses. If any of these factors was off by the tiniest amount, the board would be useless. 

     One night, I ran a set of boards, checking the holes under a microscope like I always did. Once the sample looked good, I ran the entire series. The machine followed its program like it was designed to, hitting everything in the precise location, and the number of pulses it was told to. A few days later, I was called into the boss's office and told that the entire run was worthless and the customer was furious. It was eventually told to me that there had been a minor power surge in the machine which had caused the boards to create holes that looked something like an upside down "T" with a flaw that I couldn't have seen under the microscope. When they had tried to fill them with copper, they couldn't get the connection. Every board had to be rejected, and I was fired.

     Was I doing what I was trained to do? Yes. Was the machine following the program it was given? Yes. But because there was a minor fluctuation in the power, every board was rendered flawed and useless by the machine even though it was technically doing what it was told.

     The human brain is still, innocently like the GS-600 laser drill, trying to follow its original programming, so to speak. The problem is that there is a minor flaw in the parameters. If I'm right, it's the size of the amygdala as it communicates with the hypothalamus. But this minor deviation from the original specifications has rendered virtually every response and decision a human being makes subject to an overactive survival response system of fight, flight, feeding, and reproduction. Rather than only activating in actual survival circumstances, it renders every situation a survival circumstance in some way, seeking to protect the person from both real and imagined threats, both physical and psychological threats to their existence when it was only supposed to activate upon physical and real threats.

     The flesh, in this respect is in no way immoral. It is amoral. It is doing what it thinks it is supposed to do, but with disastrous results, like my circuit boards. In dealing with the flesh, and in disengaging from it, we need to be aware of this, and be compassionate towards it rather than judgmental. Not giving in to it, not engaging with it or jumping when it cries out, but just treating it like what it is. A malfunctioning piece of well meaning equipment.

Who Am I Really Writing For?

     My wife asked me a while back who I am really addressing in my writing; that is, who am I actually writing for? She pointed out that a lot of what I write is argumentation and is polemical in nature. So who am I arguing with? Part of the answer is ghosts, that is, memories of people from years, even decades ago, who are likely no longer the same people in reality. But the ghost of who that person was still haunts and hangs out in my mind. But the chief person I am arguing against is, quite frankly, myself as I used to be.
     In many ways, throughout the stages of my life, I have been many different people, all with the same name, and roughly the same appearance, but with very different ways of thinking, and different belief systems. The Allen Martin Bair that I am now, is not the eighteen year old young man who entered Bible School in 1994, nor is he the twenty year old young man who graduated two years later. He is also not the man who was ordained as an Old Catholic Priest in 2005. In a way, the ghosts of who I used to be still swirl around in my head, along with the ghosts of the people I used to know, and constantly argue with the man I am now.
     These previous incarnations of myself already know the reasons why I am who I am today and in this moment. They already know the reasoning, the evidences, and the experiences with which they cannot actually argue. But the feelings and emotions are still there. The echoes of attachments to things which no longer exist still want to pull, even though there's nothing to pull towards. And there is an irrational desire to return to something to which cannot be returned because it no longer exists, and neither do those people as they were. This is the nature of change, and of time. Nothing is static or stationary except God Himself through whom time itself moves and to whom time itself is subject.
      And so while I write and reason and reflect on the things I've learned, the insights I've received, the things I've experienced, and I share them with whoever else might benefit, in many ways I am not really directing the polemic or argument against anyone else except these ghosts in my head, of whom my own past incarnations are the most immediate recipients.
     When I ask, "What did Jesus teach?" I am really asking myself. When I argue against Calvinism or American Evangelicalism, I am really arguing against the young man I was who bought into it heart and soul. When I question and bring evidence against the root of Catholicism and Orthodoxy in the Imperial Church now, I am arguing against the man who sold everything to be a part of it. And in many ways, by doing so, I am reminding myself of the man I have become, and that these other, younger men, no longer exist except as memories.
      The person who I am now is who I am supposed to be right now. This is the person that, after thirty years of trying to understand what being a disciple actually means, has finally gotten it, and is the closest in his relationship to God through Jesus Christ that he has ever been. But the ghosts of who I used to be are frequently triggered and appalled by who he is and who he has become. And so the internal battle between the "old man" and the "new man" is real, relentless, and ongoing as I push forward step by step, slogging as if through a muddy, sometimes bloody battlefield through the muck, fighting an enemy I know very well and who knows me likewise.

On the "Spiritual Gifts"

 Something which is often grossly misunderstood is what are called within the Catholic tradition the "Charismata" and within the Protestant traditions, the "Spiritual Gifts". I've lost track of how many written "tests" I've taken in various churches to discover what my "Spiritual Gift" is. The problem with this is that more often than not, what is being tested is the person's own natural inclinations and personality traits. The gross misunderstanding is that what Paul calls alternately both "charismata" and "pneumatikoi" have absolutely nothing to do with natural inclinations or abilities. They have nothing to do with a person's personality, intelligence, or interests.

      The "pneumatikoi" have to do with one thing, and that is the manifestation of Jesus Christ within the person who is submitted to and cooperating with His Spirit. They are expressly abilities which the person in question does not naturally possess, and cannot perform when operating under their own devices, that is, enslaving themselves to their own malfunctioning survival neurology. They are also expressly abilities which Jesus Christ Himself displayed on various occasions. 

     The key to understanding these demonstrations of power, insight, prophecy, and so forth is that it is the manifestation of Jesus Christ through the person who is performing them while they are submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ, and this is the only time when they can genuinely be seen and performed. As Jesus Himself said, "Without Me you can do nothing." Attempting to perform them while submitted to your own fear, aggression, or bodily cravings is like trying to turn on a light switch which has been disconnected from its electrical source. It just isn't going to happen because there's no power flowing through it.

     If someone is claiming to be performing one of the charismata, the question needs to be asked, "Am I really seeing Jesus in this person right now? Is this Jesus' presence, personality, and manifestation, or is this person operating from his or her own devices, and if so, what am I really seeing?" If Jesus Christ is not manifest, if the God who is love is not being channeled, so to speak, then the charismata just aren't happening. Check for the tell-tale signs of love, joy, peace, patience, trust, kindness, courtesy, and self-control, all the fruit which one would expect if it was Jesus Christ acting and speaking through the person. If they are not present, then neither is the Spirit of Christ acting through that person.

Thought for Today

     Some days are going to be frustrating. They're going to be triggering. Things are going to happen that you didn't expect, weren't part of your plans, and interfere with everything. This isn't punishment. It's not judgment. It's not because you did something wrong. This is just life. These are the days where the rubber meets the road as a disciple of the Way, because it will feel threatening and will trigger that fear or aggression survival response which will want to tear back control from the Spirit of Christ in order to "deal with the threat."  

     This is where some Buddhist techniques such as mindfulness, looking deeply, and meditation can complement our discipleship to Jesus Christ because they can allow us to recognize the trigger for what it is and give us a better chance at not ceding control to our own malfunctioning responses, our own fears, passions, and desires when they begin screaming at us to "DO SOMETHING!" when the best thing we can do, like the Taoist, is nothing, or "non-action" in order to continue to submit to and cooperate with the Spirit of Christ so that He is the one who acts, speaks, and responds through us. 

     As we continue to render this "old human being" of ours inert through this internal non-action, then His love, His joy, His peace, and so one will flow through us and that is how others will see us responding to these seemingly negative occurrences, because in reality, they will be seeing Him through us responding to them. This is why the practice of the Way of Jesus Christ is a discipline, because it takes time, practice, and many mistakes to make it a continuous thing.

Choosing the Way of the Jedi or the Sith

      While dealing with a migraine yesterday, I sat and watched a Star Wars Old Republic fan film I had grabbed from YouTube called "Star Wars: The Gray Trials." It follows the story of a girl who was raised as a Sith apprentice who then, through a series of events, becomes conflicted between the Light and the Dark, the Jedi and the Sith.
     The fan film does much to highlight the differences between the Sith philosophy of making the Force serve them, believing that through wielding the power of the dark side they will be made free to do whatever they want and live however they want; and between the Jedi philosophy which was explained by the Jedi character Grenz. But the way he explained it stuck with me, because it was also the simplest explanation possible for being a disciple of the Way.
     She asked him, "So then freedom is a lie?" To which he responded, "Yep." Then he said to her, "We're all slaves Jaima, all we can do is choose which master to serve. I can either serve myself, or serve the Force. If I serve myself, then I'd be enslaved to my own desires, my own attachments." He then goes on to explain that the man he had been even just a year before wouldn't have helped her at all, and that, even in spite of the still rough edges he had, the person she saw now represented the growth from submitting to and choosing to serve the Force rather than what he wants. And he explained that he chooses to serve the Force because it is good, and by doing so he can make better choices than the ones his desires would lead him to. He then demonstrates this submission to the Force through the movie, making choices and doing things in contrast to what he would have desired to do, even forgiving Jaima when she cuts off his hand, and taking her as his apprentice. Why? Because he was in submission to and cooperating with the Force.
     In the Didache, also known as the "Teaching of the Twelve", a first century Christian catechism dating to about 70 CE, the very first sentence is, "There are two Ways, one of life and one of death, and there is a great difference between the two Ways." And Paul wrote in Romans, "What then? Shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? May it never be! Don’t you know that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obedience, his servants you are whom you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were bondservants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were delivered. Being made free from sin, you became bondservants of righteousness. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification. For when you were servants of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." (6:15-23, WEB)
     Grenz wasn't wrong. The kind of freedom the Sith preached is a lie, as he said. You're either a slave to yourself, to your own desires, to your own passions, which ultimately leads to your own destruction, or you can enslave yourself to the Spirit of Christ, choosing to submit to and cooperate with Jesus Christ as His Spirit acts and speaks through you so that you make better choices, so that your own desires aren't in control but literally God Himself directs how you act and speak so that your words and actions are simply right instead of in error, because He is right. The Force may be fiction, but the Spirit of Christ is not, and the principle holds true and was the underlying foundation for everything Paul wrote, as well as John's first epistle.
     You're a slave whether you want to be or not, but you can choose which master you serve, and the consequences of the Way you decide to take. You can either follow the Way of the Light leading to Life, or you can choose to love the darkness leading to death and your own destruction. It's up to you.

Israel Wasn't the Only People God Gave His Message To

 By the mouth of two or three witnesses let everything be established."

People tend to fear and condemn what they don't know or understand, often without even trying to understand what they're condemning. Buddhist teachings, Taoism, Stoicism, and various other philosophical systems tend to be targets of condemnation for many "Christian" teachers, pastors, and laypeople in the same way that Harry Potter tends to be a target, that is, without the person condemning ever having actually read or understood any of it. They believe they are upholding the ten commandments or the Mosaic Law in general when they do, "the Bible says...!" And in all reality, they really don't understand what the Bible is actually teaching in the context of the whole.
     In my studies of Buddhist writings and texts, in my reading of the Tao Te Ching, for an example of Taoism, in my reading of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, and in my studies of all of these differing world philosophies which became religions, there is always a common theme running throughout. The ideas of treating others how you want to be treated, the ideas of forgiving, the ideas of not returning evil for evil, the ideas of refraining from judging others, humility, and self-sacrifice, all of these are present and are taught throughout almost as if they were driven by a single mind trying to explain how to live within the worldviews of the various cultures.
     By only seeing the differing pantheons of those worldviews and how the first commandment might be violated, by only focusing on the differences born from cultural (mis)understandings, the real Message which has been preached since time immemorial through prophets, sages, and philosophers even is grossly overlooked. By declaring a crusade or jihad against anything that isn't "Biblical" or of "Judeo-Christian" origin, the witnesses through whom the Being we call God spoke, even if their understanding of celestial things was imperfect, are silenced, and this is a tragedy. Because in the teachings of the Buddha, in the Tao Te Ching, and in all of those other writings we see and hear echoes of the very same Voice, the very same Message and Logos responding and reaching out to people where they are at.
     And the Message which was given them wasn't about a correct understanding of the Trinity, angels, or how many of them can dance on the head of a pin. No, the Message from the heart of God to these people was always "treat others the way you want to be treated," "have compassion on others," "be humble," "your ego/mind/identity is the source of your problems; let it go," "be careful not to allow your fear, anger, or bodily cravings dictate your responses, and let go of anything which triggers them," and so on. The thing God wanted them most to understand was to not judge one another, to forgive, to not harm one another, and to practice letting go of the things which could cause strife, fear, and divisions between them. These were the most important things to Him. "I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." And in the mind of God, all of these things, loving one another and having mercy and compassion, was how one had knowledge of God. As John wrote, "the person who doesn't love, doesn't know God, because God is love."
     These things were established in the mouths of many, many witnesses. It's time we stopped trying to silence them.

The Kingdom of God

  A kingdom isn't the land it sits on. It's not its territorial boundaries, buildings, or any such thing. There have been many kingdoms throughout history. The land and many of the buildings are still there, but the kingdom is not.
     A kingdom is people. It is both monarch and his or her subjects, and the agreement between the two that one will lead or rule the other one way or the other. A kingdom might exist without land or territorial boundaries as long as the monarch and subjects exist. There is no kingdom without the monarch, and likewise the monarch has no kingdom without his or her subjects.
     The Kingdom of God, or Kingdom of Heaven, is not nor has ever been about establishing a political entity with territorial borders, bureaucracy, standing army or what not. Jesus was explicit about that. Entering the Kingdom of God isn't about the afterlife either, or entering some cloud based country in the sky.
     The Kingdom of God has always been about Jesus Christ and those submitting to and cooperating with His Spirit. It has always been about Him as Head with those submitting to His Spirit acting as members of a body being guided and under the control of the Head. One inherits the Kingdom of God from Jesus Christ when they embrace their union with Jesus Christ, and by extension His union with God the Father, in their submission to and cooperation with His Spirit. To enter the Kingdom of God is to submit to and cooperate with the Spirit of Christ, and ceasing to operate from one's own ego/mind/identity produced by the malfunctioning survival responses of the brain.
     One cannot enter the Kingdom of God if one is operating from these devices, that is, his or her own malfunctioning flesh. And in the same way, one does not remain in the Kingdom of God if one reverts to those same malfunctioning devices instead of submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ. Clearly, this removal is self-inflicted and can be remedied with simply admitting one's malfunction and the error they made and returning to submission to and cooperation with the Spirit of Christ.
     The Kingdom of God is nowhere, everywhere, and within you. It is nowhere in that it has no land or boundaries. It is everywhere in that it is wherever God is, which is everywhere. It is within you in that every human being has the capability through their union with Jesus Christ to submit to and cooperate with His Spirit, thus entering the Kingdom.

The Billionaire Bank Account With Your Name On It

     You can't make use of something if you don't believe it exists. A person could have been bequeathed a bank account with a billion dollars, but if they don't believe that it exists, then they cannot make use of it and will remain poor and struggling even when practically infinite resources are available to them. The same is true if they believe that it might exist, but that somehow they're doing something wrong if they access it. If the person is afraid to use it for some reason, then it might as well not exist for that person. Can you imagine that? Fear stopping someone from accessing what is rightfully theirs? Of course we can, because it happens every day in various circumstances with various people. Or what about the person who is afraid to touch it because if they do, they might lose their medicare or social security benefits? It does not occur to them that they do not need either if they simply start using the account.
     The deliverance which is found in Jesus Christ has already been accomplished. Every single human being is already one with Him through His birth, death, burial, and resurrection. Every single human being has the capacity to disengage from, to detach from their own malfunctioning human responses, their malfunctioning EMI and to submit to and cooperate with the Spirit of Christ already. All that person needs do is believe that this capacity exists in some way, and make use of it.
      And therein lies the difficulty, because even those who profess to "believe in Jesus," don't actually believe this capacity exists, or they're too afraid to use it for whatever reason, either because of the guilt or shame they feel, or the attachments they have to whatever. They're afraid of opening their eyes and stepping into the Light, the experience of God acting and speaking through you, because they're ashamed of the things they've done, or because they don't want to give up the things they're doing or the things they possess or who they believe themselves to be.
      And so, like the man who escapes the cave in Plato's allegory, they are too few and too far between who know about it and make use of it. And frequently, they only just stumble into this treasure which is already there without really understanding it, or interpreting it from a completely different worldview but still able to make use of it because it does in fact exist and it has their name on it just like it has the name of every human being on it, because Jesus Christ is the exchange and reconciliation for the malfunctions of all those who know about Him and it, and the rest of the world as well. God doesn't play favorites, and if the "non-Christian" stumbles into it and learns to function within Him, effectively becoming a disciple without understanding that he is, when the "Christian" does not or refuses to, He's perfectly willing to stick a wedding garment on the "non-Christian" and welcome him in, even while wondering what's keeping the "Christian" from doing the same when he was specifically invited (not that God doesn't know already, but you get the point).
     This deliverance from our common malfunction is available to the entire world, and not just those who profess a certain doctrine and run through the rituals. But you have to make use of it in order for it to do anything, and in order to make use of it, you have to know it exists and not be afraid to use it.
     Contrary to current "Christian" thinking, I'm pretty sure there are more "non-Christians" attached to the Head as members of the body than anyone realizes; and more "Christians" that keep themselves amputated than these because of their fear, guilt, shame, and the teachings which encourage such obstacles.

There is No Way to Heaven. Heaven is the Way.

 There is no way to Heaven. Heaven is the Way. 

     Heaven is where God is, and God is omnipresent, being everywhere at once without limits and without end. He is at every single point in space and time, because these are dimensional vectors which move through Him, and not vice-versa. Thus, as God is always right here and right now, so also Heaven is also right here and right now because God is right here and right now. The question is whether or not we experience that through our union with Jesus Christ, or whether we turn away from it, shutting our own eyes to it, preferring our own self-imposed darkness to His Light. Heaven is experiencing His presence, really, whether in the body or out. 

      Our salvation, our deliverance through Jesus Christ, has less to do with being out of the body than right here right now, submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Jesus Christ with whom we are one. As Jesus Himself asked, what is easier? To forgive someone's sins, or to tell the disabled man to get up and walk? To illustrate His point graphically, He does just this. God doesn't hold our mistakes against us, we are the ones who shut our eyes to Him. He has said in the Scriptures that all a man need do to be forgiven is to turn around from the bad (wicked, evil, deranged, etc.) direction he is going. To come to his senses as the prodigal son, and come home. To open his eyes to the Light. But there still remains the problem of our common, inherited, human malfunction which colors everything we say and do, of which I have written copiously. 

     We have a malfunctioning survival system, probably the amygdala as it affects the hypothalamus, which makes everything we like or agree with, or everything we dislike or disagree with, a survival issue and we cling to the former and push away or try to destroy the latter. As a result, we are from our very brains, controlled by fear, aggression, and bodily cravings. But fear most of all. It colors everything we do, and it blocks us from experiencing the presence of God as we submit to that neurologically base fear and engage with it. 

     Why? Because "God is love," and the love of God and fear cannot co-exist in the same space because fear keeps us in an animal survival mode unable to focus on anything else but the perceived threats or survival necessities. As John also wrote, "love brought to completion tosses fear outside." So, we must choose to whom we will submit, our own malfunctioning minds and the fear which directs them, or to the Spirit of Christ and union with the God who is love. 

      Paul wrote about this repeatedly, and it formed the foundation of his entire understanding of discipleship as he said, "walk in the Spirit and you won't bring the cravings of the flesh to completion." God is most concerned about dealing with the root problem, this malfunction, and providing for us a means to bypass it altogether so that our words and actions ultimately originate with Him and not from our own malfunctioning devices. It is this malfunction, and dealing with it without destroying the individual with which God is most concerned. 

      Why would He punish someone with a mental or psychological disability because they have one? Why would He be concerned about making sure each and every negative action spawned by that disability be punished? What parent with a child who has a severe psychological or developmental disability would do that? The disability and the negative psychological effects on the person are punishment enough. The parent just wants the child to function normally and is ecstatic when they do. If human parents, themselves screwed up, are compassionate and loving enough to do this, how much more God? 

      It is our common malfunction which blinds us to His loving omnipresence. It is our inherited control by fear which condemns us to the outer darkness because we are terrified of opening our eyes. No, it's never been about "earning your salvation" or "doing good works to go to heaven." That's not even on the same page of understanding about either salvation or heaven as the authors of the New Testament. That stems from the old pagan understandings of entering the afterlife and facing a tribunal of judgment to determine which afterlife you have. The good going to Elysium, the neither good nor bad going to the fields of Asphodel, and the outright wicked going to Tartarus. The salvation which the New Testament teaches and the Way which Jesus and His Apostles taught were on a whole 'nother level or page from that understanding. 

       Those who are making their home in Him, walking in the Spirit, are already there in a fashion, as the members of a body attached to the Head. And so of course to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, because that person making their home in Him, walking in the Spirit, is experiencing being one with Him just as He is one with the Father as He prayed. Submission to and cooperation with Jesus Christ is the only Way, because Jesus Christ acting and speaking through us is the Way. 

      There is no way to Heaven, because Heaven, the experience of the presence of God, is the Way.

Failure the Greatest Teacher Is

 “Pass on what you have learned, strength, mastery, but weakness, folly, failure also; yes failure most of all, the greatest teacher failure is.“  Jedi Master Yoda
 

     Sometimes it is hard to recognize or appreciate the light when there is no darkness. It is hard to really understand and appreciate success when there is no failure, and as a rule, success rarely if ever comes without it. The student or apprentice who first sets out to learn his craft does not instantly succeed at it. The master of the craft has only become so because he has failed over and over again, but learning from each failure. The same is true with being a disciple of the Way no less than it is with blacksmithing, tailoring, coding, martial arts, or any other discipline one might practice. And the wise master will pass on the lessons from their failures more than the stories of their successes. The lessons of their failures are meant for the student's instruction and success. The stories of their triumphs, if that is all they relate, are meant to tell everyone about how great they are, and it becomes all about them. While I can really on write from my own perspective and experiences, it can't be or even appear as "Look at me! See how great or how wise or how knowledgeable I am at this!"

     This more than anything is why I also write about my struggles and failures, and I am reminded of Yoda's words from "The Last Jedi." It does no good to attempt to teach following the Way and not relate my own struggles between submitting to and cooperating with the Spirit of Christ, and engaging with my own malfunctioning mind. It does no good to hold myself up as an example, if I do, and then try and cover up or hide my own failures. No one benefits from that. The distinction, the contrast between Christ acting and speaking through me, and when it originates from my own malfunctioning EMI has to be seen and taken note of as I myself press on with being a disciple. And it isn't about me, how saintly or how great I am, but it is about Jesus Christ and how His control influences and changes my behavior when I am in submission to Him and cooperating with His Spirit. And my flaws must be on display, honestly and openly, so that Him manifested through Me is not confused with my own ego.

       Paul wrote about his own failures too, and was honest about them. but even his successes, or those things which might have been an advantage to him he threw under the bus "for the superiority of the experiential knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, through whom I lost everything, and consider it crap, so that I would gain the Christ ... to know Him and the power of His resurrection and communion of His passions, being conformed to His death, if I might somehow reach the resurrection from the dead."

     Is it uncomfortable and embarrassing talking about my failures? My anger, my frustration, and all my other faults? Every time I attempted to do the right thing and ended up crashing and burning? Yep. Do I enjoy hanging my dirty laundry out to dry where everyone can see it? Nope. But bringing things into the light is the only way to get past them, to heal from them, and to move on. The "bad spirit," as St. Ignatius of Loyola called it if I remember correctly, is like a rapist or molester that thrives on its victim keeping what it is doing a secret for fear of the shame, pain, or imagined harm if the truth should be revealed. The bad spirit threatens us against bringing what it's doing into the light because it knows it will be arrested, driven away, and beaten if it is. The only way to take away its power over us is to expose it and everything which has transpired to the light. This is one of the reasons why confession used to be done within the Sunday service openly for the whole congregation to hear (and it was only the baptized brothers and sisters that were in the congregation at the time; the unbaptized and uninitiated were not permitted).

     Admitting our failures allows us to learn from them, and it allows others to learn from them too so that they don't fall into the same pitfalls. And Yoda was right, they are just as important to pass on as our triumphs and achievements, because it is in our failures that the bulk of what wisdom we have lies.

"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.