Faith Critically More Important
Couldn'thelp overhear an intense discussion about signs and wonders at a side table in the Naked Eye recently.
What did Jesus say about "this" people desiring a sign? (Checking location) I am myself not overly impressed with blood coming out of stones and such. The fact that there was even universal donor blood involved does not rate any big discussion for my part. The Shroud is, on the other hand, quite interesting but is still not pivotal in any way.
Of course, now that I think on it, I am very concerned about healings. They seem worthwhile since they are so very appreciated and attracts faith. It is still, just the same, all in the seen world, and in the end, the flesh will not help us. This according to Jesus.
I am now finally become rather bored with all the old chestnuts dealing with the existence of God, having settled everything in that drawer to my own satisfaction. God is the I am that I am, which is to say God is Existence. My foundational view is that existence itself is good by definition, or else it could not exist. Anything bad is destruction destroying itself by definition.
So where will this lead next? I sense a stream of consciousness coming over my spirit. It is not a time to carve anything in stone. So, I will say what I will say and let no one tell me what I am saying in my place.
Gingerbread maybe, but not foundational. Everyone says what they say, and they can keep on saying it, but not hold to making as if I am saying it for them. So let the tremble chins line up and tell me what I am saying if they want. I just will say "No, that is what you are saying, saying all for yourself, from yourself, about yourself, on your own."
My faith no more has a foundation in logical arguments made from routine believable concepts, bordering on the mundane. I am venturing on my own, off by myself all alone. I think so in any event. Both faith and fact are logically equal it seems to me in this particular moment.
Faith experienced is always new and dynamically moving. Fact on the other hand is rooted in a final settlement, a fixed stone marking something that in time will be thought of as, "once was but no more."
Now that is getting to too toot far ahead of even me!
The original short green foliage seen earlier on Churchill's stone has been replaced with a newer inscription seen in today's Memory Stones.
I suddenly find myself isolated amid all my logical spin weaving with the proof there is not only an existing God, but that there is something greater... "a faith" in God. A faith that renders all my logical proofs redundant at best. I sense there are beliefs and there is something quite another, "believing in God".
Nothing is impossible.
The word itself is I'm possible.
Audrey Hepburn
It is more difficult to write a good short story than a good novel. It is more difficult to write a good poem or lyric than write a good short story. To write a good quote is another story.
The illustration highlights an example of why attacking the man begins, by attacking his argument with the logical fallacy of argumentum ad hominem.
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| Truth takes courage |
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| Red Sea seen from space on a clear day. |
Was not the existing pagan
Holiday Before Christmas
Christianized to Christmas?
The Baby in the manger theme this time of year was just slowly seeming to merge with a fading view of the incarnate God, and in turn be absorbed by a diluting Xmas. This in my instinctive view at least.
The mother comes before her son. But is this mother before, or after "her" Son? It was not until I focused on the word incarnate that I realized it was beginning to replace the incarnate view in my view at least.
I was internalizing the view of the seen "Baby in the Manger World." In it I was about to lose the significance of the incarnate transition from the unseen to the seen.
Who Causes Suffering?
If there is a God, then why does He allow suffering to exist, since He is Existence Himself? My quick answer is because we, many of us at least, insist on it. Why did we insist on it? My view is because not a few gave themselves over to the chief spirit of suffering, the devil of doubt and destruction.
So how did we do that? We were born into it, as children of suffering. How could that be true? Why would not God intervene? There was originally no need for Him to intervene since all existence is good. We ourselves intervened instead.
We became convinced that knowledge of our own, the knowledge of good, and as it turned out, evil, would be better than God's given knowledge. So, it did turn out that our new knowledge included not only knowledge of good, but something new, the knowledge of, evil.
Knowledge not a one-way street
Much evil knowledge seems good until one gets deeper into it and then find the seeming good, changes, changes into destruction. All I can tell myself now is that since I do not have access to all knowledge, I have to trust someone I believe has.
Why would I do that? I found the more knowledge I gained included knowledge of more questions I did not know ever even existed. So, my knowledge turned mostly the knowledge I was more ignorant of than when I was unaware the extent of my ignorance.
The daring leap
So now that our knowledge includes evil, knowledge some of us assume is based on what is only presently known. This forces them to take the only action they can take under the present circumstances of which they are limitedly aware. I find my conclusion of all these complications is that I may have been maneuvered into the unenviable position of judging God. I suggest a hasty retreat. So, I take Job's position of trusting God no matter what. Maybe this is what actual believing is, believing in an incredible God worth believing.
This strange idea, mentioned in Manna today, says Jesus was murdered. In John 10:17-18, Jesus speaks otherwise. I am concerned that so many, and in teaching positions as well, are so unaware of the commandments of Jesus.
They seem to think the parables, wherein many commandments are revealed are what, for whom, somebody else? We can ignore the parables?
But one fact is revealed by this particular murder view thing. A lack of awareness of that everything seen came from the unseen, even as high up as the pulpit itself. Look at myself as well, regarding the incarnate post.
Faith is what the
World calls a lie
Whenever I am asked, how I am I doing, I like to say I am doing wonderful, marvelous, fantastic! They say, isn't that great. Then I follow up with the only thing that bothers me is, I lie a lot. Nothing better than an old joke.
The scriptures, in Hebrews I think, defines faith as, saying things that are not, as though they were. The world, even some Christians, call that a lie.
Words are powerful
The world goes by the seen, they have little respect for the spirit. However, God spoke the world into existence by saying, and His faith brought it into the seen. Everything unseen came from the seen.
According to polls as well as my experience, here in the States, church attendance, membership, and believers in God are shrinking and shrinking. I would have liked to have known this early, like when I was deciding whether or not to believe in Sainta Claus, I learned then from our pastor that the stories in the Bible were not true, only the meaning was true.
Notice the word meaning? Why was that word meaning not spiritual instead? Later I learned the adults only believed in God, for the sake of the children. All the while adults were sprinkling their talk with words like pulpit talk, meaning pretend talk. Then I learned that something in the Bible was not for today.
It goes on from there. I wonder where it stops? Maybe Jesus did not even exist. Homer with one surviving book thanks to the Alexandrian fire existed, but unbelievable numbers of books about Jesus called His existence into question.
Maybe Jesus is just not for today. It was not until I was an atheist in college, with a course in logic under my belt, and learning the list of fallacies, that the seeds of doubt about all this pinball thinking would begin a slow-motion exploding revelation in my mind.
Either the mind rules the body
Or the body rules the mind
I do not think it possible to persuade anyone of anything they were not already persuaded of in their spirit or in some other status of, hopefully, their mind directing their body. This means, if true, they alone are responsible for what they believe. This, no matter how dense the crowd they gave their surrounding will to while in the crowd.
Does this make sense?
I do not care how articulate anyone is, it baffles me how anyone can debate whether there is a God or not, all the while never once identifying what their definition of who God is. If this does make sense to anyone then they are merely not convinced who God is, in my view. There are some others who are certain that there not only is no God, but we are all organisms. I first encountered this position in college. This view likes to think everything is a science, so they reduce everything to a formula equaling everyone is the same. But it turns out some are not so identical as others. These will tell the same people what to do, apparently so they will be useful, useful to those who are not so identical. Our key word is same. But if one does not believe in God out of the box, then how can you have a definition?
The Hour has Come
The night before going to the Cross Jesus prayed what is called the high priestly prayer. Of all the books in the Bible the most central chapter is the red-letter chapter John 17. It is on the same par as John 3:16 is the most central verse.
We are One
The theme that God is in Jesus and Jesus is in God, and God is in us, and we are in God is stressed over and over. I'd like to count how often sometime. My mother read this chapter every morning. John 17 is the first thing you read looking at her cenotaph.
Life is like a butterfly
Time is fooling us all even as I speak. Wasting time, my more grievous sin, is also the theme of the prison movie Papillon. This life is often characterized as a prison. Sartre, for instance, titled one of his books No Exit.
Life and prison are alike in some respects. Quite a few of us do not want to be released when our time is up, maybe because the longer one lives, the more likely we become institutionalized, comfortable where we are. 😉
Gaining hope
However, I am coming out of this cloud reading the Bible regularly (see Manna) and my feeling is, I am going to crash out soon. As a reminder to myself, next is looking this moment like... "a case of stolen identity".
If one is concerned with the current generation's appearance to be largely led around by their sniffling intellectual noses, have no concern. I'll always remember one of my BU professors commenting that approximately every 25 years (considered a generation) that each one overthrows the previous generation to go off on a different tangent of their own altogether. So, there is always hope for renewal... for everybody eventually.... for a while at least. How quickly will everything pass. Time is always moving toward something new and if one does not like it, we have to remember that to go up the steps we have to put one foot down to get to the next step up.
Was Jesus incarnate?
All words, just like people who exchange them, have a history. Incarnate is a word from Latin.
The root of the word is carnal, which we know as flesh. It is a great word I've found in comprehending how Jesus, dramatically, became a man in the seen changing world of the flesh.
Mary was herself not at the beginning of Jesus, as God. It did not start with Mary, because Jesus was at the beginning as the Son of God. As an aside, her cousin was the mother of John the Baptist. of which John, the author of John, speaks of "as the Baptist," in the Gospels as the heralder of Jesus.
Alpha and Omega
Mary is referred to by those knowledgeable in the discussion as the virgin God bearer. Jesus however was with God, as the begotten son of God, in the beginning. God did not have only a beginning, but is both beginning and ending. Maybe a mobius strip might serve as an illustration here. This would make God both the beginning and the ending, meaning to me, forever.
Mary then, remains in her time. But by emphasizing her as the mother of God, she is easily thought, by association, to be before the beginning of the Son, or at least, in the beginning. This beginning would suggest the only beginning, even before God Himself, which of course is untenable.
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us
As a child, it was presented to my understanding by association that Jesus began born of His mother Mary. This would be true, but because Jesus was God from the beginning, it was only true when Jesus became a man, from which He would return as God in the beginning. Always the emphasis was on the seen rather than on the unseen spirit.
There, I've said enough for this entry. I'll chew on this for a time, which takes me back to the beginning of this effort beginning with the introduction of the word incarnate.
Reincarnate carries the image of us living our lives over and over in an effort to get it right, without grace. This sounds to me like someone in a prison locked in a bubble of time that is self repeating from which no one is ever free at last.
Incarnate rather is a single individual event in which God becomes Man for time. A time when He suffers stripes for our healing and dies for our sins as the last sacrifice, totally deserted by God. He then, after dying on the Cross, while still dead for three days, goes down into hell to preach to those lost in the flood, from which He returns, is seen by hundreds, and ascends to heaven. I know of no story anywhere or at any time to even come close to match anything like it.
Between the subject and the verb
I will continue comprehending it. How does one believe it? A belief is a doctrine, inert and still, but believing, is as action, bringing it into existence just like God, who believing spoke everything into existence. That exhilarating task is my never-ending hope, all the while praising God for His Existence and the existence He has given me.
It was the word incarnate that brought me to a sharper understanding. It is an example of how we put the emphasis on the flesh rather than the spirit in pulpits, at least it was in my experience. In this entry I am setting up for tomorrow I shift my emphasis. It was by forcing myself to concretely express my view that I personally came to a clearer, more precise, understanding.
The first reason I am urged to forgive anyone who hurts me, is because it does further damage to me to hold resentment, which is damaging to my mind and body.
The second reason is that if revenge belongs to God, it belongs there for a reason. The reason is very likely because if I hold resentment I am acting in the place of God. So, if that is true then I am acting as if I myself am God, and not the Holy Spirit of Existence, the great I am.
The third reason is the word itself. Resentment, as the word itself suggests, means to send back to myself the very hurt sent me by the one I should forgive. Looks to me one more indication God is simple while we are complex. Sometimes I think the truth cannot be told by those who know.
Maybe that is the fourth reason. I should forgive whether I understand it or not. Now my thoughts have taken me right into the very core of faith.
There is a tendency to think one knows it all when one only knows everything...everything that is known so far.
Just knowing everything so far is quite a feat. But what is known so far is so far from the full facts story it would make anyone's head spin no matter how loosely it could be screwed on.
Just recently heard a man claim he is not a believer in God because he, himself, is a physical scientist and only believes in the facts. Apparently he thinks all the facts are already in, and are known already. He is assuming he is the only one who knows them. Probably just me jumping to conclusions again.
It amuses me when someone tells me I am smart because they never tell me what I am smart in. I often respond, You are so right! I am so smart I've outsmarted myself, just yesterday alone, millions of times.
My grandmother used to say, I am told, that one had to work out their own salvation. I am working out here my own salvation. Everyone works out their own salivation, one way or the other, according to their own diligence in the matter.
All readers here are working out their own salvation. I am working out my own salvation, no one else's. No one can be persuaded by anyone else, even if they are just go alongers.
We all persuade ourselves, just as I am doing here for myself. If anyone says anything that is to me in any way persuasive, I still am the only decision maker in the equation. No matter who it is, I am the lone decider and I take all the credit or any discredit.
I am the only one responsible for whatever happens to me, even if it may have been my decision to go along with, for instance, a doctor. One can say the doctor was to blame if they want, and that my be true enough, but his life does not respond to the consequences.
Only mine does. I am the responder and I am the only one responsible who will really suffer or rejoice in the consequences. I am convinced we will all work out our own salvation, whether we wanted to or not.
Credo Magazine, another newly discovered link I have not yet investigated, but which may be of interest to those who are attracted to God's own definition of Himself about Himself, as in this, my personal blog, Sunset Stroller.
My definition of transcendent is the spiritually unseen world as opposed to the physically seen world subject to time.
It is virtually impossible to conceive of being outside our world we are in and in the world we are going too that is at the same time not subject to time. That is one over riding reason why physical science cannot agree in defining time. The unseen forces were not in their equations but now is inching into their awareness as black holes. This concept I understand was introduced first in science fiction literature. I myself recall was promptly laughed in by traditional physical science. The idea of seeing is believing is itself quietly being slipped under the rug and the black holes are incorporated as more mere physical photography. Just my view, so far at least.
The longer a posted entry remains in evidence, the more likely that it will be edited for clarity of ideas or correction of inadvertent typing errors. For more complete explanation please notice the paragraph directly below the introduction, the painting Days End, and immediately above the list of other active sites in the Sunset Stroller.
Belief is not going along with the Pastor. It is not agreeing with someone. Belief does not admit ignorance.
Belief is accepted before it can be projected. When it is projected belief becomes known.
Do I really think I am
one with the Holy Spirit? John 17
How do I know? Is there a Holy Spirit?
How much faith do I have?
The mind thinks but the spirit believes.
I deliberately do away with doubt. The spirit slips undetected into the seen world from the unseen according to the degree of belief I can exhibit. I have to believe what I am thinking. There is no physical effort because there is no effort of any kind in the spirit.
I place these ideas into physical evidence objectifying them here. I learn whether they will survive without being propped up with wishful or any other kind of flimsy thinking. I realize results are happening to me. I wait on the Holy Spirit, having made my agonies known.
Bedrock Belief
Without Wavering
No matter what, the spirit persists. Time in the seen does not exist in the eternal unseen. Therefore the spirit of belief never gives up in the face of seeming failures until they disappear unnoticed. I do not sit across the table form God. I can never bargain with God.
I accept what I am told. I tell what I accept.
This is creation
God did not create existence. He is existence. How then are things created? He first had the thought, I suggest He did, and then He spoke it into existence, of this I am certain He did. How is all this known?
He speaks what he believes. It now exists because He believes it and His word does not return to him void. Alongside the Bible, much of what we know spiritually about right and wrong He placed in our hearts. We are first born into the changing physical and then born spiritually... our individual decision.
Malthus was correct in his prediction of starvation, at the time. He did not anticipate any new country could, nor would, produce more food than ever thought possible. It would be all through technical advances he could not foresee under this newly incentivized country across the pond.
Sane, for the time being
Ever notice a hedge, or any unpruned tree-shrub with a shoot sticking way up beyond the rest of the shrub? People are like that too. This story has been recounted more than once in more than one country.
In Hungry, Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis, after studying the matter of childbirth fever, suggested washing hands would be advantageous.
The reason for doing this was his undoing. Purpose for washing hands was because there was something dangerous on everyone's hands that was too small to be seen. In France, I think it was, a doctor proposing there was something too small to be seen was dropped from the staff as a weirdo. Sounded sensible at the time. Do the names Pasteur or Lister of Listerine strike any bells here?
Semmelweis however was famous for saving lives. But he was committed to an insane "asylum" with maybe the early onset of Alzheimer's where he was "beaten by the staff and died from his injuries, it has been reported.
Time being
In their defense my memory reminds me of the coiner of the most important moral principle of the individual, self preservation, Herbert Spencer, who maintained that the majority is not always wrong. Only an individual can shoot beyond the group. Only the group establishes the view of sanity in the group. So if the individual shoot gets ahead of the group too far, they are seen as insane. The group thinks he is insane because they, the group are sane, at least for the time being considered so.
In the this our country, the total wording of the God based Constitution completely defends the individual from the group. This may explain why this country was the first, and to my knowledge the only, government to abolish slavery as well as avoid the "unavoidable" 1800's Malthus view of impending starvation. Correct at the time, but incorrect in time. As for slavery, unfortunately human trafficking today seems to suggest completely abolishing slavery "unavoidable".
Myth and Motive
Our elders as helpless myth believers,
vs many of today's scholars as full of themselves
Economists are always notoriously getting their predictions wrong, and so are too many historian scholars as well, it seems to me. Whenever someone proves an extraordinary Bible account as quite possibly true, one that no one could prove convincingly before, I am in an unfortunate conundrum. And it suggests to me a motive is in the mix.
The problem vs the premise
If a story can be proved (to one's satisfaction) then this is a blow to belief, since if something is considered proved, then the need for belief is mute.
The prospect of the Red Sea being at one time in the position of a tidal river from both ends is an example. The tendency of scholars to disbelieve the ancients as not being as smart as themselves is not only embarrassing at the outset, with talk of interfering extra terrestrials, but with time, is repeatedly being debunked.
I suggest questioning motives as significant in the outcome. Always check the premise is the usual motto.
I have little patience for the reactionary view. I do not oppose for the sake of opposition either, as that also is giving tongue to whatever I do not speak to, of, or about. That is, I do not repeat or give space to views that are other than mine. For instance, I have next to nothing to say about the devil, so I do not react and by that act give recognition, acknowledgement, or space to his doings. This blog is primarily about God's own definition of Himself, not mine or anyone else's definition. I do not listen to what those who say what others are saying, rather than what they are saying, because it is a just an entanglement of hearsay.
Even months at a time
Lot of heavy editing all day into this evening, for the Stroller El Speedo. It often goes on for days at a time, until things finally settle into the sunset. Speed isn't the quickest avenue to any destination.
Taking heaven by force
If there is any doubt in anyone's heart, even those of a different pasture who are not drawn by God, then they if they want God, like Jesus says in the scriptures, can take heaven by force.
Faith is forever persistent
This was also alluded to by Jesus in the strong man parable. We know He taught in parables and for my part, I consider them His commandments. So it is the same for the strong man who can also take heaven by force. He is demonstrating his faith, his persistent faith. Everything is based on faith. God is not impressed by our transitory proofs, God wants faith. Faith is the unseen power of the spirit within to believe, most especially the unbelievable. Parables have interpretations, this is why Jesus said understanding them was withheld from those who did not believe. This is merely my view.
Other interpretations: In the non-canonical Gospel of Thomas, which does not have the context of the Beelzebul controversy, the parable has been interpreted as merely suggesting that "shrewd planning and careful strategy" are necessary in order to accomplish one's goals.
Everything is blamed on the Boss, that is how it is known who the boss is, as I forever fruitlessly explained to my wife. All the insurance companies also know what God has done. Certainly not them.
Formerly, as an atheist, I fondly noticed that while God tells us not to kill, He wipes out entire generations of people with a flood. I was just piling on, as it were, since I was already snared in unbelief by the fallacy of misplaced authority.
Wrong again boohoo boy.
Everyone picks up on this, even last night I heard it on a radio call in talk show. Some excuse God for murdering anyone He takes a shine to by saying, He has a divine right to do everything.
First of all God is Existence, Existence exists and God cannot not negate Himself. God tells us what must be done to avoid dangers in life. If we fail to do it, then it is our decision, not His, for us to suffer the consequences, since we took on free will under the apple tree.
God knows everything that we are going to decide to do before we even do it. But even though He knows everything before hand, He does not force us to make those decisions.
God places before us both life and death. He urges us, it says in the Bible, to chose life. God does not choose, we choose, He however knows our choices before hand.
So God knows everything. But we, every time we learn something, we learn about new unanswered questions we did not know before, thereby learning we were more ignorant than we realized previously.
Jesus said that no one can come to God unless God draws them to Him. He lost many disciples by that saying. Jesus also said there are sheep not of His pasture. What does all this mean? Who am I to judge God? I just know what He tells me.
Predicting the future is a scale evaluating intelligence. God knows the future already while I do not know all. Therefore I cannot judge anything, even justify answers, about any matters concerning God. My only conclusion can be, knowing He gave and wants existence for me, even so as with Job, though he slay me, yet will I trust Him.
Charisma and Argumentum
ad hominin
The decline of logic in public discourse powers the current rise of invective name calling as a substitute for the reasoning of issues, and along with shrinking the numbers of words in language, all brings about the easing control of individuals who have locked themselves as fading individuals into rising power groups.
The time is coming in the, as yet, totally inconceivable future when a person will be able to charismatically attract those of lesser "mass" just as objects seen in space orbiting each other do.
Instead of the mind controlling the body, the spirit will control mind and bring about whatever it desires, including the power to control the intellect of others of lesser orbital mass. The primary point of their success will reside in the passion of their spirit to believe.
I think we may have lost something in time. The speech writers for David were a fantastic lot and were in a strong position to influence the leadership of the day. All because they were writing for David, speaking with God rather than temporal men, and making a very real presence for God in public affairs as the law itself. Just my view, after all, nobody's speech is free unless somebody else can disagree with it.
and those with greater belief
Remember when Jesus asked the man seeking relief for his stricken child whether he believed, and the man answered I believe, help my unbelief?
Recall also when Jesus said if one had enough belief he could move a mountain into the sea? And then He spoke of the centurion with greater belief than in all Israel and still again, when He asked the woman seeking healing whether she believed He could do it? She said yes she believed He could do it and He responded, then it will be done according to her belief?
All these things suggest there are those with belief, greater belief and little belief, which He also spoke of as well. So there are different intensive degrees of faith. Therefore I constantly seek to increase my belief even though I have already made my prodigal decision to believe. A decision I remade losing several years to the atheism view before regaining my initial decision finally again.
Mountain moving faith
When Jesus said we could move mountains and, now think about this, do greater things than even He had done. There are many believers who think He was speaking metaphorically. Whether yes or no I believe every thing He said was and is true for today.
Otherwise when does one stop? Before or after the Cross? Or was the Cross fiction also? I believe in a future when it will be common for strong believers to move mountains of the inanimate world of the seen about at will justifiability.
Reminder: As I continue, everything I write here is dated and reflects my view at those specific times. However I am also unannounced editing my prior views for clarity and common typos as well as increased validity at various other times.
All things seen came from the unseen
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| Darkness promises the Light. |
In our world of change
The older one becomes the greater likelihood someone very close to our age will succumb physically, still, their spirit lingers on in our awareness. However if they are younger then it is especially difficult to weather while in the seen world. God has placed in our hearts the promised belief I will see everyone again, and not only that, but I will have a greater understanding. As the Holy Spirit shared with Paul, we see now darkly, but time comes when we will see understandings and happiness greater than I could ever have imagined in this world of the seen.
Faith is the central most guiding force
Is the physical world of the seen more dear than the promise of the unseen world of the spirit? I think time fools us all. But faith will save us. This is the greatest single most force I must strengthen within our spirit once born again. It is especially not unreliable proof that can direct me, nor anything else, except faith.
Evolving vs Evolution
Evolution is a belief that humans came from ocean slime, and later from menkeys. This, while observational, it has to be said, has never been seen.
Regardless, nothing can evolve from anything different despite similarities, fanciful or not. It reminds one of the fallacy of skipping categories. I have visited Old Ironsides but could not get inside.
Seeing is believing?
I have ducked my head entering colonial houses constructed only a few hundred years ago. I have heard how small Roman swords were, the conquerors of the western world. I am related to a family of five boys, all standing the oldest down to the youngest, only to see them as young men standing together, the oldest up to the youngest. Say what we will, I still find it suggestive that observation has its place.
Everything in the seen world changes despite appearances. Various living trees may seem similar but all trees are known by their fruit. My conclusion is, Christians are losing an evolution debate that is not quite pointless.
All minds change
As a man on a bucking horse
I hope to remember every time I pray to thank God for His existence, and the existence He has given me.
The spirit never changes
It is because I love and appreciate existence, even amazed by existence, that I love Him. My purpose in praying is to build my faith in God and in the Existence He has given me. This especially since at one time, many times, I did not do that very thing that matters to me now. In the seen world everything is changing, including my apparently slowing witted mind.
Only the questions are difficult
The answer to every complicated question is simple. But everything simple is more difficult to see, even as it sits right in front of everyone.
If a person knows the questions of life are but not the answers, that perceptive person is smart. But if someone already knows the answers, that poor person is on thin ice. Funny how life can be turned upside down sometimes.
So that I may believe
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| To see beauty one has to first think beauty. |
In all cases my spirit is the energy driving emotion bringing, either now or eventually, to me according to the diligence of my spirit. And if it is true for me then it must be true across the board for everyone. This then is why and how if I take an offense I become offensive. I should not take it so that I will not be bogged down by negative forces, or so to say, negative spirits.
This is again why I should forgive so that I may be forgiven. This is why I've said before that Jesus tells me what to do, to do for Him for my own benefit. I remember, I think it was Paul, who said there is a continual life and death spiritual struggle going on between opposing spirits.
The definition and purpose of war, which is a continual struggle between groups evident even in peacetime, is accompanied by rumors of war. It may be, it seems, like peace is building up pressure for war.
We are all One
Many seem to exist exclusively in the flesh. They deal with their perceptions, and react only to what they see and feel. They have trouble with the Trinity, a word some say itself does not appear in the Bible.
Is Trouble with the Trinity, difficulty with the Spirit?
Jesus spoke about the Spirit, meaning one with each other, in the Bible, most especially, to my mind, in John 17. It is of interest that He makes repetitively the point that we were all one over and over many times. We are all one, as Jesus said, are we not?
God is Spirit, Holy Spirit. If some do not grasp that oneness, it has to be because they cannot relate to the concept of spirit. They are more dazzled in a more presently dominating belief in the seen rather than the unseen. The Trinity is three particular Spirits, and all are One, and all are One with us.
Which person is the more responsible? The enemy who told a lie about you, or the friend who believed it?
My epiphany might be because
I needed it as a help along the way
I do not regard an epiphany as an advantage aside someone who has not had one, in fact the opposite. It took me a long time, it seems to me now, to figure mine out. My excuse later was it came to me so young.
Minding my own business
I think my interest at the time was more in the church, particularly my right to take communion. I was considered too young, but age was never mentioned to me. Instead I was told I was not a member. So I proceeded in that track but was told I could not be a member because I was not baptized.
So I was baptized, on Pentecost Sunday. So I became a member and then finally could take communion. It was around that time I had my epiphany but was not sure what it meant. The effort finally fell away from my attention and my interest in the Bible and Church was disappointed by the adults who, to someone figuring out if Santa Claus true, realized it was all a putup pulpit talk by adults over us kids. Later the Pulpit Rock on the school lane became clearer to me. It was all pretend church, as I said, by adults for us kids.
Learning that the Bible stories never happened, only the meanings happened, sent me on a course resulting in avowed atheism in my college years. The time consuming trek coming back began when the fallacy of the misplaced authority I'd learned in Logic class finally brought my epiphany into focus. So the epiphany helped, eventually, but I regard it now as help that I needed because of my lazy wittedness in the matter.
Capping it all off was my belief in a fallacy that caused me to blame God for what adults were espousing. When I realized God forgave David for his really horrendous sin because David was honest with God, I, somehow was elated that God perhaps forgave me too for my honesty in lecturing Him as a child. But, I was really hot footing it there for awhile.
My Paraclete
There are those who speak from the pulpit who claim to be teachers rather than preachers. I wonder if they realize that teaching is the most difficult and nearly impossible effort in which to function, much less excel.
The easiest on the other hand, is preaching because it requires emotion, while preaching which is easy to project if one already believes in the power of the Holy Spirit. Teaching is the beginning arena requiring intellect whereas preaching requires emotion which is the Energy generating motion that comes from the Holy Spirit.
Some call Him the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. I call the Holy Spirit my Paraclete. My Paraclete is much like my personal lawyer, who stands before God testifying to my sin forgiven belief in Him since God does not want unbelief of any shade to be even in His presence.
My Paraclete advises me and I seek His explanations. It seems as tho He draws out of me an extreme personal effort before suddenly and finally reveals to me His answers to my spiritual struggles.
Everything I do is for my own benefit, even it ostensibly would ever appear to be for someone else. If, as Jesus said, I am one of those drawn to God it is because God draws me to Him, or it would not have happened.
A Value to Me
My intensity in the matter is to gain more of God because He is, according to my epiphany, the spiritual fountainhead of Existence as reported by Moses. I was told of my drawing by Jesus, I did not think it up myself. Although I slept on this realization for, to me a too long time, I am increasingly elated over my awareness of this realization nevertheless.
Faith is the root of all Proof
If we can only please God through faith, then why is that? Is it to require each of us to make our own decision? It was earlier pointed out, more elaborately, that absolute proof is not possible with various witnesses all from various respectives, influenced by different times as is usual in all seen situations, unlike unseen situations.
And then too, we know that knowledge is too much for us and as we gain knowledge we also gain the knowledge that there is even far more that we do not know than we already know. So knowledge of our ignorance grows faster than our knowledge of what we know. Then to top things off, the known does not always remain the same, as other conditions inexplicably appear in seen situations by the different times, causing even more variabilities to puzzle us further.
I think it is to stretch our spirit and gain for us more control over our spirit power to strengthen our existence. Existence, in order not to negate itself, is itself good but we do not appear to be making our nation any better. God has been known to interfere but I would hesitate to explore those possibilities. Such is the case when I get too far afield.
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| The future is brighter than the past. |
In Exodus 3 Moses, who is my authority in this matter, asked God who shall he say sent him?
God answered I am who I am and later in Chapter 15 said, This is my name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.
I, for my part, only accept God's definition of who God is, as reported by Moses, especially since it jives with my epiphany.
Many detractors of a belief in the existence of God, that is, God as the fountainhead of Existence, do not believe in the unseen but rather emphasize the seen physical world as the conclusion of everything for everyone, in particular for the individual. This is a politically influenced decision governing everyone, except those who must direct the group effort.
But if there is no unseen existence, how did we get here if all things seen did not come from the unseen? Gravity is now considered a physical scientific fact. When Newton introduced the idea of gravity many other physical scientists were extremely uneasy because it suggested to them a psychically mystic condition unwelcome in the physically seen. To them seeing was believing rather than believing was seeing. This left the avenue for future knowledge in human affairs increasingly closed.
Even if there were no God, unbelievers would be forced to create one for themselves.
It is well known that the greater the number of decision makers there are, the greater the number of chances for success. Flip side this fact that wrong decisions were not recognized even tho caused by the individual making wrong decisions. They in turn were suffered by people who had no influence or responsibility directing in the economic arena.
Overlooking this fact narrows all possible views for success, except luck, for those few who took no responsibility but were allowed to continue their mistakes since they had no skin in the game. In other words the unseen clouded the future of the seen. This means the belief in God is an anathema to those who do not believe in God. The thinning hedge around individuals who made a decision to believe in God will be increasingly at threat. Danger in the hallway will be counterbalanced by love of God, since God is Existence.
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| Are we hiding inside something? |
Everything works together
In a finely balanced harmony
How vast and awesome the universe is! Where did the idea come from for God to hang the earth on nothing, in an empty space? The mingling colors and the movements, the sounds and the smells? More spectacular than the power bringing everything into being, is perhaps having the singular idea of it all in the first place. Born in a hallway of tabula rosa I could never conceive of it.
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| Even with other planets our time is unique. |
The mind, without hope, can commit the body to suicide. But the mind cannot commit the spirit to suicide, with or without hope.
The spirit knows nothing of suicide in my view, or it would negate itself. Therefore it would not be spirit. Hope sustains my spirit. But the mind cannot help my body with or without hope. My mind cannot even measure time correctly, else how could time be so draggishly slow and later find it so fancy dancy fast? That means my perception is wagging out of tune somewhere. I think time, being singular, because it exists only in the comparative state everywhere, generates correspondently different signals everywhere, could be one conclusion. So hope must be very important to my existence, should I desire it, as I do.
The seen world is all change
So why are we so wary of change?
Why is it that we cling to the seen world so strongly when Jesus says their is no future in the flesh? It is only the spirit which gives life. Even the mind of the flesh will die, even as the spirit continues. Is that right? We can only conclude that God, as the fountainhead of all existence, caused the universe to come into being by the design of His choosing. Enter those whom He spoke into existence who were given awareness of all things including good, and in particular, evil. These things we introduced into the entire mix, much of which quite a few blame God. This, despite our many transgressions that violated the sense of justice God placed in our hearts. It is better to depart this world and be with Jesus in the spirit says Paul. Later....maybe I should not be thinking of these things. This might be where faith enters into the picture?
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| Now we see thru a glass darkly but soon face to face. |
All politics is gossip since it depends on hearsay
Instead of people said being of weak minds I would favor the term ineffective reactionary talk, rather than weak minds. There is a place for personality but I prefer somewhat lightly on politics as an end game. Incidentally we seem to find everyone and their brother credited with the same universal quote. Origin, it seems, has very little to do with "people said." |
| Arose from the dead |
Who am I? A nobody! But if Moses, with his reputation, said God told him, Moses, something I should think anyone would listen. But then too if Moses said God Himself told him something, I would think anyone should take it on good authority.
Stepping beyond that, if God says in the Bible, how He wants to be known forever throughout all generations, I have to believe anyone should take it to some note..... unless of course... if they believe the Bible amounts to unbelievable myth, with believable meanings, or else they just do not want to believe it, if they do or did.
Reminds me of a Luke 16:31 parable where Abraham was told if someone went to them (his brothers) from the dead, and Abraham replied "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone rises from the dead." Well, I am certainly not going to be the one to wrestle deeper into this issue.
...to the scholarly significance of "I am"
Interesting reading my first I am commentary but it was somewhat dull and circular. Never figured out where it was going, so finally set it aside. It will take a lot of digging to discover what so many words mount up to in the conclusion, when one can get there. The silence, in my ears anyway, was deafening. So I am parking it for now. I have a more intriguing issue looming.
In Exodus 3 Moses, who is our authority in this matter, asked God who shall he say sent him?
God answered I am who I am and later in Chapter 15 said, This is my name forever, and this is My memorial-name to all generations.
I have been reviewing what the scholars say about this and will consider their general outlook and questions of validity. After my revelation, in time I recognized instantly I am who I am meant Existence. Therein lies the core reason for these blog entries.
"And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever: that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be with you.
"I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you." John 14:16-18
Probably a well worn idea, but it occurs to me I could place my favorite verses on file cards. This would group my healing verses together. One never can tell when I might need to access them quickly.
In Manna today I recount my second epiphany accepting the direction that saved me from drowning. I accepted it as one not thinking, but rather more like one watching a movie. I am hard pressed now to avoid the conclusion I had not yet learned to think. Even now I can wonder. After all, reverie is not exactly deep thinking. Much , if not all, of what I am doing here is trying to figure things out.
...shall find Me
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| When did time come from so early? |
