Writings Past and Present - For These Times

Back to the Start

7/13/2019

712.

Theology

Back to the start
(This writing is fully complete if one has a belief in God, that is a personified entity. However, if one's belief is more ethereal, such as in a source, the writing still applies.)

In reading the Five Books of Moses and the onto Joshua I was struck by the strictness of right and wrong and the consequences thereof. This comes after God flooded the world for its iniquities and then stated he will no longer wipe out man for his wrongdoings. In other words he'll ease up and not expect too much. Adam spoke directly to God and when briefly deceived lost his purity and immortality and had to earn his living. That is the most direct punishment for disobedience there is. I suppose the closer you are to a power source, oneness, unity, whatever you want to call it, the slightest of deviations has drastic effects. The farther you are from this source, God, the less severe the consequences of each action. The divisions have mutated and multiplied until unity is barely possible.

Along with this severity of consequence came closeness to God. Moses did speak to God, and yet because of one disobedience was not allowed to enter the new land. An entire group of Levites were destroyed because of their arrogance. The land opened up right beneath them. Still, they were closer to God then we are today. Our actions are so diluted and unresolved and confused punishments such as these would make no sense. So we are given tolerance and shown patience. The price is that we are not as close to God. We have a private 'still small voice' which can help us ease through time and space, but it is not a clear, loud, coherent voice. Indeed, it is probably for our own protection. If we were given a directive loud and clear and booming, and we didn't keep it, or broke our word, that wouldn't work too well either. If you said I'll keep my word or let me die you and lot of others would be no more. So everything has become mushier, our 'wrongdoings' and our relating to God.

I think we will get to the point where we will be so far from our source that what we hear will be barely audible and actions taken by God will be so inconsequential because of this distance that we will yearn for a new closeness. We will search and still be wanting for answers and some relief and it won't be found easily. Hence, the road will lead back to a direct communication back to God. I believe it's what happened to Abraham and will happen again for those of us who seek and yearn again for a more direct connection.

Is God contradictory?

12/22/2018

681. Past

Theology

Is God contradictory?

I was sitting in the chair, kind of dazed by the turn of events. Dad, 98, in rehab for pins put in his hip, contracted pneumonia and now needs a heavy dose of antibiotics. Looking out the cloudy window, I briefly felt the peace of God's light which overrides everything.

Then I thought of the times I wanted specific things or of specific requests. What if I wanted this or that for dad? What if I wanted this project or this thing or this involvement to work out? This was part of the world. No joke. Things had to be found out, worked through and resolved. However, it was definitely a different energy then I felt when feeling God's light and peace.

I recall Marcion around 2000 years ago who claimed the Torah's God was a lesser God then the God of the New Testament. In a sense the former was a God of things. Much of the negative attitude towards the Jews came from his thinking. He himself was not necessarily anti-Jewish from what I've read. He just wanted to make a distinction. Later his name became used by others for anti-Jewish sentiment.

Then I thought all the mystery and local religions always had lesser Gods to handle lesser things, such as the weather or the crops or love. Deep down inside us still was the knowledge of an overall God.

Boiling it down to what one observes as I'm drawn to do, isn't this just the point of it all. We want things. I don't want my father to go, we appeal and ask for what we want, we struggle forcing matter and energy to heed our will, all along while the peace of God remains steady and throughout. Lesser needs kind of have a God of their own all the while the overall God harmonizes the whole thing.

The limits of dogs and humans

6/16/2018

643.

Principles

Thinking, understanding

The limits of dogs and humans

Our minds and consciousness can't be in two places at once. That is why we get in trouble. When thinking or involved in one line of thought and following through with reason we are not capable at the same time of maintaining the opposite dynamic also occupying our thoughts and thinking. Unless you are rotely reciting the thought, the thought is forming in your mind and it involves all of your essence to bring it to fruition. Again, an opposite thought or just a different thought cannot exist side by side with your thought. Not at the same time?

Hence we get in trouble and have difficulties. Why? Because we are not aware of the whole. We are not aware of thoughts that slightly differ and might be closer to the entire expansive picture that unifies. So we act on incomplete information.

When we see a dog we observe it is responsive through its senses and instincts to what is around it and what it is coded to do. The dog does have feelings of course but we can't help but notice how reactive its responses are to its immediate surroundings. The smells, the fears, the hungers, the noises all affect the dog and he reacts. The same with a cat. A dog that connects with its owner is often reactive to the owner's actions. A cat seems more immediately affected by every detail of whats around it, and it responds or totally blocks it out. We observe them with a larger perspective and scope of reason and thinking and see their limitations.

As humans this thinking and reason also engulfs us. We are responsive to concepts and ideas and reason and mental constructs. Usually when caught up in one we cannot be in another. Just as a dog smells food and is taken over by that smell, we are taken over by a thought or an idea. In both cases the dog and human can't be in two places at once. In this dimension that is our limitation. The animal has its senses and instinct, we have our thinking and concepts. Both are products of this material world and have their limits.

As we see the scope of a dog is limited, God sees our scope as limited. We can only see so much. We can only think or see a limited amount at one time. We can only solve one problem at a time. All the while God sees the whole picture but we just see our 'take.'
Hence we trip and fall often because of this. Sometimes it works because it proceeds one step at a time in time. However often it disappoints immediately or eventaully because it is just one thought process and doesn't see the whole. It might try but something is always left out. We can't change our design and 'make up' but we can be aware of them.

November 06th, 2017

11/6/2017

615. Past

Theology

Retains “an above”

In a different time, place, there are different ways to realize there is a God. An American Indian, Black Elk, did everything imaginable. He raped, killed, looted, scalped, yet still came to the conclusion there is a maker. He participated in his culture and still was able to realize this all along. I found it surprising one could be so brutal and still retain an above in their consciousness. It kills any preconceptions one might have.

Don't mix

8/22/2017

601. Past

Theology

Don’t mix

Seems as if life has its own rules and you have to put your own needs first. It’s “me” first.
It also seems that to seek God, the “other” comes first, that is, what is more than “me.”

Both don’t always mix.

The next life

6/26/2017

588. Past

Theology

The next life

My old friend Steve, who I don't see anymore, said a real truth, which was “I hope the next life would be nicer than this one.”

Free will

12/11/2016

556.

Theology

Free will

Free will is a bitch.
How many dead ends,
wrong choices and wrong actions
do I have to make?

I am tired of this 'honor.'

I need to be told what to do.

A companion but not a substitute

10/24/2016

437. Past

Theology

A companion but not a substitute

If you seek God when feeling empty, and this fills your needs, you are kept from getting what you need in this life. Your needs have to be met in the here and now. If you are hungry, do you seek God? No you eat something real. While seeking the maker is behind everything, it can’t be a replacement for living. Often people use it as such and their life goes nowhere and they even end up bitter about “God.” Their reasoning becomes: “God, I sought you, sought only you and my life is bad and has gotten worse. How can this be?” Well, God is there in the background, but our needs in this world have to be filled by this world. This is how to live. Keep God in the background, a companion, but not a substitute. In handling this life, we eventually come to appreciate the 'above' without having to force it.

Two ways to relate upwards

8/6/2016

508. Past

Theology

Two ways to relate upwards

There are two ways to look at man’s relationship with the maker given one believes in the maker. The first is just between you and the maker. It exists in isolation and is timeless. The second is the history of man as related to the maker and where you, the individual, fit into this. This is less certain, for it depends upon interpretation of the past, which is never a sure thing. You can intuit you role somewhere in the timeline of the past, as long as you don’t write it in stone.

From the bottom up

7/22/2016

506. Past

Theological

From the bottom up

During certain periods of time, if in the right frame of mind, I have tried to go to God for advice. It seems to put me together. It's as if I have no memory and have to build myself from the bottom up every day. I have to recharge daily, reconcile where I'm at and review my direction and the “why.”