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June, 2008 Seeking a better GodSeeking a God upgradeCopyright 2008 Don Ray The fact is, the unremitting harshness, unrelenting suffering, and inevitable death that comprise this temporal world stand as almost insurmountable barriers to many seekers trying to discern a loving, compassionate creator.From even my relatively gentle exposure to human suffering I can understand why Gnostics and others would indict this world and its creator as evil, or at least not particularly adept at love and compassion.Yet we can find love in the world, in fact we can create love in the world. That fact seems all the more outrageous considering the brutal ambient in which that love must be instantiated.Indeed, sometimes it seems this is hardly a loving world….other than the beauty we choose to see and the love we choose to create.We can look at this world and summarily declare it harsh and brutal, along with its creator. Like the Gnostics, the aesthetics, the mystics, we can then invest our life in seeking some other higher world, in search of a more desirable creator.Or we can surrender to the world’s nature, immersing in it, seeking to saturate our senses with at least whatever temporary, carnal pleasures we can briefly salvage.Or, in our freedom, we can choose to do something about the nature of this world, not running from it, not immersing in it, but declaring our intent to claim our individual potential as one created in the image of God.Nothing in this harsh world, not an evil demigod creator, not some malevolent underworld spirits, not any institutional perversion of religion, not Satan and his numberless minions, keep us from choosing to love.Escape into pleasant meditation or immersion into exhausting debauchery, exotic spheres of spiritual transcendence or reductionist nihilism….these responses to the harsh and loveless cruelty of this world do not excuse us from loving, in whatever little sphere of influence we find ourselves, with whatever meager abilities we possess.How dare we blame God for this loveless world! Let us not deny its harshness, but let us not deny our complicity in that harshness.Fine, see God as heartless or non-existent, but know that in your response to that god’s, or non-god’s, world, you define yourself.Fine, the world is merciless, God’s Creation is unremittingly cruel, but what has that to do with how you choose to shape your Youniverse?Those that cannot believe in a loving God because they see so little love and compassion in this harsh world are simply being reasonable, rational, and observant.But I know that if, in the face of all the horrors, grief, and loneliness that fill this world, any individual who freely and defiantly chooses to compassionately love anyway will find their light illumines a dark corner; there in that dim but warming glow, they will see theirs is not the only love; and in the faces newly revealed by that individual’s waxing light will be seen the face of God, present here, in Love, when invited by our freely chosen acts of selfless compassion.Copyright 2008Don RayS.D.G.key words: Gnostic Creator God mystic compassion merciless cruel purposeJune, 2008 Apeirophobia (Fear of Infinity)Little, Known World versus Little Known WorldsDon Ray Copyright 2008
‘Tasha kitty took me for a long walk in the woods, her longest and furthest ever, by far. All the way to the ridge she went, coming over the lip to get her first shocking view of just how big the universe is, as she peered down to the road below, and for the first time beheld the summits in the far distance.Her little kitty brain immediately overflowed with this revelation, and she promptly retreated back down, at least for the time being, to the much more constrained views of a reality bounded by nearby trees and rocks.True, obscuring bushes and forest may hinder movement and hide the unseen predator. But perhaps even the most terrible hidden and imagined threats are preferable to that higher view into distances unimaginable, potentials incomprehensible.Little fuzzy minds are not alone in this response to first sight of a distressingly bigger universe.It is not mere vastness of physical distances that sends us in hasty retreat back over the edge and into our familiar comfort zone.For us it is the concept of something profoundly greater, more powerful, unfathomable.If in scaling the hillside of fact or faith we peer over its summit and catch glimpse of something unfamiliar and challenging to our comfortable little mental universe, our tails bush up in defensive antagonism and we turn our backs on the unwelcome grandeur, retreating to our long cherished beliefs and ignorance.Indeed, ours may be a world of insecurities and hidden threats, but at least our associated fears and prejudices are familiar and unchallenging. Better to live in continuous readiness to counterattack whatever enemy lurks behind bush close at hand, than to grapple with concepts, revelations, and God majestic beyond our comprehension. Better to fight and claw in the trenches of our little personal universe, than to have to learn, change, grow, accept, and surrender to a greater, more majestic, awe inspiring Reality.Hence we turn and flee from God and our own potential.But ‘Tasha kitty’s morning was still young. Her bright-eyed spirit was not ready to long hide from the majestic expanse revealed above.Kitty courage gradually, cautiously, overcame trepidation. She explored a different path to ridge’s edge.At her own pace, she regained the ridge and all its views.With cautious bravery she investigated its features, and with time gained the summit of comfort.Eventually, there she sat, seemingly as secure as kitties ever get, soaking up warming sunshine not present in the thick bushes below.It’s natural that upon glimpsing ideas that stretch our conceptions, when first brushing against the magnitude of Life and its Source, we run back to our little worldly cares, concrete worries and specific fears filling our mind so as to erase views of unbounded grandeur. We are merely doing as Adam and Eve, hiding from their God as S/He walked though the Garden calling for them.But we mustn’t stay hiddk *le: …..oops….perhaps because this essay is in part about her, ‘Tasha hops into my lap, adding her editorial changes, arguably as valid as most editorial changes. Anyway, as I was saying before the fuzzy interruption, we must not stay hidden. The higher ridge and its enlightening, and challenging views of majestic grandeur await our Choice to climb. There, out of the shadowy thickets of our own construct, shines warming sun.Like ‘Tasha, we mustn’t fear the views of revelations majestic, or the Source they reveal, a Source too large to fit in our little imaginations.Copyright 2008 Don Ray S.D.G.
May, 2008 Cult of the DayCults, Countries, Sects, and Societies....Something for EveryoneDon RayCopyright 2008Key search terms: cult sect Texas polygamists compound Warren Jeffs abuse indoctrinated FLDSWe hear about the cult, the kids, those strange people, the inexplicable behaviors, and we carefully avoid the realization that we are all members of cults. Some cults and their belief systems are just big enough to be called the norm. From where do these cults, including our own societal, national, majority, “normal” cult arise?What of the wrenching changes in the lives of the cult members removed from their isolated compounds, forced to see the world in the light our society casts on it? And are the rest of us, in the “majority cult” of mainstream society, immune from such shocks?How we all long for something stable, reliable, unchanging, and true!….something that absolves us of the responsibility to question, something that obviates the necessity for us to decide.How eagerly we flock to cults and fraternal orders, how hungrily we ingest rules and ritual and recitation.Inerrant Bibles, holy texts, prophecies, and scriptures, at least if in our language of choice; or colored pieces of cloth raised on poles; or prophets, preachers, and presidents; these command our unquestioning allegiance.The leader we follow gets his instructions directly from God, and such surcease and comfort is to be found in following orders and donning the uniform, whether issued by military or marketers, patriarch or popular trend.How irritatingly inconvenient are the nagging facts that counter holy text, slanderous fictions besmirching our leader, untidy revelations toppling beloved institution.Usually our religious faith, patriotic fervor, and zealous loyalty can trump intellect, twisting and bending our perceptions of reality in a mental contortionist circus-act that sustains our predilection for blind following and dodges the insistent demand that we pose, and worse, have to answer, questions, with their implicit association of personal accountability.But if any consistency is to be found through the course of history, it is that revelations bring not confirmation but contradiction.Over and over and over, our various temples do get toppled, our armies do get routed, our leaders do get caught, and text and teacher leave us with questions instead of answers.We cannot long rest complacent in our faiths and loyalties.The God in which we would or would not believe allows us but brief times to blindly obey and believe, before wrenching revolutions of heart or circumstance place in our path the bridges we must cross and the forks at which we must choose. Our temples of certain faith and blind loyalty come tumbling down, to reveal the selves we will create by our response to the glaring light of uncertainty that brings the gift of freedom to we children created in the image of God.Copyright 2008Don RayFebruary, 2008 The point is not worshipPraise, Worship, and the Point Often Missed
Copyright 2008
Don Ray
Does modern Christian worship often miss a key point of Yeshu’s (Jesus’) life?
In contrast to popular Greek, Roman, and Jewish religions of the time, and temples, churches, and mosques today, what we know of Yeshu did not emphasize worship, ritual, mysticism, liturgy, or meditation.
His stories used real world parables, with real world people, with field workers and little old ladies.
The descriptions of Yeshu depict a man healing individuals, and relating to individuals.
His lessons taught how to interact with and react to and treat people.
We have little or no mention of Yeshu (Jesus) telling people how to worship, pray, and meditate, other than an admonition to not make a show of it.
Even the Lord’s Prayer He finally gave only when specifically asked “how should we pray?” Even then He kept it short and simple, not some elaborate, ritualistic, transcendental, mystical epic, but prayer rooted right here in this place and time….”thy will be done on earth”,….”our daily bread”,…..”as we forgive others”.
"As we forgive others"…..considering the brevity of the Lord’s Prayer, that “as we forgive others” fills no small portion of it. In the Lord’s prayer only this statement specifically tells us to do something.
Here was the Incarnation, which I finally realize means far more than simply a flesh and blood, physical body for the first Born Son of God.
Incarnation, in the world, interacting in the thick of this world, …..not ommming away to blissful, ethereal states, not emanating calm and serenity, but kicking over tables, fleeing the authorities, weeping in public, and touching dirt and scab encrusted lepers.
Incarnation, in the world, in our world, touching lepers, touching us.
Are we not called to do likewise?
Look at the conversations Yeshu had. We tend to emphasize the sermons, from mounts and from boats near shore. Those sermons, Yeshu in a white robe, standing before an enthralled crowd, isn’t that a familiar image?
But what actually do the Gospels record more often? One on one interactions, undoubtedly intense, penetrating, personal, and life changing one on one interactions.
What image comes to mind when we think of those? For many of us it is a Yeshu again in white robe (which is probably outlandishly impractical on dung covered village streets) Yeshu standing, one hand raised, palm out, in pontifical blessing, the other hand lightly resting on the sick child or kneeling leper or worshipful cripple. And Yeshu appears kind of….kind of distant, looking down in serene, Heavenly pity on some poor wretch of this world.
I think this image misses the point, a big point, a critical point, a point relevant to how we should live our lives.
Interaction I say, look at the interactions, the intensely personal nature of those interactions between God incarnate and…..us.
Beatific serenity my foot…..this man-God Incarnation was in the thick of this world. With a woman by a well, or with a church leader in his dining room, this Son of Man would not have looked serenely distant, but intensely, searingly, passionately present.
This was the most intensely, in your face, focused and personally present person with whom anyone has ever spoken.
Incarnation….present…..fully and wholly present….right here, in this world….not relegated to temple….not constrained to sanctuary…..not incarcerated in a cathedral.
Yeshu did not teach meditative escape from this word and benign distance from its people.
Yeshu taught prayer in order to receive the power to heal this world. Yeshu demonstrated recuperative retreat from the world in order to most effectively again lovingly immerse into the thick of it.
And the example this holy Incarnation gave us was over and over of intensely one on one interaction. With a woman that touched the hem of His robe, with a woman named Mary, and with sorrow when a young man chose to not follow…..these were personal interactions.
I think it is there we give too little emphasis to an example repeatedly set by Yeshu. We emphasize worship, which Yeshu emphasized little. But worship is easy and makes us feel good, which makes worship an easy sale.
We emphasize morals, don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t kill, etc., because after all, that’s universal, every society throughout history pretty much ascribing to the same social code, though of course we Christians want to give all the credit for social morals to the Bible.
Many Christians emphasize good deeds, money to the poor, volunteer time, helping the person with a flat tire.
All this is of course good, very good.
But it all misses a central element of the example provided by Yeshu’s life as described in the Gospels. It is a point far more challenging than worship, morals, and good deeds.
How do we interact with that individual human being before us? There, right in front of us, is a child of God. How intensely present will we be? Will we ask about them and their lives? Do we care enough to ask, as did Yeshu, “What are you arguing about?” “How long has he been like this?” “What do you want me to do for you?” “Who do you say I am?” “What is it you want?”
And do we care enough to listen? Look at Matthew 15:25-28! Yeshu loved enough to listen, to listen to someone he was not expected to listen to, and in listening to change the course of all expected outcomes. His ministry, once focused on the Jews, was now open to all after He listened to the woman in this story.
Yeshu listened to the individual before Him…..to two tormented Gadarene’s (Matthew 8:28), to a desperate father (Matthew 9:18), to a grieving Mary that brought Yeshu to tears (John 11:33-36).
The individual, intensely personal interactions in Yeshu’s life….there we see the Incarnation, the full presence of Holiness in this world. There we see one of our greatest challenges in following Yeshu.
Professions of faith?…even atheists fervently profess their faith.
Proclaiming social guidelines for moral behavior? That’s a foundational precept of the Communist party.
Worship?…Aztecs, Incas, and every animist and polytheist all worship.
This is the easy stuff. Shuffle around the various names of god(s), titles of holy scriptures, and ritual liturgy, and most institutional religions would quickly lose their identifying distinctions.
But in that most difficult and intensely personal challenge, the interaction with that human being next to us, there we can look to the unique and seldom emphasized example of the living Incarnation, the Christos.
Will we ask? Will we listen? Will we really hear the grief and joy of that child of God sharing our room or car or office? Will we turn from our busy path and day’s agenda when someone tugs on our robe or calls from beside the road?
“Blessed are the merciful”….but isn’t mercy usually delivered in person, to a single recipient?
“…as we forgive others”….isn’t forgiveness intensely personal and usually individual?….and often as not delivered in real time, when you tolerate, accept, and show patience, delivered while on the phone to that telemarketer just trying to make a living, delivered real time to that employee that dropped the ball, delivered by openly listening to that committee member that disagrees with us.
Sure, let’s keep going to church, and volunteering, and not stealing.
But what do we do the rest of the week?
Are we not supposed to go through our week as Yeshu went through His, exquisitely present with the clerk, the waitress, the pizza delivery person, the colleague, our family members, intensely aware, listening, and focused in each opportunity to briefly interact with a child of God, always ready to employ patience, tolerance, and forgiveness, as Yeshu had to do in every single interaction with one of us.
“The greatest of these (commands) is love”. I don’t think Yeshu meant love of worship, cathedrals, institutions, liturgy, projects, or pledge drives.
“Love” is individual.
Love listens.
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Copyright 2008
Don Ray
key terms: "meaning of Jesus' life", "Jesus' example", "meaning of Jesus' example".
December, 2007 Carried by the Tides of LifeKey words: Meaning_of_life; nature_of_life; purpose_of_life; river_of_life Meaning of the river of life Don Ray Copyright 2007 Humanity, as a whole and individually, is simply carried along in great tides and currents of interaction, reacting to the inputs and relationships and circumstances of the moment. Even the seemingly independent and innovative actions that seem to redirect the great currents can in fact be found to be rooted in compiled experience and personal history of those involved.It is only in the aggregate that tiny unpredictable actions of individual freewill choice become manifest in discernable influence.And in this great, dynamic, unstoppable cascade of events, relentlessly and irrevocably moving per the dictates of time, does the individual droplet of humanity possess any importance whatsoever? Is it only the great flow of events that carries us along in which we find meaning? Or conversely, is the torrent and cascade actually at the service of the individuals? Is the destiny of the river to reach that next sea, or is it actually to carry the individuals, and all Purpose and meaning is found not in the great course and flow, but in each individual, each focal point of connections, relationships, and interactions that in their sum define the very essence of the river?We are carried by events, but carried not just to a river’s mouth, but to our own self, our essence, created in the course of the rapids and falls that shape and sculpt, or more accurately said, give us the opportunity to shape and sculpt, our souls.Don Ray S.D.G. Copyright 2007
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