cairns

Romans 11:36, Marcus Borg, and New Testament “fire” verses have me thinking.  First, I freely admit that my thinking is of the variety most often labeled mystic by those who need labels.  Everything purely factual and logical, scientific and modern falls far too short of the realities of the Divine I have been blessed to experience.  The following thoughts are heresy in the sense that Tolstoy used the word.  They are outside of the declared truth we use to tell others they must come and be just like us in order to be “orthodox.”  They are outside the realm of the arguments we have long used to tell people they must repent of their difference and become like us.  So, they will have to be labeled heresy by any who choose to continue the old game.

Anyway, the idea that everything is from God, through God, and to God contradicts so much theology I have been exposed to along the way.  But, there it is in Romans.  Tempting as it is to pass over it as just another way of saying that God is the Author and Finisher of all things (with many of them being ended eternally in damnation), I believe it says more.  If current existence is all through God, then perhaps any existence in actual defiance and separation from God is earthly illusion.  From God’s side it may look very different in both the present and future tense (both nonsense when speaking of the timeless I Am).  Perhaps no matter how hard man tries to declare himself separate from God, it is impossible because nothing separate from God exists!  I have a mental image of an ant running about in my hand claiming, “I don’t believe in you.  You don’t control me!” And, even that falls short because I did not give the ant life, I am not its purpose for existence, and I will not end its life.

But what of all those “fire” verses and the interpretation of eternal punishment for those not saved by believing our exact doctrine, praying our precise words, or observing the sacraments in our prescribed ways?  They could fit with the thoughts above in terms of those who refuse God’s love experiencing total destruction.  I think eternal fire could easily be interpreted that way because even at the time of the writing of the New Testament, human mythology included the idea of things returning to life after total consumption by a fire of limited duration (think Phoenix).  To state that there would be no possibility of return, it would be logical to poetically make the fire itself eternal.

But there is another possibility.  There are also verses that speak of coming through the fire as pure gold, or with all of one’s bad works burned away and escaping death as by a near miss.  What if exposure to the Divine is the fire?  There are verses to support that view.  Will the God who knew every person before they were formed in the womb truly consume and destroy most of them? Or will the Holy Fire burn away all their impurities causing them to no longer be who they imagined themselves to be?  Perhaps after exposure to the Fire, every head will bow and every knee will bend — not in submission on the way to hell, but in the worship the verse actually seems to indicate.

Taking these things from a more Eastern view, the two possibilities are not opposites.  To become one with the One by choice, or by ceasing to be separate and “evil”, so that all is unity and holiness are essentially the same when viewed through Eastern eyes.  That gives me pause given that the Divine is far beyond all of our reckoning and arguing.

Brief side trip:

Years ago a secular psychiatrist, who was an atheist, told me the reason he did not believe in sin.  He said in all of his years of practice he had yet to meet a human being able to stand up and defy the significant humans in their lives even when they were causing the person great pain.  He definitely did not believe a human being could comprehend that there was indeed an all powerful Creator and then knowingly defy that Creator.  At the time, I found his comment insightful about human capacities but dismissed his anti-theology because I was of course a prize winning memorizer of many literal verses dictated directly by God at least onto the original scrolls if not the paper of my well used King James Bible that proved his ignorance and evil.  Now, I am not so sure.  How does the idea of willfully living in separation actually match up to either the revealed nature of God or the nature we can observe of man?

Back to the original thought: I know this much.  In this life, now here, where I can feel the effects, to be in the presence and will of the Divine is paradise.  To feel unaligned and separate is to experience hell.  Perhaps in eternity there is only one choice which can be stated two ways. We enter the eternal union in bliss, or we have any perception of separation burned away to nonexistence.  The end would be the same — final unity of all things in the One they were Created by and for all along.

If any of my meaning has found its way into these words, it is a blessing.  What I am typing about is beyond the capacity of words and language as the Divine is beyond all things human.  I am glad that eternity is not in my hands or dependent on my understanding.  I will live now in the presence of the Light and celebrate the existence of the Kingdom which has already overtaken us as I would have said in my literalist days, “Just like Jesus said.”  And, I will invite others to join the party because its worth joining, now.

peace

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Struggling this evening after reading political posts and replies from a favorite relative.  I think I am the only one I know from large families on both sides who sees the world the way I see it.  It leaves me feeling very alone and somewhat of a freak in the chain.

Meanwhile my readings and experiences in matters of faith are opening me up to possibilities I never considered and closeness with people I never would have dreamed.

Just when I feel myself coming to a greater sense of unity with God, with life, with my fellow man; I also find myself feeling isolated and strange to all that I grew up with — feeling again like there is nowhere I belong.

It brings me back to musing that the moment of Jesus, God’s, greatest humanitywas during the cry, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”  As Jesus completes the task of reunifying human and divine, He also experiences total isolation.

Does life get any more ironic?

peace

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Wife has gone to work.  Daughter is probably gone to church with her boyfriend.  I am sitting in the cool quiet with God and Tomlinson (via book).

I am remembering many friends past and present who form my true Church (many still at the campus I have left and being blessed by it) thankful to know that while I sit here, I know we are together even while spread literally around the city and the globe.

We stop together to be in the presence of God.  With my body’s low tolerance for the amount of work and stress I have been carrying the last several years, I also feel a debt of gratitude to those from Judaism who have reminded me over the years that the Sabbath is meant to be Shabbat, time to rest in the presence of the Holy.  I need that more than sermons right now.  May have to pack up the truck soon so I can go to the woods for just Saturday night after teaching for some real separation from the treadmill.  While I will never again become a legalist, I am also thankful to my friends from both Christian holiness churches and Islam who remind me that true worship leads to holy living.

But, today my mind, heart, soul, and gut — my whole being keeps turning toward the Pacific and the victims and survivors of the quakes, tsunamis, and cyclones.  I have friends in or from those areas.  Most of them I have yet to meet.  But, I just keep thinking the Church, the expression of the ongoing ministry of Jesus on Earth should be on its knees today.  Thankfully some are not because they are already there putting hands, feet, and labor into real and meaningful relief. Happy to read on Facebook this morning that Marty Caldwell is headed that way to be with Young Life folks from across the region.

I lift you my friends to the throne of Grace, Comfort, Healing, and Love.  I apologize for how much time we spend complaining about our very minor problems and arguments instead of remembering you in love.  I am convicted for every time I think of issues of poverty, global warming, or missions as academic questions of whose thoughts are superior instead of areas requiring action in love.  Here in my comfort and quiet as I sit with my Lord, my thoughts turn to you because His heart is already there.

You are not alone.  You are loved.  You are with me this morning in the Presence.  I am with you as fully as the mystery of unity across space allows.

peace, salaam alaikum

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Man, I am going to have to get my hands on this book too!  One great book leads to more…Here is a bit I pulled from the web.

Stage five, Conjunctive faith moves one from stage four’s rationalism to the acknowledgement of paradox and transcendence. It is in this stage that, in Washburnian terminology, one chooses regression in the service of transcendence. In this stage a person grasps the reality behind the symbols of his or her inherited systems, and is also drawn to and acknowledging of the symbols of other’s systems. This stage makes room for mystery and the unconscious, and is fascinated by it while at the same time apprehensive of its power. It sees the power behind the metaphors while simultaneously acknowledging their relativity. In stage five, the world, demythologized in stage four, is re-sacrilized, literally brimming with vision. It is also imbued with a new sense of justice that goes beyond justice defined by one’s own culture and people. Because one has begun to see “the bigger picture” the walls culture and tradition have built between ourselves and others begins to erode. It is not easy to live on the cusp of paradox, and due to its radical drive towards inclusivity, the mind struggles to assimilate and integrate faster than it can work through its cultural and psychological baggage. It is an overwhelming, ecstatic stage in which one is radically opened to possibility and wonder.

Stage six, the final stage, Fowler calls Universalizing faith. While in the previous stage, one glimpses a unitive view of reality, but feels torn between possibility and loyalty, and may even neglect to act on its new understanding out of a regard for self-preservation. In stage six, any such apprehensions dissolve and one becomes an activist for the unitive vision. Fowler describes it best, when he writes:

Persons described by stage six typically exhibit qualities that shake our usual criteria of normalcy. Their heedlessness to self-preservation and the vividness of their taste and feel for transcendent moral and religious actuality give their actions and words an extraordinary and often unpredictable quality. In their devotion to universalizing compassion they may offend our parochial perceptions of justice. In their penetration through the obsession with survival, security, and significance they threaten our measured standards of righteousness and goodness and prudence. Their enlarged visions of universal community disclose the partialness of our tribes and pseudo-species. And their leadership initiatives, often involving strategies of nonviolent suffering and ultimate respect for being, constitute affronts to our usual notions of relevance.” (Fowler, 200)

http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/2219.htm

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Had church today.  There were only two of us officially there, but at least one other fellow came over to say how much he enjoyed at least parts of the conversation.  My friend and I had lunch, shared stories of our work this summer, life’s ups and downs, Church strengths and weaknesses, hopes and frustrations.  And, it was worshipful.

We talked about the importance of realizing that we are part of the “C”hurch not hundreds of isolated churches.  We talked about things we both know good, bad, ugly, and miraculous about many different expressions of the church.  And we were in firm agreement that it is far past time for the Church to stop doing the enemy’s work by badmouthing every expression of faith that isn’t us.  We talked about hard that is, how deeply we have both been wounded at times by fellow believers, and as deep as those wounds have been — how much more it hurts to watch people miss the love of God because our petty differences become the wall of separation that prevents their view of Jesus.

At one point I was describing the great respect and love the MHM Conference folks showed Marjorie Foyle last year even when she was taking them to task for things that need changed and improved, even when she was discussing the shifts God has caused in her own beliefs in a lifetime of field work, even when she finished speaking.  Nobody spoke to try and prove they were wiser.  Nobody questioned her faith or beliefs.  Nobody disrupted with other agendas.  She has earned it through a life of loyal service there is no doubt.  But, I was also saying I want to be part of a church that treats honest followers with that kind of love and respect.

My friend brought me up a bit short with, “Well, good luck finding that!”  And, it brought me back to recent discussions here.  I assured him, regardless of human failings and organizational flaws that we will always have, I want to BE that church.  We parted in full agreement on that.  We want to BE the Church that lives out the relationship of Jesus Christ to each other, and all others.  Let those who take joy in fighting win the debates and battles.  Its time to walk together in Christian love.  It still has the power to save lives and change the world.

peace

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