You have my permission to bail out any time. You can cut and run with a rant or silently. The only thing holding you to this virtual parish is your own heart and mind. If following Christ means you stop reading this blog, you had best move along. And if you someday return, you can pick up where you left off.
And if you stay, you can disagree on anything or everything. You can tell me about it or just run your own filters silently.
Obviously some elements of what I teach here will never change. But if you were crazy enough to read back the 7+ years of posts here, you would see that some things most certainly have changed. I’m not embarrassed by those changes, though I am a little annoyed at myself for allowing certain follies to hold me. Sometime in the future I’ll look back on some of the things that I write now and grimace. That’s a part of having a flesh still bound by the Fall.
Right now I still have this brightly burning flame in my soul about this virtual parish growing. And I still have no precise idea what that will look like, but I still believe in faith that God intends to bring alongside some major players we don’t yet see. The number of folks who post comments regularly will grow, I suppose. The blogroll will get longer, but I can accommodate other writers who would rather post here. And they don’t have to stand in any echo chamber to gain that privilege. I can’t draw precise boundaries because it has more to do with persons than concrete ideas.
I’m still waiting for some kind of demand for services that will require I use the tower as a parish server. Right now, we aren’t even close to that. I’m eager to do it, but not if we don’t need it. As previously noted, I don’t mess with computers for fun any more. I’m getting less and less interested in technology stuff like that. You can’t just forget it all, so I still keep an awareness of the issues, but the childlike enthusiasm and excitement for new “toys” has moved onto to other departments. So until it’s needed for the Lord’s glory, I’ll keep using it as a workstation for my activities in this parish. Do I have to mention that I don’t have any other significant activities online? Even my political reading is always tinged with an eye to what I can tell you about politics in light of our shared faith. Otherwise, I don’t care. No real interest in tinkering with computers is new in my life, to be honest.
Somehow, in the past couple of weeks I have stumbled onto a different path. Not in the sense of changing any core beliefs, but in the sense of what holds my attention in the daily routine of life. It’s not the service that has changed, but the means of service. Maybe I can’t characterize it very well, but I can tell you that something has shifted and everything in my conscious awareness has a different resonance. Does that make sense to you?
There are factors I want you to grasp, but it’s mostly parabolic, so put your heart in charge of your reading.
Some changes like this come because they represent the ripening of fruit. That is: What does it take for God to get you in the place where you can seize upon a better grasp of the mission? I had some unfinished business in computer land. Suddenly, my heart tells me that mission is complete. If you believe I took your donations fraudulently, just tell me and I’ll try to give it back, but I now doubt that I’ll be using this tower as a server any time soon, if ever. Still, I don’t use it for anything except parish business. I’m not sure I have any other business, because every thing I do comes back in postings here. You folks own me in that sense.
Some changes like this come because God is not static. He’s alive and can be persuaded on a certain range of things. While we can imagine them as inconsequential differences in His greater glory, some of those little things can represent a serious shake up for you and I. And right now, I’m convinced that something in our prayers has changed His calculus, as it were, in ways we might not have expected. Okay, it has certainly changed things that I didn’t expect. Divine moral consequences are very hard for a human mind to predict. And there is a measure to which God stands back to see what someone is going to do, and responds with variable implementations in His agenda that we could never comprehend. This is parabolic because there is no way we can comprehend how the mind of God works and what He sees about the future of our world. But whatever it is, stasis is not a part of God’s character in our considerations of Him.
Net result: All that blather about networking technology and various services is stacked neatly and stored away. I’m still ready to do almost anything I can understand, but I now sense this stuff is mostly in place already. I have no regrets about how money and time was spent up to now, but it’s finished. And instead of saving for another laptop, I think I need to get a better camera to go with the new bike (expected for delivery Tuesday). So I’m saving the PayPal donations for something that will allow much better shots of things that the current camera does poorly. For example, I can’t do botanical, animal or telephoto shots. And the crazy part is that I’m not sure why it matters, only that it does. I’m really driven hard to focus on cycling and camera work, along with lots of review-rewrite-reformat of some of my previous writings.
So I’m wiping off some tools and putting them back in the box. I’m pulling out different tools because the work is different. I’m telling you openly so there’s no needless surprises. I’m giving you the chance to decide if you care to stick around or if God has other business for you. Either way, I love you just the same. Meanwhile, leading this virtual parish is more important than ever for me.
The comment flood starts again…
Do you think any explications of Biblical or spiritual truths are of value to a Christian? Does it pay to be widely read, or should you just focus on the essentials in the beginning? For my current purposes I’m trying mostly to stay broadly Christian and see “what’s out there” in a sense.
For example despite its technical and Gnostic nature, Montalks (http://montalk.net/) pages have been pretty useful in trying to understand certain things, such as how some supernatural manifestations might work. Because they do occur, such as “gang stalking” and weird effects of your conscious state (I can tell you that psychosis actually makes reality “objectively weird” with synchronicities and other weirdness that can be observed objectively by other people). Quantum observatory something something?
Same with this page: “Marbles and Matchsticks: Transcending a Shattered Reality” (http://hubpages.com/religion-philosophy/Marbles-and-Matchsticks-Transcending-a-Shattered-Reality)
It’s a kind of “spiritual science outlook” in Steiner’s terms I’m trying to develop here. While not getting deceived (those demons!) at the same time. I think the ancient Hebrew worldview was more “consciousness and spirituality friendly” in this way, but I’m
Wikipedia:
Of course revelation is revelation, but do you see a difference between hear-led “personal” take on things and perhaps puttings the perceptions and ideas of several people together to try to give it more “objective and interpersonal nature” of the dynamics involved and so on?
I’m sorry if I’m still stuck in the Western way of seeing things, but I can’t just simply snap out of it immediately even if I wanted to. These things probably can’t be changed that fast.
Been watching this and similar programs: “Quantum Physics And How We Affect Reality” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD21gAkEOBw). Reality i.e. creation is very interesting once you get over the shock and realize what’s out there.
On the one hand, it takes at least one more full post to answer some of this. However, I can address the question of reality vs. perception with the reminder that reality is inherently deceptive. I also note that God makes adjustments to reality on a regular basis because it’s His project in the first place. For reasons only He understands, He allows some folks to see it and become aware that it was a shift in reality itself, regardless of how they may have processed that awareness.
Reality is not stable as humans tend to think of stability. God actively and personally holds in check the natural tendency of matter to disassociate and dissolve. In a certain sense, all of humanity is on the edge of madness by its own definition. I can live with that because it’s frankly not that important. Somewhere rather early in my life, something nibbling at the edge of my consciousness told me that just about everyone was lying to me about what reality was supposed to be. Whatever it was my soul was crying for, they didn’t give it. Whether they intended to be “wrong” wasn’t the point. It was almost like a mass hypnosis with an instinct to avoid opening the shadowy curtains, as if exposing the illusion was a horrible thing that would hurt people.
While I confess to a lot of early effort to study prevailing notions about such things in my own social and educational context, I never felt like I was getting anywhere until I began studying outside Western traditions. At some point, I no longer cared much about what might be “real” and objective, but I knew my peace depended on knowing the Bible — as closely as possible — the way the people of the Bible would have viewed it. So I’ve become just a little militant about rejecting the misery I found in Western thinking. I’m doing my best to share my experience with others.
I’ve also become rather sharp about identifying the breaking point between Western thinking and biblical thinking. I have no doubt other folks will disagree about where to mark the boundaries; they have groused often enough on this blog in the past. But somehow, over the past couple of years, a number of folks have decided that my story works well enough for them. So we formed a virtual parish because we could never find a way to actually meet in the flesh. When I write, it’s me talking, and for whatever reason, a bunch of heads are nodding in agreement. I keep warning them to think for themselves and don’t trust me that much, but I can’t reach in their heads and make that happen. The net result is that we have a community that seems to see things in the same light.
Thus, I’m not the only one reading this blog who will object when you share your explorations among Western minds. Some of that stuff, as noted, isn’t so bad. Some of it is blatantly Western to us despite what the writer might imagine. We don’t need to know about all the flavors of misguided thinking. We’d rather spend time directly pursuing the non-Western approach, specifically the Ancient Near Eastern approach. You can explore what you like, but our enthusiasm will vary with how we perceive it to stray too far from the Bible as we know it. Nobody says you can’t explore what appeals to you, but don’t be surprised if we show little interest in some of it.
I can’t answer whether you can quickly transition away from Western thinking. We will try to alert you when we can perceive a boundary line. You’ll have to decide whether you want to accept that boundary for yourself. There’s a moral question here, not one that is purely intellectual, and you seem to have trouble grasping the nature of our objections, so I’ll write more about that. If you have a question, chances are hundreds more will have the same question, so you aren’t the specific target of these posts.
“Does that make sense to you?” Oh yes! As we wander this world and as our hearts are more aware, we will evolve as Father guides us in His way. It is His miracle in us and to be actually aware of this, is a wondrous thing!
Mr T – I confess to a fondness for Steiner.
For another interesting look at what is ‘out there’ in Creation, may I suggest something by Stephen Harrod Buhner? His work is Western enough that he delivers lots of fascinating tidbits that science is discovering about how the planet and the physical universe function, and when one keeps in mind the Creator behind all that, it’s a way into seeing what we like call the moral order of Creation.
What Buhner also does, that most writers do not, is discuss the inherent capabilities of human being to *sense* and gain an understanding of the natural world with something other than pure intellect.
I particularly enjoyed “Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm”. There are exercises there that go a long way to learning how to use the heart-mind. He is not a Christian but he is certainly not atheist, either.
FYI, Christine, I found an ebook copy of that Buhner book, too.
I particularly enjoyed “Plant Intelligence and the Imaginal Realm”.
Thank you, I’ve already managed to read 7 % (on Scribd.com) and it looks just like something I’m currently interested in. Appreciated!
Previously I have read a couple of David Wilcock’s books (The Synchronicity Key and The Source Field Investigations) and they contained some interested spiritual tidbits and ideas as well. Even though I’m not entirely sure how accurate his entire worldview — with all the ascension and alien stuff — is. Same as with Montalk.net and a lot of other “esoteric” stuff that may have some truth to it, but hard to know for sure.
At least the Bible is trustworthy and accurate, even if it doesn’t contain all of the “keys to the universe” as such. Humans still have to figure stuff out, apparently. One particular “intellectual” problem for me was the fact that we still have to decide and do things on our own even with God and the Holy Spirit: there’s no autopilot mode and the instructions given are quite broad when it comes to specific situations and your life. Godliness certainly is largely about the moral realm — you still have to do things physically, such as brush your teeth, even after becoming a Christian. And even thought the moral realm does apply to all things, not all choices are morally extremely significant (such as choosing a programming language for a project).
And generally yes, I think I’m way over-intellectualizing faith and the spiritual things, but to some extent I think it cannot be helped. It’s just the way I personally have to do things.
Maybe — and hopefully — I’ll relax in the future. Please keep in mind that I’m a beginner and cannot be expected to know anything. 🙂
Ed – oh good! You know me, I like old school books, but in whatever form I highly recommend it. The passages on the consciousness of bacteria are just mind blowing. None of this is what we read in the media of course, but this is hard science from the (I think) pretty heroic types who study these things not for profit or exploitation, just for discovery’s sake. These people are sensing with their heart-minds as much as they are thinking with their brains. I admire them immensely.
Mr T – So you see, we’re not anti-intellectual per se. Buhner’s work appeals to me because instead of portraying the natural world as ‘red in tooth and claw’ he shows how incredibly co-operative it is. How long it will take for these ‘new’ versions of reality to filter into the general public’s awareness is anybody’s guess. The point is, though, that the Western take on nature being nothing but competitive not only doesn’t make sense, it is impossible to square with a Creator who cares, nurtures, builds, provides. Discoveries such as bacteria sharing information between their various species, not only to their own offspring, or plants that prepare the soil for the next type of plant, unrelated to the first but important to a whole eco-system – these indicate natural systems built on generosity.
So scientific exploration that is open minded is one of the ways we can get a grasp, (or maybe I should just say a hint) even with the intellect, of God’s “true” nature, if you will. When I might say something over on my own blog about ‘seeking God’s face’, this is the sort of thing I am talking about. I see Him in the intricate relationships of nature. Western intellectual thought, for the most part, which refuses to grant that Creation can be co-operative and self aware, therefore cannot see Him there. It’s that refusal to see what’s in front of them that we’re objecting to about the Western mind.
I’m glad Buhner is up your alley. I knew we’d find common ground eventually.