A Few Questions Pondered

What if the promise of eternal life were not intended to be an incentive to righteousness?

What if the Presence of God in the "now" of life turned out to be more fulfilling of all your emotional needs than you ever predicted?

What if the incentive to walk in righteousness was simply knowing the beauty of God and the love within Him as the source of all your motivations and the fulfillment of all your loneliness?

Thanksgiving 2010

I am thankful to be learning the ways of the Spirit of Christ

Facing life standing on the Revelation of Jesus Christ,

All in all He is enough.

Imagining the wonders of God,

Thanksgiving and supplication in all requests of Him,

Hope is a continual state.

Facing inward to the In-Dwelling Holy Spirit,

Always at rest in the power of heaven's love

Intent on becoming the fullness of His purpose for me,

Trusting in all tribulations that His goodness is supreme,

Hindrances of the soul's burden cast on Him -- I embrace spirit

Facing upward into the grace of the Father,

Altogether the Family of God holds onto one another,

Independence of will to choose His righteous leading,

Turning away fears in confidence that He holds my family and me,

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah!

Voltaire, I agree with you...

...this is the "best of all possible worlds!" However, where you would conclude, therefore, we need no concept of God; I would differ.

This world, this life, is the best possible place and the best possible way to learn what we must to enter God's Kingdom, which is no mere world. Here we have the choice to learn the way of Jesus, the way of Love Eternal.

Passion. Passion! Passion?

I listened to the preacher, this Sunday past. He had much passion. Even to several very moving moments when the beauty of his words describing the commitment on the part of our Father to humanity quivered in his voice box and flooded his eyes.

Twenty years ago, my eyes would have flooded, too, in a sympathetic, “Amen, amen!”

Passion alone once called to my soul, when the Word of Truth was praised and exalted. If a drop of the blood of Christ could be alluded to or lifted up for the congregation to consider; and this done in what I considered completely biblical exegesis, I was in that moment ready to weep and shout and dance! The unsurpassed beauty of the sweet, powerful glory of redemption waved above a congregation’s head, the banner of God’s wondrous love, riveted my heart. There could be no doubt, in my mind, the speaker was anointed. I have been redeemed from much, literally. How could I not respond at that “depth” of level?

In retrospect, my emotional response secured my cognitive understanding that the speaker was “of the Lord” or “in the spirit”. Two phrases I bandied about easily. There existed a lingo I understood within the context of both our immediate group and a larger, evangelical group with which I identified.

“Is passion deep commitment?” I ask now. In many cases they are related, I think. Yet, I wonder how they work together within a group dynamic and within an individual framework as well. What do others, you dear reader for one, think about the power of passion? What are its positive and negative characteristics?

Suggestion for How to Meditate

The idea is to control a busy mind, which is conditioned to constantly adjusting its focus. We either are juggling more than one line of thought; or our emotions are pushing for us to bring a variety of factors into balance which trouble us; or maybe we just think the way the culture comes at us, fast, varied and noisy.

Set aside ten minutes, even if it is scheduled time usually dedicated to prayer. Get quiet and get your surroundings quieted from the noise of the culture. Decide for yourself what supports your endeavors, but even gentle background music is likely to distract. Think about Jesus. Nothing else. Most folks cannot do this. A solid ten minutes on one topic is harder than anyone might think! Make the thoughts come back again and again to just Jesus. Imagining events that include Jesus or Him actively teaching words like the Beatitudes which we associate with Him are a means of maintaining the focus. While disciplining the mind, be somewhat conscious of the body. Keep your breathing even, steady and relatively deep. If tension in one muscle group grabs the attention of the brain, for example you realize you are frowning, relax those muscles purposely and return to the focus on Jesus.

That's it. No bells and whistles, no deep spiritual insights...at first.

Why bother with this? Two things are being learned by the exercise:
Control of thoughts and a sense of dwelling peacefully in the heart with God.

The benefits over time are many. The control of thinking and focus on Jesus will begin to transfer to everyday life. It is discovered that the sense of peace and relaxation associated with a focus on Jesus is transferable to situations in the day to day challenges which are high pressure and intense. A person can learn experientially (not just academically) through meditation on Jesus that life springs from the heart not the intellect. I have heard this called "Practicing the Presence of Jesus."

Further, as the practice continues one learns to listen to the deep Presence of God within. He is alive and so much more than the printed words we have about Him! The written word is vital, absolutely. It provides the frame or mode for our intellect to experience during the exercise which is intended to develop the heart. Think on the things stated in the scripture which reveal Jesus, but avoid attempting to intellectually divide the Word. Rather, allow the heart to know a deep wonder and worship on His being alone.

Words fail to allow me to fully describe what I have come to know through meditation on Jesus. Nonetheless, I encourage it here. The practice itself is not the end. Adding the discipline just as another thing done to reach God is not the point. Rather meditation stands on the notion that the work of Jesus was finished at the Cross. The power of good over evil was accomplished in the Resurrection. The Presense of the Holy Spirit arrived at Pentecost. Meditation is an acceptance that all this is true and to "rest in Him" strengthens the new creature, birthed in spirit, whom the believer is. Prayer is a dedicated time of supplication and making one's requests made known to the Father. Meditation is learning to rest in the beauty and wonder of the Father, present within us through the Holy Spirit, and is a connection authorized by the sacrifice of the Son. Meditation becomes an act of communion with the awesome God we serve.

I do not contend this is a commandment of the Lord for believers from a doctrinal standpoint. However, if you are feeling distant from God, or some of your experiences within modern church practice are not a strength to your heart or you simply desire to increase your heart's capacity for loving God and your neighbor; this may be a useful tool to stir your heart to a deeper sense of the Father as a loving God caring for your soul. When we are more aware of the depth of God's love, we begin to overflow with love for others.

On bumper stickers and my areas of interest

The subtitle of this blog indicates some of my varied interests.

I often read bumper-stickers that intend an imaginative one-liner as a common statement for all people. Most of us in the US have probably seen a bumper sticker that says something to the effect of, "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience."

I liked that as soon as I saw it. Over time and a bit of reflection, however, I see the intended inference as a limited view of our humanity and hardly a common thread of truth the 6.6 billion of us can mutually accept. Sticker-bumped statements are not usually regarded as truths held by us all anyway, eh? There are some people who would deny there is a spiritual dimension to our humanity. There are some who see it according to the first thought, humans having a spiritual experience, and some who adhere to the ending expression of spiritual beings having a human experience.

Add to that three-way divide of perspective the great variety of connotations attached to the meanings of words by 6.6 bil. individuals, the further extrapolations which result from the working imaginations of said multiple individuals and stir in the arguments about the nature of an unprovable, supernatural dimension among those who accept its existence and...well... there would seem to be no possible commonality of thought among us on the above bumper sticker message. We are lost in a wild wood.

Yet, I have a bent of using my imagination to think about the supernatural, while I am very aware of what a common human I am, and I thought a blog would be an interesting way to explore the mix of all that together adding some variety of thought from readers (assuming I eventually attract one or three).

Oh, here's an interesting tidbit. When I checked to see what the current population estimates are to include for this post, I also researched population estimates for 1967--I was 12 and entering seventh grade. It was about 3.3 bil., then; world population has doubled in the last forty years of my life.