Fed up with Dogmatism

My mind seems always tuned to prove some of the characteristics of God through the analogy of observed reality. I've always been a kind of doubting Thomas and find myself from time to time with shallow faith. It's easy for me to portray a brave face and simply assert that God is the author of creation, that he has a plan for me, that he loves his creation, that I can be saved, that I am persevering, etc. It is far more difficult to formulate a rationale (i.e., realization) for these assertions considering the obvious paradoxes of our world. I think it is intellectually dishonest for me to rely on assertion, i.e., blind faith, and to forgo the process of rigorously trying to understand the nature of the revealed God through his creation. To my credit, perhaps as a grace, I have been looking closely at the nature of things in order to extract any possible revelation that I can from the observable universe and the human beings of this world.

This method unfortunately has some disadvantages. First, it is very difficult to explain these reasons to others, because the language is limited (the words and analogies I can find in my repertoire to describe these reasons and the general depth of the material to consider). Second, I am seeing it more like a personal quest and not useful for the edification of others (although other truth seekers I've come across are perspicacious enough to engage in useful dialog). Third, it is contrary to dogmatism--this is where I can get into trouble with those who see the world as black and white, true and false, saved and damned.

To be sure, I believe all of the precepts of the Apostles' Creed. Yet, I cannot stop there; I feel the need to continue further speculation. This requires a steady diet of 'thought variety' of learning new points of view, new systems of thought, new opinion, new mantras, new knowledge; a greater wisdom. I can get into trouble if I say these words in earshot of dogmatists.

As a material being in a world made of stuff, dealing every day with stuff, being sustained through stuff, thinking about stuff, I would conclude justly that I have an inseparable bond with the material world--it sustains me, it teaches me, it guides me. I've got nothing else to go on; I should use it--this only makes sense! I think in concrete terms, things that I can see, things that I can understand, things that I am still trying to grasp (as far as I have experienced there has been no knowledge outside of my senses and of the a priori categories of knowledge). So far the angel Gabriel has not descended to my mind in order to correct idols (i.e., erroneous and heretical imagery I use to represent God as I pray to Him, and think about Him as I reflect the nature of God, etc), nor to correct any logical errors I am making, any misconceptions I have about God and others, etc. Yes, spirit is important, but I'm allowed my next breath so long as my heart beats and I draw oxygen to my lungs, hence my close relationship to matter and material things. How do I know that I am pleasing to God? I can get into trouble if I say these words in earshot of dogmatists.

I am also flesh, I wear clay shoes on my clay feet at church and outside of church. These are the shoes I've been given (Adam's broken covenant). I share this fashion--these clay shoes--with all of humanity. Yet the divinity of the invisible God is made visible through human beings. These humans are the "last mile" so-to-speak from heaven and the ones we must work with everyday of our lives. To do so properly requires a realistic understanding of humans, the ones living here, far away from here, and in past eras, even these whose religions and worldviews are not the same as mine. Again I can get into trouble if I say these words in earshot of dogmatists.

I will necessarily need to venture outside the circle of received wisdom. I live in universe of plenitude--trillions different things located in different regions within space-time, each having different quantities and qualities; I see a plenitude cultures--hundreds of civilizations spanning thousands of years; I see a plenitude of people--each unique, each his own person, each a special creation; I see plenitude of apparently contradicting worldviews and thought systems.

I am fully fed up with typical programmed biblical responses from the dogmatists, whose straight-jacket thinking and myopic view of reality precludes the possibility of truth outside the 31,000 verses of Scripture. A one-size-fits-all approach constrains the possibilities and does not comport with reality.

Sick Children: What’s the Rationale?

I have struggled and will continue to struggle with the existence of illness, disease, and genetic mutation that fill a child’s life with torture and sadness. It is a powerful stumbling block to the critical thinker, and a strong barrier to belief when no reasonable perspective is found to hold God harmless.

So what can we make of the case that the Christian God would allow these little ones to suffer, when it is clear that Jesus so loved the children that a person caught corrupting one should be tossed into the sea pulled down by a neck-roped millstone?

Childhood is a critical time, and the fulcrum between spiritual life and spiritual death. Along with formal education in morals, manners, and other matters of upbringing, these are irreplaceable wonder years filled with wholesome fantasies that are conjured into existence by a bubbling imagination and supported by loving, nurturing parents who show interest and give credence to wondrous, mythical tales and toys imbibed with magic powers. An experience we all believe none should have stolen by the robbery of dialysis, chemo, CF, MD, and the like.

What follows is a literary device to express the feelings of frustration, condemnation, and outrage that someone might have felt about God due to child sickness. (Don't take it literally!)

…I have a problem with notion of sick children. I can’t stand seeing the innocence of life trampled upon by afflictions of mind or health causing fear, pain, suffering, trauma, and death. But God has created life…It’s a spit-in-the-face of justice and a chorus of endless contradiction to moral governance, so called. But God sustains his creation…It’s a perversion of creation, a callous indifference to duty by a Creator to produce horrendous mutilation of contingent, necessary physical structure, in other words corrupting (or letting corrupt) the genetic code that must have proper sequence to support life. But God loves humanity…Little vessels of God’s pinnacle masterpiece who are supposed to glide immeasurably high above the animal kingdom carried aloft by the breath of life, yet that breath has become foul and bearing a heavy stink, pulling down the precious, innocent, and hapless life-potential into the shit that carries down carcasses to be consumed by maggots that even the birds are able to fly over. How dare God allow lower orders of creation to rise above the buried children under His purported Godly care and providence?!

When adults suffer it is possible to crutch the anguish by resting it upon various constructs of reason, philosophy, and religious teaching. Depending on the grace imparted by God to a person, he or she can develop a certain peace with the sickness and project the pain outwardly instead of inwardly or passively. Use the anguish; use the misery; don’t let it happen at you, but discover a meaning for it; a solution that gives you figurative control; a productive use of seeming non-productive existence.

There is one Catholic saint called Therese of Lisieux who called herself the “little flower of Jesus” who suffered long bouts of lung congestion and died of tuberculosis without the relief of morphine. She was quoted as saying, “I value sacrifice more than ecstasy. I find my happiness in suffering, as I find it nowhere else”. Without getting into the how or why she would have thought this way, I interpret this to mean that St. Therese found purpose and meaning in her suffering. This is what a mature person with an enlightened outlook might contemplate, but for a child? That 4-year-old girl who sees her sisters playing, jumping, and running has no such capacity to abstractly rationalize the meaning of her dying heart, slowly killing her as she waits in quiet agony for a heart transplant. How do you tell an 8-year-old boy who is about to receive Jesus at first communion that Jesus loves him, when he suffers from an inoperable brain tumor; he will be dead in a year, but not before the crippling seizures and vomit-inducing headaches retch his pathetic frame.

I’m not a biologist, but from what I understand, human life draws a critical part of its being from flesh, and that flesh is a hugely complex biomechanical and bioelectric machine based on its genetic code. From conception to development of a fertilized egg there are chances for disease. I think fundamental to a healthy child are the genes received from the parents. A genetic disorder where two parents unknowingly carry a mutant gene can pass on a disorder to the offspring—this is a most insidious case (otherwise healthy parents sharing a damaged copy of a gene). There is also the chance for contamination during the fetal stage that that disrupts the development of critical organs and systems (like alcohol and mercury). Once a person reaches childhood there are many environmental triggers that can suddenly cause sickness, like those whose fragile genes are prone to error leading to alterations that contribute to cancer. Then there are others who have generally weak constitutions that react to substances in their environment; stuff like peanuts and bee venom turn into toxins producing violent reactions causing isolation and fear. The point is I believe (again: I’m not an expert!) that various forms of childhood sickness are a result of physical/chemical processes in the body and not the chaotic whims of a capricious god.

The question is why have mutant genes (causing childhood disease and suffering) crept into the human genetic system in the first place? I have no idea! But I can speculate the reasons from a Christian philosophical and theological point of view on behalf of the children (I’m looking for more explanations if you know of any, please).

1. We live in a fallen world and God imposes pressure on life because of the deeds of our original parents. Genesis records that death has been introduced into the system of life, and perhaps genetic illness is an unavoidable side effect?

2. The sickness of children forces us to act with compassion. Contrast this with the opportunistic hunters of the animal kingdom that deal harshly with victims of genetic mutation (a disadvantage to say the least!). Humans are different and we recognize that we are a higher order of being, and the sick child is a person that deserves care. Although we are inconvenienced by the extra overhead of managing a sick child, we are duly granted divine grace to rise up to the occasion.

3. All of human life is interdependent, and each person contributes in a small way to the larger community. Neighbors provide assistance (not necessarily next door, but someone in the community). Without the support of others with similar experience, the situation would indeed be hopeless. Fortunately this is not the case and the community offers help to the suffering parents and indirectly the suffering children.

4. Human beings make visible the beautiful attributes of the invisible God. And God reveals himself (revelation) through his creation; God’s love is given corporeal existence through human beings by the hands and feet of community members who offer loving assistance, support, time and money in an effort to help the parents and comfort the children.

5. The seeds of the solution are found in the problem. Humans have discovered the design of life and gleaned the mechanisms that affect its physical conception. Symptoms of illness have been correlated with certain genetic markers leading to a rational understanding of genetic illness. Life is a logical truth—we are meant to learn and understand the physical reality of life. With the science of genetics as a sustained enterprise the causes of many genetic maladies have been identified and cures discovered that have prevented disorders from developing or a regimen provided to manage chronic conditions.

The Earth our home; Home on our Earth

The Earth our home
The Earth is our home and the only one we can ever know. Put away all of those fantasies about living in space stations or on the Moon, and forget about Mars and interstellar space—they are all pipe dreams. Think about where we live for a moment. We live on a large sphere comprising land, water, life, air, heat and light (from the Sun) together traveling 584 million miles each year at a rate of 64,000 miles an hour. Fortunately for us we don't need to replace oxygen scrubbers or land our ship for repair or even replenish food and fuel. Yes folks, this space ride doesn't even charge admission!

In our attempt to venture out into space we must construct obtuse and complex machines, devise special techniques for operating them, and train the right stuff for years in advance of space missions. The astronaut trains comprehensively both mind and body in preparation for a voyage, but I doubt a distance mission would be anything except tragic. Judging by the acts of astronaut Lisa Nowak it shows that the natural mind suffers from varying degrees of concupiscence and might not handle well the pressures of long-term close-quartered co-ed travel. Especially one constricted by threats of solar radiation, space debris, machine breakdown, software glitches, food spoilage, water and air contamination, covetousness, substance abuse, etc. and the prospect of seeming endless months of travel with no easy way to turn back. Not a fun ride!

Contrast this with our Earth—the home for humans—providing every material need required for sustenance. Isn't it true that all that we could possibly want or need is found one way or another right here on this planet? Food, water, oil, natural gas, building supplies, stable elements, alloys, minerals, etc. Not to mention the knowledge of how to use these for the best practical application in order to serve the needs of mankind. With materials mined, refined, combined and designed, the human mind perpetuates his existence, fosters innovation, increases automation, and industrializes its population, leading to homogenized satisfaction (plenty for all—at least that’s the ideal).

Could a rich man with all of his possessions, travels, and experiences declare: "Oh, what boredom of form! Where is the splendor of design? The works of humanity are boring; what shall I do? My senses are so depleted of stimulation!" “To the earth: a melancholic menagerie of meaningless muck!” Definitely not! Unless this person is depressed or mentally unstable, I could never image this to happen. Likely he could never plumb the depths of experiential diversity and fabricated creature comforts. Every comfort enjoyed by the rich man has in some manner been sourced from the Earth and crafted and fabricated using a technique proper to its materials.

Now the stimulation of the senses to satisfy a taste varies with each person. Yet the meshing (connecting) of the material to the sensory surely finds efficacy (compatibility), because what are the senses but matter designed (as a condition of life) to receive impressions from an outside reality. Consider some examples of products that are designed to stimulate the senses: Sense of sight: the sprawling mansion with manicured golf course, renaissance art, Egyptian carvings, mountain vistas, sunsets and sun rises, stunning Fabergé Easter Eggs, the sight of your spouse at the gala, etc; Sense of sound: orchestras, operas, quartets, live acapella, the beautiful sound of your spouses voice, or the angelic sound of a child choir, etc; Sense of taste: Rothschild Pauillac wine, Kobe fillet mignon, Golden Opulence Sundae, homemade apple pie, etc; Sense of touch: Armani suites, personal masseuse, the smooth ride of a Cadillac, the nuptial embrace, etc; Sense of smell: Clive Christian's No.1 perfume, top grain leather, live flower bouquets in every room...

All that the senses can demand are quenched utterly and completely among the myriad luxuries afforded those with the means to achieve them. In a scaled-down way this also holds true for the common person of the West (middle/upper-class North American). All things being equal (for the sake my stated proposition) the fact that our senses are soothed, satisfied or stimulated through materials fabricated to this end is clear evidence that the Earth is our home and everything in it. "Come and behold ye the works of the Lord: what wonders he hath done upon the earth."[1]

Home on our Earth
This notion must be tempered with the paradoxical fact that home on our Earth is not always ideal. The word home is also an action word, it requires being maintained, being robustly built, being suitable to the environment. Not everyone in the world is afforded with the stability and comforts of a dwelling fit for the title of home. As for the luxuries we enjoy consider the following absurd questions.

Would you say an ideal home would blow everything around within its rooms as a tornado the sticks of a disemboweled trailer park?

How about the eruption of your furnace burning its gases, suffocating and killing your family in their beds as a volcano pukes, spits, and belches, pouring out its unsentimental wrath throughout the village?

Or maybe your fridge spawning the worst kinds of virulent and wicked pestilences tainting the trusted breast milk and bottled formula insidiously spreading its wasting conditions throughout the homes of your neighborhood?

The sudden torrent of thousands of gallons water and debris rushing mercilessly headlong into the bedrooms of your discombobulated kids whose innocent grip on life is severed like so many cars, carcasses, logs and debris tearing up the naked bodies of Burmese victims against its unrelenting tide of death?

Or the sudden electrocution of your mother casually walking past an electric outlet as a lightening bolt chars the flesh up those seeking safety under a tree only to be the victim of a random assault of nature's fury.

I could go on with these extreme examples. In any of these examples would you call this place your home? Certainly not! Yes some of these conditions afflict our brothers and sisters at the places they make home on our Earth.

As a Christian I struggle with understanding the prodigious human suffering happening all over the world—most recently in Burma and China. A very disturbing example was the death of 900 children when the school fell down on them during the earthquake. When I imagine the creative work exerted by God to indwell life (ζωὴ) into a child and the critical importance of a completed life forming the linchpin of salvation, to exist such concentrated pilfering of Christ’s children by movements of dumb stuff (things like globs of water, chunks of stone, and wood logs, as we would have during an earthquake or a hurricane). For these things to extinguish the brilliance of breath God breathed defies my comprehension. I haven’t found a category to slot these actions, and I pray God for grace to help me understand why they happen.

But I hear some say, “Who cares? If the laws of physics are so fashioned so as to reliably produce results from observation for over 400 years (modern scientific method) why shouldn't I demand to have that same stability repeated for my home--the home that God has supposedly created for me, and supposedly nurtured with his own grace! Why does he make it so difficult to prepare a habitation suitable for the environmental conditions? Yes, I realize bribery and poor workmanship are likely to blame when the earth shakes and everything crumbles. That’s not the point. The question is why is it so difficult to hold back the chaos of nature?

The fact is that things rip, slip, tip, flip, whip, and zip all on their own by virtue of their material properties.

Well you see the paradox: the home that harbors safety is fickle, double-faced and defective. The following wisdom from Augustine might help put things into perspective, "As for the greater governance of divine providence, everything that happens has a purpose even though the causes are hidden."[2]

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NOTES

[1] Ps 45:9
[2] City of God, Bk 7 ch 8

Does he talk about Armageddon?

I can remember my first call with Elsie the Jehovah's Witness. Having gotten my name and phone number from a mutual friend, I was expecting her call any time by now. When she called, the sound of her voice was sincere, certain, and seasoned. She would ask me leading questions to find an angle, and make assertions to get a rise. Duly I would stand up with certitude and defend my case (my faith, my Christ; saving face), figuring I was on the attack. My patchwork of half-baked philosophical and theological understanding (and by the way, I'm still not a good baker) produced some interesting results, though no doubt less systematic than Elsie's. Plenty of times during our many calls she would find a slippery edge from my reasoning and without a sure footing cause her perceivable aggravation. I would sense the urgency in her exasperated tone at my apparent cavalier reception of the upcoming Armageddon. I was not trying to get her upset, but I was also holding back indignation (as I thought then): why can't this woman get it! Why does she persist in propping up this Johnny-come-lately, works-based, New York headquartered corporation? I tried to "run her through" with many of my own remarks hoping to bust through her reasoning (by the way, I'm no rhetorician).


I was wrong. I don’t think this way now, because a belief system grounds itself upon complex and seemingly haphazard events (providence?) that tie together over spans of time and geography; mix that with the solidification of personal identification, gratification, and validation through communing groups of adherents; and to top it off a mind reaching for and apprehending at different strata of wisdom—bottom line: people are complicated—don’t try to reduce them to caricature play things!


Most of the time the conversation would degenerate. She would lose her angle or run out of assertions, or questions (I was not as good at asking questions; she would tend to drive the discussion). Finally, during one conversation I was asked with a fairly stern tone, "What have you done for Christ?" I don't recall my answer, but I remember my internal sense that I was being told that Christianity required doing works in exchange for salvation, yet I felt that this was a totally false and impossible standard to expect of all believers. Consider that most westerners do not do nearly as much as they ought (myself included) to advance the cause of Christ, much less adopt a lifestyle free of hypocrisy (as much as can be gifted by God’s Spirit to those who ask, and all things considered). I was empathetic toward her situation—a big part of her life was devoted to the Kingdom, perhaps with a certain expectation of recompense? Maybe so (the reward I mean), but who really knows anyway?


It was a long time before my next phone call from her.


Finally out of the blue I received a message that Elsie had called. Now I had told her a year before that I was going to investigate the claims of Watchtower Bible and Tract Society vs. orthodox Christianity (as I then called it). Being led by so many fortuitous circumstances I ended up back as a Catholic believer and was slowly but surely having my outlook on thing changed dramatically (for the better). (It has been a very unusual growth process (from Catholicism as a child to pagan, to protestant believer, back to Catholicism (and then some!). By means of careful reasoning and analysis of the facts, I knew for sure that I could never rightly accept the claims of either the Society at large or their authority. I know she was disappointed that I was dwelling in (ἐσκήνωσεν) Christendom—perhaps in her mind she was thinking: Oh that lost young man! Joining that evil whore of a religion, ranked among believers who are worse than ignorant! Laodicean I say! The conniving parlor pigs of popery consuming Christ’s carrion feasting at Satan’s table! What claims have they over the true witnesses of Christ? Those beautiful Earthly class who venerate that good and faithful servant.


I'm being sarcastic here. I don’t know what she was thinking, because I can’t experience her thoughts directly. Anyway, she was probably not pleased about it.


We chatted more about my reversion to Catholicism and how I now attend Mass regularly. Her question to me about the priest was, "Does he talk about Armageddon?" This question gave me the sense of just how single-dimensional and narrow her religion seemed (at least as she presented it, I’ll give the benefit of the doubt to those JW’s who don’t constantly worry about the end of the world). As I compare this (her JW formula) to the immense variety and depth of thought, spirituality, and history of the Catholic Church (courageously assimilating the best of human thought, work, and even respect for separated brethren, those minority religions (Jehovah’s Witnesses included) and the other great world religions). I couldn't help but think this frame of mind (i.e., focusing on eschatology with singular purpose) cannot be conducive to nurturing a deep and fulfilling relationship with Christ. Who knows when we might get scooped up and carried off to sure and deserved judgment? This type of paranoia is truly unsettling.


However, that being said I can attest that I did not suffer from as much anxiety during this call—I didn’t lose my cool, as was the case on other calls with Elsie. I felt that my new religion (or as I should say, choosing adoption into the Universal Church) gave me a wide view of things so as not to get all worked up about this or that religious dogma or precept. That is not to say I have become some kind of wishy-washy libertarian limp wrist. No, far from it! What is becoming clear to me is that we must connect with people where they’re at right now, and not try to bind their arms and ankles with crafty sophistry and wrestle them down—even if that were possible (be it with the truth or falsehood).

Again, it comes back to the fact that we are limited by degree to understanding ultimate truth. We rely upon the Holy Spirit (her Church included) for revelation, illumination, clarification, and proper formation. No body has the corner on the truth, and if one truly has this corner it is likely on the first floor of a spiring tower.

Human Constitution: A Work In Progress or Fait Accompli?

WHEN WE ARE BORN we don't even know ourselves; it is our mothers who knows us better that we do, reacting to our babbles, joys, wails, grimaces, and accidents. With time and experience we get to know who we are, our likes and dislikes, and with measured curiosity and opportunity, a determination to discover a spectrum of desire unique to each of us contributing to our own human constitution.

Each of us knows of things and activities that we enjoy and those we despise. Usually these preferences are determined through actual experience or predicted through a series of reasonings somehow based on experience (synthesized from our own or someone else's). Not everything must be experienced in reality to know if it is desirable, and I'm sure you can think of things that have not yet happened to you, but you would find either pleasurable or revolting.

The full panoply of human desire cannot be fully known to one human being, because we have less than 120 years to live and only one mind through which to experience that life (not withstanding personal revelation, prophecy, and a priori knowledge independent of experience—but these are very rare). Each person is fully isolated from all other persons with a perfect opacity so that we cannot directly know or experience other people’s thoughts. Obviously this separation is required if we are to maintain the privacy of our own thoughts (just think of how fast society would break down if we were allowed to impinge the core of another's mind, and God forbid, rape the experiences from it).

Now that we are individual persons with perfect privacy from others’ prying minds, it is up to us to fill our own minds with experiences and consequently bring into bloom our own desire spectrum, developing our own human constitution. Or perhaps it is not we who decide…

How wide our spectrum of desire extends can also be limited by our life situation, such as the kind of society we live in, our circumstances, our intelligence, our motivation, our influence on others, amicability, wealth, health, courage, curiosity, and encouragement, etc.

On the other hand, someone who decides (freedom?) to restrict the number of potential experiences might reduce the number of things desired. Consider the monk who by choice lives within an enclosed religious order, and has for example, decided not to develop the full knowledge of his sexual capacity as a husband to a woman. If he were to succeed in his vows would never tap into that range of desire (no matter how full and fertile his experiential desire potential might be).

Ultimately we will accumulate (receive?) a repository of experience that will embellish and encourage our spectrum of desire—however complete or incomplete it might be—nonetheless good enough to call us human and alive instead of human but comatose.

After we have lived our lives and there are no more experiences left to accumulate from the Earth, then our earthly desires might not apply—these are fulfilled and no longer spur us on within the realm of a demanding physical body and a curious and experience-seeking mind.

Each of us as flesh beings share common physical needs (a.k.a., core constitutional requirements) that must be satisfied promptly or we perish, such as breathing oxygen, averting dehydration, averting starvation, averting physical trauma, averting decompression, avoiding death, etc. These can inspire feelings of desires and provoke tremendous waves satisfaction when sated after prolonged denial. I take another breath in order to avoid a burning chest and diaphragmic spasm in addition to preserving my life—breathing satisfies the desire to avoid pain and to keep living. However, these desires are critical to life, so I don’t consider them to have any moral value.

When all contingent requirements are provided to the flesh being, a new being is discovered: human being. This opens the door to experiential desire (based on the maturity and fullness of one’s own spectrum of desire). Experiential desire is that which we derive pleasure from, yet is not critical to life. These bring meaning and satisfaction in other ways, such as feeling love, acceptance, joy, purpose, intimacy, etc. Once the core needs are satisfied these experiential desires tend to steer our behaviors. But can we guide them on our own or are they on rails?

What do I mean? Well, to each of these experiential desires is tied a gift for achieving their successful completion (a great and satisfying feeling). For noble desires, perhaps exultant transcendent moments with God (those rare glimpses of personal revelation), and similar exultant moments with spouse; general feelings of peace with God and one’s self, feeling love for one’s self, the satisfaction of realizing one’s vocation, feeling loved by your children, feelings of contentment with one’s job, feelings of joy and happiness from loved ones, feelings of acceptance from new friends, feeling appreciation from others, feeling a sense of purpose in life, loving others, helping others in need, satisfaction from understanding a challenging area of study, and the list goes on. These are higher desires that require God’s grace, our own commitment, time, effort, and honest striving to achieve.

Fortunately many of life's core needs have also been turned into pearls of pleasure and have been integrated seamlessly into daily routine. Consider a cool example, literally. After a hot sunny summer Sunday afternoon of gardening, taking hold of an ice-cold mug of beer frosting in the afternoon sun soothing your burning dry hands on contact, continuing the tradition upon meeting your lips with ice-cold glorious, gold, glistening beer tipping effortlessly on to your tongue, with dancing bubbles of bliss reaching the apex of satisfaction potential, the golden delight pools with anticipation at the back of your throat and chamber a splash of delight that rhythmically spasm to the center of your thirst covering it with waves of cool satisfaction with every swallow—I suppose this works if you like beer. Without having to describe each desire in this way (there are just too many God has gifted us with, and some delights are not appropriate to describe at length on this blog) you see clearly that quenching a strong thirst can be a pleasure in itself even if ignoring it could result serious illness leading to death. So why not give the human being some fun while allowing him to live—thank God!

I’ll try my best to express how I see the spectrum of desire by using an analogy. God has planted a farm, and each person is a different farm containing different planting rows invisible to neighboring farms and even to himself.

Each planting row in the field represents a desire; the ones closest to the farmhouse are easiest to reach and most critical to life, while others more peripheral to life are spread further out. The number of rows defines the breadth of our desire; the more rows we have the more desires we have discovered. While the more spartan the rows the less desires we have.

The length of each row determines the intensity or establishment of the desire; desires that extend deep into the field could result from deeply etched experiences in our lives. Obstacles like creeks and gullies might interfere with reaching these desires due to life circumstances and challenges; the desire might continue further, but these cannot easily be realized (without help). Or, the fog of depression might temporarily (or permanently) obscure or blur one’s desires where they had once been active now they no longer get the sunlight needed to drive and sustain them and so they wither. Some rows cannot be seen because they are covered by dense foliage, so one does not know that greater desires even exist in our own human constitution—permanently cut off from those potential experiences. Others might have seeds growing within the wrong planter and confuse one’s desires mixing them where they should not be mixed.

The question is, are we the ones discovering our own spectrum of desire? Are we this farmer who is planting, cultivating, nourishing, and maintaining these planting rows? Or is He the Farmer who acts on our behalf to survey the site of our plantation, determining the extent of its acreage, setting the sand/soil/clay consistency, and most importantly does he water and fertilize those planting rows that produce in us our most delicious cravings and desires?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not accusing God of leading us into temptation, because it is we who must decide whether to pick and eat of the fruit of desire. All I’m speculating is that some farms are more fertile—for whatever reason, and contain lower-hanging fruit that are ripe for picking.

Pride's Untruthful Nature

There are so many causes that give rise to unhealthy pride and my goal is not to cast judgment on people who have it, but show how pride is not truth. This might speak to their reason and illuminate error that has been isolated through introspection (self-examination) and not by my own words in this article.

I see pride as self-glorifying in untruth—filthy, fake, and fruitless. The reason why it is untrue is because it is an unintended use of a good gift. A gift is any characteristic feature, such as life itself, talents, race, intelligence, beauty, health, religion, social status, wealth, geographic location, tribe membership, pain threshold, level of risk aversion, personality, happiness, etc. etc. These gifts are provided to a soul (a human person) without his/her choice, without merit, and without knowing why they (gifts) were given*. These gifts cannot be owned by the soul, if ownership assumes an inherent self-determination, self-realization, and self-actualization, but rather it is cooperation between the agent (soul) receiving the gift and the One giving that validates the self and authorizes fulfillment of these gifts. Outside of this the gift is counterfeit.

*NOTE: Even though it can be argued that biological determinism can be attributed to gifting a child with many of the parents’ talents. I believe the child’s soul precedes the body, and only upon conception does God fill that vessel with gift-potential—a vessel equipped with different capabilities, capacities, and perhaps faults and limitations, all of them to blossom according to different timelines and purpose within the life of the developing human. So it is how a soul uses the resources at his/her disposal (i.e., by intention) that determine the true meaning of those gifts. Truth in proper usage; untruth in selfish usage.

No one can claim ownership of a human being. A human is by essence a free and moral agent, intrinsically untethered to any property claim—a life born to another life (a gift wrapped in a gift, so to speak). And by extension, what ground is there for a one to claim ownership of a good gift? It is only on condition that it be received for what it is, and used for its intended purpose. It would be untruth if the recipient were to say to the gift giver, “Here now I own your gift and use it for my own gain, even against you who gave it to me!” A thing that has been given in good faith to another is not the same thing as owning it for one’s own gain to the exclusion of the gift-giver’s plan. I receive a sharp and sturdy set of steak knives, because my giver sees a fine use of a keen-edged implement to help carve cubes out of cutlets, and not to find me cutting into her leather sofa; that would be an abuse of the gift.

Groundless pride is devoid of any objective reason—a delusion visualized by person standing on top of a balloon pumping it with air ever larger and ever higher. All of it groundless and contrary to reason; a perversion of truth by concentrating God-given talent and resources into a burgeoning storehouse on a dead-end street; never giving back to his neighbor and always taking more and more—like an over fed goldfish. Ultimately the storehouse will be plundered and the corpulent goldfish dead from self-indulgence (knowingly or unknowingly).

Concerning healthy pride I refer to scripture: “…Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises loving kindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD.” (Jer. 9:23-24 KJV)

In Defiance of Necessity

Take a look around and notice that forces of necessity control the entire universe. These are imperatives, or constraints to which all that exist must inexorably yield. Examples might include, the laws of physics, intrinsic characteristics (such as atomic weight), etc.

All of matter bumps, batters, buckles, boils, and burns in a causal stew without any choice, without concern for itself, and without end. Yet in defiance of these phenomena one thing stands up against all odds, like a marvelously constructed break-water impervious to unrelenting waves of predetermined rules of physical change: namely human freedom.

The human is a maestro of this microcosm using his awareness of himself and comprehending the rules and behavior of reality inside and outside of himself in order to exercise—by choice—an alternate path of his choosing.

Although the human is material (except his life-essence and soul) and relies upon (and must submit to) the same mechanical processes dictated by forces of necessity, and is furthermore subjected to the disintegration of contingent biologic life force (aging), yet for a time he is conductor of his orchestra.

Some songs he is given to play without a full knowledge of the score yet discovers symmetry even more beautiful than could have been composed on his own (becoming fully alive and fully human). Others he decides to play cooperating with others in unison to produce unheard of music (sublime) impossible without symmetry (spiritual communion), and a few he messes up by either breaking the instruments—using them for a purpose not intended to create music (abuse of the gifts), or interrupting the designed symmetry (corrupting influence).

Humanity is a truly precious gift of a golden scale, on the one hand there are:

• existence
• life
• awareness
• morality;

on the other hand there are:

• space-time (reality)
• contingency
• knowledge
• choice;

...with God holding the scales.

A Pervasive Silence Yet Unheard

So overpowering is the noise of the modern world so as to nearly hide God’s subtle voice from the ordinary (natural) person. The mystery to me is how God can quiet this noise and speak to a person and inspire of his existence without disturbing human liberty.

The power of this invisible force (sound) is remarkable as evidenced by its multifarious uses within our world. From a human point of view, it is used to notify us of something or alert us of danger: a clap of thunder, a rushing avalanche, a shaking building, collapsing rubble, mortar explosion, a falling tree, a roaring bear, schemey footsteps, etc.; or to communicate: like a nasty diatribe, panicked gasps, an inflected voice, a call for help, a crying infant, or (more purposefully) as a voice speaking truth, a teacher teaching (knowledge transfer), or even laughter, moans of joy, etc., etc.

What I find interesting about sound is how rare it is within the universe. Actually without a medium to reverberate through there is no sound possible, and interstellar space is truly silent (sound can’t travel within a vacuum), which is a striking contrast to our world that is filled with a limitless variety of sound. It is not so much the quantity of sound in the universe, I’m sure the surface of each of the trillions of stars is insanely loud. What I’m talking about is its sheer plenitude, with careful syntactical nuance bearing information appropriate to its listener.

But what is sound without ears to hear and reverberation without sense to feel? It is not for the sake of sound that sound organs (like ears) exist. Consider the noise of a rock falling from a cliff clicking and clacking down the mountainside. Who knows that it is falling, if that sound falls on deaf ears? Say nothing of the exceedingly complex nature of human speech—which is experienced (perceived) by children and effortlessly assimilated into their minds. Quickly they synthesize their own words, picked from their own quiver and released from their mouths like arrows.

Perhaps we can deduce from this a truth about sound, about its scarcity, its power, and (at the risk of sounding airy) its sanctity. This sanctity is important to emphasize from the point of view of people. The most powerful method of communication (practical)—in my view—is voice (an extension of sound). People practice (use) it for every possible human circumstance tracking a continuum of emotion from incoherent guttural croaking (utter anger) to incoherent moaning (pain or ecstasy) and everything in between.

It can be said; therefore, that life cannot exist without sound nor sound without life (sine qua non).

Life in the physical: the heaving sound of my lungs filling with air, the sound of blood beating through my heart.

Life in the spiritual: the wisdom of God speaking to me (with ineffable utterances), the words of life (λόγοῦ ζωὴ) filling my soul (ψυχή) and becoming the light that enlightens my life (φῶς).

Stuck in the Middle with Thee

AFTER GOD BEGAN TO CREATE all things from nothing at some point in time past, a large amount of this creative work had already occurred, but we cannot say for sure that it is yet complete. Actually, we are not qualified to declare that the creation is complete, because from our standpoint in time-history we don’t know all of the parameters of this event or its ultimate end. From our point of view the creation is always changing and we are stuck in the middle of it.

With eyes our human ancestors looked through the clear night sky and saw a great expansive vista of moving lights (stars and planets), and these ancient peoples visualized casts of gods, so increasing the size of the cosmic community. Later, the distances and structures were clarified (and likely demystified) using optical instruments, mathematics, and physics; the size of the universe changed again. The perceived mass of the universe again increased with the discovery of the big bang, and with the support of dark matter (or some super planar force) and thus the size of the universe changed infinitely.

Humans play a permanent role as co-creators and spectators of the universe.

As creators we decide the outcome of the future through a sort of language expressed as voluntary (willful) communication with reality (using learned techniques). A voluntary act typically is born from the understanding and manifested into reality through a positive or neutral movement. Positive if it acted to create or change something; neutral by failure to act. The probability of an outcome changes permanently if a phenomenon is being actively observed (quantum mechanics and the collapsing wave hypothesis).

Oddly enough we also exist as spectators, i.e., those who are not in control of the outcome. And humans are not in control as evidenced by the fact that the universe predates mankind—how can one who comes from the greater One declare that all regressive parameters are understood innately? We don’t even qualify to know what is our ultimate fate, because mankind is unlikely to survive after the sun goes nova (all things considered as they are currently).

If we cannot take hold of the beginning nor peer under the tent to see the end, then we are stuck in the middle with Thee.

But the work of creation continues with every passing moment as present time transforms to past time, and past events form the building blocks of future ones. There is smooth and seamless travel of present time to past time, and bringing future to the present, as any standard timepiece on the Earth would relate (no matter where on Earth it is located). I see the present as passing-time handing off the torch as it were to present time, because without a memory of the moment just passing, the present would loose its foundation and the future would be baseless. A good way to express this creation is with the grammatical construct of durative present—a tense that is active, continuing and on-going).

Could it be interpreted that the seeming permanence of material forms that surround us, e.g., elemental gold, the Moon, diamonds, etc. could reflect a form of memory? Memory holding a declared existence (fiat)—never being forgotten. Even if matter is transitioned from one state to another there requires a memory of what it once was in order to become what it is now, e.g., placing a cube of sugar into water causes the sugar cube to dissolve mixing into the water, but it is the fact that the sugar existed a priori the immersion into the water that one can say that the water now contains dissolved sugar. Thus existence is a form of divine memory that is unfailing and permanent, yet dynamic. If matter equals energy as the theory maintains, then that energy is harnessed and fixed in its proper boundaries. What are boundaries except another expression for rules, and God is the one who sets the rules and never forgets them.

Human memory—however potentially fleeting it might be—is given a freedom to imagine and create. Experientially we have a freedom to create new memories; our memories, built on a ground of faded ones. Yet even if those faded memories have become the wisdom needed to form new ones, how can we become a new creation unless we forget the person we were previously and lean on God's wisdom (insight)? He creates within us a true reality (purpose) that existed before matter was created. The mystery is that this creation is not out of necessity (not irresistable) but through a cooperation between the living soul (ζωῆς) and God's spirit. A new reality is created that shines as type of light—through the Spirit of God—to give real meaning to the human (one who was created out of nothing--and is nothing of himself).