Our troops will be coming home from our Southern Border; they have finished their task; we are now safe from the pestilence-ridden, terrorist-infiltrated, rock-throwing Caravan Horde that arrived at our border and required a force of nearly 6,000 soldiers to protect us.
The Caravan Horde has not yet reached our border; they are still walking
The deployment was a political stunt; intended to raise fear in the electorate
Estimated cost to the Taxpayers: $210,000,000
I don’t find any outrage in the national press
apparently, we have run out of outrage
Have we, as a nation, simply run out of Outrage? The current President’s political party seems to have run out of Outrage; and consequently, has refused to perform their duty of “defending the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.”
Norman Rockwell
We are all familiar with Norman Rockwell’s most famous Thanksgiving painting—the one with the family surrounding a table; the Grandparents serving a large Turkey. However, this isn’t the only Thanksgiving painting that Rockwell painted; the two above depict what the world grew to expect from America, back when ‘dinosaurs ruled the earth’. In those few years between the Korean Police Action, and the Vietnam Police Action; before we started becoming ‘the country of endless war,’ we reached out to the refugee, fleeing their country of birth to find sanctuary in the United States of America. My grandparents were fleeing famine and unemployment in Scandinavia. My mother became an American citizen when she married my father. His father’s family had come from England, by the way of a few generations crossing the country. His mother’s family also came from Scandinavia. Dan Fogelberg’s “Forefathers” could have been written about my family.
We enter our country’s ‘holiday’ season—that time when families gather, and, in this era, families decide who will be invited, based on political opinions and ethical/religious choices. In this era, when the most diverse population of new members of Congress that the country has ever seen has been elected, we are still constrained by widespread voter suppression and the ‘Jim Crow’ South.
I’m writing this early in the morning of November 22; the 326th day of 2018. As of today, there have been 317 mass shootings in the United States. There have been 50,822 gun-related incidents and 13,040 deaths due to gun violence.
https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/
the Human Propensity to F*ck things Up
Concluding the series I’ve been writing…
If we ever encounter a sentient species from another world [I’m of the opinion that there are “WARNING: PLAGUE” signs floating in the space around our Solar System], I believe we will find that they, too, will have a totally improbable story about how the Creator of the Universe entered their time and space in the form of a single cell…
My experience with faith is not the ordinary pattern. I never attended Sunday School, never went to a church service, never even talked about faith issues until late in my second year of college, when the stoner across the hall smoked something he ‘shouldn’t have’ one night and became a clean and sober evangelist/street preacher. He began to understand what he had learned in past Sunday School and Catechism classes; he adopted a new way of seeing. He agreed, however, to quit preaching to me and I continued to be his audience as he quietly performed Neil Young songs on his guitar in the hallway at night. The music probably changed after his revelation.
During my third year, I lived in a Graduate student dorm [down the hall from now-Senator Ron Wyden]; and I was once again living across the hall from Christians; but they did not attempt to proselytize. We became friends; I explored this ‘Christianity thing’, and it eventually made sense. I experienced that phenomenon called ‘being born again’. No lights and whistles, no fanfare; one day I experienced ‘a new way of seeing’.
The late, great, Rich Mullins describes his ‘born again’ experience [many in the Gospel Music business doubted his profession of faith because of his bare feet, t-shirt and torn blue jeans]. He became ‘born again’ as a child, and again as a teenager, and again as an adult, and again as an adult alcoholic, and found that he needed to become born again just about every week. In this world, it’s easy to stop seeing in a new way.
Luke Skywalker must come to a place where he could ‘see in a new way’ so that he could utilize the Force in his adventures. The Spirit of the Creator is much like the Force, in terms of analogy…
…there is a Dark Side to the Force, and there is a dark side in the world that contends with metanoia—the word so often and misleadingly translated in the Bible as “repent”. The Greek word simply means, ‘to see the world with new eyes,’ without all the moralizing attachments that come from religion. I’ve experienced the Dark Side as well; and the overnight street preacher mentioned above was my Yoda, that day.
The Spirit of the Creator intervenes in human life, though not as often as we imagine. The Spirit intervenes when it suits Her Purposes. Sometimes those Purposes include me. The Spirit is not some genie in a bottle that grants wishes. The Spirit has no interest in sports matches, in spite of claims to the contrary. In every ‘I-can’t-explain-it-any-other-way’ intervention in my life, the intervention did not include any other person, and could not provide to someone else, ‘evidence’ of the Spirit’s Presence. I have been ‘healed’ in the past, as in “Jesus healed the blind man”. It did not include mud and spit in my eyes [John 9:6].
I connect with the Spirit of the Creator in my mind, by the thoughts I think, the books I read, the words that flow into my head by way of electronic media; by Prayer. Prayer is talking to the Creator; frequently recapping that which is already Known, because we constantly mess things up. Prayer is not instructing the Creator; the Creator does not need our help to make the Universe work. The Creator is not a genie that will grant our wishes. Can the Spirit change one’s thinking? Absolutely. I would not have written what I’m writing today, twenty years ago.
Does God have a Plan for my life?
Not in the sense that religious people use the phrase. Humans experience life on a minute-to-minute basis; and while I would love to have a time machine, I don’t expect one will ever get made [unless one includes the Hubble Space Telescope—it looks into the past all the time].
The Creator exists outside of time. ‘Eternity’ does not exist as ‘a really long time.’ For the Creator, Creation did not happen millennia ago; it’s happening right now, even as I type. The Creator knows when I will die, and how; the Creator knows exactly what I will do shortly, when I have to stand up and move around because sitting hurts too much. The Creator knows exactly how I developed an “ALS”-like disorder of my sensory nerves [ALS is a disease of the motor neurons; Lou Gehrig eventually stopped breathing because his autonomic motor nerves stopped working—his muscles stopped acting like a bellows; or because the muscle that is our heart, stopped beating]. My deteriorating sensory neurons have adventure ahead for me; and because I Trust my Creator, I need not FEAR that ending. Nonetheless it’s crap, going through it. Though I need not FEAR, I still do.
How can God allow terrible things to happen?
I believe in Difficult Grace.
There are people who believe in ‘the Victorious Christian Life’. I’ve never seen it. I’m going on 40 years of chronic pain in a variety of forms. My first migraine was in 1979; they almost-daily continued into this century. There is nothing in Scripture, read in context, that promises that our lives will be without struggle. I get pain, I get a connection with the Spirit of the Creator. That’s the deal; the two are not two sides of the same coin. Two coins; both known by the Creator of the Universe, ever since the beginning of creation.
To my way of thinking, our HPtFtU as a race, is so excremental as to be outside of the Creator’s ‘concern’, if these words make any real sense. However, our excremental race is made of up of billions of individuals who suffer; and are already invited to spend Eternity with the Creator, whether or not we realize it—we win in the end—so from an individual standpoint we each matter. Adversity will End. All that is broken will be remade.
Does God send non-Christians to Hell?
Again, not in the sense that most religious people use the phrase.
Jesus saved** the world on the Cross.
The sentence above stands on its own; without conditions. Many religious people add conditions.
** “saved” [4982 (sṓzō) is the root of: 4990 /sōtḗr (“Savior”), 4991 /sōtēría (“salvation”) and the adjectival form, 4992 /sōtḗrion (what is “saved/rescued from destruction and brought into divine safety”).]
What about Greedy Politicians Who Allow Injustice To Continue, or Who Create Injustice?
Connection with the Creator requires submission. This is the real meaning of ‘born again’—submitting my will to the One. We have to stop voluntarily exercising our HPtFtU [by definition, we will still continue to so do, whether or not we will it] and seek the good of others. I have trouble imagining the man who sits behind the Resolute Desk ever submitting to another Will; and voluntarily setting aside his nature. If one will not submit to the One who wants the best for us, it would be cruel to imprison someone to Eternity in the Presence of the Creator. The logical alternative is being out of the Presence of the Creator for Eternity.
“hell” cannot be found in Scripture. The Hebrew/Aramaic word Gehenna is usually translated as ‘hell’. Gehenna actually refers to the Valley of Hinnom, outside of Jerusalem, which used to be where all the trash was burned. ‘Trash’ of all sorts. It’s probably covered over by buildings or soccer fields now. The Book of The Revelation, which contains lots of weird descriptions, uses the words, “the Lake of Fire” several times, as being part of the Death/Judgement process. This is the only ‘book’ in the Hebrew or Greek Scriptures to use this phrase.
I would consider being out of the Presence of the Creator for Eternity, as being in some sort of hell. Flames are not required. Picture the astronaut forever floating through the blackness of space, but never dying. C.S. Lewis once wrote that the Gates of Hell are locked from the inside. We will be able to leave, when we are willing to submit. Contrary to many religious people who seem to have lists as to what ‘submission’ means, I find that ‘submit’ merely means letting go, as much as possible, of my own HPtFtU.
I know an old guy who appears to have been raised in a religious environment, but never seems to have been introduced to Faith. In spite of my continual refutations about his ‘not being good enough’ to enter Eternity in the Presence of the Creator, he persists in his guilt feelings. No one is ever good enough—the human condition. The Creator knows this old guy far better than he knows himself. His future, in the Presence of the Creator [I’m not fond of the typical concept of ‘Heaven’] is not about him. It’s all about the Creator, and the totally inconceivable Love for humans who continually demonstrate HPtFtU.
The images for me, which come closest to describing the Creator, are the vastness of the galaxies and nebulae.
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Tags: artist, Christianity, depression, faith, freelance, freelance illustration, hope, Jesus, material poverty, mental-health, Nerve Pain, Neuropathy, pain, persistence, personal excellence, Polyneuropathy, self-employment
Chronicles in Ordinary Time 