The Spirit of the Creator
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Yeah, I’m getting mileage out of this image…it did take a while to finish.
This coming Sunday, June 6th, is called Pentecost Sunday in a majority of Christian denominations.
The Christian holy day of Pentecost, which is celebrated on the eighth Sunday after Easter, commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus Christ while they were in Jerusalem celebrating the Feast of Weeks, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2:1–31). In Christian tradition, this event represents the birth of the early Church.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentecost
I don’t plan these writings ahead of their writing, so, if there is some Planning involved in the image above happening at this time, the Planning isn’t mine. I don’t live my life by Church holy days. Some people do. The Monday following Pentecost is the beginning of Ordinary Time, in the liturgical calendar. In terms of religion, I consider most of my life to be in Ordinary Time, hence the title of this blog. Even after forty-six years on this Faith journey, I mostly consider myself to be a ‘converted pagan’ rather than the member of some denomination… I know a lot of people who would define themselves as a Lutheran or a Presbyterian. Technically I am still a Presbyterian Elder—apparently a lifetime ordination. I haven’t been to a Presbyterian church in a long time.
A few days ago I read an article in the Atlantic, describing the journey of Mike Pence to the White House: https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/01/gods-plan-for-mike-pence/546569
The article raises the question I keep asking, as politics works its way deeper into the life of Faith—how do people reconcile the “porn-star President” that is applauded by evangelical leaders; and the clear teachings of Jesus? The President will be prosecuted for his crimes, eventually. The breadth of his crimes grows weekly as investigations continue. Mueller was simply one investigator.
“At least 14 Democratic-led House committees have been investigating various aspects of President Donald Trump’s businesses, campaign and his presidency since the beginning of this year, an NBC review shows. In all, those committees have launched at least 50 probes into Trump world.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/house-investigations-trump-his-administration-full-list-n1010131
“If we had had confidence that the President clearly did not commit a crime, we would have said so,” Mueller said. “We did not… Robert S. Mueller III
The Justice Department may be unwilling to indict a sitting President; but that condition will change. The Constitution guarantees that he won’t always be President, in spite of what he may think. When the change occurs, there will be a lot of people who will attempt to justify their support of the man—this always occurs when wrong-doing is discovered. It starts in childhood, when we lie about who ate the cookies… My guess is that evangelical leaders will lie and say that they did not realize what kind of man he is, because he was so skillful in hiding his faults…Perhaps some will confess that they chose politics over Faith. I don’t expect to see much of this; I’m cynical.
From Os Guinness:
“…a few years ago, my son and I were in Singapore, Southeast Asia’s vibrant “intelligence island.” An economist from the University of Singapore was outlining his vision of the post-Cold War era world from the perspective of the Pacific Rim. His argument was unambiguous.
“What we in Singapore want,” he said, “is the modern world, not the West. We want the Asian way, not the American way. We want to follow Confucius, not Christ.” Continuing, he explained, “Having given rise to the modern world, the Jewish and Christian faiths have now been reduced to ruins by the modern world.” Asian countries, he concluded, should take a different path. They should pursue the best opportunities of modern capitalism, industrialized technology, and telecommunication within the setting of their own beliefs and cultures…”
…the modern world quite literally “manages” without God. We can do so much so well by ourselves that there is no need for God, even in his church. Thus, we modern people can be profoundly secular in the midst of explicitly religious activities. Which explains why so many modern Christian believers are atheists unawares. Professing to be believers in supernatural realities, they are virtual atheists; whatever they say they believe, they show in practice that they function without practical recourse to the supernatural. An Australian business leader once told me when he shared his faith with a Japanese CEO, the response was dismissive: “Whenever I meet a Buddhist leader, I meet a holy man in touch with another world. Whenever I meet a Christian leader, I meet a manager at home only in this world like I am.”
There is another world. We all have the capacity to live in this other world, because the ‘instrument of change’ is already inside us. Can we take everything we are, into this other world? Probably not. For me, living in this other world requires, among many other things, that I become more compassionate toward strangers. I can do this for short periods of time; I have yet to be able to live this way all the time.
The Spirit of the Creator lives in all of us; and possibly empowers the soul. I believe that the Creator has known the entirety of our lives since the Creation of the World. The Creator lives in Kairos time; not in Chronos time, as we do. Unlike many of the Creator’s followers, the Creator does not demand our belief. At the same time, if we ask the Creator for help in changing the person that we are, the Help will be here. But no magic. Change requires time, and a desire to change.
…and the monstrous creatures of whales_3.1
Enough of that.
- Illustration Tip #17: Self-Image, Part 2
You will most likely become the person you tell yourself you are. This is sort of how it works. We become the person we expect to be. If you don’t like the person you are now, you need start changing the way you talk to yourself; talking the person you want to be, into existence.
This sounds like a platitude from a Self-Help book [and it is]; however, I was able to do it myself. Have I arrived at some mystical level of the Universe? Nope.
I dislike encounters with absolute strangers.
Consequently, I live in a forest.
My forest happens to be located in suburban Portland…
I’m sure that neighbors complain about our lowering of the neighborhood property values;
I really don’t care.
Thankfully, I have a son that is willing to keep the yard from getting totally overgrown. I built the house right after I graduated with my degree in Architecture. I knew nothing about building houses, and truth told, I knew little about designing houses. I built the house for my parents, planted all the trees and shrubs that didn’t magically appear on their own. We live on the side of a volcano [Portland is surrounded by volcanoes]; the ground underneath the topsoil is pure clay. Since I knew nothing about building a house, I did not instruct the excavator to set the topsoil aside, when the hole for the foundation was dug. Consequently, our topsoil ended up underneath 2000sf of clay. Every ‘growie’ I planted was placed in a separate ‘pot’ dug into the clay and rooted itself into the potting soil I made, filling in the hole. After that, I was done with landscaping. I’d kept my parents’ yards in line since elementary school.
I digress.
My first job placed me in front of customers all day long, in a lumber yard. I hated it. We paid bills and ate because of that job. I did not want to work for an architect. Eventually, I started a construction company and began associating with people who wanted to better themselves. My construction company eventually died; and I ended up working for the Bureau of Buildings in Portland, assigned to the Permit Center. A new customer every 20 minutes; most of whom did not want to be there. I didn’t want to be there either.
I hyperventilated in the rest room on breaks. I ate lunch by myself every day, listening to relaxing music. I drew; I wrote in journals. I came to work late and went home late—it was a good way to avoid people.
Benjamin Franklin carried a diary with him every day. In that diary was a grid listing Personality Traits he wanted to achieve. He marked down, each day, whether or not he had improved in acquiring his Personality Traits, or whether he’d blown it entirely.
I followed his example. It works.
I read self-help books and listened to self-help stories every day for five years. I mostly did not watch television or movies [back when dinosaurs ruled the earth]. Every day, self-help input. If you read something often enough, it is possible to believe it. I did not believe myself into wealth through selling stuff. My goal was comfort with people; especially with certain people I admired, but rarely met. A different story.
I worked in the Permit Center for nine years. By the time I gave myself permission to go upstairs and review commercial plans for multi-story buildings, I was teaching classes. After I left the City to become a consultant, I taught classes for architects and engineers. When I went into sales, I taught classes in stuff I really didn’t know all that well, sometimes using interpreters…I’d say three sentences, and it sounded like I had said far more, when it came from the interpreter. I have no idea what I supposedly said.
I did not change my aversion to strangers. I learned to get past my aversions and practice new behaviors.
Sherlock’s Mind
This is all metaphor.
Inside the maze of nerves and neurons and electro-chemicals that make up our minds, we have two hamster wheels. At some point in our lives, nearly everyone gets stuck on the hamster wheel. There are two hamster wheels—the one we use most often has gotten dingy from staying in the dark attic of our painful memories; the other wheel is new and shiny because it hardly gets used, and Mrs. Hudson comes on a regular basis to keep the lighted attic room clean.
The two wheels are next to each other. Going from the dark and dingy part of our brain to the clean and bright part of our brain ‘simply’ requires that we stop running our static-filled brain and stepping across to the light side of our brain. We can climb onto the shining hamster wheel and jog in the sunshine of our mind.
It is an act of the will.
You can do this; it isn’t easy. It’s simply doable.
With a lot of work and determination, you can become a new you.
You have to change the way you think. You need to continually reduce the negative self-talk and learn positive self-talk. You are going to talk to your mind all of the time anyway; learn new ways to think.
Changing the way we think, in this world, with ALL of its problems, is incredibly hard; but it can be done. We are surrounded by people on the Hero’s Quest who are working to make a better future.
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Tags: Christianity, depression, faith, freelance illustration, heroes, hope, intolerance, material poverty, mental-health, Nerve Pain, Neuropathy, persistence, personal excellence, Polyneuropathy, self-employment, surviving
Chronicles in Ordinary Time 