Greatest of these is love

Most Christians know about 1st Corinthians 13. Many have had portions of it recited at their wedding, even if they're not overly religious or Christian. It's a great chapter about love.

Anything else? Let's take a second look:

1Cr 13:8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away.

This expresses a contrast between the eternal, which is love, and the temporary. That's right, these other things will end, while there is no end to love.

1Cr 13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part;

This life is a finite life, and no matter how much we study we will never learn everything. No matter how we strive to discover and discern, we can never see it all in this life. No matter what we think of God, in this life we will always have a limited vision.

1Cr 13:10,11 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things.

When we come to the end of our finite self, what is left is the only thing that is eternal-- love. There will be no more reason to study or limit to our vision. Just as teens no longer play with building blocks like when they were toddlers, we will have no more reason for human rituals.

1Cr 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.

1Cr 13:13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love.

For now, we have faith, hope, and love. But the particulars of faith end up to be training wheels that are removed from our bikes. Similarly, hope will eventually be unnecessary!

Faith and hope will both be unnecessary!

Some are adamant that we are saved by God seeing our good works, which also demands having the absolutely correct vision and definition of God.

Others are equally as certain that we are all saved by God's grace.

But there will come a time when we are past these disputes, and we will see them as the childish babblings that they really are.

And what will be left? Love. Love is eternal. Love is God, and God is love. Love created us, love sustains us, and we become love.

Cautionary Wisdom

I recently read the following from 'The Tao' by Mark Forstater:

"Transmit the message exactly as it stands. Don't transmit it with any excessive language. In this way the envoy can keep himself whole."
'Consider how skillful wrestlers begin with friendly trials of strength, but always end with underhand attempts to gain victory. As the pressure grows, their moves become wily
and clever.
'Those drinking at ceremonies at first observe good order, but always end in disorder. As their excitement grows, etiquette turns into uproar.
'In all things it's the same. People are at first sincere, but always end by becoming unpleasant. At the beginning things are treated as trivial, but as the end draws near, they assume great proportions.
'Words are no different than wind and waves, and actions are a matter of gain and loss. Wind and waves are easily stirred up. and questions of gain and loss easily lead to danger.
'So quarrels are stirred up by nothing so much as clever words and twisted speech, and animosities arise on both sides. When animals are threatened with death, they bellow
wildly, and their breath rages angrily. Cornered, they lash out. Similarly. If people are pushed too far, they lash out - why they don't know. Since they don't know why, who knows how it will end?"

I take this to heart. Because what I've been doing in this blog here is a form of negotiations. I have been trying to rediscover and re-inject some traditional Eastern wisdom back into Christianity, which I believe has lost this element through the years. I do believe that many times when something does not make sense in the Bible or our religion, that if a person looks at whatever it is through an Eastern viewpoint, tremendous vistas of understanding open up.
There are many in and out of churches nowadays who do not see the relevance of the traditional approach to Christianity. If I may anticipate your response to saying that-- No, we shouldn't try to accommodate to try to make everyone happy. But-- We should examine what we are doing to make sure that it is authentic, not to the customs of people but to the intent of the original text. We should constantly take a look to see if modern society has culturally moved on and left the church back in time and irrelevant. 'What should always stay relevant?' is the question.

So in the future I'm going to try to concentrate heavily on quoting text, and minimize any attempts of my ego to be clever. Because whatever the case, I don't matter.

The Point of the Point is not the Point

Have you ever had a dog?

There's a funny scenario that plays out with our pets, time and time again. You're at the park with your dog and you throw the stick/ball/Frisbee. Most of the time your dog follows the arc of your arm as you throw it, and their eyes never leave the object. But this time maybe Rover got distracted by some laughing kids or a car with a loud stereo, but whatever the case, the dog doesn't know that you threw it or where you threw it. And it looks to you, and then to the side, then back to you, then spins around. It's confused!

So you call to your dog, and point in the direction that you threw the object. What does the dog do? Yep, he's looking at your hand! You call, "No, no, over THERE!" but the dog is still looking back and forth from you to your hand. It's so frustrating, and yet funny!

The point is, don't mistake what is pointing for what is pointed AT. The two are completely different.

In the Bible, throughout history there have been wise men that the Jewish people referred to as prophets. Never did these prophets point to themselves, but always to God.

Then came one of the greatest prophets, John the Baptizer, and although he also pointed to God, you could make a case that he was mainly pointing to the coming of Jesus.

Then came Jesus, a prophet that was more than a prophet. Although he could have given in to the temptation to flex his power as God's son, he purposely took great pains to humble himself and limit himself. Why? Because his task and his message was more important than his own person. Think about that for a moment! What Jesus pointed to was more important than Jesus himself! (Wow)

Did the people around him look to see where he was pointing, or did they just look at his hand? So many people just wanted more food, healing, or another magic trick. Over and over Jesus tried to tell stories to illustrate God's love for them, that they didn't have reason to be anxious or worried, that rewards would come to the faithful, and that evil-doers get tripped up in their own evil schemes. He repeatedly showed that what you do from this point on is way more important than anything you have done in the past, and that it's important to stay receptive and not have a hardened heart to the truth. But did people actually hear Jesus? A few did.

The same dynamic is going on right now, 2000 years after Jesus walked the Earth. What do you expect to GET from Jesus? Or are you listening, trying to stay receptive and open?

Ultimately, I think there is even a truth that God is pointing us to. What could it be?

Origin of the Blockhead

I have purposely used the word 'pride' where others might have used 'ego' because I wanted to highlight the falsity of the blown out of proportion ego. We do have an identity as creations of God, and that is good. It is the false construction that is the collection of everything that you've been adding on since early childhood, that has grown into a monster. And that's what must be stripped away either now, or when you die. You can't take it with you!

The Jewish people have a legend about something called a 'golem.' When I say that, what comes to your mind? A monster? That's because the story has changed, and the meaning has changed over the years.

According to Wikipedia:

"The word golem is used in the Bible to refer to an embryonic or incomplete substance: Psalm 139:16 uses [a] word...meaning my unshaped form, which then passes into Yiddish as goylem.[2] The Mishnah uses the term for an uncultivated person..."

On the Pirkei Avos website Rabbi Dovid Rosenfeld says,

"The Hebrew word golem literally means an unfinished object, such as a utensil which has been shaped but not polished."

Notice the similarity with the concept of 'the uncarved block' of philosophical Taoism! I like the Benjamin Hoff books, one of which is 'The Tao of Pooh' which has this description of 'the uncarved block':

"One of the basic principles of Taoism is P'U, the Uncarved Block. The essence of the Uncarved Block is that things in their original simplicity contain their own natural power, power that is easily spoiled and lost when that simplicity is changed. This principle applies not only to things, but to people as well. Or Bears. Which brings us to Pooh, the very Epitome of the Uncarved Block. When you discard arrogance, complexity, and a few, other things that get in the way, sooner or later you will discover that simple, childlike, and mysterious secret known to those of the Uncarved Block: Life is Fun."

Back to 'golem' for a moment. To recap, 'golem' used to mean something similar to 'the uncarved block' of Taoism. 'Golem' always was a creature, but as people do, over the years the 'golem' became something of a monster.

Wikipedia also has this:

"In many depictions golems are inherently perfectly obedient. However, in its earliest known modern form the story has Rabbi Eliyahu of Chełm creating a golem that became enormous and uncooperative. In one version of this the rabbi had to resort to trickery to deactivate it, whereupon it crumbled upon its creator and crushed him."

The Genesis creation story has God creating Adam as a golem in Genesis 2:7

"And the LORD God formed man [of] the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Again, Wikipedia:

"Adam is described in the Talmud (Tractate Sanhedrin 38b) as initially created as a golem when his dust was "kneaded into a shapeless husk"."

I don't think I'm going out on a limb here by asserting that we started out as a child (creation) of God/golem/uncarved block, and then -WE- were the ones that, from our original identity/golem/uncarved block created the false ego (pride) which is also the story of the uncontrollable monster golem! Our pride makes us the uncontrollable monster creation! Who created it? We did!

At the end of one of my recent posts I said that the killing off of the parasite of pride is the same as being born again. As some will think this is a woefully inadequate summation, let me further clarify.

I imagine the response:
"Being 'born again' is from having a new life in Jesus Christ! You're dead to the old life and born again to the new life!"

Yes, we are talking about the same things, just using different words. The 'old life' is the life of being driven by that false creation of ours, pride. Do you remember the OT story of Jacob and Esau, and how Esau traded his birthright for a hot meal? (Genesis 25:30) That's like what happened when we traded God's true creation of our nature for our own creation of our nature, pride.

In God's creation of our nature is joyous life, but in our creation (pride) is something that comes to an early end. God's creation is lasting quality, for he is the master builder. Our creation (pride) is of inferior quality, even if we tried our best. God's creation AUTOMATICALLY recognizes and honors God, whereas our creation of pride always becomes a monster out of control. Becoming born again is changing that decision of Esau's and keeping the birthright instead of trading it away. This is what Jesus taught before we humans killed him to silence him.

Our Pride will go to any lengths to protect itself. It has a mind of it's own!

Do we then need Jesus? Yes! Jesus' death was a living display of a general principle of how we are to live. In inviting Jesus in and looking for his nature inside of us, we are forced to give up our pride. We are to stop thinking of our own survival, our own skin and it's pleasures and wants, and think of how we can help others.

What does it mean to invite Jesus into our heart? It means to look for him there! Stop looking for Jesus in rust spots and baked bread, and instead look for him in you!

Self-Inflicted Wound

Pride is something each of us creates to try to lift ourselves up, and all it does is demean us.

The Most Dangerous of All...

A wild bear, tiger, or lion is an amazing sight to see! For primitive mankind it was a necessity for us to conquer any possible threat. But very quickly we discovered that we liked the challenge and the imputed right, in our primitive culture, to parade our prowess in front of our tribe. We killed what we couldn't use, and tamed what we could!

Bit by bit through the years we have challenged and tamed every accessible part of nature and society. Everything has been up for grabs, and we have claimed it all. We are the conquerors!

We have even expanded aggressively into very inaccessible areas like outer space, the ocean's depths, DNA, particle physics, artificial intelligence, and Nascar (and boy did we mess that one up).

Everything that we humans take on, we are able to dominate and subjugate. We are even looking for extra-terrestrial aliens! I give you one guess what we will try if we ever find them! Tame them or kill them! We must rule over all creation. If only it stopped right there!

But unfortunately this mindset, the feeding of our pride from the carcass of the conquered can not easily be stopped. Our exterior may look mild-mannered but our inflated pride has become the most wild and fiercest of beasts, and nothing can stop us (we think).

"Wait a minute!" you might say. Our pride is a survival mechanism, and as such is a natural part of us. If everything natural is from God (and not to be ashamed of), then why shouldn't we fully accept it, as if it were as basic as eating or sex? Why do we make following our natural drive to be a sin'?

But pride is NOT a natural drive. When we are proud and inflate our importance or prowess to ourselves or others, we are LYING. We're not really that powerful, that awesome, are we? If a normal ego is 'identity' then pride is the embellished story about that identity that we try to sell to ourselves and others. And this story gets out of hand. It takes on a life of its own!

Think of someone in your past or present who acts like a jerk. Well, that's not really them, it's the mask that they hold up in front of them, and that mask is pride, and it's fake.

Now for the bad news-- We ALL have problems with pride. We ALL have tried on different masks to portray ourselves to others in a better light. And we lie to ourselves too. We look at our mask and admire how handsome or pretty we are. And it's all fake!

The beautiful child of God that is you is NOT the mask. Pride has nothing to do with who you really are. But it begins to make demands, just as if it were a parasite in your brain, driving you to do things to protect itself.

Inevitably, what happens when we've burned all of our bridges behind us? What happens when following the direction of that parasite Pride has destroyed our families, friendships, career? What happens when we end up in the gutter? The person that most would call a 'loser' is so very close to finding the biggest secret and greatest of treasures! Because that person is starting to understand how their pride has been a dictator over him or her, all the time that they thought they were in charge.

When this person turns to look for God, it is no longer with prideful thoughts but of raw survival. The prodigal son didn't want another inheritance or any status, he just wanted scraps from the table, knowing that his father was a kind man.

That is why most philosophies and religions talk about 'dying before you die'.

Dying before you die is killing off that beast of pride, which most people are too scared to do. There is no need to absolutely wreck everything and experience the destruction of everything and everyone in your life, before you finally lose that parasite of pride! It has to go, sometime. Now or later!

Why is it scary? Because getting rid of pride leaves you right back at square #1. You are responsible for everything that you say and do. No more excuses. No more justifications. No more lying to yourself or others about anything. You're back to being a naked baby, starting the day out fresh again. This is what it means to be 'born again'.

Because of your pride, you were living a fantasy of your own making. Welcome back to the real world!

Perception, Know What I Mean? :-)

I recently finished an excellent book, Philip Gulley's 'If the Church Were Christian'.

Although I would like to review the whole book, (here are some good reviews from others: What Canst Thou Say, Evolving Beings) I feel it is more important to communicate a topic that is practically burning me up with it's importance-- perception.

Gulley recalls in his first chapter (ITCWC...Jesus Would Be A Model For Living Rather Than An Object Of Worship) a scene from his childhood:

"...behind the altar hung a magnificent figure of Jesus nailed to a cross.

The statue was so realistic as to be frightening. Nails protruded from Jesus' wrists and ankles, blood mingled down in a grisly red, his body striped with angry lashes. The figure loomed above the priest, inescapable. It had to be gazed upon. Without my mother telling me so, I deduced this Jesus was to be revered. Had the statue been placed anywhere else, had it been avoidable, I do not think it would have captured my attention to the extent it did. But its being placed behind the altar, squarely in the center of the worshippers' attentions, forced me to gaze upon it, brought it sharply into focus, and required a response. It was clear from the priest's words and from the hymns we sang and prayers we offered that the hoped-for response was veneration. This Jesus was to be worshiped. Further, the quality and sincerity of my worship would determine my future, whether I would enjoy an eternal life of joy and bliss with Jesus, or an eternity of suffering and sorrow without him."

There is a huge problem here, just under the surface. I too have felt as Gulley expresses, that people substitute the following of Jesus with the worship of Jesus. And as I've expressed before in this blog (on objectifying, on intellectualizing,) merely worshiping Jesus is objectifying him, and only acknowledging Jesus as God's son is intellectualizing him.

But here's the problem-- As Gulley sat there in church, looking up at the graphic rendition of Jesus on the cross, he made his own conclusions about what everyone else was thinking and about what they wanted him to think, specifically that they wanted him to exclusively worship Jesus. But how was he to know what the person next to him really thought? Perhaps the person next to him was taking in the visual example of how to live a Christian life? Seeing Jesus on the cross is like a visual aid, or a visual parable, to teach and guide us in some way. What way is that? To live like that. So for some, to look up at that crucifix meant one thing (worship), and to others it meant something else (following)!

As I mentioned in a previous post (here), in this life we are living in something like a "duality bubble, or cloud." We cannot see everything.

Daniel C. Dennett brings this up (Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, p. 235) when he refers us to the example of Wittgenstein's 'Beetle in the Box':

Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle." No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.-- Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different..." (Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, 1953)

Dennett on p. 239 quotes anthropologists Palmer and Steadman (regarding their frustrations with natives of Borneo):

While religious beliefs are not identifiable, religious behavior is, and this aspect of the human experience can be comprehended. What is needed is an explanation of this observable religious behavior that is restricted to what can be observed.

Dennett adds (italics are his):

When it comes to interpreting religious avowals of others, everybody is an outsider. Why? Because religious avowals concern matters that are beyond observation, beyond meaningful test, so the only thing anybody can go on is religious behavior, and, more specifically, the behavior of professing.

What does the Bible have to say? Let's look at Matthew 7:

Judge not, that ye be not judged... And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam [is] in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye... Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. ... every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither [can] a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.

So in summing this up, I would say that we are to judge religious behavior, but NOT religious beliefs. The 'Fruit of the Spirit' is behavior, the spirit itself is belief.