In The Wilderness-2

The Temptation of Jesus ©
Second time the devil went over to Jesus without so much as ‘by your leave.’
For the tempter knew he was famished after having fasted for 40 days and nights. He knew he had an offer that he could not have refused. He had water to drink: to the wilderness he came riding a donkey and carried along two jugs of clearest water.
“ Here you drink this water,” Satan says casually to which Jesus queries,” what is your angle this time?”
“While you retreated to this wilderness these forty days, do you know how many died out there because of a famine? Wars kill and foul streams; plagues also do their bit. I could recite the names of millions who die for want of water. ”
“In such a case why take all the trouble to seek me out? You could have done some service to those in need?”
“Ho, Ho,” the tempter laughs, “ You have already come for them. Why must I enter into your labor or steal your thunder?”
Jesus falls silent. He is famished and he knows the tempter wouldn’t make a move to offer a cup or loosen the water jug that still lay secure. It is merely a ploy; meant for drawing him into a dialogue. The same ole Satan. At that moment the tempter begins, “ Before the worlds began I know you; and you dare not repudiate me that I was anything less than you in grace or glory.”
“Let us not rake over the past.”
The tempter explains as to the ‘war among the angels’ and of his fall while Jesus strains his every nerve to distract himself from the wolf that gnaws at his vitals. “Yes I come to you as an equal; those riff-raff and the little people out there. Why should I feed them or give them drink?” A pause.
“In your case I know who you are,” Jesus didn’t change his expression or move one step to greet him. “and I hold hand of friendship out to you. Can you not accept me as one and slake your thirst?”
Jesus asks, “You have always conditions before you do anything. Haven’t you?”
“ Why not? ” Your Father has his conditions. So have I.” Jesus shakes his head and turns away.
The tempter asks, “You look pretty gaunt and your breath hard. You must be really hungry.” Jesus ignores the remark. His interlocutor persists, “ You could have turned these stones into bread and fed the hungry.”
Again silence. The tempter asks,“ Why not try it now? After you have sated your hunger you can help yourself to the water I have.”
“ Bread for the poor.” Jesus muses loudly, “ Well it is a thought. Isn’ t it? If I did that it might give wrong notions at some quarters.” Satan is puzzled and he asks him to explain. Jesus obliges him, “ Law of Moses will have the woman taken in adultery to be stoned. Those who are most keen to carry out the law to the letter might use the example as an excuse.”
Satan is still perplexed.
“ Excuse for what?”
“For more vigor in administering the punishment.” Jesus realizes his tempter is still confounded. He asks, “ Will not these judges of law palliate their conscience with an excuse that they have merely given away bread? If one were to correct them that the ‘guilty’ died just the same, do you think they will simply accept the fact? It is more likely that they are apt to say, clever foxes they are, thus, “ If they died it is because Lord is a Just God. We merely served them bread.”
After a pause Jesus adds,” Why must I let the name of my Father be associated with a lie or give the unjust an easy way out?”
The tempter realizes the drift of and quickly changes the topic.
benny

A Point To Ponder

The problem of being earthy is in the way our perspective is altered: things of soul, me-factor somewhat tend to vanish to the point as in the case of a perspective drawing. The result? Our appetites and creature comforts loom larger and obfuscate the vista beyond: Truth is less than what we can grasp being in body.
According to St.Paul we shall be spiritual beings in the hereafter. Will it not then indicate a reverse process? Truth cannot be diminished or added to. Since we shall never be outside our bodies, spiritual or otherwise, hereafter must be a slow learning process. Like the many cycles of birth as Hinduism expound. Our avatars must bear less and less of the previous manifestation and each serve a purpose: where we test our pet theories spliced out of experience and nature and actions till we have reached the end point.
Truth: for a Christian it shall be seeing God as He is. Oneness of Things in terms of soul must mean that we shall be of the same essence as He is.”
The biggest misconception of a Christian must be to think heaven is where he will simply do nothing and be at rest. As long as Truth remains incomplete or less clear you and I shall have things to do.
benny

Capital Punishment

GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States has 90 guns for every 100 citizens, making it the most heavily armed society in the world, a report released on Tuesday said.

Boobus Americanus is a genus
As we see, different from us;
They all need a gun
In order to have fun;
They have the rod
To let off their steam.
The law is serious
With gun-toting Americanus.
But what is the point
To fry their own?
For shooting out of season
Mostly the fellow gets the chair?
Justice is always done
Among the Americanus.


benny

Week 13-Summary-2

How does our body compare with soul? All comparisons are odious. What life touches transforms body as Jesus was transfigured in front of his disciples. (St.Matt.17: 1-13) All that they could understand of it was so little whereas Jesus knew of the path that lay ahead. The body merely makes you adequate for certain functions here and now, while soul maps out hereafter as well. Soul takes over the burden of proof that the body cannot supply. Jesus knew his way ahead where Golgotha was merely another name to the glory of being elevated to the right hand of his Father.
Let us consider the life of an artist like Vincent van Gogh. What gave him wherewithal or the inner resources to continue as a painter while the world jeered and his peers ridiculed at his works? Shame and honor of this world in the final analysis do not matter since soul is outside every circumstance that a body is privy to. The artist was lonely; he was poor and a sponge and a madman to boot. But his soul was none of these.
The body allows an artist to squeeze the paints or mix them but the colors that make up the canvas are all from the soul. Similarly shall Shakespeare stage his plays for the rowdy, and dandies of his times. But poetry of his soul shall make his lines, even when taken out of context, sing and continue to set us on fire.
benny

W13-Summary

Our essence cannot be in our body, which is corporeal; nor can it be in our intellect, which is merely a vehicle for taking our cues from Idea, an absolute value. Let us for argument sake call it Truth. It is Absolute but it is not our essence. My identity is Truth given a human face and it bears the name given by my parents.
The name: did I choose my own? No! How could I in my dependent state?
Similarly the soul is under the bondage of my flesh, under truth of my experience, of nature and of action. Soul as yet takes reading from Truth because of Me-factor. Remember the story of the House of Joy? (vide W2 D6)
No two persons shall draw same conclusion, matching in every point though they would have witnessed the same scene. How each one employs Me-factor has its own specific characteristics. Hence the identity.
Soul tends to Truth as our reality to Ultimate Reality. This is a relative direction. At no point of our journey to it are we totally freed from Truth Imperative. We may not consciously seek out Truth as Bunyan’s Pilgrim. Whether before Delectable Mountains or in that Slough of Despond, loss of truth was never his problem. Only that seeking out a higher state of Truth gave him sustaining power. Each of us in varying fashion tests the reality of Truth in our daily lives. This process shall go on till we are subsumed in Truth incarnate.
Are you a Christian? Are you a Jew? or a Hindu? Grow in the knowledge till you and and every other become (like) diamonds of the first water.
(2b cont'd)
benny

winter scene

wintermoon

full moon

Of Genius and Frauds

-cont'd from the previous post
3.

By the way, in my time I have seen a certain class among the Christians, who were hell-bent for converting others not because they were convinced they had the seal of approval in themselves but to show they have prevailed over another. How low one can be to gloat over making another feel a sinner? By making one who is a little unsure and weak squirm of hell and damnation, isn’t the biblethumper establishing his superiority?
‘For as many as desire to make a shew in the flesh, they constrain you…” Gal 6:12) They have devised their own mumbo-jumbo and they think God can only work through a tightrope of their devising. Of all these zealots none deserve more sympathy from us than the Pentecostalists. Why single them out? I have been with these despicable lot for some 17 years- so I speak with some authority. ‘Truth shall make you free…” Once I started reading the Bible closely, scales fell off my eyes as it were. I thumped my nose at the pastor who threatened of dire consequences if I left the fold. ( In a way I reproached myself for my folly in not having exercised judgment and instead let people and their outward show of piety rob me of my good sense.)
By the grace of God I survived.
Grace of God gives us liberty. Me-factor guides us to use the liberty in an appropriate manner in humility, joy, peace, long-suffering, love and in hope, despite whatever contrary the circumstances are. Me-factor is wisdom itself because it reckons not filling the hour with some sensation or other but keeps timelessness of eternity as though were its natural sphere of action. Soul under such guidance learns to soar above every isms, narrow confines of race, creed and trivia of earthly existence and to look clear eyed at our potential to give.
Me-factor elevates a corporeal form to transcend its narrow mold: It trains us to be genius in the art of living. In what way such genius is expressed if not in adding to the quality of life all around? By that standard a man on the street who performs an useful task, however lowly it be, is one.

A poem

2.
Me-Factor ©

In the heart of matter I was
E’en before the worlds began:
How can I not know
Adam’s fall from grace
Or redemption to follow?
I was there ‘n the tree of life
And the forbidden fruit
(Free from blame and sorrow).
Just the same his darkling lot
Was mine too. While death came
For the son of God,
A change of residence found
Me, as exalted or down- trodden
Thro’ the lineage of man:
I’m the bard’s tongue and the point
Of an assassin’s knife.
I am the wound and the healing;
I am the isle and the sea of change;
So much so I am found,
In all things large or small-
Where worlds begin or end
In impulses long drawn out,
I merely seek, and lo, my place
Is for taking!

benny

W13 D7- My Mentor

Because I have a soul a Me-factor is necessary for me to cut through every confusion that cause and effect may create or when us and them degenerate into haves and haves-not over dollars and cents. “I was one among them,” and as Lord Byron says,” but not one of them.”
Whether we live or die we have something ineffable within ourselves that still bears witness to us. Me- factor is the mentor with regards to my Soul. Because I trust in my own identity, I do not need another to show how I may attain excellence in my life here and beyond.
How good is a spiritual mentor?
It was said of Alcibiades that his faults were held in check as long as Socrates was at hand. Socrates who realized that he had a natural inclination for virtue checked his perverse and impetuous traits to some extent. But removed from his restraining influence Alcibiades took up a course of action that was doomed. It is impossible for any one to live another one’s life. Even the greatest teacher must allow his pupils only what is patently their own. If their naturalness still can come through despite of corrections of experience and wisdom of others it both reflects the teacher and the pupil. Me- factor allows me to keep my wits about and keep focus of my soul.(2 B Cont'd)
benny

The Soul Thing

(Cont'd from the previous-W13 D6)
According to the matter that may have come from anywhere our form cannot be tied to anything other than to First Cause (vide Premise #1) and consequently whether we live or die material aspects of our being must be linked to it.
Have you wondered law of entropy only explains dissipation of complex molecules into simple atoms. How come then we have made a kick-start from our simple arboreal existence into the present level of civilization? In other words while material nature of mankind is subject to dissolution, their works broaden out into a royal highway. This is anomaly of matter in action and I can only speak for my kind.( If other species do build on the past in a concerted manner as to pass on to the future for good or bad I cannot say.) While time erodes us to a trickle, Time also is at work.
That leads us to the question of soul. Soul is the indication of finite and the Infinite making contact.
benny

W13 D6-Law of Entropy

Anomaly of Matter is particularly evident at its micro -cosmic level. The immutable second law of thermodynamics describes the characteristic of molecules or cluster of atoms to degenerate in course of time from its complex state into less orderly form. In other words law of entropy must occur on a time scale. Thus a number of close-knit molecules over a certain period of time fall into disarray but in case of a single atom how would that be possible? Is it because matter at its atomic level does not recognize time as we know of it? The difference between time and Time is a single atom away.
We observe time in our being and death is written as part of the deal: thus even as we seem to grow, death also gains ground. ( Note: Death is built-in, which is what our biological clock tells us. Each chromosome in a cell is packed to keep it from fraying and have ends: these ends are called telemia, and as cells divide and multiply to replace old and worn out cells, telemia gets progressively shortened. In normal circumstances these telemia ends are only good for some 100 such divisions or so.)
Death is a telling example of dissolution of our material form. Yet we hold with in us clear evidence of Time ( atoms that make up our corporeal form provide that). How do we explain rationally the apparent contradiction here?
Anomaly of Matter of course.(2 B cont'd.)
benny

W13 D5 Me-Factor

An Identity Crisis? ©

Confucius once visited Yu Island. The Emperor of China had come on an expedition and expressed his desire to see him. So Confucius was at the appointed hour at the palace waiting to be called in. A man in splendid robes peered at the sage and frowned. When he was told that it was Confucius he became so glad and said that he had always wanted to meet so illustrious person as he. Introducing himself as the Keeper of His Majesty’s Seals he asked: “How is every one in Hoon Chow?”
“Hoon Chow?” Confucius was perplexed.
“Come, come,” said the fellow in the courtly dress. “I am so honored to see the man who discovered Hoon Chow.”
Confucius was all the more confused. “Didn’t you describe the land where men walk on all fours and women sport tails? They even eat grass. Do they not?” The nobleman chuckled.
Confucius wondered if he were dreaming or talking to one who had lost all his senses. Confucius strained to speak but the man said that from his travel books he imagined him to be different. “No matter, at last I have met the man who made Hoon Chow popular in the Court. The emperor also is taken by your book.”
“But I...” Before the sage could explain the mistake the Keeper of the Seals smoothly said: ”I expected you to belittle your great achievement, so modest just as I had expected.”
As the King’s First Minister approached them, the Keeper murmured, ”The emperor is weighed down by various affairs of the state and as a friendly advice, royalty takes ill of modesty from one of such merit. Do not correct the messenger of the Sun and the Moon. He is apt to lose temper.”
“But I am the other Confucius” Confucius explained but the Keeper with a wave of his hand seemed to say, ‘Tell it to the birds!” With a quick courtly bow he went out.
Before he could recover his astonishment a gong sounded and he looked up to see the inscrutable face of the First Minister who with his entourage bowed before the sage. “The emperor will receive the Incomparable Master of Hoon Chow!”
Quote for the day:
“I have a short name but a long memory that I should not lose it ever.”
benny

W13D4-Color of my Soul

Premise #6
“Notwithstanding material nature of all things in a visible universe being linked to First Cause, being subject to their time and place how any object works at any given time and place must define its essence.”
Between First Cause and us stand something of a gridlock in terms of cause and effect. Recalling the story of yesterday, what made a once fertile land into a dust bowl has been the result of so many events to which the farmer couldn’t have foreseen. Neither the Bank would have known. After all the Banks are for making some money. As often the case is the expert advice of financial or political pundits are only good on paper while events prove them wrong. ( Let me quote a recent news item: DES MOINES, Iowa - The state has agreed to pay $925,000 to unwitting subjects of an infamous 1930s stuttering experiment — orphans who were badgered and belittled as children by University of Iowa researchers trying to induce speech impediments.)
The Wise, the Fool the Good and bad alike are victims of chains of events.
We are even before we are born, caught in a snarl of causes and events and how we respond to them? According to our time and place. Besides our actions must make sense to us. We have opted for rational thinking haven’t we?
But do we have to behave like lemmings? Aren’t we showing our herd mentality when we with our actions convince others as though we were as sound in judgment as any other? We act to our time and place. (Who likes to be pointed out as a fool by another or for being stupid?). St. Francis must have indeed seemed a fool to the people of Assissi when he gave up the riches in order to be poor.
Making yourself pass for as rational as everybody else may be OK. But is it the best you can do? When you do a thing in order to make sense to you, as well as others may see it as something excellent, it has a ring of truth. Truth of Action.
We reveal the color of our souls with our choices.
benny

W13 D3-Either Or

A man went to New York in search of work. His farm had been devastated which was not something special since his once fertile land had been turned into a dustbowl. Mother Nature had dealt him a severe blow; and his community to which he, like his fathers before him had belonged was of no help. The President of the local bank and the directors had failed him in his moment of distress. Did they not force him to mortgage his lands for updating his farm equipments? Did they not deceive him by drawing a rosy picture of what he stood to gain and suggested easy terms? When things went wrong they had quickly dropped him and forced him out. He had much to gripe about.
Now in New York he was on his own. He joined a gang since he had declared war on society. But when he was asked by the gang leader to kill some one, he demured. “ That will make me a murderer.” The gang leader laughed and said,” But you have declared war. Didn’t you?” He would not let him join them without blood on his hands.
He asked for time.
The same night he made his escape since he knew he would have no other choices left but to go down killing or some other crime. He wanted to choose his own course with which he could live in good conscience.
What choices we make create new pathways while closing so many. Consequently for me Either Or is a way of discovering my essential self.
Tailpiece: If you intend to be a first rate concert pianist don’t expect to shine inside the ring at the same time.Either Or.
benny

W13 D2- Correspondence of the Likes

Problem of comparison is of particular consequence to us since man has laid emphasis on abstract thinking as an ideal. Other species have their own emphases. Now I shall stick to our own kind. Our ideals only tell us one thing: we have ideas. If such an idea is the distaff on which Christianity is spun how can we compare our beliefs with another whose religious practices run contrary to our own?
2.
Cosmos is all-enveloping in which many universes come into being and die their violent deaths. All those elements they throw out are not lost but give rise to many forms of which we are one among many beneficiaries. In that infinite space we see the stars, moon and the sun. Now if we were to look into an atom we see another kind of Cosmos, a micro-cosmos where matter in the form of fundamental particles have their own orbital path. Planets in orbiting around the Sun obey certain laws; we find protons and electrons in micro-cosmos also similarly observe laws.
Correspondence
A molecule is kind of a universe in itself in that so many atoms are tucked within. If one were to peek within an atom one could see that it corresponds to our universe: correspondence of the likes. Cosmos and the micro-cosmos set in comparison by our oneness. That being the case how we access to absolute values or Idea is by means of our material make up. If we have found God is because we have discovered our own bodies. Correspondence of the likes. If an animist worships a tree he has found the all-enveloping nourishing force that connects him to it. If we reckon our bodies why not trees that sustains them? What elements we cannot digest directly from soil do they not do for us? (Let us not be blind or ostrich-like to think our material body is all- sufficient.) The otherworldly quality of matter provides us the framework within which to test our ideas. There is no other tutor we can rely on.
benny

Week 13-Problem of Comparison

Premise #5
"Problem of being or non-being lies not in itself but what comes attached to it as a matter of right."
What is cause without its effect? Or material nature of an object without its abstract counterpart? Take love for example.
Horses, Horses, Horses! ©
Among many clans of Mongolian nomads the clan of Wind Riders are especially noted for their love of horses. One orphan who was adopted into the clan was called Love. When he reached 12 the chief called him and said the name was not enough. He asked the young boy,” Love must have an object? What shall it be?”
Brother Love replied,” Horses.” Years later he fell in love with one New Yorker who had dropped in among them as a student of anthropology. Before she married she said,” If you love me love my family, people and our customs. His love was so much he married Mary Anne and adopted New York as his home. He worked for a company called Horse Trading Inc., where he was shocked to learn he would work in an office from nine to five. Much worse was his feeling his colleagues had no love for horses! He still loved horses.
When one from Outer Mongolia visited him Brother Love said his love came with many strings attached. “ Yes my love for Mary Anne is worth it. But my mother-in-law..”
“Well what of her?”
“ It would have been terrible had it not been for her face. It reminds me of horses out there.”
benny

Week 12-Summary

How we work with Oneness must be explained in terms of anomaly of matter. What we consider as spiritual or otherworld quality is rooted in our very corporeal makeup. Studies into the workings of human brain show a spiritual aspect hitherto largely neglected: religious experience. Dr.Perzinger of Laurentian University, Canada conducted tests in patients, with a weak magnetic field induced around their temporal lobes in the right hemisphere of the brain. Overlapping electromagnetic waves that the brain generates it galvanized skin responses; and studies have shown subjects could, under the influence of the magnetic field, feel a palpable presence beyond time and space. It is also seen that patients with temporal lobe epilepsy respond far more readily to religiously loaded words under test conditions than a normal person. Mystical experiences of Ellen G. White in her time were received as divinely ordained but science stepped in to point her gifts as nothing more than a result of a childhood injury. Be that as it may if one feels more comfortable with God as its source well what of it?
Relgion has many uses: it gives some to explain the obvious. They even come loaded with degrees. Some may even found megachurches. Such fellows lead us down the primrose path and say, ”Do not take my deeds for it but do as I say.”
Caveat emptor! Let the customer beware. Jesus turned water into wine. These pastors milk us to squirt their dirt on the tabloids, I say.
Benny

W12 D7- In Silence We Connect

Premise #4
“If we cannot exactly say if the space is expanding or may at some point reverse into a Big Crunch, First Cause must explain its motions in whichever direction. Every material form the earth or man, weird life forms in other planetary systems must be equally dependent on the selfsame Cause.”

Every part of our universe is like a wheel connected to one another by so many wheels small and large in a machine some of which are so minute that may escape detection to any casual enquiry. Time in nano seconds we may never experience nor shall we measure a cosmic year which takes our sun to make one complete revolution about the centre of the Galaxy. It runs about 220 million years. Our year linked to the Galactic year would show how exceedingly narrow range do we take in matters of cosmos; Yet our brief span of life is linked to it. We may leave the Sun to its galactic year if we may do much with one year. Our heartbeats in its regularity must measure however imperfectly the seemingly infinite pacings of celestial events. How we make sense of Oneness is somewhat similar.
Our heartbeats in its rhythm provide harmony to the melodic line of cosmos. Our mind and body as one, come in time with the music of the spheres. The rests, which we provide is the key. Part of Time.
‘ And the rest is silence,’ as the Bard of Avon would say.

benny

Time was when
I was drunk with life:
Green was my color,
My pennant, my glory;
Time, now is
Like this pebble
Come to spite me.

Benny Thomas 13-08-07

books, books, books.....

Ex Libris


Sweet thoughts of mine
Though bound by time,-
And in cold print too:
‘A book is a book
Is a book’
Yet you’re free! Oh yes
Go on, footloose and fancy free!


benny thomas



Note: books written by Benny:

The Life of Aesop www.lulu.com/content/344881
Sufficient unto this Day www.lulu.com/content/416344

10 August 2007

1000-flowers ..... to all of you from Benny:-)

tea, what else

since Benny is out of office, due to an operation, for a while I will fill his blog every now and than with a photo.
he is recovering well and is spirit is high.
He says hi to all his readers.

emma thomas

bleeding wood

taken from the photoblog of my wife:

www.flickr.com/photos/ymkjethomas/
www.flickr.com/photos/emma2thomas/

W12 D6- Variations On A Theme

Variations On A Theme
“In my Father’s house are many mansions…”(St. Jn 14:2)
The redemptive work of Jesus applies to us and we as Christians seek the straight and narrow path in order to perfect the work that he has begun in our lives. Cannot God do with other peoples and species according to His will and pleasure?
“On the Isle of G- off Malacca straights a curiously wrought statue of a comodor
dragon can still be seen. On my honor as a Christian and ever in fear of salvation for my soul ( if I should lie with a view to deceive), I narrate matters that I have handled and seen at first hand during my unfortunate exile from my homeland. My spiritual mentor, a Malay whom I shall call after the fashion of the natives as Hermit of the Mountains avers on good authority that it has fallen from the sky.( Thereby he means, as I surmise, originated from another world.)
The hermit informed me on more than three occasions that it was born of an egg from a female dragon without having mated with another. Of immaculate conception of our Blessed Virgin I can vouch for but of this miracle among the dragons I merely mention for the highest esteem I hold for my mentor whose veracity I cannot doubt even while dealing with a matter as marvelous as this.
The dragon-child having learnt to walk as soon as he was born and could show his precocity in so many ways that made many slow learners of his species very jealous. They made him feel as though he were an outcast. They did think a pure being as he and far more accomplished than they ought find some other place. They despised him for his body that was without any blemish, a fact they made look as though a bad thing. His skin were covered with scales like armour plated would catch the rays of the sun and radiate even through the night.
The dragon-child one morning thought a curious thought, and it remained in a stupor for a fortnight. One morning it disappeared altogether. Next we see him flying right into the Great Lake where he died: his scales all tipped with the luminescence that he had caught there healed the lake. It opened out into the sea, which we now know as Gulf of Thailand.
Three days the dragon-child suffered agonies of slowly sinking under his weight amidst sulphurous fumes. His watery death however brought healing to the fishes that came into the Lake. Nowhere you shall see fishes as iridiscent and varied as you find there. The folks all around had abundant catch of fishes since then.”
This is a free rendition of the oral account passed on to me by a person whom I hold in highest regard. ( signed by Captain Jan Snyder of Scheveningen in the year of our Lord- 1899)
From diligent enquiries I have been able to get some background information as to this sea-captain who had worked in a whaling ship around 1854 and was presumably lost at sea. After the cataclysmic event of Krakatoa this worthy sea captain suddenly turned up in Scheveningen, Holland excusing for his long absence to matters he were not free to reveal till the appointed time. Instead he has left a thick bundle of papers tied in a hemp ropes for safekeeping which were in a sea-chest. Before he left it with the office relating to the Whaler’s Relief Fund ( off the Prince Mauritz Canal ) he was particular that rest of the papers should not be disturbed on any account till he came in person for them.
benny

W12 D5- Usurpation of His Office

“Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.” ( 2 Tim 2:19) If God knows who his children are, why we Christians work ourselves into a lather if the Word as preached by us among nations are refused ? First we call them names: Pagans and Sons of Belial and what not. Consider the days the British Empire held sway over most parts of the globe. Were the missionaries from the West then so burdened for the souls of Chinamen, the Malays and the Indians that they had to convert them first and create them in an image they were most comfortable with? In doing so they only served to create a special class and cut them adrift from their cultural moorings. Did this lumpen race make a perfect fit in the Western soceity? Their new epithet? ‘Wogs’ as a class whom the West tolerated but in many ways despised for being neither here or there.
Religion and Culture go hand in hand whether one likes it or not. Of this I shall come to by and by.

Coming closer to our times what is lurking beneath our Islamophobia? The Children of Islam are entrenched in their way as we are. Can God only work with faith as we are used to? Didn’t Jesus say,” The other sheep I have , which are not of this fold; them also I must bring..” (Jn.10:16) It is the Lord’s doing. In His own time whether it be in this world or in another is not for us to know.
2.
Mexican Americans who are living in the south-western border states of America may be citizens of the U.S.A but they trace their origins in Mexico and pattern of belief-systems as it is impressed in them go still deeper. The Roman Catholic beliefs imposed on the New World by force and coercion some 500 years ago serve now as the basic religion in Mexico. It did not mean that the Mexicans could not work from within, their own beliefs which the Church once tried to supplant. The policy of the Church in the sixties was to Americanize these people. But it was not much of a success. The Church that whenever the priests offered masses in other than Spanish the flock tended to go to other churches where Masses were in Spanish. In Haiti the Church was first associated with the Francophile elite, and which by 1940’s became identified with African values. Naturally reconciliation with voodoo was inevitable. The Masses are now sung in Creole accompanied by voodoo drums. Devotion of the celebrants see no distinction between the Christian, Indian or African spirits which are merely lubricants that smoothen their daily grind of living. No Church can hope to establish dogmas per se and expect it to be held pure. It is people who give its vitality to beliefs which the Prophet who supposedly bring from the Highest. People give it life and in the process it is transmuted into something unforeseen by the Church .
benny

1000-flowers

from: www.flickr.com/photos/emma2thomas/

W12 D4 -untitled

Premise #3
“Where First Cause allows freedom of action among life forms collectively (or as individuals), and how one species lose out or another gain would still serve its purpose: doesn’t the trade off among species create pool of experience for future? With such a support system made secure by events fortuitous or calamitous for some the Cause is served. “
But does it serve my needs as a human being given my time and place?
What we call Free Will in the vocabulary of First Cause is called Unity of Life. (or Oneness of Things as I have used the term in my posts all along.)
Is God, the First Cause?
While I as a Christian Freethinker would opt for the first I must also own up it is clouded by my subjective standpoint. I cannot go against my childhood influences; nor do I wish to prove my parents were at fault for their beliefs.
Why must I bother to prove them wrong in the face of the unknowable?
Hence the Problem of Being, vis -a-vis my personal beliefs.
As a Christian freethinker I also attend my local church and feel good about it. Is it possible? A Christian fellowship serves my emotional needs since I am continuing what my father had in his day done perhaps with more resolve and simpler faith. As an orphan fighting his way up against many odds his faith served him well. But for me well, I am what I am. So I shall fulfil my role as a Christian in honor of my past and for the satisfaction of being part of a larger group where we may worship together or do some good works for the needy.
2.
What made some two and a half billion years ago, mitochondria a free living bacteria and a single cell pool their resources? Mitochondria is known as the nature’s power house. Defining its context within a cell had great significance for rise of life on earth. The mitochondria can be seen in the tail of a sperm which under the laser will glow bright as the sun. This powerhouse is packed into every cell of a life form. Where does the power of Mitochondria derive from? Is it not oxygen which supplies energy that we need? Oxygen is corrosive at the same time. To see its lethal power one only need to study the effect it has on a piece of iron left in the air. In no time it becomes rusty. It is oxygen that is the cause. If oxygen does that to iron what it could do to our body? Oxygen makes living possible as well as carry within what seems life abundant the very seeds for its destruction. Can these two opposites coexist? In context of Oneness or unity of Life, yes. Like chance and certainty a life form is part of Oneness to draw from chance its wherewithal to develop.
benny