I flowbee. This is, I suppose, a confession of sorts. Mary has alerted me to the possibility that associating my referral to the lack of discipline in my life with my no longer writing weekly sermons might mistakenly be construed as that these e-pistles will be taking some homiletic form. I write. More to the point, I flowbee. If this conjures up visions of John Wesley, then so be it.
There is a fundamental presence in my life for which I really cannot account. It is as real as any aspect of my being—very likely the most real—but it defies rational or empirical explanation. This presence I call God. It is not benign. It is not static. It is all, yet it is more than everything combined. Through Christ I become ever more aware of my viable relationship with God.
When I flowbee, God experiences it. To the best of my understanding, I have no control over God’s intimacy. What I do control is whether or not I flowbee. Other than that God is my very origin, I do not sense that God controls my actions; rather, God experiences mine. God’s omniscience includes both the seminal creator and the sentient created, and the opinion of scripture is that this is God’s will. The whole supplies and receives; a process in which I am inescapably involved.
Author’s note: For me, it’s not like riding a bicycle. I have been away from the process for longer than I realized, and it shows. The good news is that I can obviously do nothing but improve. At least there are some things said here with which to agree or disagree—or simply diss—and that will hopefully generate some commentary. Finally, I would be remiss not to thank my lifelong friend, Rob, for introducing me to Flowbee (among other things).
Religious language—God talk—is inherently prejudiced. Every person who uses it has her or his own preconceived definition for and interpretation of the words used. It seems fair to me to assert that most of us acquire our religious vocabulary via formal or informal catechism that transmits the orthodox teachings of the institution. The Christian Holy Bible serves as an example of writings which made the canonical cut to become “official” while others were consigned to oblivion by not. Thus explains my lame attempt to make an association between the secular (Flowbee) and the sacred (God). When speaking of and about God, I find the most harmful misconception to be that One is addressed only by proper theological words in pious settings. To genuinely assimilate the 24/7 (omnipresent) nature of our relationship with the Creator, it is necessary for us to understand that God experiences EVERYTHING, both what we have labeled sacred AND secular as well as that of which we are not even consciously aware. We forever return to the question: who/what am I?
ReplyDeleteAlas, I comment to myself. I begrudgingly accept that theology is not a popular subject, but that doesn’t mean that it is not the ultimate one. Whether it is referred to as universal or cosmological, there is nothing which is not affected by what metaphysics refers to as “first cause”. Simply ignoring first cause—which is possible, thanks to volition—does not mean that it is not present and working. The physical law of gravity may provide a helpful analogy. Whether someone acknowledges or accepts gravity does not affect its Truth, which is inescapable. I can say that I absolutely do not believe in gravity because I cannot see it. I can say that I’m not really sure if there is gravity or not. I can say that I believe in gravity absolutely as a matter of faith. None of these three positions affects gravity one way or another, but it decidedly influences how one relates to it. Likewise, atheistic, agnostic and theistic worldviews do not affect the reality of God (what Ernest Holmes refers to as “the thing itself”; ancient Hebrew scripture was already there with “I Am”) but do significantly influence how we attempt to deal with the Truth. We humans have a penchant for categorizing, classifying, pigeonholing, and this holds true for religion. There is no end to the dogma and doctrine which attempts to inform what God is like, and more to the point, what God likes. As our species matures, however, we hopefully may discover that it is not nearly so important to be able to define God as to accept the reality and learn how to optimally relate to and with it.
ReplyDeleteLet the monologue continue. It was a late lunch today. As I processed two out of state cases involving a male (I’m not going to credit him with being a man) that has strewn progeny across the country, I recaptured a little of the Christmas spirit by recalling those profound lines of Santa Claus is Coming to Town: “He knows if you’ve been sleeping, he knows if you’re awake, he knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake!” Many of the same reasons for not believing in Santa can be used for not believing in God, and just as many people don’t seem to worry about their behavior because they’re quite certain old Saint Nick isn’t real and therefore can’t really be keeping track, so do they excuse themselves because the mythological “old man upstairs” doesn’t really know what they’re doing. In other words, I can impregnate as many women as I damn well please because there’s nothing anybody can do about it. Dad often cites Einstein’s conviction that the greatest disservice done to God is to anthropomorphize I AM, and for any of us to think that we can do anything without God “knowing” it is the sadly mistaken result of such an understanding. God “knows” (I prefer “experiences”) everything about everything. That’s the perk of being One. What a different world this would be if we all woke up to that fact and acted accordingly.
ReplyDeleteYou're new format is not at all condusive to using a feed aggregator, i.e. Bloglines. I just keep thinking, "It's weird that Dad hasn't written in three days," and then I realize you're writing comments.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that theology is necessarily an unpopular topic. You just need to realize that you have a very advanced understanding of the subject. And even though you are able to convey complex ideas in simple terms, responding to these theological inquiries may be difficult for the "every man." It's like trying to analyze a Steinbeck novel when you're on a Dr. Seuss level. This is not at all meant to discourage you from writing, it just means we're all thinking. We're thinking about what you've said, and we don't quite know how to respond.
If you want comments, ask everyone what their favorite flavor of ice cream is. If you want to continue sharing your well-developed insight on God and our understanding of God, then keep doing what you're doing.
I'm not sure blogging was meant to be a dialog. It's a way of sharing yourself with the world. And I'm glad you choose to share.
OR - rather than asking people to respond to your intimidating insightfulness, why not ask the Internets what theological questions they have? Then you can give your insight and maybe other people could chime in with opinions too. It would be kind of like a spiritual "Dear Abbey."
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