I was a child with a vivid imagination. I believed in everything. Lions and tigers and bears and tin woodmen who could sing, and flying monkeys who could talk. Little girls who could click their heels and find their way home. A poor young woman whose fairy godmother could change her wardrobe and her life. A prince who finds her with a glass slipper that only she fits. A scrawny Christmas tree that could, with a little love, become a full gorgeous lit-up and shiny symbol, and a boy named Charlie Brown who, with a little love, could be loved -- even by Lucy. I believed a little drummer boy could play his drum for the baby-King, and that was a great gift indeed.
I believed in everything: the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and the Great Pumpkin. I believed in my parents' ability to protect me from harm, and I believed in their belief in me. "You can do anything, be anything that you want to be, because we love you, and God loves you." This was something a child could believe in. Mom and Dad loved me, without question, which meant God loved me, too.
When we would make our way each Christmas through the snow to our little church around the corner, I believed in the stories being told. I believed in the magic of the Magi who travelled, guided by a star, to visit a child-King who would change their world, change the whole world. I believed the child was in a manger even though I did not quite know what that meant. I understood that there were animals around, even when I did not know what it meant when the song said, "The cattle are lowing; the poor baby wakes..." I believed this little baby did not cry, like the hymn said.
Who was this baby, who would not cry, even in the cold barn? Mom and Dad said, "God loved us enough to send God's child into the world." I admit to being confused as a little person about how God was both sending the Son and being the Son. But it was really clear, even to my child-mind that a great Love was the reason for the coming, for the giving of the child, for the birth. As each of my three little brothers was born, two at Christmastime, I had living examples of love being the reason for birth.
It is my adult self that is deeply moved by the way John tells the story in his Gospel. He skips angels and shepherds and says, "And the Word became flesh and lived among us." By some wonderful magic or miracle, the very Word of God, the same one that spoke power and created the universe with "Let there be --" became flesh, took on human form, and came to be with us. This speaks SO much to me.
I think about all of the words in Scripture, believed by people both ancient and modern, and that as the people live what they believe, the Word becomes flesh, puts on flesh.
I think about the words of prophets like Isaiah and Mary and Gandhi and Martin, and I really believe that their words and the Word puts on flesh and lives among us as we are inspired to do great and compassionate and loving things to and for one another. The Word becomes flesh when our souls are healed and when we seek to heal the world.
The Word becomes flesh when a mother throws herself in the way of a moving tank to save her child. The Word becomes flesh when a soldier throws himself on a grenade to save his friends. The Word becomes flesh when some young people who really do have a place to live decide to take up residence in a park to highlight the need for economic justice in our nation. It takes on flesh when congregations make their basements available for occupations, and when millionaires volunteer to be taxed at higher rates, and when ordinary average citizens give generously to soup kitchens and food pantries so the people of God can eat.
Recently, the Word put on flesh -- the word of God that says "Feed my sheep" became flesh -- when Renee and Kele, two women in my congregation who recently married, decided to open a food pantry right in their Brooklyn apartment. Oh, how the Word becomes flesh in our kindness! The Word became flesh when the Collegiate Church of New York made a grant to keep a Muslim food pantry open. When the Word becomes flesh, it can often leap over words like "no" and "we can't." When the Word becomes flesh, it does not care about faith or creed or nationality or ethnicity. All flesh can be the Word; all LOVING flesh IS the Word.
I have always had a vivid imagination. Now, I imagine a healed world, one in which clean water, food, shelter, clothing, a living wage, and a safe place to learn and live and grow is a reality for all peoples. I imagine a world with no war, no struggles about territory, and no suffering. I imagine, now, a world in which all of the people, no matter how they name God, or even if they name no God at all, understand that the most important Word is Love, and that when we truly love one another, each of us will have enough.
I imagine -- in fact I KNOW -- that we are LOVE made flesh. That is the gift each of us has to give.
Mike Lux: The Year of the Lord's Favor
The first man, in one well-known religious philosophy, is thrown out into the cold cruel world. Of course, he is told that he must suffer to pay for his mistake and he must work hard and later die (suggesting that he was originally immortal). In other words he is told that he is going to live the same life as any other animal including the good old dog. He is also told to ‘multiply and cover the Earth’.
But Man is brought into the world naked, with no claws, no fangs, no feathers, no fur (except for a few isolated cases on the summer beaches), no bony armor, no defense and no protection from the sun or the cold.
Do you know of any loving father, of any human loving father, of any compassionate and loving father that would put his child out in the cold cruel world, naked, without the slightest means of protection or defense?
I have read comments of people who speak authoritatively about what 'god' wants, what he 'really' means in such and such passage of scriptures. And, my question is, "on what authority" do they speak in such a magisterial way? Do they have a special phone line to god? Do they have a weekly office meeting with him?
Even those who have a Phd in so-called theology are not authorities on what this god wants or needs or says. Theology, with all due respect for the long years of study, is a misnomer. It is the study of religious culture, religious texts and religious history among other things. But by no stretch of the imagination is it the study of god, any god, despite its Etymology. Yes, the word means (Theos = god + logos = discourse or study of), the study of god (or gods). But I defy anyone to prove that god, any god truly exists. Therefore, if there is no 'existing' god, studying something that doesn't exist is absurd and Theology is a misnomer.
As a person who has studied theology, and I lay no claim to authority here, I might say that theology is the study of God, but not in the ways you describe God as existing and having corporeal presence. Though much of theology asserts that God exists and then goes from there, the theology I study is one based on a narrative God, much like reading a novel and guessing what the characters are going to do. We study God as God is portrayed through literary texts: we examine the traits, behaviors, moods, inclinations, and actions of the character called God. We place that into a cultural and historical framework that, unsurprisingly, has shaped the theory of God. God, in my theology, is a character in a play that has been written over thousands of years by dozens of authors.
In this respect, we may guess what God "wants," if God even exists at all, but we could never say it definitively.
I thank you for your courteous opinion here, and I see your point, for which I have entire respect. And, like I said, I have as much admiration and respect for a Phd, as any another, for the merit of long arduous studies. And, thank you for actually agreeing that “Theology is the study of a narrative God, portrayed through literary texts, placed into a cultural and historical framework and shapes the theory of God”. (paraphrased for lack of space). And I agree “that this God, is a character in a play that has been written over thousands of years by dozens of authors”.
But my contention is in the wording that gives a false impression that there is a consensus that there is in fact only one god. Isn't Theology the study of all forms of God(s) through human history and not just Christianity and Its God, as though it were a forgone conclusion that it can only be Yahweh?
Your alive yes? So I guess GOD did everything right. Whatever your problem is with the LORD James. He loves you like he loved our first parents. Stay in the Grace of Christ Jesus.
According to your faith, be it unto you.
You have declared yourself the "only wise" person on the planet earth and so we should all bow to your intellect, not so. Hate to burst your bubble, but there are a number of people on earth that would make more sense that some of the catty, asinine comments you've made. Everyone has a right to believe what they will, including you. Ignorance becomes a little more desirable when stacked against the vitriolic traits of narcissism as portrayed by you.
But I do understand your plight. Belittling others makes you feel like you're somebody. I'm truly sorry that you have to take that route. And I again, I say...
According to your faith (in whoever or whatever), be it unto you.
I have had courteous exchanges with many people as long as they present an opinion or a disagreement with a specific point I may have made. Just now I have had a discussion (not a dispute) with jollywhitegiant. I may come across as somewhat stern and direct but that is because of a lack of space for essays of a more subdued style. I apologize for it but if you have a particular contention with one idea or opinion, try spending more energy in giving an anti thesis rather than scorn, and I will gladly answer in the like.
If one is to apply universal love one must apply it without interpretation, without restriction (orthodoxy or nothing). It is like a creed. If our creed is ‘Universal love’, then we must love without conditions and this means without discrimination of any kind.
It is true that some religious persons have shown this type of love (Mother Theresa and others) but only as individuals. The Church, because of its dogmas can only applaud the individual as a ‘saint’ but cannot apply it itself as a body of truths. If and only if you believe as the church says you should believe, then you will be loved (fully) in return; if this is not a conditional love, what is?
Universal Love is something that a church cannot truly apply; it may understand it vaguely, but it cannot apply it. A church cannot apply universal love simply because it segregates by its dogma, those who believe from those who do not, those who are loved (by god) and those who are not, or not as much. Many if not all religions have one and the same fundamental message: unconditional love. And yet institutionalized religions are some of the most conditioned systems the world has ever known.
Unconditional = not modified or restricted by reservations = constant.
Therefore; that which will not waver (constant) what ever happens, or what ever anybody does or does not = unconditional.
"Same difference".
1) How does religion dare speak of a god with "unconditional Love", when, in order to obtain this "love", it is not enough to be righteous or to do good actions? The CONDITION is always "Believe in Jesus ( or the father, same thing)"!!! I'm sorry but that is not unconditional love.
2) How can an all loving god (or ourselves) question the sincerety of a mother's love for her child
2. No one is questioning a mother's love for her child. Did you read my entire statement? I believe that the instinct to protect a child is God given; that he created it. Only when a life is destroyed by Satan or influenced by Him is this instinct overshadowed. And as we all know, this happens a great deal.Still, it does not mean that a mother's love is a manifestation of the Word made flesh within her, because unless she is a believer, Christ( the Word) does not live within her.
That is my belief.
According to your faith, be it unto you.
You see, when one is convinced of their convictions, the whole world becomes ignorant and you become the wise. The people of this world labor under multitudes of preconceptions on every minute detail of life: the proper way to eat, the proper way to pray, the proper way to dress, the proper way to speak, the proper way to do this and that.
None of it means a thing until you are willing to openly challenge your preconceptions, admit that you may, in the end, be wrong about them, and then redefine your worldview if and when you find them to be false.
Every person in both ignorant and wise to someone in some way. We must work to realize that we are both, and you are both, and that maybe we can come to something good.
Don't shy from the challenge because you ate some sour grapes. Learn to appreciate them and make some delicious wine out of them, if you follow the atrocious metaphor.
It is amazing that you took to-heart my very generalized statement, but so be it. I am convinced of what I know as well as what I do not know. It is because I do not know everything there is to know (and neither does anyone else) that I am constantly seeking truth from God, not man. Man's truth is fallible and ever-changing, depending upon who one hears. I do not feel the need to "dictate" any of a person's doings, one way or the other. I am not their judge and neither are they mine.
At any rate, sour grapes are not my thing and neither is the wine (metaphorically speaking) of deceptive reasoning.
According to your faith (in whatever or whomever), be it unto you.
Modern day Christians want to make Jesus (who is also the father) into this New Age like Hippie; the good-Samaritan-god. But that means sweeping under the rug three fourths of the scriptures and notably the Leviticus and Deuteronomy parts, with its, stone for this, burn for that, etc. Once again you just can't cherry pick. Either your religion has the truth, is the 'word' of your god or is does, or is not. You just can't change a comma of it without admitting that it is not His word.
As for the so-called Love/Emotion part, there is still much to be said and it's not that good.
21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity
Please note something that is missing in this. They were counting on the things they were doing for salvation. They did NOT say have we not trusted in Jesus for salvation. No amount of good works will save anyone. Only Jesus can do that.
You see, when salvation becomes about the self, when salvation becomes focus on saving the individual, then the world becomes a little skewed, and the relationship between those we should call "neighbor" break down. If I categorize myself as "saved" because I believe, that distances me from anyone else, places the self at the center, and divides groups into "heathens" and "saved."
This point of view does not value the selfless act of an unbeliever, does not value the goodness in another person or their inherent worth. It denigrates them to a lesser person status in your eyes, because YOU are saved, and THEY are not.
Very well said. May I quote you on that in the future?
I do not remember if you are a proponant of the Scriptures or not? If you are not, why?
AS for 'Y' up there.........???????????? is right!
Apparently not much has changed. Trying growing up and thinking liking a big person, not still believing in fairytales like a child. Love, like all reasoned emotions, developed through social evolution.
The end.
now we have reasoned emotions. next up we are here by chance. whoops that is already the bread and butter of the materialist's system of beliefs. evidence? naw that will come later just believe it now. trust us after all we are science.
have some faith we are here by chance. ok faith is not a good word. believe our theory that we are here by chance. our theories equal facts and in our minds our theories are our absolutes.
and that the end part. that is a perfect example of paradigm paralysis. once we think we have it all down and figured out with the end statement; it is indeed the end of our journey of discovery. then karma kicks in and the end is not the end.
Kind of a shallow and self-serving plan on the part of god, no?