Voice of God in the Garden

Then the Lord God said to the women, “what is this that you have done?” ( Gen. 3:13)

The Garden of Eden is not history.  The biblical Garden of Eden is a literary device that says to us something so important that insisting on a factual garden misses the point.  The Garden of Eden is a message from the voice of God, a message that accurately summarizes who we are, it is our story and the story of every human being since the dawn of time.  It is our sorted story since all of us have taken from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and bitten down hard on the forbidden apple.  It is the story of our rebellion from God.  The self centered failure to respect God has mutated to our DNA so that each of us was born in rebellion, it is who we are.  As a result, even today, God asks each of us the timeless question  … what is this that you have done?

Also in our DNA is our unease with this question, we recoil to hidden places to avoid the voice of God. Adam and Eve tried to hide in the bushes so as not to hear the voice but there was and is no hiding from the certainty of our situation nor of our moral culpability.  Chapter three in Genesis is a tale of crime and punishment, it is our tale, so what is the crime?  The crime is Godless selfish living in this God given moral world. Our world is now amoral because of the self destructive choices we inevitably and consistently make in the midst of the good.  Prior to the apple there was no morality for all of creation was good, the world of plants and animals was good because there was no self centered behavior to excess within nature.  Death was only about the survival of the fittest so there was no killing to excess as has been the forte of the people of the apple.  The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil says that the human experience is most unlike all other life forms in that we are capable of extreme selfishness that puts us at war with God and his creation.

God does not actively punish our selfishness, he does not have to, hiding behind all the evil is a moral world that rewards the good and punishes the bad.  Each of us has asked for the rocky soils and the daily toils of life with the hope that we might learn from the direct results of our selfish choices, the stars and their courses are so ordered as to dissuade us from our self involved perversion.  We use denial in an attempt to put us beyond the reach of the voice of God but we are only deluding ourselves.  All of mankind has a history of compensating and excusing our extreme selfishness by conforming to the demands of religion, any religion will do.  We slow learners are intent on pushing the voice of God aside, ready to pay any price for our own short term personal gain.  The tragedy is that this gain will always be taken at the expense of others, others who are equally under the care of the Almighty.  It has been stated in our own cultural mindset, “the world is comprised of two kinds of people, we are either hammers or nails, so be a hammer”.  The third chapter of Genesis tells us that there are, hopefully, three kinds of people, hammers, nails and listeners to the voice of God.  Such listening persons respect God and his creation, the welfare of others and by extension, themselves.

Is this not plausible and simple?  The above understanding of the Garden of Eden makes sense to this dunderhead but the detractors will call it foolishness.  Detractors who insist on a historical Garden of Eden have make this biblical truth a humorous punch line for the disbelieving comedians.  Twenty first century man can only laugh at claims of historical accuracy and these claims are used to disembowel all believers, including those of us who look for truth behind the words of scripture.  A literary device is not the truth, the point being made by the literary device is the truth.  The disingenuous detractors who paint all believers with a broad brush of foolishness are only comedians who are themselves the joke.

G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca

Why can't we be America again?

The time has arrived for a different political plan for the people.  President Obama called for change but lied about his liberal far left progressive agenda that he has increasingly dumped upon us over the last six years.  The Democratic unspoken contention is that we the people don’t know what is really good for us so a few lies every other day will soften the impact of change from the left and keep the people confused.

As we enter the politicking time for 2016, we the people, Democrat and Republican, should be asking, is the Obama change agenda giving all of us prosperity and freedom at home?  Is the Obama change agenda giving us and our friends a more secure place in the community of nations?  The major media newspapers will not ask these questions because in doing so they would have to be honest, which they are not.  If you are at all awake, if you care at all about the future of your America, let your neighbors know how you would answer these questions.

Voting one’s own self interest or voting for a political label has not improved the lives of most Americans.  We voters need to grow up. We need to think big.  Just maybe you and I need to look around to find an America that is once again united.  Just maybe you and I need to ask a lot of probing questions of all of our politicians, Democrat and Republican.  We need to really listen for a grown up vision for a very large future for America.
 
Hope must be more than a cute campaign slogan or a promised pipe dream.  We can only find hope together, that is the American way!

G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca          

Whose the Judge?

The worst fate in life is to be ignored, so Mr. Freter, you have my thanks for your opinion letter of February 21, offered in response to my letter in the February 18 edition of the Hi Desert Star.  This is America and each of us has the right to be wrong. is it you or I?  From my Lander’s sand box, I am willing to let the readers of HDS be the judge as to which words were shared in the best interest of the greatest country on earth, Israel being a close second.  By the way, thank you for the HDS abbreviation, which I shall use in the future.  

G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca

We Wait

In this changing world it is past time for a new American strategy.  All political quarters are calling for such change but they all fall short on detail.  President Obama and the liberal progressive Democratic left have been hiding their change agenda as they have dumped it on the rest of us over the past six years.  Their unspoken contention is that the American people don’t know what is good for them so a few lies every other day will soften the consequences of their leftist agenda and keep the people confused.  Meanwhile, these left driven consequences have added to the trauma of the changing global politic, combining to create global instability and confusion.  Throw in radical Islamic terrorism and the old norms are no more.  The few folk who are paying attention know that this current century is unfolding as one of the most uncertain and dangerous times in human history.

As we enter the time of presidential campaigning for 2016, the politicians of every strip only have the energy to attack and demean each other because no one has a practical plan to navigate America into this century.  Someone please lead us, tell us how, do not even try to just say, trust me, for we the people, the majority of Americans, have no trust left, we have heard all the lies and our interests have been abandoned time after time.  Abandoned in favor of the self interest of big business, the Wall Street types and the political governmental elites who rule over us and our country.  If the national stagnation forced upon us by our politics remains the same and then is projected into the future, there will be no upward social or economic mobility for the masses, we will be forced to merely pay and enable the lollygagging of the elites.  There will be no unique middle class American revelation for it will be wiped forever from the face of he earth.            

Is there someone out there to lead us, where are you, who are you?  Most importantly, what is your prescription for America?  We wait.

Landers, Ca
G.Goslaw

Where is the fairness?

There you go again, High Desert Star.  You are at least consistent, another bigoted anti-Semitic cartoon by Mike  Luckovich appears in the February 14, 2015 edition of your paper.  His and your latest humorless and dishonest attempt to trash the Jewish national struggle for survival is reprehensible.  The High Desert Star echoes the major media outlets by  promoting racist messaging while playing hiding games behind your disclaimers of neutrality.  You do not practice fair play because you fail to present an intelligent pro Israel, pro Jewish message to your readers.  You and your cohorts keep dishing out the trash and then claim not to understand why you are not trusted by middle America.  Could not your deceiving ways be the primary reason your circulation is in the pits?

In this present hour, when the radical forces of Islam are once again spreading their “religious wisdom” around the world by the sword, why do you only have space to trash Israel and it’s leader?  You and your cohorts are cowards, ignoring the insanity of the killing, shooting, burning and beheading of innocents all around the world and all in the name of Allah.  I ask you, who are the bad guys?  How can you manage your life and your paper while being silent and therefore complicit with such cruelty?  High Desert Star, surprise me by having the guts to print all of this opinion.

G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca