Stuff

Our world was abuzz with God talk. There was no media news sourcing, no newspapers, only the latest rumors. Rumors spread across the known world about a missing body, the dead body of the man Jesus, taken down from his death cross and buried. This body is now reported missing. What shall we make of the rumored empty grave?  What is the man on the street to think?

There were spiritual centers but no organized religion. Many opinions flourished and then were challenged. One’s God understanding had become a life and death opinion. Chaos reigned. There were two major combatants, those who believed that the resurrection of the man Jesus was a God event and those who believed that the man Jesus was God, having the same stuff as God and co-eternal with God.

Going into the fourth century after the Jesus event, the 19 years old Emperor Constantine became the supreme God of the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire. There was chaos in his empire and chaos on the streets. There was a cry for unity from all quarters.

Emperor Constantine threw a party for all the spiritual leaders of the day, at his home turf at Nicaea, present day Turkey. Constantine wined and dined the spiritual leaders of the known world for months and then turned to payoffs, bullying and threats. It became clear that no one was leaving until there was an agreement.

This agreement became the First Church Council at Nicaea, 325 A.D. The agreement declared that Jesus was also God and possessing the same stuff as God. The Christian Doctrine of the Trinity of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, was born. Seventeen hundred years later, this is the unquestioned understanding among Christian believers. To claim to be Christian is to accept the conclusion of the First Church Council, (325 A.D.).

Three spiritual leaders would not agree with this doctrinal conclusion. Emperor Constantine banished Arius, the most popular spiritual leader and dissenter. The other two dissenting spiritual leaders were murdered by the emperor.

Make of this what you will. Is it enough to say that God can use evil to accomplish good? 

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.       

All

God is not social, only universal. All means all. God embraces all of life, the good, the bad and the ugly. Make all the earthbound qualifiers that may please the folk in the short term, however, don't mess with eternity. The only damnable people are those self-righteous fools who place anyone, regardless of race, religion, kinship  or supposed moral integrity, beyond inclusion in the forthcoming unity of the Godhead. If it works for thee, it works for me. Amen.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca. 

 

Vision

Human life is always a faith trip, there is no other life for us, no human independence, no faith free zone, we all believe each day in something or someone. To those of us who have come to believe that as humans we are also spiritual beings, a part of living is extending a hand to the spirit world as if to say, “here I am”. The Moses mural on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome memorializes this inherent and universal human desire. The desire to be noticed by God.

This desire to be noticed by God is at times denied, scoffed at, substituted for or ignored but the desire never quite goes away. We have all been there. The God desire may appear to go away at times like the puddle of water after a rain storm but it has only changed places, returning later from elsewhere. The God desire is as human as imagination is human. We are human spiritual beings because we look to the stars, we look to the beyond. We look beyond ourselves.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

Ultimate Question

Why is there something rather than nothing?  Is there anywhere an answer?  A God or gods?  No God, then what?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Trees in the Desert

15,000 sq ft: fenced yard, 1990 Gibralter Rd., Landers, Ca.

(1) Sycamore: front (origin)

(1) Fruited Mulberry: rear (planted)

(1) Fruitless Mulberry: front (origin)

(2) Joshua Trees: front (origin)

(1) Joshua Tree: rear (origin)

(1) Oak: rear (planted) 

(5) Evergreen trees: front (planted)

(4) Evergreen trees: rear (planted) 

(1) Eucalyptus tree: rear (origin)

(2) Dollar Eucalyptus tree: front and rear (planted)

(1) California Pepper tree: rear (origin) 

(1) California Pepper tree: rear (planted) 

(3) California Pepper tree: front (planted) 

(1) Pickled Orchid tree: front (planted) 

(2) Juniper Evergreen shrub: rear (planted)

(1) Evergreen shrub: front (planted) 

(3) Oleander bushes: front (planted)        

         All planted trees (11 to 4 years old)

         All origin trees (min: 70 years old)

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

maybe not?

One day something different happened among us. Two thousand years later, this world is still trying to figure it all out. An obscure Hebrew spiritual teacher without credentials, from the obscure and tragic land of Palestine, was hung on a Roman death cross because he disrupted the political/religious order of things. There is nothing different here, nothing new. Then, out of the blue, all that resurrection talk began. The whispers permeated the known world. Does dead not mean dead?

Maybe, maybe not. If you or I had a still heart and no brain activity, certainly we would be pronounced dead, given a number and a ride to the crematorium. End of story, well, maybe, maybe not. Does dead mean dead, is death an ending or a door?

This is the question of every time? It was the question that haunted our world two thousand years ago and haunts us to this very moment. After all the supposed human progress, the gargantuan libraries in the sky and all the scientific advancement that has revolutionized our world, still we ask, does dead mean dead?  The question has no answer in this world, only opinions.  

Most of us avoid asking the question, let alone posing an answer. Some of us just file away someone else’s answer and walk on doing our own thing. Forget about what is on or in the next room, in our time, only one question bothers us, does dead mean dead? Forget the macho bravado stuff, all the denials, death as an ending, bothers us.

Shall we take Easter for what it is? Easter is one day in our limited world, a day to celebrate the, "maybe not"!  Party on!

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

 

 

 

Questions

What is consciousness?  How is it that we humanoids are not only aware of our now but also the past and possible futures? Why are we humanoids able to ask the questions, who am I, who are you? Is the male dog asking any such questions as he sniffs the behind of any female in his world? Why is there such a momentous distance or gulf between we conscious humans and all other forms of life? Does any concept of a mere natural progression provide an adequate answer to these questions?

If not, what is going on here?  If the answer is yes, we are taking the bridge to nowhere, are we not?

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.