Blank

Bad cosmology does not necessarily mean no cosmology. Just because some or most of the saints have been wrong for three or four thousand years does not mean that God, however that reality may be defined, is not up to something other. If not heaven and hell, what pray tell? 

Some of us say that the total extent of what God is up to is only my present, my personal earthly search for spiritual authenticity.  With their limited cosmology, the only goal afforded us can be measured with word salads like the process of becoming fully human, expanded consciousness and autonomy.  The God of Christianity is dead but we can find happiness, they say, as solo souls of this redefined community of believers.   

In an attempt to be fair and inclusive, there is an element of truth to this search but these folk seem to assume that if enough of us apply this ballooned personal spirituality to our lives it will unloose a truly loving world-wide, religion-less community of all we human God believers.  As they say in Missouri, show me.

By touting the personal spiritual priority these folk seem to deny or at least ignore any form or activity of their God beyond their solo supposed salvation, however that may be defined. Was the God of Ecclesiastes right, all is vanity? Speaking personally, this one seeker needs a God bigger than just me. I am the ass end of all believers but need a hope or a way of contributing toward a righteous cosmology beyond this person.  

Maybe death is a blank space, maybe the place of darkness as envisioned by early Hebrew believers is most accurate.  Maybe the extending of faith only in our time is enough. But maybe their vision as ours and many others, are and have been at times shortsighted. The God of historical Christian orthodoxy is dead but the mystery of God remains, now and forever.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Heretics

 "The church is a museum, and museums are not in the business of pioneering. Thus any attempt to reconnect Christianity with the leading edge of spiritual development must appear naïve, incongruous and ridiculous. It is likely to be mocked inside the church as outside it, for the faithful love the museum and most theologians love being scholarly museum curators. There are only a few dissidents."

"The dissidents or heretics are people who, in spite of all that has happened, still hope it is possible to reconnect religion with modernity."

Don Cupitt, “Taking Leave of God”, Crossroads, 1980, page 155.

 

Soup

If you are one of the ingredients in the condensed soup of all life, past, present and future, existing on this planet, what would your first question be toward the God of eternity?  Only one question is of any consequence.  God, if you be God, why go to all this trouble? gg

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Apology

My apologies are due the good people of Landers.  The swarming flies that were so much of a Landers problem last year, have not reappeared this year.  I confess to having a fly neurosis but come to find out they only swarmed because I properly did not clean up the yard dog poop. This year I have done so and the daily routine of swatting flies is no longer necessary. The reputation of Landers is still intact.  

A kind neighbor, Janet, dropped a present on the fence which appeared to me to be a badminton racket and I was confused, not recognizing what it was really about.  Months later, after reading the label, it finally dawned on me that it is a battery powered fly swatting tool. This dummy thanks you Janet, I will keep it in reserve, keep on being neighborly, you are the best we have.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca      

More

Jesus heard the beckoning call of the other reality, the other life dimension that he came to understand as the dominion of the Kingdom of God. Startled, why pick on me, the smallest of all men?  Bewildered, unable to know what or who was confusing his day, Jesus tried to run from the certainty that had invaded his life.

Running was no cure for the presence seemed to be ever present. Exhausted, and protesting his dilemma, Jesus concluded that there must be more about in this world than the ugliness that seems to fall daily on all of us.  

Yes, this one Jesus will listen, what do I have to lose?  gg

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.  

 

Guilty

“In all likelihood, a combination of Roman authority and a narrow circle of the Jewish ruling elites was responsible for his arrest and execution. Very importantly, rather than Jesus being rejected, arrested and executed by the “Jews” or the Jewish people, the final and fatal conflict was with the urban ruling elites who, rather than representing the Jewish people, were in fact oppressors of the Jewish people.”

Marcus J. Borg, “The Search for Jesus”, 1994. P. 49.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca

Quandary

Doctrinal Christianity, since St. Augustine (395 A. D.), relates to all peoples as those who are the regrettably necessary but useful idiots.  There is no ongoing conversational freedom with either the bar folk or the pew folk, only doctrinal pronouncements from the pulpit or the platform.  Why has it always been so?  

Could it be that a conversation is counterproductive to the priorities of the church, which judges success solely as contributing membership? Just guessing but one might ask, is faith doctrinal agreement or a live conversation? That quandary has played out among us for far to long.   gg

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.