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.     

 

 

 

 

 

 

God Code

Selfish decisions over the long term produce negative consequences in our world. 

Selfless decisions over the long term produce spiritual bonuses in our world.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.

Safe Space

This is a monumental day, August 20, 2024. While reading a book from a biblical scholar, which I am not, it dawned on me that at least one authority and I have found agreement about God. I gave out a yelp of joy. I will not name names for my endorsement matters little and is the kiss of death in the greater truth-seeking world.  However, I can now stop buying books, which I cannot afford anyway. Thank you, whomever.

There is no cosmic disciplinarian God (my own phrasing). However, I do remain confused about the seeming total absence of an apocalyptic God.  We can do away with end times preaching on this subject but is there not space for a God reordering in this world of ours?  Is there not room for unsolicited God interventions among us?

It seems to this neophyte to be necessary or why believe in God? Should we believe that God did his or her thing and then left this world to fend for itself? How absent is absent? From my own intuitive understanding of God as given to me, the all and the rare interventions are completed through the earthly God Code (my own phrasing).  Our world was ordered from the beginning to include this possibility at divine discretion.

Then there is the eternity awaiting all of us at death, not a worldly destruction but an eternal reordering that can best be described as apocalyptic. The question yet to be determined is what will eternity bring to us?  Some say, an ever-compacting unity that is at least a never-ending joyride.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.   

 

 

 

 

Double Down Democrats

Tomorrow August 15, the Democratic Convention will arrive.  Silence, quiet all opposing talkers, wait just a few more days.  Kamala is so far the official, unofficial presidential candidate of the Democrats. After the convention, Michelle Obama will no longer have a shot, she is the only candidate who could beat Trump.

No one believes thar Kamala can or would change the direction of the Biden administration whose policies she suddenly finds offensive. Kamala is the Biden administration. In fact, the powers that be behind the Washington throne have renamed the party by choosing Waltz as VP.  The party will be known, going forward, as the Double Down Democrats.

G. Goslaw

Landers, Ca.