Our Father Who's Art is Heaven

Dad who governs the skies and the lands

You are set apart, like no one else.

Please make Yourself King of my world, the ruler of my life.

Don’t let my silly persona try to dictate how things should go; remind me that’s Your terrain.

Earth is, Heaven is, I am.

Give us what we need to survive please, we know You know.

And I’m sorry for all the ways I mess up, and keep messing up, and falling short of the life You intend for me.

Help me to truly not hold grudges, and to let things go like You do.

Please keep me away from Sin and its tangles; remind me who I am.

You’ve overcome evil – smash it in my life please!

Cos You are the King, the MAN!  You rock, and You rule, You’re ridiculously huge, and magnificently beautiful.

And You always will be.  Forever and ever.

Amen.

The 3 Phases that Everything, and I mean Everything, Goes Through (According to Hegel) - PART 3

     The Grand Finale

Oooo you excited little critter you!  I know you can't wait for me to reveal what Hegel's 3rd phase is!  Good news: I'm a compassionate individual and you have to wait no longer!

Yes the 3rd, and final phase is called...

DIFFERENTIATED UNITY

The circle finally closes on itself like a golden 18th century ring.  It's a marriage of the dispersed elements that were haphazardly causing mischief in the second phase.  It's a new unity that's not primitive like the single life of the first phase, but not overly self-conscious like the adolescent 2nd phase.  It's adulthood, and it's anything but boring!

This Differentiated Unity brings about a new harmony as we can transcend our obsession with difference.

Hegel says that this is evident in Christianity in which God & humanity, Law & grace, Self & Other are reconciled.  There may or may not be confetti involved.

It's love, see, that allows us to live by the Spirit of the Living WORD instead of the written letter of the LAW.  Make sense?  Ok it's abstract...

...but it's also not.  Let me summarize:

When we are young (and when history is young, and philosophy is young, and thought is young) it is necessarily simplistic in its constructions of the universe.  Ignorance is bliss and it's a jolly good phase what...if you can be satisfied with it. 
Once consciousness (or global communication) allows for the idea of contradictory ideas, we are flung into an overly self-conscious phase in which we question everything, and for a while lose our identity.  Woe is us. 
But never fear, because if you are willing to expose yourself to the Dark Knight...no wait, the Dark Night, then the 3rd phase will dawn with new, unifying light: You can transcend difference without some tacky eclecticism.  You can be yourself because you are accepted just the way you are because of something that's happened on a cosmic scale.  

"Oh there he goes talking about religion again," you may say.

Well firstly, yes.

and Secondly...duh!!

Oh, and PS: http://www.AsleepInEden.com/

The 3 Phases that Everything, and I mean Everything, Goes Through (According to Hegel) - PART 2

Dum dum dee dum...Phase 2 of the growth: 

Now this part is both paradigm-shifting and uncomfortable.   Remember what it was like when you first realized that everyone was forming opinions about you?  Everyone!  Ah, the glorious hyper-self-consciousness of the teenage years!  What dawning had you awakened to?  Metaphorically, of course.  I'm well aware that you hardly ever awoke at dawn in your teenage years!

You awoke to the 2nd of Hegel's phases: A Dualistic Split.

This involves a fragmented view of reality caused by fractured divisions between Self and Other.

- In religion this is typical of the Judaism.  A chasm between people and God leads them to live a nomadic lifestyle and live in, what Hegel calls “an unhappy consciousness” (42).  Wondering around, waiting for paradise.  Some Christians...a lot of Christians...still inhabit this mindset.  The Law is something imposed on them from above; something they can never live up to.

- In child development this takes the form of developing the analytical left side of the brain through education and acculturation.  The terrible two's say waddup.  This process peaks in adolescence, when the child realizes the power of their own opinions.   

- This is the modernist phase of philosophy in which Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” rules.  And it's all about me.  Humans abuse the planet to make themselves nice pretty outfits, or to make their bank accounts look nice and pretty.  Hey, everything is a bank account, we begin to think.  Time is divided into neat little compartments, each allocated to particular causes.  Time itself is a bank account with an unalterable balance that we continuously make withdrawals from.

It's an uncomfortable phase because it's the recognition of how far we have to go.  We suddenly understand something of how little we understand (for some teenagers that takes longer than others :)  But it's necessary. 

At this point you could run back to where the world was unified and everything seemed hunky dorey...and live a life of denial...

Or you could jump down the rabbit hole head first and hope that hitting your head on the bottom causes you to become open-minded instead of well...the Mad Hatter.

If he was sane he'd never be spilling the tea!

Awakening to an Enchanted Reality in God...a Portal of 1's and 0's

Asleep in Eden.com

Go to ==> Asleep in Eden.com
Thank thee kindly!

God Can't be a Luke-Warm Cup of Tea

     We can’t escape responsibility.  Each generation is responsible for inheriting the world, modifying it and then passing it on.  We only have temporary custody of this planet, but what we choose to do with it will have eternal consequences.  Pondering the profound and ambiguous may seem like trying to read in the dark – a futile attempt to extract meaning in a sphere where our senses are far too inadequate. 

“YOLO; Live for the moment, as long as you’re happy, it’s all relative.”  The acceptance of this apophatic existence may be mere excuses that justify living the way we want to.  “God may or may not exist...who knows, so why let it affect your life?”

See it can’t be a black and white issue.  Either this Entity/Force/Being/Power exists and the structure of things is the way that the prophets, saints and mystics have said it is…

…Or it’s not. 

Like C.S. Lewis said, either Jesus is a madman or real.  If he’s either then a vague respect for Him is inappropriate.

Sure there can be variation on what you see God as, but all the major religions advocate the fact that, since God exists, our lives should be rearranged fundamentally.  That’s the path to true peace.  The amazing thing is that this God, although infinitely bigger and deeper and transcendental, penetrates our lives.  Hello there ants, let’s have a cup of tea.

Boil that tea so that the substance transmutes to a higher state - from liquid to vapor.  Please.  If not, then ditch the tea and get your kicks from drugs.

“What is man that you are mindful of him, the Son of man that ...you set him a little lower than the angels”.  But God prefers human worship to that of angels because we have free choice.

Yes, I know you’re Mommy’s little angel.  Now what are you going to do about it?