Scripture Seeds

(12) The Truth

2011-06-01T10:01:00.000-07:00

Responding to Pilate's inquiry, before his crucifixion, in part
Jesus said that "The reason I was born, the reason why I came
into the world, is to testify to the truth. Anyone committed to
the truth hears my voice." And Pilate replied, "Truth...what
does this mean?"
[John 18: 37-38 in the New Testament.]

Comment: "Truth" still remains evasive for many of us. Like
Pilate, who came from a pragmatic Imperium, who represented
such, he no doubt held a jaundiced attitude towards persons
who declared the Truth. Like many of us in this world today,
we have perhaps seen too much of what might be true in this
world. And mostly it isn't pretty. Essentially we have been given
the freedom to make our own truth, and we surely haven't done
a very good job of it.

So what might Jesus be talking about when he refers to the
"Truth"? Some have speculated that it is a Truth that exists on
a higher level. Some think that the Truth dwells in God, thus
in Jesus. Indeed he gives this away when he especially notes
that *this* is the very reason that he came into the world--to
testify to this Truth!

Those who have faith in Jesus believe that he embodies this
special Truth. Perhaps there might be something to this, if you
will. Special voices down through the centuries perhaps have
testified to this special Truth. As for a further investigation of
this Truth, well one need harken back to what these special
voices, including Jesus, have declared.

Most of our higher cultures of human society have boasted
these special voices, whether we call them philosophers or
prophets or representatives of God. There's a profundity in
the Truth that they declare. Boiled down, this Truth is basic.
It's about respecting one another, about relationship with one
another. It's also about attending to a Higher Power.

Now most of these special voices that declared this special
Truth also seemingly led exemplary lives. Some, like Jesus,
clung to this Truth right into their death. He, and surely others.
deeply believed in this Truth.

Jesus harkened back to the great Commandments about Love.
Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind,
and love your neighbor as yourself. Put in a package, this formula
is a pattern for successful living. Maybe *this* is the Truth of
which these special voices speak.

If so, it seems a hard "truth" to attain. Our world is sorely in need
of this Truth, but it seems somehow so difficult for us to grasp.
We just aren't at this level yet, where we truly understand the
significance of this Truth. Or maybe some of us have decided
that there is no reality to this Truth. They may be right, when it
is left up to us to create this Truth. Nonetheless, I suspect this
Truth does exist, mainly because some humans have actually
managed to live out this Truth--albeit, they are few and far
between. This Truth would seem to be looming always over
us, waiting to be tapped.

(11) Wisdom & Folly

2011-04-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

"More weighty than wisdom or wealth is a little folly!
The wise man's understanding turns him to his right;
the fool's understanding turns him to his left."
[Ecclesiastes 10: 1-2, from the Old Testament]

Comment: Alas, folly is part and parcel of the human condition.
None of us are wise all of the time, though many of us are
oft unwise much of the time. Not finger-pointing here, rather
simply stating the fact. Why? No doubt one can come up with
a myriad of answers to the question, but I would rather focus
on one answer that involves our evolutionary development
along with education and experience.

Human development simply is not an even process when it
comes to the evolution of our minds, much less wisdom!
Of course there's the biological development of our brains.
Is it so much our brain size, or is it the snapping of those
synapses? Could be that some special human brains snap
a lot faster than others. There's those "good" genes, too!

On the other hand, maybe education comes into play when
it involves evolving brains. The more information fed into our
brain, the more snapping synapses. But the question that begs
to be addressed is about the varied levels of human education.
It's an incredibly uneven development at best.

Unfortunately much of our planet's population is ill educated,
if that. Literacy would seem at a premium in many countries,
And evolution is not a guarantee either. There are smart people
who rarely display any semblance of wisdom, whereas some
people with little or no education seem wise beyond their years.

So however in the world do we become wise, or at least
wiser? Maybe it's the school of hard knocks? Perhaps it
boils down to experience, or maybe wisdom is innate?

Anyway, I once knew a man who seemed infinitely wise.
Frankly I envied him. He always seemed to say the right
thing, never caught lapsing when it came to putting forth a
wise demeanor. But once in his life he actually made a
seriously wrong decision--and it ultimately led to his death.

So that taught me a valuable lesson about the "perfection"
of wisdom. We can only do our best, and hope for the best
when it comes to wisdom. And, yes, folly would always seem
a constant counterpart to wisdom. It's always there, waiting.

(10) Rejecting Dichotomy

2010-11-09T10:13:00.000-08:00

"For there can be no Religion more true or just, than to know the
things that are; and to acknowledge thanks for all things, to him
that made them..."
[Corpus Hermetica, Book One.]

Comment: The above quote from this ancient Egyptian text
certainly "speaks" to me! Somewhere along the way I began
not to dichotomize when it came to my sense of Reality. What
I mean by this is not to presume that there is a mystical world
out there, outside our own universe.

Religions--including that of the ancient Egyptians--talk of some
sort of Land of the Dead. There's Heaven and Hades. There's
Elysium of the Greco-Roman cultures, at the ends of the Earth,
and the Island of the Blessed in Arthurian legend, all represent
an other mystical World.

And until recent times this other World was usually another
place, different and separate from the world in which we live
and have our being. Also, for the most part, the priority was
given to this other World by our religions. One was expected
to display a certain behavior, not only being good but also
practicing certain forms and prescriptions. And sometimes
the privileged took precedence over the poor. Occasionally
one could "buy" their place in Eternity, via indulgences.
So it went, and still sometimes this dichotomous attitude
continues to prevail.

This attitude also sometimes resulted in a negative attitude
towards the "world" in which we live. Usually one thinks
of worldly behavior in this case, but it also involved thinking
of the Temporal versus the Eternal. Some religions conveyed
the attitude of spurning the world, or picturing it as a
continuous "veil of tears."

Maybe, actually, there might have been some reasoning
involved in all this. Until our own times just making it
through life for most of us involved tough-going. Survival
was at the top-of-the-list. Due to disaster and disease,
many people simply led short lives. Of course our human
propensity for war helped along these short survival rates.
We sentient beings became conscious of this world and
were at first scared silly, realizing that the world could
kill us.

Hence we evolved Religion, first animism, then polytheism,
monotheism, etc. Imploring gods/God to save us. Mostly
we had to be saved in an Eternal Realm, not of this world.

But today, through modern Science and Technolgy, we are
learning far more about our world, our universe, and have
come to realize that Creation is utterly vast in its wonderful
magnificence. It's full of Space, filled with Time, plentiful
in Galaxy Clusters, packed with Suns, Solar Systems,
and Planets. It is Everywhere, no doubt full of Different
Dimensions of Being. It is ALL THAT IS. And those who
might forge new religious expressions might tend to be
more panentheistically inclined--believing that the universe
exists within God, though the Creator is more than the
world.

So with ALL THIS THAT IS, why ever should there be an
"out there" for us. As for Death and Life, we are coming
to understand they are a natural cycle of Being. And
Being would seem ever recycled. We souls would seem
to be Consciousness Points in the universe, "seeds"
that might perhaps be engaged in the evolution of the
universe via building up KNOWLEDGE and consequent
UNDERSTANDING what the universal process is about.

I suspect we are meant to be recycled, restored in
ways we yet have not yet come to understand. There's
clues in the Out-of-Body Experience (OBE) and the
Near-Death Experience (NDE). Our intuition suggests
another place, hence our religious perspective that
tended to dichotomize. But some scientists now are
considering what they call a "Psi World," which is
another dimension of Being. All part and parcel of
our universe. Even those on theological peripheries
have suspected this, calling such the Imaginal Realm.

And if it turns out there is Nothing, well we can still be
grateful that somehow the universe brought us forward
for awhile in order to help it along as it makes its way.

(9) Two Camps

2010-11-08T16:39:00.000-08:00

"If one go down into the water and comes up without having
received anything and says, 'I am a Christian,' he has borrowed
the name at interest. But if he receives the Holy Spirit, he has '
the name of him who' has borrowed it at interest, payment is
demanded. This is the way [it happens to one] when one
experiences 'a mystery."
[THE NAG HAMMADI LIBRARY, The Gospel of Philip (H.3),
p. 139. ]

Comment: The introduction of this gospel notes that it was
probably written in Syria, in the second half of the third century
C.E. The collection of material in this gospel was named for
Philip the apostle, probably by Christian gnostics who were
eventually deemed heretics by the orthodox camp of
Christianity.

So for centuries the gnostics were maligned, and information
about them became steadily lost--until the discovery of an
ancient monastic collection in Egypt called the Nag Hammadi
Library.

When one sifts through these writings that go back centuries
and centuries, it seems so different from what we have become
accustomed when it comes to what we think of as a "gospel."
Gnostic writers were far more mystical, declaring much that
they pondered as "mystery." Sometimes it takes some effort to
dig down into what they might really be talking about. We
have become accustomed to straightforward talk, easy to
grasp at least on a surface level, when it comes to the more
orthodox gospels--except, perhaps the Gospel of John, which
is different and far more mystical in style and content.

But what might the above quote really mean? I cannot presume
to unlock this mystery as perhaps the ancient gnostics did,
yet this quote touches my understanding in a fairly direct way.
It's blunt in its meaning, at least for me.

In today's world, people are born into a religious fold for the
most part. They more than often don't choose their particular
faith system. Their parents usually bring them into such.
For example, they are "Cradle Christians." And along the
way, through adolescence unto adulthood, they may or may
not receive direction as to what it means for them as a member
of a particular faith.

More recently research studies are discovering what some have
already known, that "Christians" don't really know much about
their religion. Churches have been remiss, providing little depth
information about the Faith. Perhaps there's an assumption that
skin-deep suffices.

And what of the Spirit. Does it touch us? If one really believes,
well yes!

What can happen, however, is then after one is "called," there can
be a flurry of activity trying to immerse one's self quickly and
perhaps superficially into their faith system, believing that they
have "got it." Perhaps a more correct course is to look into one's
own heart, into one's own soul, meditating ever deeper into what
might be happening. Perhaps then some sort of meaning will come
forth for that person, for his/her life and the expression of such.

Trying to institutionalize "mystery" can lead down some unsteady
paths. That isn't to say that fellow travelers in a given faith system
cannot help one along the way, but it's maybe better not to be too
stern or rigid working through.

Mystics and Monastics oft represent the other end of the spectrum
of our faith systems. They run deep and wide, never superficial.
The possibilities they discover pondering the Mystery can be
astounding--and sometimes seem alien to those at other or
different levels of their faith system.

In the end one has to wonder whether there will always be these
two camps when it comes to our given faith systems, no matter
the labels we employ towards one over the other. Eventually
it might be that our minds are more prone towards one over the
other; and, thus, how we view the world and the life we live can
color how we interpret our particular faith systems.

Thinking in these terms, it's interesting pondering these differing
perspectives. Could be that this situation is "natural." Perhaps
it's all in the Design of things that we have yet to realize and
accept. If eventually we do come to such a realization, then we
might seriously happen upon some really wild discoveries!

(8) Ideal & Impossibility

2010-10-26T14:40:00.000-07:00

Responding to Jesus about selling one's belongings and giving
to the poor, the disciples were completely overwhelmed and
exclaimed "then who can be saved?" Jesus responded, "For man
it is impossible but not for God. With God all things are possible."
[THE NEW TESTAMENT, Mark 10: 20-27.]

Comment: This relates to Jesus' story about the camel trying to
pass through the Eye of the Needle. If my memory serves, this
referred to a small gate passing through the wall of Jerusalem.
And sometimes I tend to think more in contemporary terms,
about a square peg trying to fit in a round hole. What these
scripture verses seem to infer is about Ideal and Impossibility.

The Ideal is always set before us. In this case, casting off
one's wealth and giving it to the poor. And the Impossibility
is the steep realization about doing this! Not everyone is
filthy rich, but many are well off enough. Rather than
inherited luxury, they had worked long and hard for their
money. And more than often they have responsibilities of
family, of putting food on the table and a roof overhead.

So there's an "attitude" about giving away one's wealth to
those who sometimes are thought poor due to their own fault.
Not just in Jesus' day, but right up to our own, there has been
an uneasy reluctance towards the poor.

Yet in the midst of this, there's this dictate about giving one's
all to the poor. The disciples saw this as an impossibility, as
do most of us today. As for the question about "who can be
saved," well other than a few saints strung across the centuries,
very few of us. Yet Jesus answered that "with God all things are
possibile." He places this particular "possible" in juxtaposition
with "impossible."

Perhaps we can only carry through this Ideal--or any other
ideal--only with God's help. Making an ideal possible oft is
very difficult and usually does involve some amount of
sacrifice. But I have to ask, where would we be if we didn't
have ideals set before us? Probably not very far along.
Ideals serve as challenges not only to be good, but to grow.
They help propagate evolving maturity as well as generosity.

But these particular scripture seeds inject the condition of
poverty, of lending a helping hand, working towards rising
out-of-poverty. In today's world, we can think beyond
individuals as poor but can attest to poverty-stricken
communities, of "undeveloped nations." Internationally
poverty is omnipresent.

It would seem that until Poverty is eradicated at all levels,
our world will always live under a certain constant threat.
Poverty is something to be feared, when finally it rises in
Anger. Poverty also can propagate Disease. But above
all Poverty can be enslaved by Ignorance. These are terrible
conditions, which we witness to this very day.

So just maybe Jesus said his words about this from the
perspective of a certain *wisdom,* a kind of knowing that
until Poverty is eradicated we all suffer impoverishment
in a myriad of ways.

At this point there's no doubt we need God's help.

(7) A New Song

2010-09-01T14:44:00.000-07:00

"Sing to the Lord a new song, his praise from the end of the
earth: Let the sea and what fills it resound, the coastlands, and
those who dwell in them. Let the steppe and its cities cry out...
the villages...and shout from the top of mountains. Let them
give glory to the Lord..."
[ Isaiah 42: 30-32, THE OLD TESTAMENT ]

Comment: The word "Glory" has various meanings, like
renown, giving honor, beauty and magnificence of a place,
that which provides pleasure. Words are stock full of
representations and actions. As for "Song," it usually means
a poem set to music. But it also can refer to those musical
phrases we detect from birds, whales, and insects.

So considering these different meanings of these two words,
perhaps I was right thinking about God's relationship with not
only our good Earth but of all of Creation when it came to
reading these particular lines from the book of Isaiah. In a
sense the "New Song" could indeed be connected with our
recent discoveries about the universe and our consequent
appreciation of such. For those who believe in God, a fairly
new approach can be found in the following new words: the
New Cosmology, Deep Ecology, and Panentheism.

Basically the New Cosmology represents our contemporary
knowledge-base about our 13.7 billion year-old universe.
It's an unfolding universe, beginning with the cosmic event of
the Big Bang. It's about the discovery of an infinity of galaxies,
of great galactic clusters, star nurseries. And just in our galaxy
alone there are surely a myriad of planets circling millions of
suns, floating in space under which is the implicate world of
Quantum Physics.

Deep Ecology is about a newly emerging worldview. "It sees
the world not as a collection of isolated objects, but as a
network of phenomena that are fundamentally interconnected
and interdependent. Deep ecology recognizes the intrinsic
value of all living beings and views humans as just one
particular strand in the web of life."
[Fritjof Capara, THE WEB OF LIFE: A NEW SCIENTIFIC
UNDERSTANDING OF LIVING SYSTEMS, Anchor, P.7.]

As for Panentheism, it is a belief that, yes, God is greater than
the universe, but also includes and interpentrates the universe.
If so, this means that God is constantly present to ALL of us,
who live in and share in Creation. It adds meaning to the idea
that whatever we do, or how we treat the "other", we also treat
God. God is Everywhere, in Every One, threaded Through and
Through.

So than, what might this "New Song" mean to us as we stand in
the midst of our relatively new knowledge-base about God and
the Universe in which we all live and have our being?

It's still natural for us to lift our voices in song, to think and feel
the beauty of poetics. Perhaps with more and more conscious
comprehension of who we are, of the Who in which we exist
and are a part, we can bring ever more joy into the New Song.
It's perhaps about the aspect of "pleasure" in the meaning of
Glory.

(6) Priorities

2010-08-29T11:11:00.000-07:00

"First, God; Secondly, the World; Thirdly, Man."
[Book 1, THE CORPUS HERMETICA.]

Comment: This short saying stresses the priorities. What more
can really be said? Probably only the "how to," that has evolved
over time. And that fills reams and reams of tomes, rules,
instructions, and even threats.

Of course lots of these approaches, both positive and negative,
depend on not only our God concepts but also the god-imagery
that reflects such. The Imago Dei at least sometimes becomes
more sophisticated as we grow more conscious. But always we
do have to ask if our god-imagery accurately depicts the Reality
of God? It's an open-ended question, I'm afraid, that keeps us
standing not too easy. In the end I imagine we will come to
recognize that God depends on our becoming ever more mature.
It's like an equation, in that our maturity will eventually come to
comprehend God in ever more sophisticated ways. God is not
the shapeshifter, we are!

As for the World, well when the first small light of consciousness
entered our brain, no doubt we were scared silly by what we saw
of the world at that point. The world was out to get us! Kill us!
Survival was always of prime concern. Eventually we saw spirits
behind every tree, thus we placated these spirits. Hence Animism,
later Polytheism, eventually Monothesism, ultimately--maybe--to
Panentheism. Regardless our choice, we link God and the
World and ourselves together in a variety of ways.

Man once was the Center of the Universe, especially when we
were entertaining Anthropocentrism. What with recent scientific
discoveries about the universe, more specifically our solar
system, most of us have sadly come to realize that Humanity
is no longer the most important element of the universe, though
we still crave to call ourselves the Rulers of the Earth. Alas,
our Rule has become ruinous!

So here's hoping that eventually we get these old Egyptian
Hermetic priorities right. They would seem to point in the
right direction.

(5) The Light Shining Through

2010-06-13T10:14:00.000-07:00

Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: frrom
me all came forth, and to me all attained. Split a piece of wood;
I am there. Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."
[Nag Hammadi Library, Gospel of Thomas, para. 77.]

Comment: As a matter of introduction, we need provide a small
history that stands behind the above statement. In Egypt, during
the year 1945, an Egyptian peasant stumbled upon containers
in the desert. Cracking them open, he discovered "codexes"
which can be likened to ancient books. The peasant took these
old books home, kept them a secret, but eventually Egyptian
authorities got wind of this discovery.

Scholars quickly went to work on these ancient texts. They
believed that the jars (or containers) came from an ancient
monastery library that existed in Nag Hammadi--the region
where these books were discovered. Probably the monks
decided to hide these old codexes, because they contained
"other" gospels as well as additional theological material that
could be dangerous as heterodox documents. This occurred
some two or more centuries after Christ, and some of the
documents--but not all--were considered Gnostic writings
perceived as heretical in the eyes of Orthodox Christianity.

As for the Gospel of Thomas, scraps of this early writing had
been discovered from other sources; but with the Nag Hammadi
discovery, this particular gospel was far more available in its
entirety. As for the author of this gospel, it cannot be presumed
whether he was a member of the Gnostic sect or not. Regardless
this gospel is not a narrative, but rather a collection of Jesus'
sayings--many of which correspond to the stories in the Orthodox
gospels found in the New Testament.

But the above saying is not in the biblical gospels. It is different
and *exciting.* And it implies a variety of interpretations.

1. Panentheism: a belief system that implies that God exists in
every part of Nature. Going beyond pantheism, panentheism
implies the "the whole is in God." In other words, "God is everything
in the universe, but God is also greater than the universe."

2. Panpsychism: a view that the whole universe possesses a mind.

3. The Logos: In the biblical Gospel of John, the Logos is
described as the Word. As put, "In the beginning was the Word,
and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with
God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without
him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and
that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but
the darkness has not understood it."

John--as well as the early Christian Fathers--believed that Jesus
was the "Incarnation of the Logos." But the concept of the Logos,
considered the Cosmic Plenum by even earlier ancient philosophers,
had the following meanings: 1. Order or Pattern. 2. Ratio or
Proportion 3. A Discourse, Articulation or Account. 4. Reason,
both in the sense of rationality and in the sense of an articulation
or the cause of something. 5. Principle or Cause. 6. A principle of
Mediation and Harmony between extremes.
[David Fiedler, JESUS CHRIST SUN OF GOD: ANCIENT COSMOLOGY
AND EARLY CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM, Quest Books, 1993, p. 38.]

Ruminating over this, I think the particular paragraph in the Gospel
of Thomas (cited above) is an amazing synopsis of incredibly
sophisticated thought.

(4) A Pattern ?

2010-05-21T09:54:00.000-07:00

As Jesus put: "I have given you glory on earth by finishing the work
you gave me to do."
[Gospel of John 17.4]

Comment: Captured above, in that single sentence, are the words
that has grabbed ahold of imaginations for some two thousand years.
The life of this man embodies the great Hope of humanity. But this
Hope requires faith.

Considering our modern knowledge-base, it's easy for many to cast
aside this need for faith--especially a faith that professes that the
Son of God came to our planet and through incarnation became a
human being. Though not very profound, oft the answer to this
phenomenon is that "God can do anything."

Well, maybe so! We have a God that set off the Big Bang, has
rolled along with Creation for some 13.7 billion years, until Now.
And what little we do know about Cosmology, it really has been
an incredibly impressive roll.

But, for me, I am more inclined to wonder about God in terms of
Mind and Consciousness. Creation, itself, is *en total* a Complex
System composed of a myriad of complex systems *infinitum.*
Of course some look at Creation and see nothing but Random
processes; but others, like myself, consider an Intelligence that
stands behind the Cosmic Process.

Early Greek philosophers, later Christian Fathers, believed that
there was a Plenum--a Godhead--that stood behind and
throughout the unfolding of the universe. And they called this
Cosmic Plenum the "Logos." The Logos--the principle of
Divine Reason and Creative Order--became the "Son of God,"
there from the beginning of Creation.

The Trinity is a formulation of the human mind--and more than
often it is confusing for many of us. What it seems to be are
our human considerations of the different aspects of God, as we
are able to comprehend. Perhaps more simply put, God as the
Creator is the "Father," God as the Cosmic Plenum is the "Son,"
and God working through all of Creation is the "Spirit."

Perhaps a deep Intuition? Since the dawn of human conscious-
ness, there has been a deep-felt need for a Savior. Why ever this
need to be saved? Because we are vulnerable. When we first
opened our eyes and were able to see the world in which we
lived, it very likely scared us silly. Survival meant constant
vulnerability that somehow we had to face. And we needed Help,
and still do unto this very day.

So did an aspect of the Godhead, the Logos, hear our prayers,
heed to our needs? Well we presume that we know the Mind of
God, or we deeply hope that somehow God is also Mercy. We
show so little of mercy among one another, but we need it
nearly constantly.

Again, only faith alone, but we pray that God will come and
help us. And some two thousand years ago, a man came
into our midst--and his followers declared him the "Incarnation
of the Logos," the Son of God.

Impossible? Possible? There's the choice to be made.

If possible, well what does the man Jesus mean for us?
His words are wise, though they have been said before.
Maybe his life is a blueprint for successful living? It's
inclusive, expressing a loving openness to one and all.
And if one investigated closely, there seems a pattern
to this man's life.

Beyond this, I'm willing to believe that if we investigated
even deeper that we might discover this "pattern" spread
throughout over Time, expressed by other special souls
as well. In the end, maybe this Pattern is God's way of
communicating, communing with us, drawing us forth
towards a certain Completeness.

Lots of Mystery in these thoughts, in these circumstances
that we take upon Faith.

(3) Genesis Revisited

2010-05-12T08:58:00.000-07:00

Let us take a small look at Genesis--and see how it compares
with the Big Bang and modern astrophysical cosmology.

"In the beginning of Creation, when God made heaven and
earth, the earth was without form and void, with darkness over
the face of the abyss, and a mighty wind that swept over the
surface of the waters, God said, 'Let there be light,' and there
was light..." [Genesis 1: 1-4]

Out of Mystery came a glowing ball of energy, compact and
heavy beyond comprehension. This ball held within itself all
the enfolded information that would forever fuel the unfolding
Cosmos. This little ball, virtually a particle spatially small
enough to be held in one's hand, contained the enfolded
information of all the world that would bloom forth into cosmic
reality.

"...and God saw that the light was good, and he separated
light from darkness..." [Genesis 1: 4-5]

This primordial ball exploded, unfolded simultaneously
everywhere. Every particle rushed away from every other
particle. The explosion filled all space.

Eventually the frenzied particles calmed dissolving into a
great scattering, and the Cosmos began to transfigure itself.
It fashioned the galaxies. These gigantic, self- organizing
systems pinwheeled and clustered across the outer mantle
of the Universe.

Feeding on helium and hydrogen, brillant stars and planets
were born. The early planets bubbled forth as moltening
gaseous soups that cooled into planetary crusts. Chemical
creativity began to churn away. And on one of the planets,
the Earth, the first living cell arose.

"God said, 'Let the waters teem with countless living creatures,
and let birds fly above the earth across the vault of heaven.'"
[Genesis 1: 20]

Gathering hydrogen from the oceans, releasing oxygen, these
primal cells built the land and the atmosphere of the Earth. In
time multicellular organisms arose. They began as corals,
became worms and insects and fish. They wiggled and flashed
about in the sea and on the land. They multiplied into many
life forms. Experimenting, they discarded some forms and built
upon others. And about two hundred million years ago mammals
entered into the life of the Earth.

"Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image and likeness...'"
[Genesis 1: 26]

From these mammals came the first glimmers of consciousness,
a sense of emotional sensitivity and self-awareness. In due
time the human brain unfolded.

"So it was; and God saw all that he had made, and it was very good..."
[Genesis 1: 31]

(2) Order & Necessity

2010-04-30T15:03:00.000-07:00

As put "Providence is Divine Order" and "Necessity is the
Minister or Servant of Providence."
[From the First Book. THE CORPUS HERMETICA.]

Comment. Allegedly the Corpus Hermetica was written by
Hermes Trismegistus, who (according to legend) was the
builder of the Egyptian pyramids. Considered by many, the
Corpus was thought to be sacred writings originating in
Pharaonic Egypt. However, most of the Hermetic books
were lost during the burning of the royal libraries in ancient
Alexandria--but some books supposedly survived. Scholars
speculate that the surviving texts of the Corpus Hermetica
were likely redacted between the first and third centuries c.e.

What gets me is how sophisticated these two ideas posted
above are when it comes to Order and Necessity. Pharaonic
Egypt goes back fairly far in historical time, but here we have
these impressive ideas being put forth-especially in terms of
how they seem to relate to modern science theory.

In today's world scientists have introduced new perspectives
when it comes to Order, in that it more than often is connected
with Chaos. One can look at this linkage on two levels.

There's Providence, who can be considered as God who
bestows protective care upon us, or Nature as a spiritual
power. Unfortunately these dictionary accounts reflect our
old tendency to dichotomize, essentially separating God from
Nature, or Spirit from Matter.

But both scientists and theologians have begun to grasp hold
a new "holistic" perspective. And even out of the milieu of
the Sacred, there's now systems thinking. More than often,
scholars now are looking at the universe as one gigantic
System consisting of systems infinitum.--yet a Whole! Also,
some scholars are endowing the universe with Intelligence.

If so, this brings us back to the very archaic idea of Providence.
Thrust into the milieu of Religion, we have long declared the
existence of God or Spirit in a myriad of ways. But especially
here in the Corpus Hermeticum God is perceived as Order.

So what seems to happen when we look at Nature from this
perspective? In Chaos Theory there's the following outlook.

The cosmic explicate order is made-up of non-linear dynamical
systems, and some scholars believe that there is creative
potential embedded in non-linear systems. In other words we
are talking about "Cosmic Creativity."

An example of this Creativity, from a systems perspective, is
that eventually a non-linear system will eventually reach a
chaotic situation and is forced to make a shift in direction. It
either does or does not. If it does not, well the system will
fall more and more into chaos and eventual destruction. On
the other hand, there's a point of a possible shift--called the
"bifurcation point," when a "fork is created and the system
takes off in a new direction."
[John Briggs & F. David Peat, TURBULENT MIRROR: AN
ILLUSTRATED GUIDE TO CHAOS THEORY AND THE
SCIENCE OF WHOLENESS, HARPER & ROW, 1989,
PP. 143-144.]

And the internal feedback in some non-linear systems is so
"complex that there is a virtual infinity of degrees of freedom."
For Ilya Prigogine, the late Nobel laureate, thermodynamist
and systems theorist, Nature is built by feedback among all
levels. Once again Peat believes that "this is an assertion
of Nature's creativity." Each new level of organization creates
something fundamentally new. It almost seems that Nature
has a choice of orders. And it is Prigogine's opinion that
this "mixture of necessity and change...constitutes the
system's creativity."

Admittedly, discussing Chaos Theory is dreadfully difficult
in terms of straightforward understanding. But it all boils
down to Creativity and Choice. Providence would seem
the fundamental Order in Nature, but out of Necessity it
need face endless Chaos out of which to rise unto new
levels of Be-ing.. So, as microcosms to the Macrocosm,
as individual non-linear systems, it's no surprise that we
humans face the same circumstances.

Long ago our ancestors must have intuited what scientists
today are discovering. Order is a Constant, ever continuing
over Time. And Necessity serves as the Spark of Survival.

(1) A Special Name

2010-04-28T10:38:00.000-07:00

In the Lord's Prayer, Jesus actually provides God with a special
name--in that he says "Hallowed be thy name."

Comment: Maybe strange, but sometimes I relax by reading
the dictionary. So I'm going to do a little exercise in regard to
this special name by linking meaning upon meaning, employing
the AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH
LANGUAGE.

• Hallowed: (1) Made or set apart as being holy; sanctified;
consecrated. (2) Highly venerated; unassailable; sacrosanct.  

• Hallow: (1) To make or set apart as holy; sanctify; consecrate.
(2) To honor as being holy; revere; adore.  

• Holy: (1) Belonging to, derived from, or associated with a
divine power, sacred. (2) Worthy of worship or high esteem;
revered. See "kailo" in Appendix. [Kailo: Whole, uninjured,
of good omen. Old English-wholesome, health, to heal,
holy, sacred.]  

• Whole: (1) Containing all component parts; complete.
(2) Not divided or disjointed; in one unit, (3) Sound; healthy;
restored; healed.  

• Wholesome: (1) Conducive to sound health or well-being;
salutary. (2) Morally or socially salubrious.  

• Healthy: (1) Possessing good health. (3) Indicative of a
rational or constructive frame of mind, sound.  

• Sound: (1) Free from defect, decay, or damage; in good
condition. (3) Having a firm basis; solid; unshakable. (7)
Deep and unbroken; undisturbed. (8) Free from moral defect;
upright; honorable. (9) Worthy of confidence; trustworthy.  

• Salutary: (1) Effecting or designed to effect an improvement;
beneficially corrective; remedial.  

• Heal: (1) To restore to health; cure. (2) To set right; amend.
(3) To rid of sin, anxiety, or the like; restore. To become whole
and sound; return to health. See "kailo" in Appendix.

Well it looks as if our small word-game has come around
full circle. It's really interesting "what's in a name." :-)

However, what interests me is not so much the most correct
linguistic interpretation, but rather how this particular name
can be seen in terms of our own life. Whole, complete, stable,
sound, holy--all these words seem to beckon in terms of
emulation. These words almost seem like a promise, in that
there is a goal that seems to attract us forward.

Introduction

2010-04-27T08:39:00.000-07:00

The following essays will focus on the little "seeds" that are
found in Sacred Scripture. By this, I mean some small wisps
of Wisdom that might impact on our life today. As for Scripture
itself, I will focus on many cultural sources of various sacred
writing as well on those presumed both exoteric and esoteric.