Friday, October 28, 2011

Do I know you?

Talking with Elizabeth, she said, "I like that God isn't concerned so much with what I did or didn't do.  I believe the main question he will ask is, "Do I know you?"
The questions of human freedom and God's plan are true sticklers in Biblical study and theology.  Clearly God knows all the possibilities being in and outside creation.  If there are an 'elect' as some believe then they get to heaven and the rest of us go to hell.  As one wag said, if those are the 220,000 going to heaven, I'd rather not go there.  "I'll take the next room, thank you as 'in our Father's house there are many mansions."  Perhaps we are get to pass on to a better place.
I fear I'll not get my ferrari here on earth so hope for an extension on my ferrari acquisition project. Universities are forever offering students extensions.  Could not God have a heart as wishy washy as the spineless politically correct college professor of modern day.  Why be good today when the outcome is chosen and if God truly loved me he'd find a way to help me redeem my multitude of errors.
These are the thoughts of 'end game'.  Meditate on death is a prescription from ancient times.  Certainly an action  worthy of all soul's day.  This time of year the worlds of here and now and then and earth and heaven and hell were thought so juxtaposed that much mixing was possible.  At this time soul's could cross over or know the other realms.
Why not give up and die if I'm going to die anyway?Why be good if it's foreordained that I'll be bad some time in the future?  Why not kill myself now, early in the day before I've had a chance to wipe out this goodness of morning?  Why live to be a jaded old man bitter at life's failing and angry that God did not give me the ferrari of my dreams.  (The ferrari represents whatever one believed they wanted and did not get.  Much like the offerings of the devil to Jesus on the mountain.  True love, respect of fellow man, high position, wealth, eternal youth, whatever your ferrari might well be.)
What ever was God's idea of creating me?Rather than wrestle with this most difficult question I might choose to run from it and say instead, there is no God, there is no plan and I am just a random fluff in the universe.  But what if there is a plan and what if there is a God?  That's certainly the mathematician Pascal's question.
In the 12 step programs one prays to know God's will this day and to have the power to carry it out.  I might not know the destination for next year but today I ask for guidance in my every move.  If I pray and meditate I might be still and thereby hear the 'wee small voice of God'.
"Be Still and Know That I Am God."  I love this round.  I think too that if I remember I am a child, and Jesus said that we must be like children again then ,I can accept that I will cling to the skirts of my God this day.  I surrender the 'tough guy' and the 'loner delusion' of Hollywood false history.
We are all interconnected. I'm not asked to be Atlas but rather just to hold up my little bit of the end.  Indeed I'm mostly asked to just hang in there. Live.  It's enough.  Maslow's hierarchy of needs have several stages before self actualization.  I'm taking care of business before I can even think of rapture.  The rapture would be fine but in the meantime as my friend, Willie, would say 'pass the butter."
Happy Hallows Eve.  Just as Christmas isn't about consumerism, neither is this day.  The ancients celebrated the harvest and then the end of life and coming of winter with it's death before resurrection themes. A time of faith.  A time when all seems lost only to have it all  rise again like the phoenix.
The leaves turn colour and shed only to sprout again in spring.  Faith.  We are at the cross roads again.  The end of summer's day and beginning of winter's night.  Awake in the wonder of change and know the love of God is always present even in the darkness.  Light shines from within.

May the long time sunshine, always surround you, and the pure light within you guide your way home.

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