Aphorism of the Day, April 30, 2017
The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciple perhaps are a testimony the profound grief of loss experienced by so many hopeful friends. One could acknowledge the profound grief as the conditions wherein the return of Jesus occurred as the Risen Christ. Profound loss was the occasion for the Christophany.
Aphorism of the Day, April 29, 2017
The meaning of the Emmaus Road Christophany is that it can happen again anywhere and anytime under the sub-titles of apparently anything. The resurrection of Christ brought a rhetorical explosion of finding Christiality everywhere.
Aphorism of the Day, April 28, 2017
In the Emmaus Road event, the writer encodes the two modes of the presence of Christ which was practiced in the early churches, Word and Sacrament. The Risen Christ is the Interpreter Accomplice for the Word of God. The Risen Christ is the one who is dissipated into incognito status yet can become sudden serendipitous apparent presence in the event of the breaking of the bread. While the church has tried to lock up God and Christ within the "official" sacraments and in the biblical texts, those who perceive God know that general omnipresence can become particular apparent presence anywhere and in anything in a sudden Christophany. The Bible is particular written text which resides within the more general Textuality of Christ being the Eternal Word of God from the Beginning. The Bible is particular text which is a witness that particular and apparent Christly presence can become present anytime within an Omni-textual universe.
Aphorism of the Day, April 27, 2017
Is controlling serendipity a contradiction? Or can alchemical interpretation in all life situations turn each situation into serendipity because one has the hope of there being a surpassing future with which make all things well? Mother Julian wrote all things will be well and all manner of things will be well. I suspect that Jesus and all heroes of faith lived by making hope so current that it created such optimism of faith in the "now."
Aphorism of the Day, April 26, 2017
The accounts of the Risen Christ indicate that he could pass through doors, remain incognito until suddenly with a magician stroke make himself visible. He could make very fast time between Jerusalem and Galilee, seemingly flying from place to place without the normal time/space limitations. Such presentations of the Risen Christ bespeak the mystical visions of those who had the "gaze" to see the Risen Christ from within themselves and such a gaze was so pronounced, and most amazingly, shared in corporate "sightings" with others that it attained an unsurpassable marker to be remembered and recounted. St. Paul's mystical vision was to him alone, even though he was in the company of others who did not have his vision. Probably the most remarkable thing about post-resurrection appearances was that some of them involve group-ecstasy partaking of the same visionary experience. They could turn to each other and say, "Are you seeing what I am seeing?"
Aphorism of the Day, April 25, 2017
The Emmaus Road post-resurrection appearance of the Risen Christ indicate the common use of the Gospel writers rhetorical strategy. How can one teach the substantiality of a mystical experience as being the key factor in how one perceives the events of one's life? They use the commonsense perception that "physicality" means something is tellingly real. The post-resurrection appearance story writers use "physicality" as a metaphor of significance to assert that the Risen Christ really does re-appear to people in ways so substantial that such re-appearances change completely the physical and inner lives of those who experience the Risen Christ. Readers who privilege the commonsense perception of material realism are then invited to be open to a parallel realm of perception that is as substantial or if not more substantial than the material realm. They are being persuaded that even the material realm is experientially constituted by one's inner worded being. If you think the outer material world is really real, it is so because of how much more really real one's interior world of words is.
Aphorism of the Day, April 24, 2017
Does something get designated as "random" because an infinite number of things are in relationship with an infinite number of other things and such mutual relationships are so vast that no human mind can understand causal connections? In science we seek to observe the "apparent causal" connection even while we know that negligible influence lie outside of what we designate as "apparent" for our observation. In human terms, the random can be designated as fateful, serendipitous, favorable, propitious, bad luck or blessing depending upon how an event is effecting the person who is interpreting the event. Because of the sense of the random in how events occur and affect people, we have the great traditions of tragedy, comedy and drama, and Holy Scriptures to try to orient people to what Freedom can bring to the lives of people. While we must be devoted to science as the best language for expressing actuarial probability in predicting what will happen and plan accordingly, freedom generates "data bleeps" outside of the completely predictable and so we have room for the meaningful languages of romance, faith and justice.
Aphorism of the Day, April 23, 2017
Seeing is not always believing because we see from the internal classifying grids of how we've been constituted by language. The current political polarization is proof that the "same data" is not being seen and acted upon in the same way. The contribution of modern science has been as much about setting up objective methods of verification as it has been about what the observed data is. If all of the observers can be trained to be constituted by the same methodological "seeing" then there can be a unity of results. When it comes to aesthetic truths, moral truths, political truths, truths of love, faith and justice, subjective inner constitutions of each individual becomes more difficult to bring to unified agreement. Some people fall in love and some people don't; we like science because we can enter the lab where truth is not "messy." Messy truth happens because of the uneven differences in meanings that people arrive at in uneven ways and at different times. Messy truths are still meaningful truths and they are uneven and still becoming in the hearts of those who are still becoming and have not and will never reach a final stage of perfect "being." Being as static perfection is very hard to believe when one lives on the merry-go-round of Time.
Aphorism of the Day, April 22, 2017
The Doubting Thomas story highlights a source for one of the greatest doctrinal divisions in the Christian Creedal churches of the West and the East. The Western church added "and the Son or in Latin Filoque" to the Nicene Creed. Does the Holy Spirit proceed only from the Father or both the Father and the Son? The addition caused theological ripples regarding the integrity of the Holy Spirit. The Doubting Thomas story indicates that Risen Christ breathed on his disciples and Easter and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Does this mean that Jesus was involved in the "procession" of the Holy Spirit? But according to the Luke/Acts account the disciples were together on Pentecost (50 days after Easter) after Christ had ascended and they received the Holy Spirit (again?) and spoke in other languages. Is Pentecost the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father? Is the Doubting Thomas story indication of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son? Are both churches correct? Is the Western addition more inclusive in citing the role of Jesus in the procession of the Holy Spirit(see Doubting Thomas story)? Theological specialists believe the entire identity of the Holy Spirit rides upon understand the arcane difference regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit. People in the pew wonder whether "enforced precision" in the wording about the Mystery of God partakes of worded humanity thinking to control the Mystery of God by having "air tight" taxonomical grids for understanding God. We can be tempted from "O Come let us adore God" to "O Come let us fight about God."
Aphorism of the Day, April 21, 2017
The pastoral office of "absolving" sins by the designated ordained can and has been used as a way to assert clerical authority over people's life. I have a hunch that it was adopted early as disciplinarian pastoral "canon" law because of leadership disputes and "lay" revolts. In the Doubting Thomas story one finds this: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." This can be understood as "good spiritual practice," namely, forgiving rather than retaining sins. Communities which "retain" sins don't survive. When the good spiritual practice of "forgiving sins," is elevated to the official act of an ordained clergy declaring forgiveness, the spiritual practice loses something of it charismatic, sincere authenticity. That a person can only feel forgiven if it is declared to be such by an appropriate authority diminishes the immediacy of forgiveness. Certainly one can appreciate the psychological effect of being relieved of the sense of guilt by someone whom one respects as a faith mentor and one can appreciate our "communal sins" done in the name of the group and the need to tolerate ourselves while being held hostage to our social contextual sins. There are sins against others that one might want to "repair" and be restored to relationship by the one against whom one has sinned. There is the general sin of "always already" missing the mark in light of God's perfection and the humility of telling another and seeking the forgiveness of God declared by a minister. The most redeeming aspect of the sacrament of reconciliation is that the absolver is also in the practice of being absolved by another absolver. In the traditional rite of reconciliation, the "absolving priest" says to the departing penitent, "Pray for me a sinner."
Aphorism of the Day, April 20, 2017
"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet who have believed." This statement is an affirmation of equality in difference. On a continuum from superior to inferior, we may want to use "sheer" empiricism to rate the experience of the eye-witnesses of Jesus as being superior to those who did not have such proximity. When we look at the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, they indicate that he had a different body in the eyes of the beholder. Their experience was "substantial" even as it was different than before he died on the cross. The experiences of those who had post-resurrection appearances of Jesus were different than the accounts of the experiences before his death. Paul said his mystical experience of Christ was not inferior to the experience of the twelve disciples. Since the mystical experiences of Paul came to writing before the Gospel writings; these mystical experiences guided the presentations of the narratives of Jesus in the Gospels. The post-resurrection Christ had what I would called "substantial mystical reality and effect." One cannot deny the "physicality" of a mystical experience since such experiences happen to people with bodies and they affect the actual physical life of the person in their subsequent behaviors. If the Doubting Thomas story is anything, it is about the equality in blessing of all experience of Christ.
Aphorism of the Day, April 19, 2017
John's Gospel: "Jesus did many signs for his disciples which are not written in this book." This is the statement of an editor. The events of the past have to be edited since in the present we cannot be taken up with engaging a continuous record of things that are recorded from the past. Why? Because we have a life in the present tense and we are to use the record of the past for active present time believing. Believing is the faith of clarifying our values from the past and bringing ourselves to persuasive actions in the present which express the values gained from commitment to our highest insights.
Aphorism of the Day, April 18, 2017
In UFOology, there is a classification system of "close encounters." The Doubting Thomas story is the story form classification system of the writer of John's Gospel classifying "close encounters" with the Risen Christ. What are the close encounters? Being an associate of Jesus before his death. Experiencing a post-resurrection encounter with the Risen Christ, hearing about Jesus from someone who knew him in the flesh, hearing about him from someone who heard about him....., reading about him in a written account, having a mystical/apparitional experience of Christ like St. Paul. These are all degrees of "close" encounters. The Gospel of John declares that these are all different but equally blessed. How can all be different but equal? The great equalizer in life is Word or Language. Everything to be known in human experience has to come to language. So God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and all of the modes of encounter with Christ are equal in that they have come to Word/Language. That human beings have language is the only obvious and universal human metaphysic because Language is co-extensive with anything being known at all. Try to say that you have experienced things without having had language. Try to say you experience silence without having had language. Silence is known as silence because we have language. Coming to language is the great equalizer of everything. When the writer of John wrote, the Word was God, the main truth of humanity was revealed.
Aphorism of the Day, April 17, 2017
We now move toward "Doubting Thomas" Sunday. This account from the Gospel of John is actually an assessment in story form of contrasting how people process "valid" presences of the Risen Christ. Some people needed sight and touch; others believed by hearing the testimony of others and finally others believe because they read about Jesus many years later. Those who want a current sighting of Jesus and want to be able to "replicate it and repeat" it as a valid scientific experiment so as to establish the basis for a scientific theory regarding the Risen Christ will be perpetually disappointed since their criteria of objectivity will never be met. One of a kind people and events do not conform to the kind of objectivity of science but this does not exclude such events and people from being meaningfully true in the lives of billions. Language provides the discursive possibilities for many types of communal "objectivities."
Aphorism of the Day, April 16, 2017
Easter: Is this a 12 step program for those addicted to hope? Are Christians members of RA or Resurrection Anonymous. "Hi, my name is Phil and it's been just moments since I last believed in the resurrection." Don't let modernity force you into thinking you are a member of a Resurrection Anonymous, a gathering of addicted people toward a certain narrative of hope. As Christians we can be multi-tasking users of discourse and we know when to be hard core empiricists and when to round out our discursive lives with valid and true ethical, spiritual and aesthetic discourses with profoundly functionally true meanings in the art of living, dying and after-living.
Aphorism of the Day, April 15, 2017
To view pictures of a person over a lifetime one may not even be able to say that the baby photo does not seem to be the same person when he or she is 50. What is it that determines the continuity of identity of a person over time? Self-memory of a person over time. Community continuity and record of a person being the same with such markers as DNA and fingerprints to prove it. Will we have continuity as being the same person after we have died? Jesus in the tomb: Will he has a future continuity with himself? The re-appearance of Jesus is the "after life" picture of him and this after life picture in continuity with the person in the body, formerly known as Jesus of Nazareth but of late to known as the Risen Christ, is the assurance to us that we will have continuity with ourselves after we have died. It is nice for the internal DNA of hope to have a narrative and the assurance that hope will provide another kind of body of human experience after we have died. You may be into "zombies" and "walking dead;" I prefer the living tradition of the resurrection which derives from the actual Jesus of Nazareth.
Aphorism of the Day, April 14, 2017
Persons who have died because of injustice or political assassination have come to have "famous" deaths. Socrates, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr. Oscar Romero, et. al. We are troubled by the fact that there are people of power who find goodness and justice a challenge to their exercise of greed and control. When people of sterling goodness and justice are removed through death we want to proclaim their deaths widely as a witness against the thought that evil may be winning the day. Such events scream out and push so much goodness into the non-apparent background. We retain the deaths of martyrs in the foreground of remembrance to remind the bullies of good people that they are destined to infamy.
Aphorism of the Day, April 13, 2017
On Maundy Thursday, we remember the institution of the Holy Eucharist and in so doing we might note how in practice it has drifted from being an actual meal into being an event of minimalistic eating and drinking highly symbolic elements. In the drift to culinary minimalism we have lost the pragmatic practice of early house Christian clubs which were comprised by "public eating" together as an outward and visible sign that everyone in their community had enough actual food to eat. To detach the Eucharist from people having enough to eat means it has often become a gathering of people who are devoted and obliged to make a very "individualistic my communion" in public to fulfill the obligation of church. In the Maundy Thursday liturgy we confess that we believe that actual hospitality and service is the true success of the church and these two ways of being the church derived from Jesus.
Aphorism of the Day, April 12, 2017
Holy Week to Easter is a roller coaster of traveling from agony to ecstasy. Too much is packed into one week and one can hope that one's individual life does not have such actual dramatic shifts. Ecstasy is generally spread aboard within the goodness of creation; agony is also the always, already expression found in the impairment and depriving aspect of freedom to be goodness in harmony. Between agony and ecstasy in the play of freedom we embrace the strategies of the church to both celebrate in ecstasy and cope with the agony. We do so by the practice of hospitality as expressed in the Eucharist, in Service as signified in the Foot-washing, in reality therapy by giving death and loss its due on Good Friday, in accepting our roles as Worded beings who created the word environment for being the prevenient grace to those we welcome into our InChristed lives at the Easter Vigil, and finally to celebrate an afterlife beyond death to prove that death and all manner of life are but occasions and moments within a Greater Freedom of the always, already Abundant Life. Abundant Life ultimately relativizes all occasions of death and life and in hope of the eternal future we ultimately believe all of the limited contextualized past can be re-written based up the future being an accumulation of that many more occasions to provide a greater environment to relativize any particular past occasion. Without denying or minimizing the actual context of pain with sentient feeling, hope invites us to the distant future where with Mother Julian, though in the future anterior tense, we will be able to confess that "all manner of things will have been well."
Aphorism of the Day, April 11, 2017
In all of the events that have accumulated we have come from an unknowable ocean of past events and it is impossible to have particular identity from an ocean of unknowable events. We build and have inculcated personal identity within human traditions with technologies of memory. A calendar is a technology of memory and it involves the observation of the motion of planet and moon as a clock of regularity onto which is attached events in human history so as to attain the status of a "date." Assigning a calendar date for the events in the life of Jesus and then commanding annual memorials of those calendar date is at the basis of retaining community memory and inculcating Christian identity. In the postmodern world we have a plethora of "calendars" and each are designed to inculcate different kinds of identity. Sports fans have calendars for each sport and they inculcate their "fan" identity in annual renewal rituals. The problem today is that too many calendars of personal and community identity compete for "fan" or "devotee" identity. It is becoming increasingly noticeable that other calendars are taking precedence over the Christian calendar as there are more competing identities to the "Christ" identity. For many the Christ-identity is no longer primary or relevant since it is easy for a once primary identity to get saturated and weakened in a sea of plural identities. The church still needs to be a "boat" to travel on in this sea of plural identities and the church does not have to go into "full Amish-like" separation to maintain particular and relevant identity in Christ.
Aphorism of the Day, April 10, 2017
Egeria was an ancient pilgrim to the Holy Land. She wrote a travel journal and brought knowledge of the Holy Week rituals back to Europe. Pilgrimage and travel was important for the cross-pollination of the ideas and liturgical practices. People, came, saw, and copied when they went back home. How much life has changed now with live-streaming making events around the world immediately accessible. We have become more virtual pilgrims than actual pilgrims. In our world where fear threatens to close the borders of countries, one wonders whether the time of actual pilgrimage will soon come to an end. Being there may be replaced by being there virtually.
Aphorism of the Day, April 9, 2017
When is God weak? God is weak in submitting to the very results of creating the conditions of freedom in our world. God shows complete submission to the conditions of freedom, which is the essence of moral value, in the death of Jesus on the cross and in the conditions of suffering within our world. The conditions of suffering in the freedom abroad in the world are complemented with all of the conditions of freedom which are not suffering or free agents causing harm to another. If the nature of God is Creating Freedom then God must submit in weakness to the conditions which do not express just the freedom to be good and conditions which are characterized by pleasure of all, all of the time. God is consistent with the divine nature of freedom in submitting to the conditions of freedom which allow the innocent suffering in the world. At the same time, the creative freedom of God is inspiring all lesser free agents to exercise their freedom to do no harm.
Aphorism of the Day, April 8, 2017
Perhaps the most revealing irony in the Passion Gospel is the confession of the centurion, "Truly this man is God's Son." This is the Gospel of the Jesus Movement that has become confident of the winsomeness of the Gospel to convert the Gentiles in the Roman Empire of every socio-economic group, including soldiers. And since the success of the Jesus Movement among the Gentiles was greater than with the Jews remaining in the synagogue, one can see the tipping of the blame for the crucifixion toward the Jewish religious leaders of the time of Jesus. Unfortunately, this tipping toward blaming Jewish religious leaders has been used for anti-Semitic words and actions in deplorable ways in the history of Christianity. This misuse of the Passion by "Christians" is a terrible stain on our identity and means that the Passion has been used in unChrist-like ways.
Aphorism of the Day, April 7, 2017
Providence is a highly "ironic" declaration about an event or occasion in life. Providence is compared with fatalism or a belief that all thing must be in a predetermined way. Voltaire satirized the notion of "whatever is, is right" beliefs of his time. (Candide) The cross of Jesus which in itself was a cruel event of capital punishment against someone who was regarded to create the conditions of insurrection against the hegemony of the Caesar in Palestine, came to be regarded as God's providence by the followers of Jesus. And so the ugly instrument of torture is now worn in golden jewelry around the neck. What an incredible whitewashing of something horrible! We need to be careful about trivializing the notion of Providence. When is something providential and for whom is something providential? The notion of providence can be "deconstructed" by noting the context and the process of how some event comes to be regarded as providential. There are some events which it would be downright inhumane to declare as eventually providential, like the Holocaust, slavery or other genocidal events. There are some events for which it has to be declared that there are no "redeeming" after effects unless it be the commitment to never letting something happen again. But even if we "learn" from past cruel events, that does not qualify them for being providential for any person of humane faith. If Christians have come to find the cross to be providential in their faith lives and in their mysticism, it does not permit the trivialization of declaring redemption and providence over events that should forever live in horrendous "infamy." Those who survive "infamy" do so with varying degrees of guilt.
Aphorism of the Day, April 6, 2017
In St. Paul's mysticism, he confessed that "he had been crucified with Christ." This is the same Paul/Saul who had been complicit in the stoning of St. Stephen. The Gospels present persons like the unconverted Paul as complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus even though it was primarily an act of the Roman authorities in Palestine. From the mysticism of the cross found in St. Paul we turn to the versions of the crucifixion events found in the Gospels which have a polemical aspect in them since they are consistent with Christian identity being formed by the separation from Judaism. Followers of Christ separating from the synagogue represent the significant "paradigm" shift at the heart of the foundation of Christianity. We should not forget the rhetoric of pain which characterize the separation because of a paradigm shift. We should not let that rhetoric guide future friendship and mutual regard for people with whom we have come to have the kinds of differences which motivate our current religious gathering behaviors. We err if we try to use ancient rhetoric of dispute as the justification for current unloving behaviors.
Aphorism of the Day, April 5, 2017
The Cross of Jesus: Could death end the future of Jesus? Could death end the future of Jesus with his mourning friends? Could death end the life of the disciples within the experience of Jesus? What the cross of Jesus showed is that time did not end and there was still a future after the cross. The overall becoming of the universe in time did not cease at the death of Jesus and Jesus the Risen Christ had a future in the lives of his disciples and continues to have significant Trace Manifestations as a trans-historical significant personality.
Aphorism of the Day, April 4, 2017
The liturgical juxtaposition of Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday highlights the chants of the two crowds: Hosanna or Crucify Him. The mob that wanted crucifixion gained immediate effect; the hosanna crowd had to wait as the King of hearts of the interior kingdom of God gradually and stealthily converted subjects willing to be won by sacrificial love as the most winsome principle of living.
Aphorism of the Day, April 3, 2017
Subsequent events change how previous events can be seen, irreparably so. The cross of Jesus Christ cannot be seen with pristine eyes of empathy "as if" we were there with the followers of Jesus who saw their movement die before their very eyes. We see the cross of Jesus through resurrection and so it is seen in the mode of gold gilded jewelry that we wear around our necks. Yes, we display crucifixes to try to visualize the horrible reality but we know the end of the story that erases the horror. St. Paul took the negative power of the cross of evil power killing absolute good and viewed it as a redeeming mystical power of the "power of the death of Jesus" to be mystically applied within each person as a Higher Power to interdict and end the things within us that are unworthy and have control over the direction of the energy of our desire.
Aphorism of the Day, April 2, 2017
John's Gospel: In the Beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word Was God. Word is the Media and Message. Word is the Ground for Human self awareness and awareness of being with others. This Ground is the Ground of Possible Variations of Word in an array of Discourses. Within the Ground of all Possible manifestation of Word not comprehended by the limitation of any single or generation of human language users, there must arise the discursive practice of assuming totality. Totality is the human presumption that the articulation of word products in active or passive mode is a sharing with a solidarity of other persons. So-called infallible revelations about totalizing discourse has the administrative function for solidarity within communities for their pragmatic politics. Word teaches us to accept our practice of totalizing discursive practice even while realizing we don't have the discursive capacity to comprehend the total realm of the not yet Possible discursive events of might have been, might be, linguistic particular events. Such should make us very humble about how we regard our practice of "totalizing discourse." It is insightful to express specific solidarity with others for good reasons (including the inter-judgmental critique of values of juxtaposed identified solidarities of people); but still rather small in light of Possible Discursive Practice in the sum total of every linguistic agent.
Aphorism of the Day, April 1, 2017
Being prisoners of human experience, we cannot help but to anthropomorphize, i.e., filter everything through the lenses of human seeing. I would further qualify our anthropomorphic prison as being a lingual-centric prison in being manifest as lingualomorphic products. So the biblical poets make death into an entity like a language using person: Death where now is thy sting? A speaking to Death as though Death were an entity that had listening ears for human language. At least when Jesus called Lazarus from death, he assumed the personhood and the hearing ability of the dead corpse formerly known as the living and speaking Lazarus, and assumed a lingering immortal soul or spirit co-existing with the corpse as a former dwelling. Is Death an actual hearing agent that has ears to hear: Death where now is thy sting? We really should transition anthropomorphism to its honest place of being lingualomorphism, since we project language use in its active and passive modes as the primary way and definitive way of being human. McLuhan said, "Media is the Message." And I would say Language/Word is the Media and the Message.
The post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his disciple perhaps are a testimony the profound grief of loss experienced by so many hopeful friends. One could acknowledge the profound grief as the conditions wherein the return of Jesus occurred as the Risen Christ. Profound loss was the occasion for the Christophany.
Aphorism of the Day, April 29, 2017
The meaning of the Emmaus Road Christophany is that it can happen again anywhere and anytime under the sub-titles of apparently anything. The resurrection of Christ brought a rhetorical explosion of finding Christiality everywhere.
Aphorism of the Day, April 28, 2017
In the Emmaus Road event, the writer encodes the two modes of the presence of Christ which was practiced in the early churches, Word and Sacrament. The Risen Christ is the Interpreter Accomplice for the Word of God. The Risen Christ is the one who is dissipated into incognito status yet can become sudden serendipitous apparent presence in the event of the breaking of the bread. While the church has tried to lock up God and Christ within the "official" sacraments and in the biblical texts, those who perceive God know that general omnipresence can become particular apparent presence anywhere and in anything in a sudden Christophany. The Bible is particular written text which resides within the more general Textuality of Christ being the Eternal Word of God from the Beginning. The Bible is particular text which is a witness that particular and apparent Christly presence can become present anytime within an Omni-textual universe.
Aphorism of the Day, April 27, 2017
Is controlling serendipity a contradiction? Or can alchemical interpretation in all life situations turn each situation into serendipity because one has the hope of there being a surpassing future with which make all things well? Mother Julian wrote all things will be well and all manner of things will be well. I suspect that Jesus and all heroes of faith lived by making hope so current that it created such optimism of faith in the "now."
Aphorism of the Day, April 26, 2017
The accounts of the Risen Christ indicate that he could pass through doors, remain incognito until suddenly with a magician stroke make himself visible. He could make very fast time between Jerusalem and Galilee, seemingly flying from place to place without the normal time/space limitations. Such presentations of the Risen Christ bespeak the mystical visions of those who had the "gaze" to see the Risen Christ from within themselves and such a gaze was so pronounced, and most amazingly, shared in corporate "sightings" with others that it attained an unsurpassable marker to be remembered and recounted. St. Paul's mystical vision was to him alone, even though he was in the company of others who did not have his vision. Probably the most remarkable thing about post-resurrection appearances was that some of them involve group-ecstasy partaking of the same visionary experience. They could turn to each other and say, "Are you seeing what I am seeing?"
Aphorism of the Day, April 25, 2017
The Emmaus Road post-resurrection appearance of the Risen Christ indicate the common use of the Gospel writers rhetorical strategy. How can one teach the substantiality of a mystical experience as being the key factor in how one perceives the events of one's life? They use the commonsense perception that "physicality" means something is tellingly real. The post-resurrection appearance story writers use "physicality" as a metaphor of significance to assert that the Risen Christ really does re-appear to people in ways so substantial that such re-appearances change completely the physical and inner lives of those who experience the Risen Christ. Readers who privilege the commonsense perception of material realism are then invited to be open to a parallel realm of perception that is as substantial or if not more substantial than the material realm. They are being persuaded that even the material realm is experientially constituted by one's inner worded being. If you think the outer material world is really real, it is so because of how much more really real one's interior world of words is.
Aphorism of the Day, April 24, 2017
Does something get designated as "random" because an infinite number of things are in relationship with an infinite number of other things and such mutual relationships are so vast that no human mind can understand causal connections? In science we seek to observe the "apparent causal" connection even while we know that negligible influence lie outside of what we designate as "apparent" for our observation. In human terms, the random can be designated as fateful, serendipitous, favorable, propitious, bad luck or blessing depending upon how an event is effecting the person who is interpreting the event. Because of the sense of the random in how events occur and affect people, we have the great traditions of tragedy, comedy and drama, and Holy Scriptures to try to orient people to what Freedom can bring to the lives of people. While we must be devoted to science as the best language for expressing actuarial probability in predicting what will happen and plan accordingly, freedom generates "data bleeps" outside of the completely predictable and so we have room for the meaningful languages of romance, faith and justice.
Aphorism of the Day, April 23, 2017
Seeing is not always believing because we see from the internal classifying grids of how we've been constituted by language. The current political polarization is proof that the "same data" is not being seen and acted upon in the same way. The contribution of modern science has been as much about setting up objective methods of verification as it has been about what the observed data is. If all of the observers can be trained to be constituted by the same methodological "seeing" then there can be a unity of results. When it comes to aesthetic truths, moral truths, political truths, truths of love, faith and justice, subjective inner constitutions of each individual becomes more difficult to bring to unified agreement. Some people fall in love and some people don't; we like science because we can enter the lab where truth is not "messy." Messy truth happens because of the uneven differences in meanings that people arrive at in uneven ways and at different times. Messy truths are still meaningful truths and they are uneven and still becoming in the hearts of those who are still becoming and have not and will never reach a final stage of perfect "being." Being as static perfection is very hard to believe when one lives on the merry-go-round of Time.
Aphorism of the Day, April 22, 2017
The Doubting Thomas story highlights a source for one of the greatest doctrinal divisions in the Christian Creedal churches of the West and the East. The Western church added "and the Son or in Latin Filoque" to the Nicene Creed. Does the Holy Spirit proceed only from the Father or both the Father and the Son? The addition caused theological ripples regarding the integrity of the Holy Spirit. The Doubting Thomas story indicates that Risen Christ breathed on his disciples and Easter and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit." Does this mean that Jesus was involved in the "procession" of the Holy Spirit? But according to the Luke/Acts account the disciples were together on Pentecost (50 days after Easter) after Christ had ascended and they received the Holy Spirit (again?) and spoke in other languages. Is Pentecost the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father? Is the Doubting Thomas story indication of the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Son? Are both churches correct? Is the Western addition more inclusive in citing the role of Jesus in the procession of the Holy Spirit(see Doubting Thomas story)? Theological specialists believe the entire identity of the Holy Spirit rides upon understand the arcane difference regarding the procession of the Holy Spirit. People in the pew wonder whether "enforced precision" in the wording about the Mystery of God partakes of worded humanity thinking to control the Mystery of God by having "air tight" taxonomical grids for understanding God. We can be tempted from "O Come let us adore God" to "O Come let us fight about God."
Aphorism of the Day, April 21, 2017
The pastoral office of "absolving" sins by the designated ordained can and has been used as a way to assert clerical authority over people's life. I have a hunch that it was adopted early as disciplinarian pastoral "canon" law because of leadership disputes and "lay" revolts. In the Doubting Thomas story one finds this: "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." This can be understood as "good spiritual practice," namely, forgiving rather than retaining sins. Communities which "retain" sins don't survive. When the good spiritual practice of "forgiving sins," is elevated to the official act of an ordained clergy declaring forgiveness, the spiritual practice loses something of it charismatic, sincere authenticity. That a person can only feel forgiven if it is declared to be such by an appropriate authority diminishes the immediacy of forgiveness. Certainly one can appreciate the psychological effect of being relieved of the sense of guilt by someone whom one respects as a faith mentor and one can appreciate our "communal sins" done in the name of the group and the need to tolerate ourselves while being held hostage to our social contextual sins. There are sins against others that one might want to "repair" and be restored to relationship by the one against whom one has sinned. There is the general sin of "always already" missing the mark in light of God's perfection and the humility of telling another and seeking the forgiveness of God declared by a minister. The most redeeming aspect of the sacrament of reconciliation is that the absolver is also in the practice of being absolved by another absolver. In the traditional rite of reconciliation, the "absolving priest" says to the departing penitent, "Pray for me a sinner."
Aphorism of the Day, April 20, 2017
"Blessed are those who have not seen and yet who have believed." This statement is an affirmation of equality in difference. On a continuum from superior to inferior, we may want to use "sheer" empiricism to rate the experience of the eye-witnesses of Jesus as being superior to those who did not have such proximity. When we look at the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus, they indicate that he had a different body in the eyes of the beholder. Their experience was "substantial" even as it was different than before he died on the cross. The experiences of those who had post-resurrection appearances of Jesus were different than the accounts of the experiences before his death. Paul said his mystical experience of Christ was not inferior to the experience of the twelve disciples. Since the mystical experiences of Paul came to writing before the Gospel writings; these mystical experiences guided the presentations of the narratives of Jesus in the Gospels. The post-resurrection Christ had what I would called "substantial mystical reality and effect." One cannot deny the "physicality" of a mystical experience since such experiences happen to people with bodies and they affect the actual physical life of the person in their subsequent behaviors. If the Doubting Thomas story is anything, it is about the equality in blessing of all experience of Christ.
Aphorism of the Day, April 19, 2017
John's Gospel: "Jesus did many signs for his disciples which are not written in this book." This is the statement of an editor. The events of the past have to be edited since in the present we cannot be taken up with engaging a continuous record of things that are recorded from the past. Why? Because we have a life in the present tense and we are to use the record of the past for active present time believing. Believing is the faith of clarifying our values from the past and bringing ourselves to persuasive actions in the present which express the values gained from commitment to our highest insights.
Aphorism of the Day, April 18, 2017
In UFOology, there is a classification system of "close encounters." The Doubting Thomas story is the story form classification system of the writer of John's Gospel classifying "close encounters" with the Risen Christ. What are the close encounters? Being an associate of Jesus before his death. Experiencing a post-resurrection encounter with the Risen Christ, hearing about Jesus from someone who knew him in the flesh, hearing about him from someone who heard about him....., reading about him in a written account, having a mystical/apparitional experience of Christ like St. Paul. These are all degrees of "close" encounters. The Gospel of John declares that these are all different but equally blessed. How can all be different but equal? The great equalizer in life is Word or Language. Everything to be known in human experience has to come to language. So God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and all of the modes of encounter with Christ are equal in that they have come to Word/Language. That human beings have language is the only obvious and universal human metaphysic because Language is co-extensive with anything being known at all. Try to say that you have experienced things without having had language. Try to say you experience silence without having had language. Silence is known as silence because we have language. Coming to language is the great equalizer of everything. When the writer of John wrote, the Word was God, the main truth of humanity was revealed.
Aphorism of the Day, April 17, 2017
We now move toward "Doubting Thomas" Sunday. This account from the Gospel of John is actually an assessment in story form of contrasting how people process "valid" presences of the Risen Christ. Some people needed sight and touch; others believed by hearing the testimony of others and finally others believe because they read about Jesus many years later. Those who want a current sighting of Jesus and want to be able to "replicate it and repeat" it as a valid scientific experiment so as to establish the basis for a scientific theory regarding the Risen Christ will be perpetually disappointed since their criteria of objectivity will never be met. One of a kind people and events do not conform to the kind of objectivity of science but this does not exclude such events and people from being meaningfully true in the lives of billions. Language provides the discursive possibilities for many types of communal "objectivities."
Aphorism of the Day, April 16, 2017
Easter: Is this a 12 step program for those addicted to hope? Are Christians members of RA or Resurrection Anonymous. "Hi, my name is Phil and it's been just moments since I last believed in the resurrection." Don't let modernity force you into thinking you are a member of a Resurrection Anonymous, a gathering of addicted people toward a certain narrative of hope. As Christians we can be multi-tasking users of discourse and we know when to be hard core empiricists and when to round out our discursive lives with valid and true ethical, spiritual and aesthetic discourses with profoundly functionally true meanings in the art of living, dying and after-living.
Aphorism of the Day, April 15, 2017
To view pictures of a person over a lifetime one may not even be able to say that the baby photo does not seem to be the same person when he or she is 50. What is it that determines the continuity of identity of a person over time? Self-memory of a person over time. Community continuity and record of a person being the same with such markers as DNA and fingerprints to prove it. Will we have continuity as being the same person after we have died? Jesus in the tomb: Will he has a future continuity with himself? The re-appearance of Jesus is the "after life" picture of him and this after life picture in continuity with the person in the body, formerly known as Jesus of Nazareth but of late to known as the Risen Christ, is the assurance to us that we will have continuity with ourselves after we have died. It is nice for the internal DNA of hope to have a narrative and the assurance that hope will provide another kind of body of human experience after we have died. You may be into "zombies" and "walking dead;" I prefer the living tradition of the resurrection which derives from the actual Jesus of Nazareth.
Aphorism of the Day, April 14, 2017
Persons who have died because of injustice or political assassination have come to have "famous" deaths. Socrates, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, JFK, Martin Luther King, Jr. Oscar Romero, et. al. We are troubled by the fact that there are people of power who find goodness and justice a challenge to their exercise of greed and control. When people of sterling goodness and justice are removed through death we want to proclaim their deaths widely as a witness against the thought that evil may be winning the day. Such events scream out and push so much goodness into the non-apparent background. We retain the deaths of martyrs in the foreground of remembrance to remind the bullies of good people that they are destined to infamy.
Aphorism of the Day, April 13, 2017
On Maundy Thursday, we remember the institution of the Holy Eucharist and in so doing we might note how in practice it has drifted from being an actual meal into being an event of minimalistic eating and drinking highly symbolic elements. In the drift to culinary minimalism we have lost the pragmatic practice of early house Christian clubs which were comprised by "public eating" together as an outward and visible sign that everyone in their community had enough actual food to eat. To detach the Eucharist from people having enough to eat means it has often become a gathering of people who are devoted and obliged to make a very "individualistic my communion" in public to fulfill the obligation of church. In the Maundy Thursday liturgy we confess that we believe that actual hospitality and service is the true success of the church and these two ways of being the church derived from Jesus.
Aphorism of the Day, April 12, 2017
Holy Week to Easter is a roller coaster of traveling from agony to ecstasy. Too much is packed into one week and one can hope that one's individual life does not have such actual dramatic shifts. Ecstasy is generally spread aboard within the goodness of creation; agony is also the always, already expression found in the impairment and depriving aspect of freedom to be goodness in harmony. Between agony and ecstasy in the play of freedom we embrace the strategies of the church to both celebrate in ecstasy and cope with the agony. We do so by the practice of hospitality as expressed in the Eucharist, in Service as signified in the Foot-washing, in reality therapy by giving death and loss its due on Good Friday, in accepting our roles as Worded beings who created the word environment for being the prevenient grace to those we welcome into our InChristed lives at the Easter Vigil, and finally to celebrate an afterlife beyond death to prove that death and all manner of life are but occasions and moments within a Greater Freedom of the always, already Abundant Life. Abundant Life ultimately relativizes all occasions of death and life and in hope of the eternal future we ultimately believe all of the limited contextualized past can be re-written based up the future being an accumulation of that many more occasions to provide a greater environment to relativize any particular past occasion. Without denying or minimizing the actual context of pain with sentient feeling, hope invites us to the distant future where with Mother Julian, though in the future anterior tense, we will be able to confess that "all manner of things will have been well."
Aphorism of the Day, April 11, 2017
In all of the events that have accumulated we have come from an unknowable ocean of past events and it is impossible to have particular identity from an ocean of unknowable events. We build and have inculcated personal identity within human traditions with technologies of memory. A calendar is a technology of memory and it involves the observation of the motion of planet and moon as a clock of regularity onto which is attached events in human history so as to attain the status of a "date." Assigning a calendar date for the events in the life of Jesus and then commanding annual memorials of those calendar date is at the basis of retaining community memory and inculcating Christian identity. In the postmodern world we have a plethora of "calendars" and each are designed to inculcate different kinds of identity. Sports fans have calendars for each sport and they inculcate their "fan" identity in annual renewal rituals. The problem today is that too many calendars of personal and community identity compete for "fan" or "devotee" identity. It is becoming increasingly noticeable that other calendars are taking precedence over the Christian calendar as there are more competing identities to the "Christ" identity. For many the Christ-identity is no longer primary or relevant since it is easy for a once primary identity to get saturated and weakened in a sea of plural identities. The church still needs to be a "boat" to travel on in this sea of plural identities and the church does not have to go into "full Amish-like" separation to maintain particular and relevant identity in Christ.
Egeria was an ancient pilgrim to the Holy Land. She wrote a travel journal and brought knowledge of the Holy Week rituals back to Europe. Pilgrimage and travel was important for the cross-pollination of the ideas and liturgical practices. People, came, saw, and copied when they went back home. How much life has changed now with live-streaming making events around the world immediately accessible. We have become more virtual pilgrims than actual pilgrims. In our world where fear threatens to close the borders of countries, one wonders whether the time of actual pilgrimage will soon come to an end. Being there may be replaced by being there virtually.
Aphorism of the Day, April 9, 2017
When is God weak? God is weak in submitting to the very results of creating the conditions of freedom in our world. God shows complete submission to the conditions of freedom, which is the essence of moral value, in the death of Jesus on the cross and in the conditions of suffering within our world. The conditions of suffering in the freedom abroad in the world are complemented with all of the conditions of freedom which are not suffering or free agents causing harm to another. If the nature of God is Creating Freedom then God must submit in weakness to the conditions which do not express just the freedom to be good and conditions which are characterized by pleasure of all, all of the time. God is consistent with the divine nature of freedom in submitting to the conditions of freedom which allow the innocent suffering in the world. At the same time, the creative freedom of God is inspiring all lesser free agents to exercise their freedom to do no harm.
Aphorism of the Day, April 8, 2017
Perhaps the most revealing irony in the Passion Gospel is the confession of the centurion, "Truly this man is God's Son." This is the Gospel of the Jesus Movement that has become confident of the winsomeness of the Gospel to convert the Gentiles in the Roman Empire of every socio-economic group, including soldiers. And since the success of the Jesus Movement among the Gentiles was greater than with the Jews remaining in the synagogue, one can see the tipping of the blame for the crucifixion toward the Jewish religious leaders of the time of Jesus. Unfortunately, this tipping toward blaming Jewish religious leaders has been used for anti-Semitic words and actions in deplorable ways in the history of Christianity. This misuse of the Passion by "Christians" is a terrible stain on our identity and means that the Passion has been used in unChrist-like ways.
Aphorism of the Day, April 7, 2017
Providence is a highly "ironic" declaration about an event or occasion in life. Providence is compared with fatalism or a belief that all thing must be in a predetermined way. Voltaire satirized the notion of "whatever is, is right" beliefs of his time. (Candide) The cross of Jesus which in itself was a cruel event of capital punishment against someone who was regarded to create the conditions of insurrection against the hegemony of the Caesar in Palestine, came to be regarded as God's providence by the followers of Jesus. And so the ugly instrument of torture is now worn in golden jewelry around the neck. What an incredible whitewashing of something horrible! We need to be careful about trivializing the notion of Providence. When is something providential and for whom is something providential? The notion of providence can be "deconstructed" by noting the context and the process of how some event comes to be regarded as providential. There are some events which it would be downright inhumane to declare as eventually providential, like the Holocaust, slavery or other genocidal events. There are some events for which it has to be declared that there are no "redeeming" after effects unless it be the commitment to never letting something happen again. But even if we "learn" from past cruel events, that does not qualify them for being providential for any person of humane faith. If Christians have come to find the cross to be providential in their faith lives and in their mysticism, it does not permit the trivialization of declaring redemption and providence over events that should forever live in horrendous "infamy." Those who survive "infamy" do so with varying degrees of guilt.
Aphorism of the Day, April 6, 2017
In St. Paul's mysticism, he confessed that "he had been crucified with Christ." This is the same Paul/Saul who had been complicit in the stoning of St. Stephen. The Gospels present persons like the unconverted Paul as complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus even though it was primarily an act of the Roman authorities in Palestine. From the mysticism of the cross found in St. Paul we turn to the versions of the crucifixion events found in the Gospels which have a polemical aspect in them since they are consistent with Christian identity being formed by the separation from Judaism. Followers of Christ separating from the synagogue represent the significant "paradigm" shift at the heart of the foundation of Christianity. We should not forget the rhetoric of pain which characterize the separation because of a paradigm shift. We should not let that rhetoric guide future friendship and mutual regard for people with whom we have come to have the kinds of differences which motivate our current religious gathering behaviors. We err if we try to use ancient rhetoric of dispute as the justification for current unloving behaviors.
Aphorism of the Day, April 5, 2017
The Cross of Jesus: Could death end the future of Jesus? Could death end the future of Jesus with his mourning friends? Could death end the life of the disciples within the experience of Jesus? What the cross of Jesus showed is that time did not end and there was still a future after the cross. The overall becoming of the universe in time did not cease at the death of Jesus and Jesus the Risen Christ had a future in the lives of his disciples and continues to have significant Trace Manifestations as a trans-historical significant personality.
Aphorism of the Day, April 4, 2017
The liturgical juxtaposition of Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday highlights the chants of the two crowds: Hosanna or Crucify Him. The mob that wanted crucifixion gained immediate effect; the hosanna crowd had to wait as the King of hearts of the interior kingdom of God gradually and stealthily converted subjects willing to be won by sacrificial love as the most winsome principle of living.
Aphorism of the Day, April 3, 2017
Subsequent events change how previous events can be seen, irreparably so. The cross of Jesus Christ cannot be seen with pristine eyes of empathy "as if" we were there with the followers of Jesus who saw their movement die before their very eyes. We see the cross of Jesus through resurrection and so it is seen in the mode of gold gilded jewelry that we wear around our necks. Yes, we display crucifixes to try to visualize the horrible reality but we know the end of the story that erases the horror. St. Paul took the negative power of the cross of evil power killing absolute good and viewed it as a redeeming mystical power of the "power of the death of Jesus" to be mystically applied within each person as a Higher Power to interdict and end the things within us that are unworthy and have control over the direction of the energy of our desire.
Aphorism of the Day, April 2, 2017
John's Gospel: In the Beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the Word Was God. Word is the Media and Message. Word is the Ground for Human self awareness and awareness of being with others. This Ground is the Ground of Possible Variations of Word in an array of Discourses. Within the Ground of all Possible manifestation of Word not comprehended by the limitation of any single or generation of human language users, there must arise the discursive practice of assuming totality. Totality is the human presumption that the articulation of word products in active or passive mode is a sharing with a solidarity of other persons. So-called infallible revelations about totalizing discourse has the administrative function for solidarity within communities for their pragmatic politics. Word teaches us to accept our practice of totalizing discursive practice even while realizing we don't have the discursive capacity to comprehend the total realm of the not yet Possible discursive events of might have been, might be, linguistic particular events. Such should make us very humble about how we regard our practice of "totalizing discourse." It is insightful to express specific solidarity with others for good reasons (including the inter-judgmental critique of values of juxtaposed identified solidarities of people); but still rather small in light of Possible Discursive Practice in the sum total of every linguistic agent.
Aphorism of the Day, April 1, 2017
Being prisoners of human experience, we cannot help but to anthropomorphize, i.e., filter everything through the lenses of human seeing. I would further qualify our anthropomorphic prison as being a lingual-centric prison in being manifest as lingualomorphic products. So the biblical poets make death into an entity like a language using person: Death where now is thy sting? A speaking to Death as though Death were an entity that had listening ears for human language. At least when Jesus called Lazarus from death, he assumed the personhood and the hearing ability of the dead corpse formerly known as the living and speaking Lazarus, and assumed a lingering immortal soul or spirit co-existing with the corpse as a former dwelling. Is Death an actual hearing agent that has ears to hear: Death where now is thy sting? We really should transition anthropomorphism to its honest place of being lingualomorphism, since we project language use in its active and passive modes as the primary way and definitive way of being human. McLuhan said, "Media is the Message." And I would say Language/Word is the Media and the Message.
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