Thursday, October 31, 2019

Aphorism of the Day, October 2019

Aphorism of the Day, October 31, 2019

Consider that the world of entertainment has replaced the saints with super heroes, who perform more miraculous deeds which defy logic and science than Jesus or the saints ever did.  It could be that defying logic and science is a human factor of imagination which promotes abstract thinking and interweaves what we can experience in our dreams with the flesh and blood of every day existence.  To be human is to imagine and imaginations create the discourse appropriate to their own truths.  If science could admit that imagination is an empirical fact of human existence and if religionists would not defend their imaginations as as comporting to the laws of empirical verification we could arrive at the obvious ability of being poets and scientists without conflict.  Aesthetic truths and empirically verifiable truths have their own corresponding discourses; for people who are unadjusted to being poets and scientists at the same time live in unnecessary conflict.  Friend, integrate your discursive practices!

Aphorism of the Day, October 30, 2019

Think About Reclaiming Halloween as a Christian Feast



In reclaiming Halloween from secular larceny of the holy and from the despising of fundamentalists who regard it to be "pagan," one needs some insights about how the Triduum of Halloween, All Saints' and All Souls evolved.  Fundamentalists despisers of Christian calendar feasts miss the fact that the church deployed Christian replacement celebrations for the existing feasts found in the cultures where the Gospel was arriving, a method of "baptizing the indigenous" to fit the teaching of the Gospel to a new culture.  With the over-clericalization of the church, the clergy followed the counsels of perfection while the laity were only "ten commandment Christians."  When the clergy attained a rather exclusive mediation status with Jesus, Jesus became less the Emmanuel of "God with all of us," and became more of "God with the privileged clergy."  What developed for the laity was "God with us in the lives of the saints," who became more local and personal totemic foci for identity since Jesus had become placed too high on the holy pedestal for lay folk, a subtle betrayal of the meaning of "Emmanuel."   "agios" is the Greek word for holy, and hagiography is the writing about the saints who became the more functional presentation of "God with us" for the lay masses who lived under such hierarchical inferiority to the clergy.  The over-masculinized leadership of the church meant that a feminine balance had to arise and so Blessed Mary as the chief of saints gave a spiritual power for the feminine even when in practice, women were mostly subjugated.  Another thing that happened with the Protestant elevation of the Bible to their supreme holy object status, was the squeezing out of the humanity of fun and entertainment that surely is present in the Bible if one reads it with honest eyes.  In biblical days the writings served an omni-manifold place in mainly illiterate cultures.  So today, entertainment has been removed as a valid aspect from reading the Bible and the secular culture has replaced it in a kind of Hollywoodization of Halloween and the proliferation of surrogate hagiography in the genre of super heroes.(Kids wear hero or princesses costumes at Halloween).  Recovery of the Triduum of October 31-November 2, involves regarding these days to be the actual practice of a belief in the resurrection of the dead practiced in ritual and piety as an actual interaction with those in the afterlife, because you really believe they live on.


Aphorism of the Day, October 29, 2019

The church needs to reclaim the Triduum of All Hallows' Eve, All Hallows' Day and All Souls from both the secular culture observance of Halloween and the demonization of Halloween by fundamentalist Christians.  In the tradition of the church the Triduum really are feasts of the Resurrection since they celebrate the resurrected life of saints and souls.  What is wrong with acting as though the souls and saints still live on in God, if one really holds to the resurrection?

Aphorism of the Day, October 28, 2019

Zacchaeus was a "voyeur" of Jesus from his nest in a tree.  Jesus felt his gaze; his gaze was a laser of hope for a new destiny to become a transformed person.  As besmudged as the image of God within us can become because of the overlay of repetitive bad habits and their remains, the inward laser of hope for God can still shine through and see the Risen Christ as hope for transformation.

Aphorism of the Day, October 27,2019

The writer of the Gospel goes from the group or class of people to individuals.  To cite an individual by name gives a personality to the group.  Jesus hung out with tax-collectors and with one specific tax-collector, Zacchaeus.  Jesus invited himself to the home of Zacchaeus openly eating with "sinners" who were favored with his visits.  The message:  No matter what group one belongs to in anonymity, Jesus appears to each person who has a name.  The divine visitation is always personal and one's group identity becomes irrelevant.

Aphorism of the Day, October 26, 2019

Contrition is the state of being recommended by Jesus.  Remorse for the past frees us from both nostalgia and from letting former errors over-program the present toward repetitive acts of idolatry.  We can over-identify with our "good pasts" based upon the fortune of being luckily born in the right time with the right people from whom we can subtly take on superiority complex identity.  It is contrition which comprises the attitude of repentance, the educational attitude of always looking for the renewal of the mind and of the over-all surpassing of oneself in a future state.

Aphorism of the Day, October 25, 2019

Samaritan and tax-collectors were unlikely folks of favor but in the Gospel of Luke, they are examples of faith.  The early churches believed Jesus offered a life of salvation to "outsiders."

Aphorism of the Day, October 24, 2019

The healing stories of Jesus as they are recounted 20-60 years later in the Gospel present the metaphorical use of the physical to be symbolic of the spiritual.  Sight equal spirituals enlightenment. Healed legs is the new ability to walk in the Way.  Opened ears to hear Christ as the Word.  Loosed tongues to proclaim the good news.  Cleansed hearts and spirits to act from the pure motive of the Holy Spirit.  The healed child as the recovery of the child-likeness of one's original blessing of living.  The Gospels as discipleship "manuals" were written for the spiritually initiated and a chief theme of the Gospel of John is "don't be literal," be enlightened to understand the inner meaning of things.

Aphorism of the Day, October 23, 2019

The Gospel of Luke is a study in the contrast between the likely and unlikely persons who attained the favor of God.  The apparent "likely" did not; the apparent "unlikely" did.

Aphorism of the Day, October 22, 2019

The Gospel of Luke presented as writing to a community which was becoming mainly Gentiles, presents Jesus as transvaluing the prevailing view of publicly respectable people.  Samaritans, tax collectors, publicans, sinners, sick and quarantined people, prodigal rebellious son, these are presented a heroes.  Why?  Because they represented those who were changed into those favored by God because of the transformation of their lives through encounter with Jesus of Nazareth.  To the growing Gentile community, Jesus of Nazareth was a stand in for the Risen Christ, an encounter with whom, was changing an entire new motley crew of people in the Roman World.

Aphorism of the Day, October 21, 2019

Because Jesus told a parable about a Pharisee who was proud of his piety, one should not make a collective premise, "All Pharisees are proud hypocrites."  He was simply warning about how group identities can replace genuine sincerity of the heart couple with acts of piety and charity.  Unfortunately, biblical readers have assumed that "all Pharisees are "bad guys" and in the English language Pharisee has become a synonym with hypocrite.  Perhaps this "labeling" is also a sin.

Aphorism of the Day, October 20, 2019

The freedom of this world has given rise to the preponderance of statistics.  The rise of statistics as a way of living is the scientific way of getting rid of those who gave comfort by claiming to predict the future by supernatural insights.  With statistical approximation, science anticipates future becoming based upon the observance of past becoming and with the method outcomes can be given degrees of likelihood for the repetition of former happenings.  In a system of freedom, the probability of evil exists and it can seem to deprive the field of the good.  In life there is a preponderance of quotidian good which accounts for the sustenance of the continuing world; the events of evil gain more attention and are over-amplified by their deprivation of the general goodness of all.  Against the unjust judge of the possibilities and probabilities of evil, we must act with holy nagging and become the playwrights of prayer for plays of justice to come to the actual stage of life.

Aphorism of the Day, October 19, 2019

If we live and move and have our being/becoming in God, then we live in a field of freedom, a field of OMNI-BECOMING, and this means that our prayers as "holy nagging" to the OMNI-BECOMING will contribute to ultimate outcome both as we collect individual acts of prayer and corresponding just deeds, but also as we join our individual acts with other fellow individual acts of prayer and justice into constellations of justice within the field of freedom.  Do some holy nagging; the good thing about nagging is that is generated from feelings from the heart and if those desires are directed toward health/salvation and justice, then they are directed in the right way.

Aphorism of the Day, October 18, 2019

The presentation of the Jacob who "wrestled" with an angel is one who is persistent in holding onto God for a blessing and not letting go and getting himself wounded in the effort.  Persistent striving in faith is how we propagate the field of the freedom of eventual outcome.  If we don't strive, the field will be propagated with other outcomes unfavorable to love and justice.

Aphorism of the Day, October 17, 2019

What is democracy within the field of Freedom?  It would mean that with acts of faith, love and justice we can "stuff the ballot box" within the realm of everything that can happen and by the resulting rising of coalitions of goodness, we can make good things happen within the environment of Freedom.  If we get discouraged because of the effects of the coalitions of evil within the field of Freedom, and we refuse to continually "vote" for goodness, we will atrophy and lose the ability to "effect" the eventual outcomes toward goodness.

Aphorism of the Day, October 16, 2019

Persistence in faith is the recommendable way to live under the conditions of Freedom. Why?  It is a better way of processing the conditions of freedom which can render favorable and unfavorable outcomes for us.  Why faith?  Because other ways of dealing with freedom are less than adequate and usually end up in escapism and denial of what actually may happen under the probable outcomes of freedom.

Aphorism of the Day, October 15, 2019

In a parable Jesus would present a human story event to provide meaning insight on the behavior of what is happening in life.  So the unjust judge who does not provide justice to persistent petitionary widow reveals that we do not always get what we want in the conditions of Freedom, even if they are good and just.  But faith is the attitude of "wearing Freedom" out until the good things eventually come about.  Faith is expressing freedom within Freedom so that faith stakes some wins for goodness within Freedom.

Aphorism of the Day, October 14, 2019

One cannot always get what one wants even if one wants good things for self, others and the world.  Why?  The conditions of freedom condition us to a certain compliance with what is.  Faith is the attitude of being persistence in the face of freedom when in fact we discover that Freedom is not always on our schedule, we are on Freedom's schedule and because we possess a degree of participating freedom with other agents with limited freedom, we are not fatalists.

Aphorism of the Day, October 13, 2019

There are two Good Samaritans in Luke's Gospel; one in a parable indicating that one for whom one has religious and ethnic animosity can be the one who actually performs the needed kindness in the situation.  Another Samaritan was the only healed leper who returned to say thanks.  Sunday Eucharist is the habitual returning to say thanks for the ultimate health we call salvation.

Aphorism of the Day, October 12, 2019

When Samaritans are valorized in the Gospel of Luke, they are elevated from "enemy" status to "friends of Christ" status.

Aphorism of the Day, October 11, 2019

Textually it is not an accident that Samaritans are given good profiles in Luke's Gospel.  Samaritans had a Torah based religion and were a group of people from which a following of Jesus of Nazareth arose.

Aphorism of the Day, October 10, 2019

Why do Samaria and Samaritans get favorable presentation in the Gospels?  It probably indicates that there was a Samaritan following of Jesus and the Risen Christ in the early Jesus Movement.  Samaritans were regarded to be “mongrel” heritage since they were Israelites of the Northern Kingdom who had inter-married with the Assyrian invaders even while retaining their own Torah based religion.  The writers of the Gospels were making appeals to the Samaritan people to follow the Risen Christ and they presented Jesus as one who affirmed Samaritan faithful behaviors.

Aphorism of the Day, October 9, 2019

The Scriptures present an ebb and flow between God is for everyone and God is exclusively for  me and my tribe.  Sometimes the religious leaders see their role as creating such exclusive group identity it seem to be presented that God is not for everyone but for one’s group who limit valid “access” to God to their own internal “rules.”

Aphorism of the Day, October 8, 2019

The Naaman story is about health being a universal issue; it was not just for Israel, it could be for an “enemy” general as well.  Health or salvation is for all and all can respond to salvation with thanksgiving.  We should not be surprised if many people are thankful for health, even if they are not of our own group.  Let us salute health and thanksgiving for the same as universal aspects of being human.

Aphorism of the Day, October 7, 2019

A sign of ego-centrism, tribalism and other forms of over-identity with one’s group is that one does not validate or affirm goodness when it arises from persons who are not our “friends.”  Somehow goodness is not really good unless it is “sanctioned” by “our side.”

Aphorism of the Day, October 6, 2019

The word for faith in Classical Greek meant “Persuasion.”  Faith is becoming unified in action and speech through persuasion towards what one is privileging.  Early Christian believe that one should be persuaded by Christ.  It is interesting to note how the ability to be persuaded by “secular anti-Christ-like” political figures for the financial and social prestige one’s “religious” constituents has become the case of the “elect” being deceived by one who is “anti-Messiah,” in being a propagator of endless lies.

Aphorism of the Day, October 5, 2019

"Increase our faith!"  How do we become more persuaded about what is truly highest and most excellent?  By small mustard seed deeds of "faith" or behaviors that build habits of behaviors that unify our being around what is most excellent.  (Note that I hearken to the classical Greek notion of "pistos" or faith as being that which one is most persuaded about such that it dictates the actions of one's life.)

Aphorism of the Day, October 4, 2019

If being Christian means imitating Jesus, perhaps St. Francis is one who truly did it best.  Most everyone else lives co-opted lives with the unChristly habits of one’s culture.

Aphorism of the Day, October 3, 2019

The sign of spiritual maturity in faith is when realizes that one “gets” to be good rather than one “has to” be good.  When obligatory goodness has been transformed to freeing permissive goodness, then one is riding the totally positive wave of the Spirit.

Aphorism of the Day, October 2, 2019

“Increase our faith,” was the request of the disciples.  Jesus said essentially, faith is not something that happens overnight; it happens like the mustard seed in small, consistent acts of hope and it grows to the character of a tree of faith.  The increase comes but not in one moment; the increase is the gathering of all of the moments of faithful acts into the character of faith.


Aphorism of the Day, October 1, 2019

Mustard seed faith deeds are important because character is formed through continuous consistent deeds of love, faith and justice.  Many popular people are those who have accidental “greatness” and without the character that has come from the consistent life performance of honest deeds of love, faith and justice.

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