Aphorism of the Day, January 2022

Aphorism of the Day, January 31, 2022

The omni-presence of God means there is always already a general calling to God for everyone.  But omni-presence becomes particular occasions of calling for particular people at particular times, and in our faith lives we should be ready for general call to become particular call, whenever and however, even when one is fishing.

Aphorism of the Day, January 30, 2022

If Love endures all things, then one might question where Love as God is all-powerful. Love endures all things which happen on the field of probabilities in the field of freedom.  The freedom of everything happening which does happen is greater than any singular free occasion, and so the sum total of all freedom endures any particular occasion of freedom.

Aphorism of the Day, January 29, 2022

If Love hopes all things and believes all things, what does that mean?  Hoping all things would seem to be the expression of the possible.  Believing all things would seem to be persuaded about or adjusted to what actually has happened, kind of like reaching the acceptance phase of grief without going through the first four stages. This kind of believing of all things is not a fatalism, it is the acceptance of living with genuine freedom, because without freedom, there is no moral value.

Aphorism of the Day, January 28, 2022

Providence is created in the aftermath of free events in how people of faith come to relate with what has happened in their lives and their world.

Aphorism of the Day, January 27, 2022

What does it mean to say that "love believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things?"  It sounds like love is the condition of living with both the possible and the actual.  And that is the agonizing and ecstatic reality of life.

Aphorism of the Day, January 26, 2022

Traditional apologists have believed the position of "relativism" to be wrong and sinful, and yet "relativism" is the human condition expressed by St. Paul when he admitted that he only knew in part, now.  I'm not sure if Paul thought that in his afterlife he would attain the capacity to "know fully."  Since the topic was love, it could be that it is better to appropriate knowing as less of an intellectual function, and more of a relational reality.  And knowing as the experience of being in relationship with everything is perhaps the fullness of knowing.  In Hebrew Scriptures, "knowing" one's spouse was intimate relationship.

Aphorism of the Day, January 25, 2022

The conversion of Saul of Tarsus was a seminal event in what the Jesus Movement became.  His writings are the earliest writings of the New Testament and his theology in letter form became the Christo-centric mysticism which was made accessible to the Gentiles and this early mysticism was later given narrative form of the Gospels as a teaching paradigm to make the physical and natural and the seeming empirical a crypto-language for the mysticism.

Aphorism of the Day, January 24, 2022

Paul wrote some very radical things about "Love," like Love believes all things.  How is that so?  How is love being personified, if even in a poetic way to be a "Being capable of believing?"  Perhaps it refers to the omni-forbearance of everything as a collection of all?  Perhaps it is a stating of the obvious that one "believes" everything that comes to language because having linguistic reality is a reality?

Aphorism of the Day, January 23, 2022

Image for the material world: Think of matter as Spirit energy slowed down with immanence of Spirit with difference.

Aphorism of the Day, January 22, 2022

I don't think that we give the Prophet Isaiah enough credit for the origin of the Gospel.  The Spirit is upon me to bring "good news" to the poor.  The Empire church has been more about bringing better news to the wealthy and the rich.

Aphorism of the Day, January 21, 2022

St. Paul wrote about the diversity of gifts and opined something like, "what if everyone was a tuba player," what would be missing in the diversity of harmony?  The Spirit is the harmonious orchestrator of unity.  We can make our spiritual gifts merely natural if we fail to follow the Spirit's conducting.  We have the choice of cacophony or harmony.

 Aphorism of the Day, January 20, 2022

"I have no need of you."  This is the expression of egotistical dismissal of someone else, perhaps for the worship of the moment in thinking "this person is of no value to me right now, in fact this person is a hindrance."  God is very tolerant of people whom we think that we don't need, even people whom we think have done harm to us or to our world.  God's tolerance for everyone and everything that happens is a love that we can not attain in our limited affinities and patience.

Aphorism of the Day, January 19, 2022

St. Paul under the Holy Spirit as ironic, since the Spirit gave different gifts to people and those people would turn around and say, "My gift is better than yours and I have no need of you."  Herein one can see how one's gift can go from being "spiritual" to merely "natural" depending upon whether one has checked one's ego to be able to live and affirm the unity in diversity intended by the Spirit.  Checking the ego is a modern way of saying, "dying to one's sinful self."

Aphorism of the Day, January 18, 2022

The confession of Peter and its aftermath was a teaching parable about how disciples in training often could confess very important things and not yet integrate the correct understanding of the confession into their lives.  Yes, Jesus was the Messiah, but what kind of Messiah was he going to be?  Peter as an example of a disciple in training, did not yet know.

Aphorism of the Day, January 17, 2022

The literal Gospel has to do with Jesus reading about the "good news" written about in Isaiah, and it is about bringing good news to the poor.  Is that the mission of most churches?

Aphorism of the Day, January 16, 2022

The Gospel of John presents the signs of Christ as the mystical unity of everything in life that has to be experienced in the wholeness of completeness of everything being altogether all at once.  This is the mystical completeness of the presence of the Risen Christ which the mystics and hence mystagogues of the Gospel community were trying to teach those who were leaving the duality of living divided lives and learning to accept the mystical unity of relatedness of everything, always, already all together.

Aphorism of the Day, January 15, 2022

The problem in our world is not a matter of enough gifts, talent, and creativity, it is rather the morality of how we use creativity, and whether we limit creativity to common good projects.  Too much creativity is used for harm and the greed projects of the few.

Aphorism of the Day, January 14, 2021

A "sign" in the Gospel of John is rhetorical indicator to the "knowing" reader to "switch" from interpreting words as one to one corresponding outer and physical reality and see the story words as carrying the experience of the Risen Christ complementing and supplementing every experience in our lives.

Aphorism of the Day, January 13, 2022

The Gospel are parables about Jesus relating in narrative form how the Risen Christ is present to the people who lived after Jesus left the earth.  Rather than dig for a literal historical Jesus, it is better to find now in one's history the presence of the Risen Christ, who becomes flesh in our body language deeds, and our words as we honor the legacy of love and justice of Jesus.

Aphorism of the Day, January 12, 2022

Changing water into wine may seem like quite an alchemical wonder, but a more important wonder is the weaving together of the multiple gifts of people in community for the common good.  St. Paul wrote that Spirit who gives the gifts also directs them for the common good, and so it is not enough to be gifted, it is equally important to be directed in the deployment and use of one's gifts within community.

Aphorism of the Day, January 11, 2022

Running out of wine at a party would seem to be a rather trivial things to invoke a God-miracle for, like wanting your team to miraculously win a game or a beauty pageant contestant wanting God's intervention to win.  The big meaning of the story is the co-existing palpable presence of the Risen Christ in all experiences of life, great and small, profound and seeming trivial.  It is a greater miracle to have stable faith in losses and hardship and be like God in adjusting to the outcomes of the free conditions of the world.

Aphorism of the Day, January 10, 2022

The changing of water to wine parable about Jesus is a metaphor for the alchemy of spiritual experience.  The ordinary water of human experience can be tastes as vintage wine if one has tapped the charisma provided by the parallel inner spiritual realm.

Aphorism of the Day, January 9, 2022

Baptismal vows express an intentionality in context, and when the contexts change, the expressions of intentionality have to as well.  Like, the baptismal vow to love one's neighbor as oneself has changed in our "post-slavery" era and the era of affirming the full dignity of everyone human being.

Aphorism of the Day, January 8, 2022

The baptism of Jesus by John provides a contrast in the sign values of baptism.  Jesus was baptized by John as a sign of the divine solidarity with humanity.  Followers of Christ are baptized as a sign of their solidarity with God and the rising within oneself of the Christ nature to become manifest in how one lives one's life.

Aphorism of the Day, January 7, 2022

The parable of the Magi is an after the fact presentation of the universal appeal of the Christ-event which had happened in the Christ-communities.  It is a teaching about the obvious, which is God and Christ Nature belongs to everyone who wants have them manifested in their lives.

Aphorism of the Day, January 6, 2020

The Epiphany is about a claim of universal relevance of Christ to the nations, that is to everyone.  How can this be, unless within the Christian symbolic system which includes the Hebrew Scripture, the name of the image of God upon each person is the "Christ nature," the anointed or spiritual nature?  The Epiphany happens when one realizes one's highest nature.

Aphorism of the Day, January 5, 2022

The "epiphany" is about the manifestation of the message about God through Jesus to the "nations."  There was a party within Judaism that believed that Jesus was the fulfillment of the prophets in making the message regarding God available to all people in accessible ways to their own cultural backgrounds.  Compromising on important ritual behaviors to appeal to all people, resulted in Judaism and the Jesus Movement having different and separate missions.

Aphorism of the Day, January 4, 2022

One of the meanings of the baptism of Jesus is the choice of intentional, particular community.  Who could be more self-sufficient and individualistic than Jesus?  The message is that strong people choose community initiation to lead and minister within the community.  Modern self reliance of the rich, powerful and the greedy commit to community only to exploit for political and economic gain, not to help raise the equality among people of the community.

Aphorism of the Day, January 3, 2022

Some of the contradictory postures in the New Testament pertain to the presentation of Jesus as a counter-Caesar, as Savior, Prince of Peace, God, and Son of God.  At the same time Jesus supports paying taxes and Paul encourages prayer for and compliance with Roman authorities.  And John the Divine in Revelation presents Rome as incarnate evil.  This might be an indication of the varied conditions faced by members of the Christ-communities in the 6-7 decades after the years of the life of Jesus.

Aphorism of the Day, January 2, 2022

The Gospels as literature represent the Christ-communities coming to grips with the destruction of Jerusalem and the realistic adjustment of a Christ-centered Judaism being a liminal community to incorporate Gentile persons to a new community that for survival was reconciled to living under Roman Caesar rule.

Aphorism of the Day,  January 1, 2022

A calendar is a way of organizing something which does not come with built in measurement, Time.  The language users who observe before and after, organize before and after events in sequence as a way of living as though our "age" among the 4.543 billion years is really significant.  Which it is in the sense that it is the only one we have.  What are we as humans that the Plenitude One would be mindful of us?  Hard to know but we do write our own press clipping.