Aphorism of the Day, October 31, 2021
All Hallows' Eve, a day that witnesses to evangelical technique used with the ancient followers of the Druid way of life. Christianity countered "ancestor worship" with ancestor "veneration," with the Triduum of All Hallows' Eve, All Saints', and All Souls. And biblically literal types who can't seem to find this Triduum in the Bible criticize this as a "paganism." The entire Bible is in fact a tribute to our ancestors, on whose shoulders we stand and in the time since the Bible there have arisen other people of singular excellence who have left us the legacy of their good example to give direction and the hope of attainability of virtuous living in our lives. In whomever excellence is found, one does not find a competitor with Jesus Christ; only another member of the team of God's love.
Aphorism of the Day, October 30, 2021
The world of words and language is a parallel inner world which accompanies the outer world of what we see, touch, hear, and smell, even though out world and our senses only have identity through the inner language we use to name them. The knowing of "reality" always assumes at least one language user.
Aphorism of the Day, October 29, 2021
The biblical witness regarding God turns out to be quite a contrast with what prevails in our world. The Psalmist proclaims that God cares for the poor and the widow and the reality of the world seems to falsify the power of God to make the care actual in the lives of the people. The horrifying conclusion is that God leaves it to humans to expedite what caring for the poor means. The Freedom this implies also indicts the human failure to be like God in taking care of all of the poor and lowly.
Aphorism of the Day, October 28, 2021
Do you want to be famous or excellent? Fame is the drug which drives many and in wanting it, one might find one never gets enough, because wanting is evidence of ceaseless dissatisfaction with oneself. Repentance is the wanting to be excellent and there is always the sense of being unfinished and one can love oneself as unfinished if one is still seeking future excellence. The saints were those who became famous by accident; they were simply trying to be excellent.
Aphorism of the Day, October 27, 2021
Perhaps a chief teaching associated with Jesus was about coming into the ancient insight about living and moving and having being within God's Realm. If we live by the insight of being "contained" in God, then we will seek insights for living well with all other beings that are "contained" in God.
Aphorism of the Day, October 26, 2021
How can one be "near" the kingdom of God but not in it? Through the wrong location labeling of one's mind. If I am in the USA an wanting to be in the USA, there is a lack of orientation within my mind about my location. If we are located within God, and still wanting to be "in God's" realm, the alienation is an internal one. I am in God and do not know it. This is the alienation which Jesus was trying to address. Too many people are near the realm of God; they are actually in it but do not know it.
Aphorism of the Day, October 25, 2021
One might dismiss the notion of God as incoherent when it comes to reconciling love and power with innocent suffering, even as one cannot deny that God words have come to human language and experience as a way of dealing with greatness and plenitude and one's relationship to the ultimate mystery of everything, always, already. Perhaps an enlightened theism is a nano-element of agnosticism, the part of discovering the surprise of the joy and the sublime. Enlightened theism should be humility about the same.
Aphorism of the Day, October 24, 2021
Sometimes conservatism can falsely mean returning to original and primative as being most valid. But Joseph Campbell's saying, "yesterday's virtue can be tomorrow's vice" is insightful about the past. Think about the foundational cultural word environments of the biblical times or early American times. "All men are created equal" seems profound except at the time it was written it did not in practice admit women, non-property owner, indigenous people, and slaves as having equal personhood in the sight of God. The word "men" in this famous phrase had to undergo expansion to include all humanity and we still have not achieve the goal of equality for all humanity within our borders. We are still in need of being virtuous.
Aphorism of the Day, October 23, 2021
Bartimaeus wanted to see "again." This is the metaphor for early Christian mysticism since they present the "natural life narrative of Jesus" as a shadow metaphor for the spiritual realm accessed by the experience of being born of the Spirit.
Aphorism of the Day, October 22, 2021
The assumption of structuralism and essentialism is stability, and stability is destabilizes when one admits the differences caused by the passing of time. There can be continuity in identity in time but time means that everything including the meanings of everything surpasses themself in the future and such surpassing is difference.
Aphorism of the Day, October 21, 2021
In ancient times, the mythopoetic was resorted to for explaining mysteries. (Though mythopoetic did not come to being such until science as the common sense naive realism took over). And so the mythopoetic functioned in ways in which science has come to function. When religious persons continue to assert the mythopoetic as scientifically true, they are confusing genres of discursive practice. It is a nostalgia for a time when the mythopoetic had the same "truth function in societies" as science does today. The mythopoetic has moved into the spheres of art and cinema today and the "new" genre of "science fiction" is a blend of the mythopoetic and science. Science does not remove the mysteries created by an infinite number of things having causal connections with each other but its method of stating statistical approximations of interconnections observed makes science the best approach to actuarial wisdom. To think that science excludes the truths of the mythopoetic for art, spirituality, faith, love, justice, inner personal being, and morality is limiting what can arise in language for the quality of life for language users attempting to live together.
Aphorism of the Day, October 20, 2021
The oft quoted, "Americans and British are people divided by having a common language," highlights the conflicts which can happen within an implied unity. Christians within the many different faith communities might be those who are divided by having a common Savior and Scriptures. There are divisions within the same faith communities: Anglicans can be those who are divided by having a "common" prayerbook and the same Archbishop of Canterbury. Catholics can be divided by have a common Pope and so-on. Americans are so tribal that they are divided by having a common constitution, Congress, and President. The postmodern informational age has challenged the older "myths" of unity through the proliferation of so many new identities and since people become so "identity-centric," they assume that their provincial identity is the great mythical unity, and if not, they think it should be.
Aphorism of the Day, October 19, 2021
A lesson from deconstructive postmodernism is whether one wants to dwell exclusively within language meaning traditions, or whether to accept that one is afloat on the entire ocean of omni-textuality and in such a plenitude of language the borders of language meaning traditions dissolve so that in the time of one's life such language traditions become the memory of once previously thought essential meanings.
Aphorism of the Day, October 18, 2021
The physical world is a shadow of the realm of forms, according to an understanding of the thinking of Plato. One might think that New Testament writers are naive literalists as those who understood that the presentation of the Christ-message in a mode of a narrative of seeming empirically verifiable events rather than following the thinking of Plato in understanding the physical as a shadow for the spiritual and heavenly. Decades after Jesus, the writings about him are more likely understood as spiritual meanings rather than literal. It is amazing how easily people began to feel that spiritual meanings are inferior to physical literality. This is true in our age of science; it is apparently a more superior truth to build bombs, literal bombs, than to regard the interior spiritual and moral truth of not building bombs to harm each other. Truth is not just what can be empirically verified; it is also how we spiritually and morally are stewards of our world towards values of love and justice for all.
Aphorism of the Day, October 17, 2021
The words of Jesus indicate that we cannot serve God and wealth. So what does it mean when our economic system has resulted in one percent of the wealthiest persons owning more than the entire middle class? Who is being served by the resulting distribution? Can this system be called in anyway Christ-like?
Aphorism of the Day, October 16, 2021
It is quite evident that countries which are called "Christian" because of current or immediate past majority of those who in some way identify with the Christian faith have governments and economies which are not Christ-like at all as it pertains to poor and marginalized people. Ironically, countries which have left their Christian identities provide Christ-like assistance to their entire populace, like health care and paid leaves and vacations.
Aphorism of the Day, October 15, 2021
From anthropomorphism to incarnation. One might note that to speak of an invisible unknowable God, one has to speak with the human language and experience that one knows, since we are prisoners of human experience. Has any person ever had a non-human experience of anything? One can see that since we are unavoidably anthropomorphic when we speak about anything, including our projecting upon non-human beings like animals, plants, and God human-like attributes, the wisdom of God appearing in a human being is an affirmation of what we do about God always, already: We accept the validity of human experience and language in affirming a relationship with God.
Aphorism of the Day, October 14, 2021
Where does the physical world most poignantly meet a person in a way that knowing is registered? In the experience of something coming to language. Language is co-extensive with the knowing consciousness of existence. Having language brings into existence the non- or pre-language states since we are not aware of what we did not have until we come into possession or ability in what we have.
Aphorism of the Day, October 13, 2021
In history there seems to be a theological "ping pong" match in the perspective of people in power and people in oppressed conditions. People in power tend to emphasize the blessing of being "triumphant" in the physical world, while people in oppression find solace in the "spiritual" space, of finding "spiritual blessing" being seated with Christ in the heavenly. Both trends can be noted in the record of the people who generated Holy Scriptures. God's will being done on earth as it is in heaven cannot be instantiated by people who want systems of enforced theocracies. Such systems of enforced theocracies end up being "rotten with the perfection" of trying to rid those they deem as nonconforming "sinners" worthy of "oppression/elimination." Be wary of how you appropriate your good fortune in life with a matching theology. Use power, blessing, wealth, and knowledge to lift up the poor. That is the Gospel of Jesus.
Aphorism of the Day, October 12, 2021
When the physical is viewed as a metaphor for the spiritual, the unseen, and invisible "forms," the metaphor is one of claiming equal or superior substantiality. If David was a king of Israel in physical history, that is substantial. But the inner kingdom of the Risen Christ is a different but real and meaningful kind of substantiality. This was the metaphorical practice of the New Testament writers. The "spiritual" was a super-substantiality. If you can believe what you see; then there are things, inner forms, that you cannot see with your physical eyes which are just as substantial as the things which you see with your physical eyes. One of the malpractices of such spirituality is to despise the actual physical world and pray for its end. We see this kind of environmental neglect in the apocalyptic fatalism of many sects of Christians today.
Aphorism of the Day, October 11, 2021
Jesus was not a Levite and he was not a priest in his earthly life. Most of the definitions of who Jesus was and how he was understood happened in the rise of the Jesus Movement and all of the literature available to Christian evangelists was used to speak about Jesus in the superlative. So he became not just known as a priest, but a high priest, after the order of the pre-historic mysterious Melchizedek. He was a High Priest in the linguistic parallel space (topos/topography) of heaven, which according to the letter to the Hebrews was like Plato's realm of forms with the physical world only being a shadow of the Realm of Forms. The identity of Jesus and the identity of the Jesus Movement is what becomes evident in the New Testament writings. Who was Jesus in the Realm of Forms, and how can these forms be inserted in a narrative presentation of Jesus as a lure for disciples to move from the physical interpretation to the spiritual one?
Aphorism of the Day, October 10, 2021
It would seem that the faith of Jesus in his words in the Gospel was predominately for poor people and Jesus would not let rich people claim that they were rich because they were specially favored or blessed by God. In fact, he said that the wealth of wealthy people was a hindrance to knowing the inheritance in God's kingdom. The camel through the eye of a needle gate was like a "dutch door gate" into the city and the top part of the gate was locked at night. The bottom could be opened but loaded camels had to be unloaded and enter the gate on their "knees" to get into the city at night. We can have way too much baggage that we have accrued which keeps us distracted and not knowing that we are created in God's image and belong to God. And to get through the eye of the needle gate, we have to get rid of the baggage.
Aphorism of the Day, October 9, 2021
One of greatest paradigm shift in Christianity has been adjusting a religion which was born for the persecuted into being a religion of the "Christian" empires. One adjustment has been to de-emphasize the beatitudes and spiritualize them for individual piety while on the empire level resorting to the Hebrew Scripture story of God's people being God's ordained to conquer, take a Promised Land, and subjugate/slaughter indigenous peoples as God's will. Empire Christianity has had to romanticize the beatitudinal faith of Jesus to an individual romantic piety for heroes like St. Francis.
Aphorism of the Day, October 8, 2021
We are where we are today because of the written word the Bible. The Hebrew Scriptures were unique in being a textual tradition which was able to forge the identity of a people who kept the textual tradition alive as it continued to form their identity. Christianity derived from the textual tradition of the Hebrew Scriptures and many assorted writings of "intertestamental" times. The genius of the Christian tradition is that it was more adaptable to more people in forming "community identity" and was able to use the institutional energies of the Roman Empire like a parasite for it future life, a life which eventually became co-mingled with Empire life. The actual teachings of Jesus are more relevant to the people who are oppressed by Empire Christianity than by the Empire Christian personages.
Aphorism of the the Day, October 7, 2021
In the beginning was the Word, but such was only known because through words and language users became aware of being language users who in a reflexive way could acknowledge that language use was what defined what they called human being. Having word/language was the foundation on which all knowing of being was activated. And after eons of having language, many discursive practices and traditions of language have come to be and these traditions have become so prominent that language users have made fully developed language traditions as more basic than having word and language itself. It is an error to forget from which we as language users have derived, namely having word itself.
Aphorism of the Day, October 6, 2021
The perception of the biblical record is that cause and effect events in history with God making a "last ditch" effort with Jesus to cause salvation in this life and the next. Spiritual eyes can read the biblical records as an externalization of making things which just arise within the divine milieu seem like external events. One can look at what might have always been being suppressed because of the language contexts of ignorance locking off persons from their true natures. The biblical record could be seen as occasion of coming to insights about who we are in having a fullness because we are connected with everything that has been, is and will be. Is there anything more everlasting than that fact?
Aphorism of the Day, October 5, 2021
If one uses the "law" as a checklist of attainment for personal pride then one misses the teaching purpose of the law, which is, they are never finished or fulfilled until I or everyone is keeping them, which is never. So they stand before us as a teaching invitation to further perfection, not as a place to stand on our laurels, especially if we use our attainments to think that we're better than others. When the proud rich man told Jesus that he had "kept" the laws, Jesus gave him a "next" commandment: "Sell all you have and give to the poor." Remember there is always a next commandment for each of us in our journey toward the unattainable perfection.
Aphorism of the Day, October 4, 2021
On the feast of St. Francis, we romantically commemorate his life because we are glad that at least one other person was "Christ-like" and perhaps we worry that if Francis is the basic Christian standard not many others are Christian. Francis would probably say that he was only doing what he had to do and most of us do not do "extreme" Christianity with the same driveness of Francis. In our time of the mass inequity of world wealth we don't need examples of choosing extreme poverty; how about economies and governments make sure that everyone has enough to eat and drink, good health care, universal education and safety for all to develop their gifts?Rather than live in a world of extreme poverty and extreme wealth, why not live in a world of sufficiently enough of everything for everyone?
Aphorism of the Day, October 3, 2021
Being conditioned in the era of modern science, eye-witness journalism, and modern science, some Bible readers import our reading context in understanding the Bible. The creation story for them is an actual chronological eye-witnessed event rather than simple the great mysterious "Before" which has to be the cause for what has come after. And it is true that the "after" is always created by the "before."
Aphorism of the Day, October 2, 2021
The continual application of love means that new conviction is discovered regarding the ways in which people were formerly treated. If we trap love into the standards of ancient cultures regarding slavery, treatment of women, divorced persons, children, foreigners, and persons of LGBTQ experience, we can absolutize and perpetuate cruelty in the name of God and Holy Scriptures.
Aphorism of the Day, October 1, 2021
In contrast to the "divorce attorneys" of his time, Jesus is presented as a "love attorney." He stood for the normalcy of love and its endurance even when many people seemed to have the Murphy's Law view about marriage. If a couple can divorce, they probably will and so we have to be prepared. The words of Jesus simply stated the standard and he could affirm the standard even while forgiving those who offended and learned repentance.
