The Most Amazing Gift -- Reboot

Rebooted June 30, 2022

 So I have come to, what I think is, the last blog on resonance.  

God’s wireless communication that has for centuries been perceived as something we just don’t get — don’t comprehend.  And actually doesn’t make too much sense to human logic and reason.

It is interesting, to me, that our modern world of wireless-bluetooth, which has endlessly confused my mind; yet has actually helped me to finally see more clearly God’s most precious gift.  

The gift that He came in Jesus’ skin to give us — show us.  The blest power to have a two way conversation with the Almighty God Creator of all that is.  

A communication that is possible through the Advocate, The Holy Spirit.

When I read Cynthia Bourgeault’s assessment of the heart my entire body became tenderly moved.

She is discussing the difference between our intellectual minds and our preceptive heart. 

“The egoic operating system is particularly related to the mind, to the ‘binary operator’ built right into the human brain. The heart has a different way of perceiving.  Rather than dividing and conquering, it connects with a seamless and indivisible reality through a whole different way of organizing the informational field….In wisdom, the heart is primarily an organ of spiritual perception, a highly sensitive instrument for keeping us aligned, as we journey along the horizontal axis of our life in time, with the vertical axis of timeless reality; the realm of meaning, value, and conscience.  The heart picks up reality in a much deeper, more integral way than our poor Cartesian minds even begin to imagine…..The heart picks up from the emotions, from our sense of proportion, from  intuition, from images and archetypes;..…and keeps us aliened with our innermost, with what we truly know. (p. 35-36

And my mind went WOW.

⁹ With you is wisdom, she who knows your works

and was present when you made the world;

she understands what is pleasing in your sight

and what is right according to your commandments. 

¹⁰ Send her forth from the holy heavens,

and from the throne of your glory send her,

that she may labour at my side,

and that I may learn what is pleasing to you. 

¹¹ For she knows and understands all things,

and she will guide me wisely in my actions

and guard me with her glory. 

¹² Then my works will be acceptable,

and I shall judge your people justly,

and shall be worthy of the throne of my father. 

¹³ For who can learn the counsel of God?

Or who can discern what the Lord wills? 

¹⁴ For the reasoning of mortals is worthless,

and our designs are likely to fail; 

¹⁵ for a perishable body weighs down the soul,

and this earthy tent burdens the thoughtful mind. 

¹⁶ We can hardly guess at what is on earth,

and what is at hand we find with labour;

but who has traced out what is in the heavens? 

¹⁷ Who has learned your counsel,

unless you have given wisdom

and sent your holy spirit from on high? 

¹⁸ And thus the paths of those on earth were set right,

and people were taught what pleases you,

and were saved by wisdom.’ (Wisdom of Solomon 9)

Thanks be to God

I would be remiss if I didn’t end this incredible gift, I have been so recently been given, in the works, God enabled Cynthia Bourgeault and Bruno Barnhart to express in their writings.  

I am most grateful to God for the way He works in all of us.

OWD -- God's, Original Wireless Design - Reboot

Rebooted June 30, 2022

We live in a world that has invented the amazing technology called “wireless” transmission.

No more messy cords,

No more telephone poles lining our highways,

Now we count on this thing called “bluetooth.”   A magical little device that move the sound from our wireless smart phones, tablets and computers with sounds that fill our car, and homes, and ears with music, news, sports and anything we want to listen to.

Well guess what, God has the copywrite on wireless communication.

It is true!

And yes you know where I am going don’t you?

It is the transmission, energy, vibrations, electrical currents,  entrainment (the rhythms of our bodies’ environment), synchronization, magnetic fields-- resonance of the Holy Spirit.

I am thinking that God uses all of those avenues to communicate with us every minute of our lives.

This I believe with my entire being.

Now let me tell you what I learned this last month and half, about the word resonance, that sent me on this extraordinary journey. 

First a caution, what I am about to write is totally left brain stuff.  But I understood enough to get me pretty excited.

Resonance occurs when the amplitude of an object’s oscillations are increases by the matching vibrations of another object.

Resonance is a condition that exists when the inductive reactance and the capacitive reactance are of equal magnitude causing electrical energy to oscillate between the magnetic field of the indicator and the electrical field of the capacitor.

Resonance is used for tuning and filtering, because resonance occurs at a particular frequency for given values for inductance  and capacitance.

The Holy Spirit is the conduit,  channel of transmission — a currant that flows from God to us.

More tomorrow 

More On God's Flowing Energy -- reboot

Rebooted June 29, 2022

This new excitement in me all began when I was given a book, titled Jesus Wisdom written by, Cynthia Bourgeault.  Her book talks about the part of Jesus that has never been tapped — not really — in the Western World.  She parallels Jesus true character to the Old Testament wisdom Sophia.

In her book, Bourgeault introduced me to the relationship between faith and quantum physic’s and God.  The theory is called  “Planck’s Constant.” (pl.107)    If you are interested in what “Planck’s Constant” is you are free to research it for yourself. 

Then I bought a book she referenced, by Bruno Barnhart, who put into my brain something that I have known for a long time; but had not fully formulated or named: the “fourth.” The fourth that belongs to the Trinity of God. The human part of the circle in relationship to the three.

The "fourth" completes the circle to make a whole relationship.

Barnhart writes:  “The trinitarian image opens to gather into itself the Fourth, which we are.  In Jesus we are invited to enter into the communion of the Three.  As we do so, we compete the quaternary. The New Testament speaks of our divination, and its revelation is both unitive and quaternary.  These two aspects are inseparable; wholeness is one and four.” (p.149 Second Simplicity)

'Inseparable."

Then Barnhart used a term  — in relation to the Fourth —that went bing-bong, ding-dong, knock-knock in my mind.  

The term was “resonance”

“Resonance itself, imagined is participation in a field of energy…”(p.149)

Reading that little line sent my mind into a million directions.  

Of course first I looked up the word resonance; which gave me all kinds of terms to look up and think about.  

I’ll give you the second beginning to my thinking:  A resonance — vibration — is seemingly silent communication going on in the air, in space.

Resonance, going on between our body workings. Going on in nature.  Going on in electricity.  Going on in the sounds we hear.  Going on in the play of lights we see.

I called it the invisible miracle.  

Truly a God given miracle for all who believe — or even who want to believe.

We have all been given a precious gift -- The Holy Spirit.   

We know, about this gift, but somehow we can’t comprehend how it all works for us in this very physical and logically intellectual world.

However, now that I have been given a name for something I have had faith in for so long.  The name is resonance, energy, a flow of silence waves that move about, and within us; that unless we stop and listen evades our cognitive mind.

More to come. 

God's Energy Still Flows. -- reboot

Rebooted June 28, 2022

 I have spent the last two days blogging about the amazing spiderweb. Today I want to move from those small delicate threads of the web to a much larger — gigantic — hypothesis.

This is not my own original idea.  It is a common theology of mystics and spiritual master through time. It is a theology of interconnectedness of all that exists.  

This is what Edward Hays writes about this common idea:  

“Contrary to 'common sense’ or surface observation, the the scientific conclusions of quantum physics tell us that our earth is not composed of blocks  of matter.  Essentially, all the physical universe is made up of energy.  If we are to understand who we are, and something about the world we live in, we need to take a closer look at energy.

Energy vibrates at different frequencies, from very slow to extremely rapid……

Your thoughts, which you may regard as without physical effect because they do not have mass or weight, are forms of energy that have a great deal of effect!” (p. 24  In Pursuit of The Great White Rabbit)

Now allow me to confess.  This person trying to make sense of all of this energy stuff; is a person who is extremely right brained.  One who has avoided any thought of science, physic, or chemistry my whole life long.  

So, for me to write about a theory, like quantum physics -- or any physic --  gets me totally excited, about what I am reading, on this foreign subject.

It is extraordinarily astounding to me.

So the warning is this:  I may take days to get it all figured out in this blog (;

You can decide not to read these blogs.  Or, you can join me in my fascination.

The fascination surround the third person of the Trinity — The Holy Spirit. The wisdom of God moving into, and informing, our ordinary brains.

To end today's thoughts I will just say that my faith could not have grown to what it is today without God’s energy -- The Holy Spirit — flowing through my being all these many years.

More tomorrow

More On The Spiderweb -- Reboot

 

Comments to the spiderweb analogy:

Reader #1:  “What a lovely metaphor - I like it!  I don't know if this fits, but from a different perspective: the web gives life (to the spider), and also represents the interconnected of all things - the cycle of life and death (the spider needs the web to survive - and the flies and other things that get caught in it are part of that.”

Reader #2:  “Wow,  This is really awesome!  It is such a good comparison.  I believe that many of us have been connected and unconnected from God's web at times in our lives.”

35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8)

Our family entomologist, reader #1, gives the perfect biblical metaphor for the truth that Paul writes about in Roman 8: ....nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God. 

Yesterday God was the spider -- the master builder of the journey call life.  The one who connects all of his creation together with him.  God was also the web that draws people into his way of living.

It is a picture, of the interconnectedness, of the original design for God’s plan, on how we were created to exist in the world.  It is a perfect image of the path of life.  All moving out from the center.  Like the spider, we all need the web to survive.   And God needs us for the truth of his love to survive in this crazy world.

What I particularly like about Claudio’s -- the family entomologist -- description is that the flies, and other creatures, get “caught” in the web of life and “are part of it.”  

That is how it happened centuries ago when Jesus came to correct the Israelites exclusive attitudes about outsiders -- the so called “unclean” of the world.  He came to bring them all together in God’s web.  

To build on that,  people -- creatures of all kinds -- get caught by the attraction to God’s love expressed and lived out in the world by all his children. 

The unfortunate thing is that often what others see — observe — in God’s people is not always love.  Rather,  they see and hear a lot of judgment, and rules, and fingers pointing.  Finger pointing at “sinners.”  That is, those who don’t ‘believe the way they “should,”  according to the finger pointer's way of thinking.  

Those creatures hide the wonderful web of life,  They throw a shadow of over it.   A dark shadow that clouds the delicate formation designed by the master builder. 

When that happens it is more important than ever, for those caught in the web, to live more connected to the precious truth of God’s gracious love and forgiveness.   By living that truth out-loud, in gracious and loving ways, everyday through their actions and ways of speaking.

  

To be clear, it is a tough position to be caught in at times..  But the master builder shows us how to live with his ever persistent manner of building .  Ever so slowly and surely binding all things together, patiently waiting at the center for the cycles of life to unfold.  Holding tight to all those who get caught in the fold of his gracious web.

The Spiderweb of Life --Reboot

I am reposting two blog entries; because they lead to some thoughts I have been working on for weeks.  These thoughts have to do with how the Holy Spirit communicates with us.  

The spiderweb's construction, and purpose, seem to fit with the Holy Spirit's ways of connecting.

I know, that probably doesn't make all that much sense to you.  However I invite you just let your thoughts come along with my journey.

Spiderweb of Life

24 And God said, "Let the earth bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals of the earth of every kind." And it was so. 25 God made the wild animals of the earth of every kind, and the cattle of every kind, and everything that creeps upon the ground of every kind. And God saw that it was good (Gen. 1:24-25)

My mind is playing with one of God's tiny creations -- the spider and its delicate looking web.  And how God uses the possibilities of what 'tiny' offers.  

Today's blog will give you some insight into how this pastor’s mind works early in the morning when it is trying to listens to God.  

I am thinking about spiderwebs; because when I took my dog Jake out this morning to water the lawn, I saw a spiderweb on the hedge by my sidewalk.  It was almost perfectly symmetrical.  It is amazing to me how a thing so small is able to construct something so perfect.  

Spiderwebs have always fascinated me.  They are so dedicate looking and yet so tough to break without getting caught. 

So I came into the house and googled how a spider web is created.

 

Now, you may be wondering, what does this have to do with God and faith?  

Well, for one thing, everything on earth has to do with God.  And the way the spider builds her web reminds me of how God’s Spirit grows our faith from birth to death.  Starting from a tiny seed, that becomes bigger and stronger, grows ever so slowly through life towards death.  

When I look at a spiderweb I see the movement of time it take to build -- or weave.  As all of lifes experiences and struggles, building one beside the other.  A conglomeration of many knoxs and lengths that are woven together into one’s life.

What isn't usually seen, by the human eye, is how the spider has carefully placed the structure points together with the bridge threads, anchor thread, frame threads and other points to secure the success — the strength — of her structure.   

The web is usually constructed at night in most cases.  

My analogy, in all of this, is that the spider is God. Who places each structural points to secure the web.  The center is God’s foundation point. The web itself is our life. The circles represent how God moves us through our lives with his careful assistance. The circular shape and connecting threads are the path of our living.  At the center of the web God holds it all together.

God is also the web in my imagination. 

When we stay connected to that perfectly built web of bridge threads, anchor thread, and frame threads. And if we don’t try to break the cycles -- our life is secure in God’s care.  But even when we try to break out, from time to time God, like the web, is there to pull us back in.

I don’t know, I think that gives us a fairly good imagination about how our faith unfold.


More tomorrow

Can We Actually Trust In God's Promise In Todays World?

 It occurred to me, as I read the reading for the first Sunday of Advent they are most appropriate readings, and quite relevant, for today's world.   

In Jeremiah we hear the prophet offering hope to those who have been living in exile for years.  

They are a "people who. have been taken captive, dragged from their land, and deprived of their Temple.  They are beaten, imprisoned, and face death as a people, and, like Jeremiah, they cry out to God  in anger and despair.” ( Kathleen O’Conner (quoted by Jennifer Ryan Ayres) page 4 in Feasting On The Word)

This was a people without hope in a foreign land. 

Jeremiah was trying to give them a light of hope into the future that God has promised.

14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. ¹⁵In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. ¹⁶In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: ‘The Lord is our righteousness.’ (Jeremiah 33)

The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 

He is reminding them of the hope they had grown up knowing and believing when God would provide them with security and a peaceful existence.

He was promising them a future that seemed impossible and unrealistic to them at this time in their history.

Advent is a time of waiting and hoping for a Messiah who would bring the exact thing that Jeremiah was promising in the Old Testament.

A promise of resolution, and reconciliation, a new time where their lives will once again find joy and freedom.

Luke’s Gospel is also talking about the same kind of world Jeremiah did:

25 ‘There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. ²⁶People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. ²⁷Then they will see “the Son of Man coming in a cloud” with power and great glory. ²⁸Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing nea29 Then he told them a parable: ‘Look at the fig tree and all the trees; ³⁰as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. ³¹So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ³²Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. ³³Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.(Lk. 21)

The Advent readings give us an indirect vision of God’s positive activity in a fallen and despairing world 

A vision that seems a bit fictitious or fabricate — impossible to conceive of  — in the face of our world’s reality today.

History has an impressive way of repeating itself.  Repeating itself, not in the same-exact-way; but relative to the moment in each generation.

So we are once again faced with the promises of God; over against the reality of what we are actually seeing, feeling and experiencing right now.

So its the same dilemma people have been asked to grapple with since the beginning of time; when Adam and Eve first bit the forbidden fruit on the tree

14 The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 

Is as true today as when Jeremiah first spoke.

Pure Grace

 It has been sometime since I have had the need to write to all of you.  To say the least, last year somehow dampened my creative thinking.

However this morning I am thinking about the major dramas our nation — our world — have been living through. Between the pandemic and political attempts to eliminate the power of our democracy; many people have found themselves debating where God is in it all.

Have you ever wondered about how faith, faith in the Creator God, has stayed alive through all of history?

Thousands and thousands of year of wars, plagues, epidemics, political battles for power, pollution, oppressive attitudes towards justice and the welfare of all people. Through it all the stories of God, and God in Jesus’ skin, have not faded away in people's lives and hearts

Why do you suppose that is?

What is it that keeps faith moving down through history into our lives — our world-- today?

This most transcendent presence — force — seems to have a lasting power to move in, and through, the midst of all the physical factions of human life.

Transcendence is the “existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level.”  (Oxford Dictionary) 

God is beyond all of our knowledge, learned behavior, conditioning, intellect, reason or logic.  

All we seem to know, understand and believe to be true — the unprovable -- continues to  lives in very provable world.

And despite all of the information we are so tempted to value, or hold on to, God seem to make sense to billions of ordinary people; as well as some of the top scientist throughout world history.

Interesting.

We, who are of the theological mind-set, call it the great mystery.  

“By mystery I mean the infinite depths of being that we can never plumb, never know, never exhaust, given the limits of mortality, our finitude, our creatureliness....Our inherent sense of mystery is in our irrepressible longing for something we cannon name but intensely miss.”  (The Haunt of Grace p.15)

The fact that you are reading this blog, tells me that you are one who is searching for something outside of the physical world.

You have a sense of something more, something far beyond what we can see, and touch or even imagine.

We find God’s grace in his coming to earth as one of us.  God came, in Jesus' skin, to help us -- enable us -- to grasp the presence of the ultimate truth of his activity among the living.

So, I am thinking that without Jesus, who brought the pure truth of God, it would be difficult for anyone to believe in such an invisible elusive God.

Not that God could not have done it without Jesus.  But I believe that God knew us well enough to know that it would be easier for us to hear and see Him in physical form.

That is pure grace.