The Reality of God

Today in Faith and Reason I asked my professor after class about some questions about knowing truth. Eventually he claimed that he knew God existed as well as he knew the sun was in his eyes or that I was standing before him.

I remarked that I wished God was that real. He said the knowledge is different but it is as much a reality. He then asked whether my parents were real. And whether I knew they loved me. How did I know? But I still didn’t get it.

So then he asked whether I thought Bush was real. Yes, I replied as floods of doubt came into my mind.
“Well I say you can know God exists just as much as you can know President Bush exists.”

And for the first time I realized the possibility of God being more than an abstract thought.

Only one thing is needed

Yesterday I taught my first English class and it was a disaster. In short I feel like I do not know how to offer what I am promising to offer: to help them learn English. I planed a two hour lesson and finnished in one hour. I had to plan the next hour in ten minuts.

....

Anyway, I had a nightmare the following morning about failing to be a good teacher for my English class.

I droped a course this morning. I am now only taking 14 cr hours. There are a few reasons. Part of the reason is that I enjoy time to reflect on what I am learning and experiencing. Also I am beginning to love people and if I have no time for them then something is messed up. Then also the first thing to go in my schedual is always prayer and bible study. So the thinks I most value:
God
People
Spritual formation
Are being neglected because Information, the tool to reach all these, is being more valued than the subject. It's too bad.

Courses really do give a lot of information and it is really weird how much it goes unquestioned that we are supposed to chug it all down and still have peace and quiet to sort it all out.

I intend to do something about it in this life or the next....

All of this is very nicely illustrated by that little story that we find from the Doctor

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked,
"Lord, don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!"
"Martha, Martha," the Lord answered, "you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her."

Here I am again at Providence. It has been a good week of silence from me getting back into the swing of things, but not because I have come down with inertia...

I have decided to acknowledge the fact that I am human even in the realm of academics and in consequence I am only taking 15 hours this semester and leaving room for people and relaxing--what a concept. I have had to critique my world view a bit by beginning to understand that the world is not waiting to be saved by me when I exit college. In fact, there is no waiting to leave college. The real world has been right here all the time. I have completely missed the point of not only the reason for learning but my faith if I spend all my time in preparation to interact with people instead of interacting.

In short, my studies are an aid to reality, not reality. But it is sooo hard! Because often I value knowledge over people with the thought that it will help me to value people over knowledge.

Airport wonders

Then I started to think:

If God is love, is everything that is love God? Everytime we experience love, is that God?


---------but if that were so, there must be hate in him because he hates sin.

And if the first thought is right and the second thught is right, when we experience hate could that also be God? And if so, how can love and hate live in the same person.
Or maybe I have the wrong idea of what love is. Maybe love and hate are not mutually exclusive. I suppose that when a person loves something they must not love something else?

And then if God is power, then it would make sense that we would ask God for strength, because every bit of power (or energy one might say) is derived from Him.

( I was thinking about this because in a liturgy that I said in a church on Sunday as part of the statement of faith the congregation said "God is love" "God is Power" etc.)

A Sunday thought from Mr Hopkins

Glory be to God for dappled things--



For skys of couple-colour



as a brinded Cow




For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;




Fresh fire coal chesnut-fall;



finches' wings;



Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, follow and plough;


And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------- orginal-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------- -----------------spare-------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------ ------------------- strange;

Whatever is fickle,

frekled (who knows how)

With swift, slow-------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------- ---------------sweet, sour-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------- adazzle, dim;



-------------------He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change

-------------------------------------------------------------------------- Praise Him


Glory be to God for dappled things--
For skys of couple-colour as a brinded Cow
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh fire coal chesnut-fall; finches' wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced--fold, follow and plough;
And all trades, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, frekled (who knows how)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change
Praise Him

Tithing

Perhaps the whole point to tithing is to try and pry our mind and fingers off something that is not even ours in the first place. you see, your mind says

“I will give this to God”

( But in reality, it is already his.) And then for that little amount there is not the same feeling attached to it as if it were “yours”.

So, for example, someone steals “your money” you feel angry then depressed.
However, someone steals God’s money, and you do not feel the loss, and you are sure that God can avenge it if he wanted to.

Another thing that I thought with getting gifts for people with tithing was that you are spending money that is not your own and that is always more freeing than spending money that is “closer” to you (ie yours or your parents (or Uncles)) and you therefore spend it more cheerfully.

And then my thoughts went faster and I began to wonder if one could not apply this to many different things, to our very bodies and futures! Perhaps that is what Paul keeps talking about when he claims that we Belong to God. And in that case we would live life as though we were not our own masters, and how freeing that would be.

Maybe people have already discovered this, but it made me very excited.




*
We were brought up to tithe and I have never really got rid of this sense that I should “give 10% to God”.

Today I went out and bought a gift for someone, totally random --meaning it was for no official reason and gifts like that usually turn into “Un-Birthday Gifts”.

Then I wondered whether that would be a good use in the future for a tithe: to go out and spend the money for someone. I suppose the question of what is god use of that money would arise. Like, should I buy cans of food for starving people or should I buy a gift for my friends at college. but I do not wish to tackle that right now.

*the following section was supposed to introduce the subject, but for fear of the reader loosing interest and missing the main point I have put it last.

Stuff, space and ageing

There is so much stuff and it seems to accumulate the more one ages. I just spent the afternoon clearing out one person’s (my grandmothers) lifetime’s accumulation of interesting-and-meaningful-but-redundant boxes of stuff. (I didn’t even begin to sort the papers...)

It has all brought me to wonder about about the process of growing old and owning stuff. Everything just sits there, but the person who owns it can think of hundreds of reasons not to throw it away.

For example, a box full of
stamps
(which are, BTW, worth something by now, or attached to letters with nostalgic qualities about them)

and pencils
(that can still be used),

and books
(that still need to be read because they are interesting, and we still don’t know..)

and matches
(that we got at such a place with a pretty picture on it)

And of course the china, linens and silver
(never mind that we never use them and have a cupboard full of more--they are valuable and hold memories)


After spending enough time with the Ancient in the Western world I begin to desire an early death. I think maybe 50... The west is made for young people.

After today I have decided that when I am at a certain age (the age where it is hard to move ) then I will get rid of most of my stuff (give it to the young children who think that Grandma’s collection of used stamps is really interesting) and live in a two room house with a fire place.

what I will do all day I am not sure... Read carefully what I am too busy to read now I suppose and play music. Pet the cat.




I think maybe life does not begin until you are old. I suspect so because from 20-50 you are really just shaping through life experience the type of old person you will be. From 50-90 you have to live with yourself with relatively few distractions.

Also, what makes for a good old person?

What this is really about

Forget not offending people, I am going to write what is really on my mind and if anyone should think I am brilliant or that I am going mad then please comment your little fingers off. (Or if you just think the idea is interesting).

So, what is on my mind

prayer. I woke up this morning thinking I ought to start the day in prayer, but really quite tired of pretending that prayer is meaningful. I had no will to pray even if I could intellectually argue the meaning and value of prayer.

(I really am beginning to doubt that I am an intellectual after all. So much of my value system is based on emotions and aesthetics)

I thought to myself “prayer needs to become more real”--but that begs the question “what is real?”.
I suppose I could go into a philosophical diatribe on why reality is more than what we experience as the sensual (vision, taste, touch etc.)

But that is not my purpose here.

My point is that for prayer to be meaningful it must touch what we experience as reality. That means, as far as my morning thoughts have come, that either the super-sensual must come down and touch the sensual, or we must become conscious of the super sensual.

To the first, I suspect that the super-sensual does touch our consciousness, but we call it “Nature”.

To the second, hm. How is that done?

This is my offcial blog. as opposed to my home page (which I am unable to edit from college.)

It is my birthday. And it is the new year. Ariel, I and Mike went hiking up Squaw Peak. I have decided whoever I marry needs to appriciate hiking.





There is a picture to give this blog some thing interesting to look at. It is the forest in Costa Rica belonging to the back yard.