:-p

do you remember HS chemistry class? of course it MUST have been updated since back in the day, but... remember the model of the atom, with protons and neutrons forming the nucleus, and the electrons zooming in orbit around in the 'electron shell'?  remember how we learned that there was space even btwn these sub-atomic particles?  well, when i learned that i realized that this was how superman (from the 40's/50's tv show) could, in theory, pass thru solid walls - because of the space that existed between the molecules, atoms, and sub-atomic particles both in superman's body and in the 'solid' object thru which he passed...  well, we also learned how every atom vibrated, and that the frequency of the vibration was directly proportional to the increase (decrease) in temperature... for a long time i thought about these things, especially about the vibrational energy of the universe...

well, along came String Theory > which postulates that the entire universe is made up of vibrating strings... which made me thing of sonic vibrations, and pitch... which caused me to flash on that character from walt disney's 40's movie "Fantasia", where sonic vibration was actually a character... and so now i think of the entire universe as comprised of music -- singing to me/us.... almost all sound has pitch for me, in particular things with regular vibrational frequencies, like motors (which made car repair fairly easy, btw...) ...

which brings me to our old friend, Eckhart:

"the Unmanifested [Being] is not separate from the manifested.  It pervades this world... If you know where to look, you'll find it everywhere... Look for it in the silence, out of which the sounds come, and into which they return.  Pay more attention to the silence than to the sounds.  Paying attention to outer silence creates inner silence... Every sound is born out of silence, dies back into silence, and during its life span is surrounded by silence.  Silence enables the sound to be.  It is an intrinsic but unmanifested part of every sound, every musical note, every song, every word..." (p. 135-136)

"Just as no sound can exist without silence, nothing can exist without no-thing, without the empty space that enables it to be..." [peut-être le néant d'Ellul?] "... even inside every physical body there is far more 'nothing' than 'something'.  Even seemingly solid matter, including your physical body, is nearly 100% empty space, so vast are the distances between the atoms compared to their size. What is more, even inside every atom there is mostly empty space.  What is left is more like a vibrational frequency than particles of solid matter, more like a musical note..." (p 137)

So, Eckhart points towards the basis for String Theory - the theory from physics that has all the universe vibrating - no, SINGING - to you... 

how glorious is that?  God's ultimate love song... the love song that permeates all of us if we are open to it... and to the one i love, if u read this > and to you...

my friend, Ces, and i are having a discussion about adultery.  i am struggling with the idea that thinking sexual thoughts about someone is the same as doing them -- you know, the whole idea of intent... first degree murder/adultery and all...

Ces feels that what occurs in the mind, stays in the mind, although he admits it would be hurtful to find out that his significant other was thinking about other ppl... i am not sure how i would feel about donathan thinking about someone else...

i have worked so hard, since i was an adolescent going through puberty, not to think about any one in my sexual fantasies - everyone is always anonymous and pretty generically male or female... the theory being that if i was not thinking about anyone in particular, i was not having sex with anyone in particular, therefore there is no way it could be cheating.  now i am not so sure if that is a cop out.  the very idea of thinking about thinking about cheating might be the same as cheating.... this is making my head hurt.

perhaps it is as simple as - if there is someone in particular about whom i want to fantasize, there is an element of desire more than normal, and that would definitely invoke the prospect/propensity for cheating.  otherwise, if there is no one in particular about whom i want to fantasize, then there is no desire/opportunity to cheat...

but Ces insists that by acknowledging that sexual thoughts exist, accepting that they exist without judgement, and then moving on, he is not cheating.  he reminds me that a thought is just that, a thought, with no action behind it until an action is taken.  he says thoughts and emotions just happen and are; they come and they go, and should not be judged...

but i know what i think... and i am not so sure...

Jacques Ellul, The Subversion of Christianity

"At the end of the third century Christianity became fashionable.  But this presupposed a movement of elucidation, of general response.  In effect, theology, instead of being content to expound revelation, began to be interested in questions of all kinds and to do philosophy.  Thus it wanted, for example, to show a correspondence between Seneca and St. Paul, etc.  Discussing problems of the day was the price of success.  Success was achieved, but there then came what seems to have been the inevitable and tragic reaction that whereas the good news had been first published for its own sake with no concern for success, now ineluctably success brought, as always, a desire for it from which Christians were not exempt.  The only reproach that one can bring against them is that they were not aware of what was happening, namely, that society was inverting Christianity instead of being subverted by it."

Sunday after church in Perth Amboy, i went to see Christo's Gates in NYC... met my cousin, barb, at penn station, and we went uptown to 72nd street.  at first it is hard to see what the big deal is, esp when you come to any of the large entrances to central park - the Gates there are generally larger, more of them, and v. crowded with all sorts of folk milling about.  there are 'souvenir' stands of sorts, selling pamphlets and postcards etc, but at least those proceeds go towards a new york charity, and are not crass comercialism...

once you choose your pathway and walk into the park, you get a better sense of what is going on... not all pathways have the Gates, and the Gates are not completely along all pathways, rather, they are spread more organically throughout the 23 miles that they cover.  as we ambled through them, we decided to take a predominantly northerly course along central park west, mostly becz the buildings there are more interesting... and becz our pathway was chosen at random, we saw alot of v. cool things...

all around us were the typically driven new yorkers, going wherever they were going, with the Gates being merely 'window dressing' along the way.  then there were the tourists, who felt they 'should' see the Gates while they were in the city. finally there were those, of whom we were two, whose sole purpose was to view the Gates.  viewing is the wrong approach, it soon became clear -- it is so much more than viewing -- and yes, that is what all performance artists say, but it was abundantly clear in this case.

first, the park in winter is mostly brown mud, gray leafless trees, and white snow, all surrounded by gray/brown/brick buildings.  the orange of the Gates looks wonderful against this backdrop.  secondly, it is way cool to look at how the different ppl react to the Gates - what they say and do, and even which path they take through them. my cousin and i were ambling, most were city-walking, and some were even running.  some were taking pictures, some were looking around going "i don't get it"...

it was the 'i don't get it' crowd that really had me pay attn to what was going on around me, to see what there was to 'get'...  this made me think about gates as a metaphor, for things that close you in or open to you...and how the billowing fabric of the Gates let everything through, without obstacles, ebbing and flowing, coming and going... and when you saw the wind moving through some of the gates while the rest stayed still, that was very awesome too... the wind moves where it wills, and so could/should we...

as we walked up to 103rd street the park gets rockier and hilly-er...there are streams and stone bridges that become picturesque in the snow which i would normally not have seen... there is a miniature swedish chalet that houses a year-round marionette theatre we ran across that bears checking out on its own merits... standing on top of an escarpment, and looking back over the park, it was around 4:30 - the sun was down enough so that the park lay in a bowl of shadow, with patches of brown mud showing through the snow and trees, with the orange Gates swooping down the side of the bowl in front of us, running across the park, and up the bowl on the other side to the foot of a skyscraper - and at the v. top of this skyscraper the sun still shone on it, glinting off the windows as if they were ice....

that is what the Gates were about.

Following up a comment to phoenix5807's site, regarding the evolution of an "ism" from a philosopher's pov:

"The real essence of the subersion is indicated by the very term 'Christianity', which give to the matter the force of an 'ism'.  A word ending in 'ism' denotes an ideological or doctrinal trend deriving from a philosophy.  Thus we have positivism, socialism, republicanism, spiritualism, idealism, materialism, etc.  None of these words, however, denotes the philosophy itself.  In fact, it might be directly opposed to it.  Marx and Kierkegaard both tried to prevent their thinking from being reduced to an ideological mechanism.  But  they could not stop their successors from freezing their living thought into one (or many) systems, and in this way an ideology arose.  Even Sartre accepts the term existentialism without seeing how it perverts what he is saying.  The moment the mutation takes place from existential thinking to existentialism, a living stream is transformed into a more or less regulated and stagnant irrigation channel, and as the thought moves further and further away from the source it becomes banal and familiar."    Jacques Ellul  The Subversion of Christianity  (emphases mine)

this can go a long way towards explaining why/how we as students can get caught up in the original thoughts of a philosopher/teacher only to become appalled and disillusioned by the praxis of the adherents... it points towards the dilution of modern Christendom compared to the teachings of Christ...

i had my first ever massage today... completely, unbelievably relaxing... feet/legs/back/arms/shoulders/neck.... at the conclusion, when i walked downstairs to pay, my g/fs said i looked completely stoned... which is how i felt... even driving home in nj traffic w/ nj drivers in competition could not shake me... too bad it is so expensive - i could so get used to this! it is better than...italian food!

when my massage therapist, jewel, found out i was hoping to go to seminary this fall, she shared that she was going to be going to Philadelphia Bible University... so while she healed my body, we talked about healing souls... so all of me ended up refreshed... God puts ppl in the oddest places for me to find...

tomorrow, after St. Peter's, my cuz, Barb, and i will be going to Central Park to see The Gates... i was supposed to meet someone else there, but money issues for them as well... $$ bites like monkeys...

I gave my first sermon at St. Peter's this past Sunday, 2/13.... this is the basic bones of the sermon, but since I don't read from the notes or even refer to them during the sermon, the delivery was much more informal... v. different but the same.... lol

a couple from my first parish, Holy Cross, came...a couple from beacon (bethany and ryan) as well... craig and helena from group (v. cool since they are Jewish)... and of course donathan and my m.i.l.... bethany so could not believe i said "sex" in church, lmao... and i asked craig how he and helena would feel about me saying YHWH during the sermon, but they were ok with it - craig was surprised that i would even ask him becz he wouldn't expect anyone to change their religion for him, but i told him i would never be religiously imperialistic again...

so here it is - hope you like - but regardless, lmk, ok?

Genesis 2:4b-9, 15-17, 25-3:9

Psalm 51

Romans 5:12-21

Matthew 4:1-11

To understand the importance of the Genesis text, we need to come to an understanding of the nature of the sin committed by the first man and woman...if, as (the passage from) Romans tells us, all sin came into the world from this act, it becomes imperative to understand this sin - what was so heinous that God's only reaction could be the eviction of humanity from paradise? from the very presence of the living God, for the story plainly indicates God dwelled there also? and why would God care so much?

first, to give us a hint as to the “why”, there is the interesting construction of the name for God. in the first creation story found in Genesis, chap 1, the name “God” is Elohim, which is a formal term, and suited for the telling of a tale of cosmic scope.  however, this passage uses Elohim combined with the true name of God, Yahweh, as in LORD God.  this true name of God is found wherever and whenever the covenant between God and israel is invoked, so the writer appears to be intentionally linking the God of covenant, Yahweh, with the God of creation, Elohim - quite appropriate for this more intimate tale of the creation of God's people. this also points to why God would care about the sin of these first humans - God is making a covenant with them, a sacred pact, which they are to break...

next, the “what” -- the act that is forbidden is to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  there is quite a lot of discussion about the nature of this tree, and why knowledge and the pursuit of it would anger God.  Scholars throughout the years have formulated five basic theses:

1. the fruit imparted actual knowledge about good and evil > this is inadequate.  The tree of life offered immortality, a province reserved for God, for divinity.  The implication, therefore, is that a similar restriction, a reservation to God, applied to the knowledge of good and evil, which doesn’t stand up and has little/no scriptural support.


2. the fruit imparted moral discernment > it is absurd to assume that humanity acquired this faculty only after eating the fruit, especially since an ability to discern  between good and evil, right and wrong, is implicit in God’s warning not to eat the fruit.


3. the fruit imparted sexual knowledge > there is no hint anywhere in Scripture that sex is wrong for humanity or that it is reserved for God, quite the opposite.


4. the fruit imparted omniscience > at first glance this is logical, since good and evil make up the whole, like heaven and earth, except that Adam and Eve did not gain omniscience as a result of consuming the fruit, only shame and a recognition of their nakedness.


5. the fruit imparted wisdom > although wisdom is seen as one of the highest pursuits humanity can attain, wisdom literature (such as Job & Proverbs) makes it clear that there is a wisdom that is God’s sole preserve, which one should NOT aspire to attain.  To pursue this knowledge without reference to revelation is to assert human autonomy…to neglect the fear of the LORD, which, according to Prov 1:7, is the beginning of knowledge, by deciding what is right without reference to God’s will would be a terrible sin indeed.  It would be the rejection of God, Godself, and the punishment could only be the separation of Creator from creation. And so the primordial couple is cast from Eden.

If the OT reading points us to the “why” and the “what” of our condemnation, Psalm 51 gives us hope that the LORD will reconcile us in the end.  While acknowledging that it is in acts of rebellion and waywardness that we have sinned, the psalmist asks God to cleanse and restore us, to return us to God’s presence and to restore the joy of salvation.  If we only agree to return from our willful ways and restore wisdom to its rightful place, allowing the will of God to decide right actions, then we will be welcomed since “a broken and contrite heart, o God, you will not despise.” 

But how is this hope to be realized?  If the first sin was so heinous that it forever drove a wedge between Creator and creation, how can this rift be healed?  Paul reminds us in his letter to the Romans how Yahweh tried to rejoin with God’s people by making covenant with them during the time of Moses and the Exodus, but the people had hard hearts, and never truly succeeded in keeping the Law of the Lord. So, God broke through into human history once and for all by becoming incarnate within Mary, Theotokos (qeotokos) the God-bearer, who bore Jesus the Christ, the Son of God.  By this one act God brought God’s kingdom directly into our world, and by Jesus dying on the cross, brought salvation and reconciliation into God’s creation. Even though the single sin of Adam and Eve brought the death of separation from God to all creation, the single reconciling act of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross covered all the many acts of wanton rebellion, cruelty, and sin perpetrated before and after that sacrifice.  It is this gift of God, of God’s Son, that is powerful and righteous enough to compensate for all of the evils that plague God’s good creation.    The kingdom of heaven is at hand – Shalom is here, we just must work towards its realization.  

How does one work with God to bring about this reconciliation, this kingdom of heaven on earth, this Shalom?  By every little act that we do or don’t do.  During his sojourn in the wilderness, Jesus recognizes that more is at stake than simply succumbing to temptation.  Jesus is rewriting the paradigm of Exodus – whereas Moses and the Israelites wandered in the wilderness for forty years and ultimately succumbed to temptations and fell away from Yahweh, Jesus is called to exemplify obedience to the will of Elohim Yahweh under the pressure of severe testing and at the cost of self-denial.  The goal of obedience to God is accomplished, not by triumphal self-assertion (the sin of autonomy committed by Adam and Eve), not by exercise of power and authority, but by the way of suffering, service, and humility.  We as God’s people are called to self-sacrifice, for it is in taking care of others that we can reconcile them to each other and ultimately to God.  We are called to humility, for we realize that all are sinners and fall short of the glory of God.  Obedience to the will of the Almighty alone is the measure of true discipleship, and it is God’s will that all should ultimately be reconciled – all creation within itself and to its Creator.  We can only accomplish this by relying on the example and help of Jesus – only Jesus succeeded, so he must be our guide.

Homework assignment: to go out into the world with eyes open to opportunities to bring about Shalom.  We all have within us a propensity to sin, but it has been overcome by the atonement made once and for all by Jesus Christ.  Therefore we need to refocus our attention from what is wrong within us to what is right about God’s good creation.  All around us are people needing healing, needing a friend or a helping hand.  As we respond to the needs of other folk, we help them to see the face of Jesus in us, and thus we become God’s hands in the world.  We need to bring the love of God to the world, to help reconcile all of the world to itself, and finally to God.  Only then will we know real peace, true Shalom.