FAITH

Peter

Wavering Faith

I hesitated using this as the title for today’s post because it sounds too much like a sermon title, and that’s not what I want. Instead I want to talk about aging, about being “not-a-robot”, and changes.

We all exercise faith all the time. No on ever steps off a ladder from the top step expecting that for once gravity will not pull us catastrophically down to earth, breaking some bone or another. We tend to “isolate” the idea of faith as if it were ONLY a religious concept when in fact we have faith in our partners, in our job, in the cost of goods, in the approximate time the sun will rise, etc., etc., etc..

Since retirement I have a lot more time to think. Without the need to corral my thoughts in one specific line so as to earn money, my mind wanders to all manner of topics that I wished I’d time to think about, or research, in my younger days.

Not all chances to think result in positive conclusions. Sometimes thoughts make a wrong turn and you end up pondering things that trouble you, or disturb you in ways you couldn’t have expected. Recently when we had a medical situation come up I have to admit that my mind went to all sorts of places that I would just as soon not have visited. The train of thought didn’t last all that long, but the fact that it popped up reminded me that we aren’t machines, we are desperately human and we are subject to the whims of electric impulses floating around in our brain and the thoughts that they generate. We are great big chemical factories that sometimes send out great clouds of black smoke when they should be whips of white.

Even in religious thoughts I find that my free time often goes to pondering the immensity of the universe and the corresponding minuteness of us as individuals. The concept of sustaining a lifelong relationship with some creator that we can ill understand just boggles the mind — yet I am far from alone in my convictions and no matter how great or troubled your faith might be we are but human and we are subject to glitches and wonkiness and the need to re-boot our way of thinking.

I HAVE learned over time that just as my computer needs a good re-boot, sometimes my brain does too. A walk in the woods, or along the shoreline, or a glance up at the stars when you can see them through the light pollution does wonders to help with a reset.

Whatever your belief system, and even atheists have a “belief system,” it’s only realistic to realize that doubts and fears are part of being human. Many times fears save us — from immediate danger, from longterm mis-steps, from all manner of undesirable things. So “fear” isn’t a bad thing. It’s a tool that we have developed through maturation to protect us. And I think fear and doubt which is strongly related have to be accepted as a part of life that is necessary but doesn’t need to be permanent.

Being afraid, or doubting something for a period of time produces changes in un. Being afraid or doubting something continuously and never letting go becomes debilitating and unhealthy. We recognize that about activities, but we often stumble over it when it comes to the fleeting thoughts that cross our consciousness.

Coming to terms with the value of doubt, of a wavering faith enables us to push forward. It also helps us steel our courage to do the things needing doing. Pressing forward in illness, or because of changed circumstances takes on new meaning when we realize we have done so IN SPITE OF our doubts. In effect, doubts strengthen our faith, doubts strengthen our resolve. doubts move us forward even when they appear to hold us back.

It’s a sunny day here, but still cooler than I would anticipate for the calendar date. We have yet to get to our “summer place” but I hope soon.

That’s it for today. Take care of yourself and your loved ones and I’ll be back soon. :-)

Image Peter

Only old people and young people

Faith is elusive. The busier we are, the harder to attain. The more complicated and sophisticated we are the less inclined we are. Faith, real faith, is rare. The world thinks that people of faith are foolish. But faith doesn’t care.

Peter

What do we really know?

Retirement has a lot of advantages, among them the time to actually think about things, instead of merely reacting to a steady stream of work/life/family deadlines. Given, that “thinking” can get a person into trouble: too much time to wallow in too many failures or to obsess with too many problems, or whatever it is that your unstable minds often find to trouble us — but still, thinking does a person a lot of good.

If you have followed me for any time you’ll know that at 76, almost 77 years I have been a believer in Jesus for well over 50 years. I am not a card-carrying anything anymore. Never been Catholic, Roman or Orthodox. Have been “protestant” in the sense that I’m among those who diverge from the Catholic church in ways consistent with Martin Luther, but not Protestant with a capital “P.” For well over a quarter century I was a bi-vocational pastor — as our group of followers did not believe in a paid ministry. And there came a time when, over idolatry, I stood away from the fellowship I had been part of and took a different path.

After leaving that fellowship I began looking at other groups of believers. I had a lot of conversations with a lot of pastors, priests, elders, deacons, and whatnot investigating the reasons they had given their lives, or devoted their lives to religion. Suffice it to say that after speaking, face-to-face, with a lot of church leaders I was saddened by how many — the vast majority with whom I spoke, admittedly at random without scientific selection of my sample group — of those now church leaders had joined the ministry because it was “a job” that they thought they might like. I literally found zero among those I spoke with who talked about any particular “conversion” experience. For all of them it was a rational decision. Some talked about feeling a calling — but those conversations were a bit iffy — undefined — vague — and I’ll never know whether they were the result of my questions and a sense that they needed to justify their role in the church.

The result of all those conversations has been that Peg and I have maintained our faith along a mostly quiet and private pathway. We remain as full of faith and as devoted as ever — just not among a great group of others.

Recently I was watching reruns of the TV series Lewis. There’s an episode called, I believe, “Born of Fire” in which one sentence comes up repeatedly:

“On the road from the Garden to Gethsemane I lost my way”

I suspect that a lot of folks lose their way on faith’s road. The signposts are sometimes difficult of understanding. The way is filled with obstacles — even Jesus and the Apostles warned us of that reality. And whatever God you believe in or worship — they are pretty quiet about their ways and their willingness to offer tangible interactions. That’s why it’s a walk of faith and not of sight. We BELIEVE in God, we don’t SEE Him/Her/It.

In my “group active” days — when I was pastoring a congregation I came to appreciate the way our seemingly faith activated decisions affect our ABILITY to actually exercise faith. Take the idea that a “church” needs a place to gather and worship together. That idea means that a place, a building, a building site needs to be acquired and plans made to erect/maintain it, pay for it, etc., etc., etc.. Suddenly the conduct of religion becomes incrementally less about faith, and sharing one’s faith with others and more about the mechanics of maintaining a physical “thing” — the Church — and suddenly the emphasis is less upon the work of believing and more upon the work of “churching”. Church leadership becomes about budgets and fund raising and committees to get things accomplished. Where the work of evangelizing, or the growth of individual members in their faith takes place has to be shared with the management of the Church.

All of this has nothing to do with what I have really been thinking about — it’s only background about WHY I may have been thinking along these lines.

We humans ARE gregarious and I guess we are also tribal. It’s not enough that we interact, we seem compelled to formalize our interactions into ethnicities, into communities, into special interests, into employer/employees, into a million different categories that we all have tucked away in our brain. Violations of some of those boundaries or groupings can give rise to wars, hatred, and persecutions. Every year there are ethnic disputes that have boiled over into armed conflict, death and destruction, and we take them all with a grain of salt as if they are inevitable and nothing to be thought very much about until terrible pictures are pasted all over the media and then for a few hours or days we are incensed by the violence before going back to our everyday lives.

In such a world we humans make rules about who God is, and what God wants. Sometimes we have historic reason for doing so — the existence of texts written long ago. Other time seers arise among us and claim to have messages from God. Still other times it’s in the stillness of a prison cell that we hear from God, a la Charles Colson who was converted whilst in prison, or Madame Guyon who’s dungeon writings spawned faith groups a couple hundred years earlier.

Faith is very individual. Faith is the willingness to step out on thin air not knowing if there is anything solid beneath our feet to catch us — the scene from Indiana Jones is an excellent example of human faith — when the search for the chalice of Christ pushes Indy to step into the unknown across a cavernous void. But the reality of that cinematic moment is real for believers the world over. Faith allows us, causes us, compels us to act. But to act upon WHAT? That is the question.

Earlier I mentioned being retired. For me, the blessing of retirement has been that I have had time to investigate the diversity of this world. From the number of stars to the appalling number of species of cockroaches we live in a universe that is more diverse than we can ever imagine. All our attempts to fathom why there need to be thousands of species of various creatures the likes of which we want nothing to do is more than we can ever guess. The abundance of different spiritual ideas — zen, buddhism, taoism, Christianity (regular and orthodox) various poly-theistic faiths — and many other that I know. nothing about about — all bind humans together in the search for something bigger than themselves — even if we cannot agree upon what that something might, perchance, be.

I happen to believe in Jesus, and a specific role that he played in how humans can, should and will function. Others hold differing ideas, even among those who say they believe in Jesus. Some would say my way of looking at things is heresy. In another century I might even have been tortured for my views. Fortunately in this century we aren’t doing those things openly. But the bottom line is that our insistence upon having groups of our own choosing and confining our world-view to the ideas held by that group has severely limited our ability to see the world around us. We observe without seeing. Things are right in front of our eyes and rather than being amazed and learning from them we categorize them, and prohibit them so that no one else should be aware.

I suspect that whatever might lie ahead of us after death, there will be a great many surprises.

I for one don’t blame God for anything. I accept that many things happen that appear horrendous and utterly “unfair” (if we even have any concept of what “fairness” really is). I need only look at the actions of humans to realize that the vast majority of tragic events are our own fault. Decisions have consequences. You can’t jump out of window and not expect to fall — we all know this — but we all make myriad decisions that temp the laws of the universe just as much as trying to walk on air — and these stupid choices are so easily blamed on God. And when “bad” people do “bad things” we fail to accept that people aren’t born bad they learn how to be bad from others and the fact that they are willing to injure or kills others is because they were never taught — at a time in their life when teaching was possible — that humans oughtn’t to do such things. There are precedents and antecedents to everything and re simply aren’t willing to look at them long enough to accept that there is no need to blame a distant God when very present humans are here to accept blame.

I guess for me the lesson behind hundreds of millions of stars, and multiple ways of faith, and the magic of why people fall in love, and the mystery of musical harmony is that in a big world we are very little people. We have an infinitesimal grasp of the big, wide world, and perhaps we need to be more understand and a bit slower to jump ahead and change things we don’t understand.

I hope you have a great day. It’s quiet here with a lovely layer of snow on the ground and the world looks so pure and peaceful. I know that’s an illusion. I know that this country has just intervened in another nation’s sovereignty and unspeakable acts of violence and corruption are happening as I write. But beyond my ability to sound an alarm, I have to leave the end all and be all of this world to a power greater than myself and I bow in prayer knowing — believing — trusting that there IS a final reckoning and I have nothing to fear.

Peter

Too Much Info

Let me begin by saying that today I’m thinking about a great conundrum. Donald Trump is the least important part of my life but currently occupies way too much of it. Any media I look to — news related or not — it’s impossible to get away from his visage and the insanity that has been the last 11 years, where the nation has seemed obsessed with anything done by the least worthy candidate for our attention. But on the other hand he means absolutely nothing to my life at all.

Let me be clear. How I live my life isn’t determined by anything the man says or does. I must still breathe, eat, exercise (at least a little), care for those around me, etc., etc.. None of this is affected one way or the other by dRumpf. Furthermore, whatever he may do, or cause to be done is genuinely out of my control. I may post about him as a warning and reminder to others but I dare not think that my little blips on the sea of unrest are changing anything. I have to live in spite of him.

And there’s the rub. I am no different than millions upon millions of humans who have gone before me. For centuries there have been obscenely wealthy and powerful men (and women) who have pushed the faces of their fellows into the mud and laughed.

The difference is that in this century we cannot get away from hearing about them, from learning all their foibles and atrocities, and from thinking that we are the most oppressed humans on earth; while at the same time there are refugees and prisoners and homeless and mentally afflicted humans whose lives are far worst than the lives we who are able to troll the interWebs for news might be facing. Even having access to information makes us stand far and away from those who suffer the most in this world. And who, just like us, are doing the best they can to eek out a living in a very unfavorable world.

I remember 25 or 30 years ago on a trip to Europe that I found myself in the South of France viewing some castle or another — built on a high formation of rock. At the base of the rock formation was an interpretive plaque — written unfortunately for me in French (of which language my skills are very rudimentary) but the gist of the plaque was quite plain. While the rich lived in opulent splendor high on the rock, the ‘common man’ lived in caves beneath. I don’t think the term on that plaque so long ago would still be accurate, I suspect science has moved forward from their understanding in terms of timing in human history, but at the time those poor peasants were referred to as troglodytes. (a term we now generally apply to humans some 25,000 years ago) But the bottom line is that those farmers, laborers, and even skilled craftsmen lived lives a world away from that of their rulers some hundreds of feet above in the castle on the rock.

My point is simple. Humans have always lived with great disparity between themselves and their rulers. Today we get to KNOW about the difference. In fact, today we are inundated with their travels, their wealth, their lifestyle, their abuses, their foibles, their atrocities — to the point that it’s hard NOT to know about all the things that irritate and madden those of us who have far less and are incapable of doing anything about them.

And so, while we have information beyond belief, but little or no power, it falls to each of us to live whatever meager lives we have. And let’s be very clear, unless you are a millionaire or billionaire you are closer to poverty than you are to them. You are closer to catastrophe than to wealth. The numbers are just that huge. You can “want” to be like them, to go where they go, eat in the restaurants they eat at, or buy the clothing they buy — or are given, and you may want to copy all the accoutrements of wealth but the fact of the matter is that you are just pretending — living a temporary fantasy.

Years ago I saw a graphic I searched in vain for this morning. It was a clever cartoon of a person standing “beside themself”. And the concept is, I think, worthy of consideration. Sometimes we need to step outside of ourself and look at the context in which we find ourselves. In so many ways the 20th and 21st centuries are an aberration. For millennia humans have traveled no faster than the fastest horse and suddenly we think we can conquer the know and unknown universe just because we have been clever enough to make a few discoveries that have lead to a plundering of the planet heretofore unmatched. Suddenly we humans think we are gods and nothing can stop us — at at least that seems to be the mindset of the ultra-rich. But we who AREN’T ultra-rich need to take ourselves “in hand” as it were and slap ourselves across the face and say, “look here buddy — wake up, you’re living a fantasy but you have serious things to do and you’d best get on doing them.”

Serious things indeed.

  • Care for our family
  • Care for ourselves
  • Be kind to other humans, all creatures and the earth that provides for us,
  • Work together for the benefit of all — building society
  • Live honest lives without arrogance

All these things and more are more important than anything I think — or don’t think — about dRumpf. He is less than smallest flea, And in the annals of human history he will go down as an abomination. Why should I waste my life, my time on this earth obsessing about him?

Yeah — we SHOULD speak out against evil, and I think it’s also right to remind those who are responsible for that so many are suffering because of him that it is THEIR fault that the situation exists s it does. Because the history of the lion is written by the hunter and humans have a short memory when it comes to their complicity with evil. And if you doubt that, you can ask why is it that there are so many people trying to deny that the holocaust ever took place. We are uncomfortable with our own failures as a nation, as a race, as humans — and we need to be reminded that evil is but one step away.

But never can we let speaking out agains evil prevent us from doing good. Upholding ideals. Encouraging those who inspire us. Etc. It’s my job and your job to live the BEST life we are able and to let those who tear down, those who destroy, those who defame and foster hatred fall by the wayside. The scales of life incline towards justice and even if we have suffered our pleas are heard. Perhaps not in a timeframe I might choose. But who am I to decide the pace of fate?

Try it. Step outside yourself and look at what you’re doing. Is it the best that you can? Do you really have to worry about the things you are obsessing about? And is there someone out there who needs a hand, a help up, a pat of the shoulder?

Take care of yourself and I’ll talk to you again. I hope soon, but whenever.

Peter

What good is worship?

Why do you address someone as mister or prime minister or doctor or captain? Isn’t it because from some part of your brain you have been taught that they deserve some form of respect? Why do people stand when certain others enter the room? Why do people look away in certain social situations? All of these actions arise out of our conditioning — social, moral, religious, circumstantial. For many of us there comes a time when we no longer even think about the actions we just do them — out of habit, or whatever.

When it comes to dieties the proper form of behavior changes with the diety. Or at least what humans have called “diety”. No one has to tell you that there are hundreds and thousands of recognizable gods and goddesses in the annals of human history — and in active “use” or recognition today. We humans call them what we will, we behave towards them as we do and there never seems any curiosity about why any of that happens — we’re just told that it’s just what one does, or what has been done, or should be done.

From a non-religious point of view the concept of worship is a total waste. It’s a waste of time, it’s a waste of effort, it’s a waste of resources (money): why bother?

As a Christian believer for some 60+ years the concept of worship is not something I ever fussed about. But I know a bunch of folks who think it’s all just rubbish. And I can see their point. And, it being a big wide world I’m not about to tell anyone that they have to do what I do — we are all free to live our lives as we deem most appropriate. And THAT my friends is the entire point of worship!

What do you choose to do?

If you hold to any concept of a being mightier or grander or longer enduring than yourself then how you behave towards them says everything that needs saying. If my belief is strong enough to cause me to do things that in my rational brain I can wash away with the excuse that “it doesn’t accomplish anything” then that speaks to the ultimate value I place on the diety, god, or idea that is lodged in my brain.

I have referred to the Old Testament verse that says that God is a God who hides himself, and when I look at the biblical record I find that there is an ebb and flow of times when diety has dealt with humankind and then a period of silence. Sometimes lasting hundreds, even thousands of years. To a species that lives its entire life within the span of a scant century at best those long silences appear as abandonment perhaps: If God loves me why isn’t he doing anything?

Of course our questions are based in our lifespan. What God does, or doesn’t do, is hardly measured in a human lifetime. We may think we have communication with diety — after all, why else do people pray — but knowing the certainty of that communication is strictly a personal matter. It all comes down to faith.

And, if you will excuse a sweeping judgment, I think that’s the entire purpose of worship. We can SAY we believe in this, that, or something else, but do our actions give any credence to those proclamations. And the only judge of verity or falsehood is the object of our worship. We may be putting our faith and exercising our need to worship in something real, or in a figment of our imagination — and we never know — really — which is the case.

The Apostle Paul when writing to early Christians said something (allowing for translations from his original language and the errors in transcription for century to century) that “if in this life only we have hope we are of all men most miserable.” That is Paul’s answer to agnostics and atheists for the past 2000 years. Christians live a life they choose, based on what their sacred writings tell them about God but if their faith is in vain then everything they have done, everything they have believed, has been a waste and they would have been better off hoarding gold and precious stones and resources and food and gathering everything they can to themselves to make their short life better.

It’s funny, that in 2025 we see what has happened to people who have gotten extremely wealthy. In too many cases all they have done has been to accumulate, and hoard to themselves. They have made bigger yachts and bought an excess of homes furnished in the most lavish and extravagant fashion and have ignored the pain and suffering of anyone else. In fact their decisions have literally caused the death of dozens, and hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands of humans as the results of their money grubbing has fallen hard upon the poorly paid, the over exploited poor.

The only one who knows the value of your worship — if you choose to worship at all — is the one at whom your worship is aimed. And the real question comes down to — how have you lived your life?

Peter

I was 14 years old…

I was 14 years old. My mother was a dedicated Christian, my dad supported her but he wasn’t the “sit still in a pew” sort and besides that he worked for Wisconsin Electric Power Company as a boiler operator which meant that he worked rotating shifts 7 days a week with a weird days-off schedule and was rarely actually home at the times most people are going to church services. The end result is that mom was free to participate in church activities to her heart’s content. The group she fell in with organized worship get-togethers around the country and in the fall of my 14th year she had it in her mind to attend a gathering in Memphis Tennessee.

Early that Thanksgiving morning three of us trundled into our station wagon and headed south for a three day assembly. My mom brought along a good friend of hers — a dear lady named Hattie Kukawich — yeah, that’s her real name. Hattie provided another driver for the 600 mile trip in the days before the Interstates were completed. It was a long haul, I think about it and remember it to this day because it took me to a “place” I carry with me to this day.

I was a precocious kid, and smart as a whip. I read non-fiction for fun and all I wanted was to understand the world better even if I was just a pipsqueak. I had been thinking about serious stuff for a while, I know it sounds goofy but a handful of other young, precocious kids and I had a little “philosophy discussion group” after hours at school — we conned one of the teachers to give us access to a room backstage in our Junior High School and we would spend a couple hours every week talking about aristotle and plato and names I never hear any more. I wasn’t interested in baseball, football, or athletics and fortunately I found a few geeks who like me would rather use their brains than their brawn. I was a pretty happy young guy.

The 6 months prior to this trip, this gathering, this assembly, mom and I had been having a bit of a disagreement about “ideas.” I had found books about Zen practices and for a while I’d been arguing with her with a very different set of words and ideas than she had any idea about and frankly, I scared her. To this day I don’t know if she hoped the assembly would knock some sense into me or what but then again she loved traveling and it might just have been a good opportunity for her to go somewhere she (always ?) wanted to go?

The conference was held at an old hotel in downtown Memphis. It wasn’t posh — we couldn’t afford posh — and none of the folks attending were posh; it was just a reasonably priced hotel with catering and meeting rooms. Only about 70 or 80 people were in attendance. It wasn’t some huge coliseum extravaganza.

The people on the schedule — speakers we always called them even though the “talks” were sort of informal happened to be men I already knew. Most of them had stayed in our home at one time or another — as our church group often invited men from other churches to share in our Sunday services and there were some fellows who actually traveled the country as sort of itinerant preachers. Anyway — the men on the schedule were mostly men I already knew and saw as “friends” even with 40 or 50 years age difference.

During the days — Friday and Saturday — the topics were really practical and forthright. No great theology here but ultimately practical lessons about how to really live life as a believer in Jesus Christ. The gist of the messages were to towards the adults — this wan’t some kiddie indoctrination event. But being the serious kid I was I heard things even when I wasn’t wanting to listen. I was there and things began to sink in. The arguments I’d been having with mom seemed to fade away as point by point the objections I had been raising to her about why I didn’t agree with her point of view seemed to find their answers point after point after point. By the end of two days I was thinking very differently than I had been when I arrived there late Thursday evening after 600 miles in the car with two women nattering on about everything under the sun.

The group had arranged hotel rooms for the folks who like us had driven in from some distance. Because there were three of us and mom didn’t want me sleeping in the same room with her and her lady friend arrangements had been made for me to share a room with an interesting older guy from Winnipeg — yeah — he had come a lot further than we had — but then he was on his way to Florida for part of the winter and would be continuing on his journey after the assembly. Anyway… he was out in the evening chatting and doing whatever religious 40-something’s do in the evening and I was in the hotel room.

I really got into thinking about what I’d heard the last two days. It seemed to me that point by point all the objections I’d been raising to mom about why I didn’t have her beliefs seemed to be fading, and I began to feel a sense of obligation and appreciation for the idea that someone names Jesus had lived and done things that affected my life right then and there. In short I had an all evening conversion experience and I spent the last couple hours of it on my knees at the edge of my bed crying my eyes out when I realized that what I’d been told for my young years had import.

And so it happened that during my 15th year I became a believer in Jesus and nothing has ever been the same. That night has stayed with me for 60 years, it is as fresh in my memory as anything that happened recently — which at age 75 is sort of a joke because I remember that better than I remember things that happened yesterday. But seriously, the “event” of my conversion put me on a course of dedication that has lasted me all my lifetime. I spend some 40+ years as an active believer, with 25 of those in church leadership. I took a variety of jobs that allowed me to carry my faith and my beliefs forward. And, of course I married the lady who inspired me to stay steady in my faith at whatever cost. As it played out there came a time when I chose to leave the group I’d been associated with but nothing changed my faith or my determination to live a godly life.

I think my faith has survived and grown but certainly the way I see the world has changed over the years. Not only the world, but the universe. And the universes. All of them. Even the specks we can only discern through telescopes and microscopes. I find my faith growing as my understanding of the vastness of the universes around us grows and I am humbled and amazed by this thing called “life” that allows us to entertain “ideas” about creation and the First Cause.

The older I get the more I struggle (in a good way) to understand the relationship between whatever one calls God and us as creatures. I still believe in an intelligent being but I’m the first to admit that in my weak human brain I have absolutely no idea what that means. Any force, or personality, or entity that could create the vastness of the universe and also be aware of us little specs of nothingness has to be completely beyond anything I have the ability to understand. And yet I continue to believe. Because each day I am supported and moved forward by the same idea, the same confidence, the same realization that I found, heard, experienced on my knees in the autumn of my 15th year. My life has been markedly different from all my friends, but God found a partner who has shared my life and my faith for these 56 years now and we have traveled this way together.

I still struggle with faith — not maintaining it — but understanding it. In a world gone made the beauty and harmony of the created world gives me consolation and determination. I’m too old to have a great impact on other people now. My physical body isn’t doing as well as it might and limitations frustrate me, but there is nothing holding my mind back and I find myself doing what sometimes seems the only thing I can do — which is to think and ponder and praise the Creator who fashioned me thus.

There is something profound to me about the lives of those who carried forward the message of the God of Abraham and the life of his Son Jesus. They weren’t particularly notable humans. They weren’t world renown during their lives. They lived simple lives and in general those lives weren’t surrounded by vast hordes of people — many of them were quiet, lonely humans finding their way in a confusing and troublous world. And I take heart that God is, as the Old Testament says, “a god who hides himself.” He seems to want to be sought after. And all I have to say is that after a life of seeking after Him my life has been only the better for it.

And so today, with madness all around…. I keep seeking. And I know he hears me.

Peter

Unearthly Desires

What trips your trigger? What excites you? Do you ever stop to think that some of the things that cross our minds say a lot about who we REALLY are?

I’m sure a lot of folk wouldn’t much care to be inside my head. It’s not that it’s such a mess, but I suspect that the things that I routinely think about aren’t — or wouldn’t be — of interest to most people. All my life I’ve been the odd one, different in some ways, and while it hasn’t bothered me, it HAS been commented upon by others. But then … So What?

Admittedly, I am a man of faith. So, I suppose there is part of me that is INCLINED to look for reasons and order and symmetry in this world. But that does not change the reality that there are times in my own life, and in the lives of others I know that longings and desires and inspirations arise that are completely out of character for us. Or so they seem at the time. Yet, they arose from those “little grey cells” in our brain — as the world famous Hercule Poirot might say.

One can look at the world as a random arrangement of totally random origin. Or one can look at the order and regularity of the universe and at the laws within and without our bodies, and decide that there is something causing order and regularity and harmony that exists beyond our ability to comprehend. That’s the tack I take. And it’s also the reason that when weird thoughts and ideas arise from never-never-land that I’m willing to give them credence and take them further.

But, some of them have nothing to do with this world. I am left wondering where can such hopes or dreams arise? Do dogs dream of being human? Certainly, cats do not. They are obviously quite happy just being cats and having us to tend to their every need. But what about the rhinoceros, or the giraffe, do they have dreams of a different life? Or a snail, or a paramecium, or even a virus? Does other forms of life wish for something better, or something different? I don’t think we have any evidence that they do. No recorded episodes of animals not being animals, and yet humans have all manner of examples of us trying to be not us… flight, deep sea exploration, space.

Really, it’s far easier to believe, to accept, to be satisfied with the idea that our very desires give testimony to our origin and the better place we were created for.

I know it’s simplistic. But at it’s fundamentals, life is pretty simplistic: breathe in, breathe out, eat food, remove the waste, love a few people, help as many as you can, treat everyone fairly and with respect. It doesn’t have to be complicated.

Ok — I’m still in the Christmas mood even after the fact so I’m done for today. I’ll catch you up again tomorrow. Love your closest and take care of yourself. Peter, out. :-)

Peter

Knowing the Unknowable

I used to love driving. In a lifetime I’ve wracked up well over 1,000,000 miles with a few years of commercial driving and a lot of touring. I find it relaxing and meditative. I’ve had some of my best thoughts whilst driving and for many years couldn’t wait for an excuse to get in the car and go, go, go, go anywhere.

Nowadays driving isn’t’ as much fun. One sees way too many stupid acts and reckless risks taken. But A nice drive is still the generator of new thoughts.

A few days ago we were chatting (you and me) about knowing about God and my mind returned to that topic as we headed west towards our summer place to pick up a few things I realize might be needed in our new house.

For the tiny little creatures we are we have monumental egos. We think we can understand the entire universe but we have a hard time regulating our own personal lives. As a race we have a horrible history of violence and discontent — nationally, regionally, locally, and all the way down to our most intimate personal relationships. After all, look at the mortality rate for marriage.:

The average length of a marriage in the United States varies depending on factors such as whether it is a first, second, or subsequent marriage. In 2018, the median duration of a first marriage was 21 years, while second marriages lasted around 17 years. For those married three or more times, the median duration was 13 years1. The national average marriage length is just under 20 years, but couples in Maine and West Virginia typically have the longest-lasting unions, lasting for 22.3 years2. However, the average length of a marriage prior to divorce is eight years3.

So much for till death do us part!

But considering that we have a hard time getting along with our “closest” partners in life the idea that we can ken the length and breadth of a supernatural being is the height of absurdity. And yet humans have been fascinated by whether there is something beyond this life and if so, what — or who — might be there to share it with.

I know that a great many people want to deny the existence of any “intelligent” “being” or “power” beyond what we can sense. And yet we are blind to much of the light spectrum, we are deaf to sounds beyond our small hearing range, we cannot smell as well as many of the animals we gather around us, our tastebuds aren’t sensitive enough to prevent us from killing ourselves, etc., etc.. We see ourselves as so powerful, even exploring the universe remotely — and yet we are pretty insignificant beings individually.

True, when acting together we can threaten the livability of our giant planet — but that takes the individual actions of millions of us all doing things that aren’t good for ourselves or for the planet and the speed with which we are killing ourselves is guaranteed to cause death and destruction lasting many years for many more millions still to be born.

Worship is something that makes no sense to the human animal.

wor·ship [ˈwərSHəp]. noun

  1. the feeling or expression of reverence and adoration for a deity: “the worship of God” · “ancestor worship”

But I guess that’s what gives “worship” its real value. The idea that people with a limited lifespan would take some or all of it and devote it to the adoration of an entity that they can’t see, touch, taste, or hear is the ultimate extravagance. Perhaps that’s why the Christian concept of a God has the power that it has. I can’t speak for other faiths. I don’t understand them, I don’t practice them, I have no significant experience of them. But the idea that a Christian does things, accepts things, and believes things that seem by all human reasoning to have no value to their life — or the lives of others — is the ultimate luxury: a life lived for God and not for self.

A great many people think about heaven and or hell. I suspect that the fact of their thoughts is that they really like what they have here on earth and whatever their concept of anything that may or may not happen after death is pretty much akin to what they know here on earth. It’s hard to imagine what any other form of life might be like — so our idea of utopia or damnation is rooted in experience.

Occasionally humans get glimpses into other realities. Sometimes through art. Sometimes through music. There have been the thinkers who have transported others through actual words or the record of their experiences written down. But the likes of these are hard to find — and yet sometimes those beacons seem to find their way to those who are seeking and illuminate their life in a way that lights a flickering lamp to illuminate others along THEIR pathway.

It’s impossible to understand the unintelligible. We can’t know the unknowable. And yet some of us try. Most of the time the pursuit of God is done silently in private. The lifting of a thought. The tending of a broken heart. A helping hand extended. In thoughts, words, and actions we find ways to reach beyond this present life and touch something immortal, unknowable, too great for our brains to take in entirely.

And at this season we ponder a birth in a manger. A long time ago. We wonder why the promises of that event seem unfulfilled. Some of us give up on hope. Others cling fast. Around the world a sweet incense of devotion arises in a way we cannot sense to a being we know nothing of, really. Some question whether it’s all worth it. Others know that it definitely is. Because Faith IS the evidence of unseen things and the proof of what has not been witnessed.

Merry Christmas to you.

No blog tomorrow. I’ll be back on the 26th. Take care of yourself. Love your family and friends. And lift a glass of good cheer, with our without spirits — but with YOUR spirit.

Peace and love to all.