The problem is that everything is viewed as a potential instrument for our own happiness and well being. Even God becomes just another instrument in our pursuit of success.

The teaching of the culture is essentially that nothing in life is greater than you. Maximizing yourself is the way to help others. Selfishness is a bad name for responsibility and drive. And God is a tool we can use to reach our intended ends of perfection, success, and happiness.

I saw Rev. Dr. Cornell West said something like, “We told our children to be a success. We should have told them to become great. There is a qualitative difference.” And he is right. How many persons have diminished themselves by making themselves the end of everything?

Ayn Rand is dead. And in addition I believe she is dead wrong! Selfishness is not the path to happiness. And pride is not the path to wholeness. When Nietzsche wrote of the over man, and the will to power, he was not talking about cold calculating bourgeois competitions in soulfulness!

We must admit that there really is something greater than us in the world. We must permit that there is something greater than us in the world. We should submit to that something which is greater than us in the world.

I am talking about God. I am not talking about nation, passion, or fashion. I am talking about God, of whom nothing greater can be conceived, as Anselm said. I am not speaking of God as an arbitrary tyrant megalomaniac that projects our hatreds and fears onto others. I am talking about the wonderful order of the universe, the mind, the spirit. I am talking about energy. I am talking about authentic love. The God who is Spirit, Light, and Love, is worth serving.

We find our selves when we lose ourselves. We rise up when we bow down. Our ego’s may hate it, but our whole self needs it. We can stop playing God when we give our self to God.

We find peace when we are able to admit that everything is not on us. We do not have to be everything to everyone. We do not have to buy into some one else’s prescription for our success.

It is good not to be God. It is good not to have every success or failure blamed or attributed to you. It is good to join the universe rather than try to rule it.

Try this as an experiment. Tell God, “Today you be God, and I’ll be your servant, and together we will get through this day.” I believe you will find abundant life.

-Kurt Vonnegut

That about sums it up.

“The virtue of a knife is to cut well; the virtue of an eye is to see well, and the virtue of a person is…” -Jonathan Haight

Are people how the universe becomes self conscious? Is our human virtue the ability to see the moral nature in the fabric of life? Is philosophy the fundamental essence of humanity? Are we wired to be religious?

Isn’t it amazing that exploding plasma cooling to hydrogen and heleum can make stars, planets, life, a diverse biosphere and a moral universe? Is this just as powerful as the Adam and Eve story?

What is the virtue of being human?

On the one hand it is an accomplishment. He did it. He got the grades, and accepted the debt that sadly comes to those whose parents are not wealthy enough to pay tuition. Congratulations!

On the other hand it is not an end as much as a beginning. Now he will be looking for a full time job. He will be looking to see if independent living is possible. He may even be looking for a life partner in time.

Life marches relentlessly or wonderfully on.

God bless you Aaron. We love you!

Our library is growing. The shelves of religious, political, and economic books at my office are full. At home Hafidha’s ever growing collection is piling up on shelves and along the walls. I have a bulging shelf of chess books at home as well. Life is good.

I have seen some sites on tumblr that show nothing but bookcases in houses. Others show books as art. One is a pile of green books in the shape of a Christmas tree. Another is a half igloo. I think I have heard it called book porn. I must admit I have a fantasy room where all four walls are floor to ceiling bookshelves!

Why do I love books so much? My dad says that it is a form of novelty seeking, and that it has a genetic correlation. Some of the most important books I have read in my life have been recommendations from my father.

Education as an institution is out of balance. It spends more time on blind loyalty, unquestioning obedience, and trivial information retrieval. Noam Chomsky calls it “Miss-education”. It would be better for society if we remembered Dewey and put our faith in democracy and an informed citizenry. Education should be about questioning authority, making connections, and thinking for ourselves. Tillich called it moving from heteronomy to autonomy. In addition he saw the ideal as Theonomy, when we discovered that thinking for ourselves makes a divine harmony.

Are we cognitive mizers or are we informavores? The cognitive mizer theory  is that thinking for ourselves is hard work, and without much of a payoff. Studies show that very few people read books at all, let alone non-fiction. On the other hand, I can see my College Student at home, hammering out combinations on his xbox. This is a kind of learning which provides immediate rewards for control and mastery. If we were not informavores these games would not sell.

What does all this have to do with Jesus Christ, a man who wrote no books, but made his impact through direct presence? Is our study of Jesus a retreat into intellectual games while neglecting the necessity of direct redemptive living? Perhaps.

On the other hand, the lack of a systematic faith can lead to an incoherent and wasted life. Our faith can be directed towards an undeserving leader or goal for example. We could replace God with an idol of nation, wealth, or status, and see success as a form of divine approval.

I think the ancient Shema is still says it best. “You shall love the Lord your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul (mind) and with all your might.”

Heart. Soul. Might. Amen.

The thesis is that the early Christians were Jews. The early Christians experienced Jesus as a true transformational and infused person. They then explained their understanding of Jesus through the religious language and stories that were how they as ancient Jews viewed the world.

So Jesus was understood as the new Moses, Joshua, and Elijah. Jesus was the Passover sacrifice, and the animal of atonement. They searched their scriptures and applied their dreams to Jesus.

Furthermore the ancient Synagogues read the Pentateuch every year. This yearly formulaic cycle meant that certain readings would often come up during the same holidays year by year.

The critical insight of Michael Goulder was to cross reference the readings of the Pentateuch and Jewish Holidays with the Gospel according to Mark as if it were a parallel lectionary tool. It turns out to be a very good fit.

Because  Mark only covered the readings and holidays from Rosh Hashanah to Passover, Matthew needed much more material to extend the Jewish Christian readings to cover a full year. As corroboration early copies were divided in a way that would meet the needs of the full Jewish Calendar.

Luke and Acts then were a a rewrite that fit the later context, with the Acts of the apostles, replacing the readings of the prophets.

Why does this matter?

It matters because I believe “God is light.” For me this means God is all about truth. And when information is more inclusive like this and fits a model so well, it reaches a more sustainable level than other theories of the origins of the New Testament. Understanding is its own reward. And in addition, the more accurate the orientation, the more accurate the diagnosis and skill of living the salvific life together.

It goes back to the small brush versus big brush understanding of the meaning of the life of Jesus Christ.

Seeing Jesus as the archetype of the human-divine, the moral, and the compassionate still holds. A life in union with God is a life that serves and transforms people. Incarnation, liberation, confrontation, and vindication remain.

But it must now be fully accepted that the New Testament is the night language of spiritual truth, holy mythology, and sacred story, not the day language of the historical biographical genre of the modern enlightenment mind.

Yes, we see through a glass dimly. But we can still see the big stuff. Overfocus on the small stuff then, is to miss the effective point of the gospels. It is to miss the forrest for the trees. An educated person knows that path is ultimately a dead end.

I find the research invigorating and inspiring because it builds a bridge in my heart and mind back to the faith and practice of the early church. I find it inspiring because it provides a new diagnostic tool for understanding the intended outcome of the Gospel authors. We will be starting a study of Genesis soon. I am looking forward to making the appropriate lectionary, and holiday parallels in the New Testament.

Maranatha!

A few years ago the Multifaith Council of Northwest Ohio was blessed to have Dirk Ficca educate us.

He thought that each faith community has to look within itself and see why participation in a multifaith group is a good expression of its faith.

For example as a Christian I participate because I love my neighbor as myself. I participate because I pray every day “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” I see this as a diverse community of understanding, justice, and compassion.

In the same way, in a marriage, each partner, hopefully has truly chosen to enter into the  covenant out of their own free choice and understanding.

In addition we learned that it was better to trust someone than to agree with them.

In a marriage with high trust, high disagreement is possible. But where there is low trust often the agreement is some sort of combination of placating and dominating.

A wholesome marriage can be cultivated by rewarding disagreements. For example when I disagree with my spouse, sometimes she says, “Ooo I like a strong man who thinks for himself.”  This is a form of permission giving to be my own person.

In addition Dirk taught that Harmony is possible but unity is not. Convergence is more practical than consensus, and facilitation is more important than structure.

In short, a wholesome marriage takes two whole people.

The way one of our wise friends said it is, “Show me two people who have become one, and I’ll show you two half people.”

In Bowen family systems this unwholesome state is called fusion.

So cultivate trust by practicing holy disagreement. Then your love for each other will be for who you really are.

Honesty and acceptance is what marriage is about. Give it. Take it. Make it good together.

The comment section is open. But the comments I get look to me like boiler plate platitudes as a platform for delivering spam, or  unwanted advertisements.

If you are an actual reader, could you let me know by making some kind of comment?

I am interested in knowing if this is a wise investment of my time.

Typical areas that require care and attention are sex, money, roles, family, children, decision making, and communication.

The challenge is that we do not enter any relationship without certain per-concieved ideas about how it should be. These things are part of our family of origin, and often we are not even conscious of them. In other cases we might be over focused on them and be too determined to be different than our parents.

To add spice to the mix, none of us are concrete settled identities. We age. We change. We think and act differently. So not only does a person have to deal with the ghosts of the past. A person must manage ongoing change.

What this means for a couple is that the process is never done.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. Like gardening, the work is part of the pleasure.  For others it might just be dreary. Since change is unavoidable, it is wise to learn how to navigate it together.

Successful couples who are engaged in the ongoing process of discovery and friendship, still have to figure out a way to manage their changes and differences.

Here is a technique I learned  from an unexpected source for having that uncomfortable but necessary talk.  I learned it in the book “Thank God for Evolution” by Michael Dowd.  He calls it “Heart to Heart”.

1. One of the partner asks for a heart to heart.

2.The couple sit close facing each other.

3.The person who asked for the Heart to Heart begins by saying, “It is important for me to say…” The hearer listens closely and is to respond, “Thank you.”, “I  understand”, or “I heard you.”

4.Continue until the first person has said everything they need to say. Then switch roles and respond back again.

5.When the second person has said everything they need to say the couple moves to the “appreciations.”

6.The first person says, “I appreciate…. about you/us.” The other person listens and replies, “I heard you.”

7.When the first person is done with their appreciations, it is the other persons turn. Then “Heart to Heart” is finished.

There are many good things about this formal practice. It extends permission to say difficult things. It starts gently, and this is very important to reduce emotional flooding that aborts the communication process. I trains both partners in the loving art of listening. It is a two way street. Both get their turn. And it ends with a recognition of the value of the relationship.

This is a good practice for every married couple to have in their relationship tool kit.