Font Rants on Many Subjects

Am I the only one who wonders why the media is ignoring the global warming angle? All hail his noodlie appendage.(follow the links)

I was thinking back on my travels in the "holy land" and I came back to the time some locals showed me around some holy sites that were off the normal path. We traveled on backroads in the West Bank in the back of a van that doubled as an ambulance. One stop on our trip was at Jacob's Well. I remember the old orthodox preist led us past his many dogs; down into the crypt beneath a half finished cathedral. He gave us all a drink of water from the well, and then he poured some of the water from the bucket he'd drawn up back into the well. We didn't hear the splash for a ver. The hard labor to draw it from the depths. A delicious sweet tasting water. No wonder He was willing to trade a cup for "living water".

Happy New Year

A long time ago the new year was celebrated October 31 when we brought in the harvest; near the fall equinox when the darkness took over from the day. The day started at sundown; as the Sabbath still does. At some point we shifted the new year to begin right after the winter solstice, and began to start our days at dawn. In the early days of the Christian church; the ascension on the mount of olives was set in a cave. Later on it was moved to the hilltops and given what one of my teachers called the 'NASA' treatment. I wonder how these paradigm shifts in the social construction of history affect our world view. I meditate on this change to our collective notions of time and space. A thousand years ago; the world was but 4000 years old; today it is 4 billion (well in western European eyes anyway). We were once created from the dust of the earth; but as a child Carl Sagan said to me via endless PBS viewings of Cosmos we are made of the dust of stars.

I believe that how we construct time and space through language has a profound effect on the possibilities of our lives and how we can connect with the divine. I once spent a whole summer immersed in another language; to the point that it was even the language of my dreams. Yet I realized later that with my limited vocabulary; my dreams became small dreams; my thoughts and actions regressed to simpler things. I didn't notice in the moment; because my mind lacked the ability to express it. It was only later when I returned to my native tongue and my dreams reverted to English; that I realized just what I'd lost. On the other hand I went to review my journals from that summer a few days back; and I discovered I could no longer read many of them as my grasp of that other language had faded.

We now have science transforming our notions of time and space almost daily. The collective sense of time and space is out of balance as we struggle to keep up. As the population ages it wants stability. This has lead to the backlash we see in the world today. We can no longer read the old time religion; so we reinvent it into a simple kind of fundamentalism. We reduce our great religious tradition into a collection of rules; and worship these rules instead of our God.

God is love; not law. We must integrate our old traditions into chaos, complexity and game theories. 2000 years ago we built churches on top of temples to Saturn; and made new years into all hallows eve. We must follow this path to reconnect with divinity and truth based on our ever evolvign understanding of time and space. The church exists to connect community with God. I go back to that lovely passage from I Corrinthians:

"When I was a child I spoke as a child I understood as a child I thought as a child; but when I became a man I put away childish things." I Cor. xiii. 11.

The purpose driven life my ass.

God leaves us to wander creation. We were kicked out of the garden God made for us for eating an apple and have been homeless ever since. The bible repeats this theme pretty much everywhere; so you know we are nomads. Cane gets sent to the land of Na veh Nod. Noah floats aimlessly on the floodwater. Abraham crosses the river; ends up on a mountain being given the choice of killing his son; or ignoring his God. Moses get stuck in the desert dying before they get to the promised land. Jesus wanders around palestine; goes to Jerusalem; has a nice dinner; and gets killed by some Roman. Paul goes wandering the Roman Empire; ends up writing angry letters after taking in a light show on the road to Damascus. We come into the world and we are set wandering. Some look for a kingdom of heaven, a promised land, a resurrection, a time of revelations; in short some higher purpose to their wanderings; alas most of the time they end up dead, or ascended into heaven before they get to enjoy it. God finds us on the road for a moment, and then retreats into the darkness. Paul on the road to Damascus. Jesus on the Jordan with John. Moses at Sinai. You can pray for guidance but there is no guarantee you won't still get lost.

In our wanderings we find each other. We accumulate husbands, wives, in-laws, sons, daughters, friends; extended acquaintances. We acquire things. All of these things are anchoring us to the here and now. Yet in the end they will all crumble away and be forgotten. We spend our whole life wandering the desert, making tracks in the sand. The tracks only linger a little while after we are gone. Do not despair of the pointlessness of your life. Do not be afraid when you realize no one is watching the 3 cameras of your person sitcom. There is no laugh track but the one you make. There is no purpose; and you won't be able to confuse purpose for happiness forever.

Learn to enjoy helping others; as a world of helpful people will make your own wanderings more pleasant. Learn to enjoy the here and now. Partake of simple pleasures in life. Anyone who has pursued purpose; or meaning; or power has been destroyed, left disappointed, or forgotten about in the end. Even those we remember today as timeless, and unforgettable, will be forgotten in the end when the sun swallows the world.

Stop worrying about why we are here, who created us, what color of carpet you will have in your house in the afterlife. The lifetime is only a moment; and probably the only moment you will have. Revelations says 144,000 will be saved; so odds are you are already damned. Still this doesn't mean you have to be an asshole all the time.

Start enjoying your brief life. It really won't matter when the worms devour your corpse; but it matters now; because now is all you have. Be nice to people not because you'll get to meet 7 people in heaven; but because it's easier all around. The future hasn't happened yet; the past is past. We can all enjoy now if everybody pitches in to do a few things:

-Keep your house clean and your yard mowed; it makes the neighborhood nicer.
-Try to avoid picking up any annoying personal habits.
-Be nice to people you meet and treat people fairly.
-Try not to be such a jerk all the time.
-Quit being so self conscious your not a jerk...Usually.
-Don't spend your days on revenge; hatred; or despair.
-Find time for loved ones; work can usually wait. Many of your loved ones will outlive you; and they would prefer to recall your company rather than your absence.

I'm sure I can come up with other rules; but the bottom line is try to think about how you'd like other to be; and be that way.