OF THAT VOCATIVE EVOCATIVE PROVOCATIVE FORCE HIDING UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE HUMAN METAPHOR G OD CONTEXT KIN G DOM OF GOD or COMPANIONSHIP IN EMPOWERMENT in its ARAMAIC provenance ID: 277145
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Slide1
HOW TO TALK TODAY
OF THAT
VOCATIVE,
EVOCATIVE,
PROVOCATIVE FORCE
HIDING UNDER THE SHADOW OF THE HUMAN METAPHOR,
G
OD Slide2
CONTEXT
KIN
[
G
]
DOM OF GOD or
‘COMPANIONSHIP IN EMPOWERMENT’
in its ARAMAIC provenance
IN TRANSLATION AS
“A PEOPLES POLITICAL ECONOMY
OF TRUSTEESHIP
SET IN
ECOLOGY & EVOLUTIONSlide3
THEOLOGY
IS THE STUDY OF COMMON SENSE HUMBLY DETERMINED
BY A MIXED COMMUNITY
WHEN THE WHOLE AND THE PARTS OF REALITY
ARE EXPLORED FLOWING BETWEEN
AND REFLECTING EACH OTHER.
LOVE GOD/NEIGHBOURSlide4
COULD THAT
3 LETTER WORD BE NO LESS THAN …..
THE MYSTERIOUS TRUTH WITHOUT WHICH THE EARTH PERISHES
BRINGING GOD DOWN TO EARTH ‘INCARNATION’
OR
‘
INSCENDENCE
’
[coined by Thomas Berry]
as an invitation to move into the immensity of the natural world in all its beauty and terror, to feel and embrace the livingness of matter itself, to awaken and KNOW that we are at home on the Earth, that we are the universe reflecting on itself.
Because our natural generic inheritance is a deep bonding with all the living and non-living components of the universe we can restore our
‘
emotional connection with the processes of life embedded in the emergence of the Cosmos itself
’
.
Knowing we are born of the creativity of stars, galaxies, and the great flaring forth, guides us towards evolutionary transformation . Slide5
I'M OF THE VIEW THAT ALL OUR COMMONLY "ACCEPTED" MORALITY HAS ITS FOUNDATIONS IN THE JUDEO-CHRISTIAN & ISLAMIC FAITHS AND THAT THOSE WHO FOLLOW THESE FAITHS HAVE A MORAL DUTY TO SPEAK UP AND OUT FOR THEM AS FEARLESSLY AS THE EARLY EVANGELISTS WHO SPREAD THE ETERNAL TRUTHS AROUND MOST OF THE WORLD.
STRANGELY, I BELIEVE EVEN THE MOST ARDENT ATHEIST WILL BE ATTRACTED TO THE MESSAGE MOST PROBABLY BECAUSE IT'S DIFFERENT FROM THE MYSTICAL/MYSTERIOUS ONE THAT THEY'VE BEEN USED TO HEARING (ALONG WITH A STRONG DOSE OF FIRE AND BRIMSTONE) WHICH TURNED THEM AWAY IN THE FIRST PLACE.
SHYING AWAY FROM THE CENTRAL "SPIRITUAL" MESSAGE OF THE LORD'S JUSTICE ON EARTH WILL FAIL TO INSPIRE AND EXCITE PEOPLE INTO MORE DEMONSTRATIVE ACTION.
Carlo NeroSlide6
CAN WE LEARN FROM NATURE
HOW TO BRING AND KEEP OURSELVES TOGETHER IN A WAY THAT NO OTHER WAY OF THINKING/PERCEIVING DOES OR CAN?
‘In an
emotional connection with the processes of life embedded in the emergence of the Cosmos itself
’
.
[BOOK OF JOB 38:4]
DOES IT HELP TO GIVE
PERSONAL SENSITIVITY TO THIS
BY USING
THE ‘GOD’ CONCEPT
?Slide7
GOD CHALLENGES JOB
Ch.38
A glorious myth on humility and perspective:
…
3
"Now gird up your loins like a man, And I will ask you, and you instruct Me!
4
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding,
5
Who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it?Slide8
Yes, well, with some poetic
licence
, the voice of God here could readily be understood as the voice of Nature questioning the impudence of human abstract rationality, which assumes to know definitively what cannot be known definitively.
The impudence of human abstract rationality is, however, prone not to listen to the voice of God/Nature, and instead seeks to satisfy itself in a quest for abstract power over other that ends in cancerous monotonous monopoly.
I prepared a couple of tweets earlier today that relate:-
If human purpose is to live, love and be loved, then open-heartedness makes sense.
https://www.bestthinking.com/articles/society_and_humanities/philosophy/open-heartedness …
If human purpose is to succeed by subduing opposition, then behaving like
Daleks
makes sense.
https://www.bestthinking.com/articles/lifestyle/living-with-opposite-mindedness-the-emergence-of-a-natural-inclusional-guide-to-self-sustenance …
The predisposition of abstract rationality to think and behave like
Daleks
is unfortunately all-too-evident in our modern culture of abstract rationalism.
Slide9
THE UNION OF ALL OPPOSITES
[trinity]
ENDLESS ENERGY
[eternity]
LIFE FORCE
[spirit]
PRIOR COMMUNION,
[natural inclusion]
A COVENANT[of gift and trusteeship]MODELLING OF NATURAL BEHAVIOUR[in incarnation]
ASSOCIATED IDEAS
RICH
METAPHORSSlide10
GOD IS
‘THE PATTERN OF PERCEPTION’
SENSITISED BY A HUMAN TERM
TO ENRICH OUR HUMILITY
BEFORE BOTH THE REVEALING
AND THE MYSTERIES
OF AGELESS EXISTENCESlide11
From within my consciousness rises a loving Presence, a radiant Light,
a divine Voice that illuminates me and shows me the Way to return to It.Slide12
’INCARNATION’ THAT WE MAY ALL BE
‘IN CHRIST’
GOD APPEARS AND GOD IS LIGHT
TO THOSE POOR SOULS WHO DWELL IN NIGHT,
BUT DOES A HUMAN FORM DISPLAY
TO THOSE WHO DWELL IN REALMS OF DAY.
William Blake.Slide13
NATURAL INCLUSION
'Abiding Presence' from which evolution proceeds is what Alan
Rayner
has named 'Natural Inclusion.'
I understand that NI is the 'Living Logos of the Universe.'
NI
is that presence from which and
within
which evolution proceeds.Slide14
INCARNATION
Christianity is an earthy, fleshy, realistic, not overly spiritualised way of understanding God and humanity.
The emerging language of faith is one which takes humanity seriously to the extent that the attributes
of God are available in humans.
Thus to be ‘in Christ’ is an expression of following
the example of Jesus in seeking the equivalent in contemporary terms the concept of the
KIN[G]DOM OF GOD.
We dare to think of this asA PEOPLES POLITICAL ECONOMY OF TRUSTEESHIP SET ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION.Slide15
The problem with ‘abstract rationality’ (and logical positivism) not so much as ‘a falling away from God’, but rather as ‘a dissociation from natural neighbourhood’, obscuring the truth of our natural way of being and becoming distinctive human beings and communities.
I have no personal difficulty with regarding ‘God’ as ‘my/our natural neighbourhood’ and all within this neighbourhood as my/our neighbours, both near and distant.
Abstract
judgementalism
is correspondingly a product of dissociating individual and/or group identity from the flux of our natural neighbourhood in ‘place-time’.
Slide16
A SACRAMENTAL ECOLOGY FOR THE ANTHROPOCENE
"We have looked first at man with his vanities and greed and his problems of a day or a year; and then only, and from this biased point of view, we have looked outward at the earth he has inhabited so briefly and at the universe in which our earth is so minute a part. Yet these are the great realities, and against them we see our human problems in a different perspective. Perhaps if we reversed the telescope and looked at man down these long vistas, we should find less time and inclination to plan for our own destruction."
Rachel Carson
, acceptance speech of the National Book Award for Nonfiction, 1952
"
We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been
traveling
is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road—the one "less
traveled
by"—offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth."
Rachel Carson
,
Silent Spring
, 1962 Slide17
"KINDNESS IS WATER, RELIGION IS LIKE TEA. YOU CAN SURVIVE WITHOUT TEA, YOU CAN’T SURVIVE WITHOUT WATER."
—Pico
Iyer
True is you are thinking of ‘religion’ in its divisive and institutionalised forms.
BUT –
Not true if you use ‘religion’ in the sense of its provenance – the binding together of all law and all ligaments – that is – a pattern of inclusive perception Slide18
SHARED HIDDEN ROOTS OF SCIENCE, RELIGION AND PROGRESSIVE POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Where does Science come from? What is the source of Religion? And what are the deep origins of progressive politics and notions of equality, social justice, human dignity, inalienable rights and the very idea of progress itself? There is a common source to all of these cultural & historical currents. It is surprising because the truth about the origins of Science, Religion and Progressive Politics has often been suppressed, made heresy or banned; and so have been largely forgotten. It has variously be called the '
Prisca
Theologia
' (original theology), the Esoteric or Hidden Religion and also the Perennial Wisdom. Slide19
IDENTITY ITSELF
The essential aims of life are present in every person. In everyone there is some longing for humanity's rightful dignity,
for moral integrity, for free expression of being and a sense of transcendence over the world of existence.
Yet at the same time, each person is capable, to a lesser or greater degree, of coming to terms with "living within the lie".
Each person succumbs to a profane trivialisation of his or her inherent humanity, and to utilitarianism. In every one there is some willingness to merge with the anonymous crowd and to flow comfortably along with it down the river of pseudo-life.
This is much more than a simple conflict between two identities. It is something far worse: it is a challenge to the" very notion of
identity itself."
VACLAV HAVELSlide20
Our mind yearns to find concrete knowledge of its intuitions and insights but also continually runs against the walls its own limitations. When we reach what we cannot know we have to learn the art of unknowing, to find real beyond thoughts and imagination; if not, we drift into fantasy, the wrong use of imagination.
What factor drives predictions? It's the Internet of Things. Much like the explosion of the internet, predicting what the era of the Internet of Things will bring is not for the faint-hearted. With virtually anything being able to connect to anything else the possibilities are, quite literally, endless.Slide21
UNA COMMENT – 6-6-15
FAITH COULD BE SEEN AS AN OBSTACLE TO RECONCILIATION;
YET, AS A POWERFUL FORCE IN SO MANY LIVES,
AND RECOGNISED BY THE UN AS SUCH,
IT MUST BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT;
AS ALSO AS A REFERENCE TO INTEGRITY
AND COHESION IN NATURAL LAW.
CRITICAL IMPORTANCE OF INTEGRITY
NOT INITIALLY AS A MORAL THRUST, BUT AS OF THE NATURE OF ALL EXISTENCESlide22
THE POETRY OF NATURAL INCLUSION
WHERE WORD SIGNIFIES UNIQUE IDENTITY,
WORDS TOGETHER SIGNIFY SOCIAL COHERENCE
AND EACH IN THE OTHER
SUSPENDED DYNAMICALLY IN COMMON SPACE
SIGNIFY NEVER-ENDING CREATIVITY,
THE TRUTH OF EVOLUTIONARY VITALITY
IN NATURAL COMMUNION
AR 8-6-15Slide23
THE SKY AND THE LIVING PLANET !
It is hard to feel affection for something as totally impersonal as the atmosphere, and yet
there it is, as much a part and product of life as wine or bread.
Taken all in all, the sky is a miraculous achievement. It works, and for what it is designed to accomplish it is as infallible as anything in nature. I doubt whether any of us could think of a way to improve on it, beyond maybe shifting a local cloud from here to there on occasion.
The word "chance" does not serve to account well for structures of such magnificence. There may have been elements of luck in the emergence of chloroplasts, but once these things were on the scene, the evolution of the sky became absolutely ordained. Chance suggests alternatives, other possibilities, different solutions.
This may be true for gills and swim-bladders and forebrains, matters of detail, but not for the sky. There was simply no other way to go.
From
The Lives of a Cell – Lewis Thomas, 1974 - see Job 38Slide24
GOD IS WOVEN INTO THE FABRIC OF THE UNIVERSE
AND
THEREFORE OF OUR LIVES
In the words of the
13th century St Bonaventure:
GOD IS WITHIN …BUT NOT ENCLOSED.
OUTSIDE ….BUT NOT EXCLUDED.
ABOVE …. BUT NOT ALOOF.BELOW ….. BUT NOT DEBASEDGOD IS ……ONE AND ALL INCLUSIVE.GOD IS …..ALL IN ALL.Refrain: Eternal God - renew us in your spiritSlide25
APPLYING THE
IMPLICATIONS
OF
DIARMUID O’MURCHU’S PENETRATING STUDIES IN
’QUANTUM THEOLOGY’
AND
ANN PRIMAVESIE'S ’
EXPLORING EARTHINESS’
,
We have to learn
- to
take the anthropomorphic bias out of our understanding of God and Incarnation;
- to blend science and dynamic faith into a seamless reaching after truth.