A Rose of Sharon on Marine Drive (video and photography)

While waiting for a ride I spied a Rose of Sharon bush between the sidewalk and the traffic.  It was pretty and inspiring.  I took some photos and made a little video.

ENJOY:

The Fellowship Of The Mystery: video and art

The fellowship of the mystery is how, in the 1st century, Paul of Tarsus describes the mystical / spiritual relationship that is the experience of the one enlightened by the knowledge of Christ.

For many Christ is the icon of the Christian faith. For me Christ is the icon of the Christian faith but more specifically Christ represents the source of all that is. I appeal to the works of another 1st century enlightened one, the writer of the Gospel of John, as seconding that idea.  In the opening verses of John, Christ is described as Logos.  Logos is translated as the 'Word' of God. 

Logos, however, is more than speech or simple language or the simple telling of a story.  In the meaning of the word Logos, chosen to describe the characteristics of Christ, there is more importantly the sense of a primordial intelligence which organizes creates and sustains existence and by so doing represents the key to understanding ones own place in the expanse of reality itself.  This needs to be understood clearly in order to catch a glimpse of what it means to enter into the fellowship of the mystery.  Without this knowledge being paramount I would not consider the Christian faith as holding meaning for me.


Here is the working definition of Logos which is the basis of faith in Christ because it reveals his eternal divine nature. 


Bible-researcher.com provides the following introduction to the meaning of Logos.

"The word λόγος (logos) in the prologue of John's Gospel is a word with a very interesting history in ancient theological writings. It is translated 'Word' in English versions, but this translation does not express everything that the term would have suggested to ancient readers.

For the benefit of students, on this page I have reproduced discussions of the term λόγος by four New Testament scholars: Marvin Vincent, Frederic Godet, Hugh Mackintosh, and John Campbell. Vincent, whose explanation I think will be found most helpful, briefly explains what the word meant in the context of theological discourse in the milieu of Hellenistic Judaism (especially after Philo), and he argues that John "used the term Logos with an intent to facilitate the passage from the current theories of his time to the pure gospel which he proclaimed." Godet and Mackintosh are largely in agreement with Vincent, and Campbell also agrees, though he evidently does not share the others' high view of Scripture. After these excerpts I add Wilhelm Nestle’s more general discussion of the philosophy of Philo from his revision of Zeller’s Outlines of the History of Greek Philosophy.

My own opinion is that the contemporary Hellenistic understanding of logos in theological contexts (esp. in Philo) should not be discounted by those who wish to understand John's meaning. The contrasts between Philo and John, which the scholars here want to emphasize, should not obscure the fact that John is using a word which was already full of meaning for Jewish readers in his day. When he asserts that the logos became flesh he is indeed saying something that was never dreamt of by Philo or the Greek philosophers; but in all other respects it is their logos — the cosmic Mediator between God and the world, who is the personification of God's Truth and Wisdom — that John is referring to when he asserts that Christ is its incarnation.

M.D.M." 

Click here to read the entire article at bible-researcher.com.

ENJOY THE VIDEO!





By conceiving of Christ as the cosmic intelligence, beginning and sustainer of the universe in which all of reality is comprised a sense of true mystery and hope appears spontaneously.  Furthermore a sense of the kind intention of the source of our existence accompanies this knowledge.  In this way it does seem right to say that God did LOVE the world. In this way Christ IS the 'Light of the World'.

Jesus described the fellowship of the mystery in the Gospel of John.  Let me set the scene for you.  It was in the evening and Jesus and his disciples were walking and talking together about the Kingdom and his soon departure. His disciples had no idea through his entire sojourn with them what it was he had been trying to teach them.  But he left the following words for them to consider after his death.  You can read them in John 17:

¹⁹ And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.²⁰ Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
²¹ That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
²² And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
²³ I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.

You may have noticed this is not the usual approach to understanding the spiritual nature of the relationship with Christ. Most explanations of the faith involve putting together bible texts which are designed to get the listener to be overcome with guilt and confess to a capital crime and then agree that Jesus was killed on his or her behalf to keep them from burning in hell.  If you agree to this state of affairs you are said to be 'saved'.

I didn't receive any lasting relief from that doctrine after decades of practice.  Frankly I have never done anything so bad I needed to be executed for. So having an innocent man get executed on my behalf just did not make sense.  It seemed like overkill to me.

Understanding Christ as the divine organizing principle of the universe and ourselves united since before birth by the predetermined will of God indelibly one with Christ as a basic truth of reality is much more assuring and meaningful to me. I've been called a heretic for my faith. But it's this faith or none, this makes sense to me.

What Jesus was teaching was about the Kingdom of God which as it turns out to be is an introduction to the spiritual nature of reality in general. We can think this way because Paul describes Christ as the sum of all spiritual knowledge in whom all things consist and are held together.  That sounds like Logos, doesn't it?

What stands out in my mind is that Jesus claims he was incarnated for the purpose of dispensing information about the Kingdom of God.  This means he came to dispense consciousness transforming information concerning ultimate reality which Jesus, in his teaching, always contrasted with mundane everyday reality. 

Ordinarily science and spiritually are seen to be by their various protagonists as mutually exclusive. I was blown away to discover that the new breakthroughs in physics and consciousness research present to the mind a state of affairs that readily accepts the spiritual notion of unity in Christ and that such a unity is reflected in reality itself.  I first encountered this new paradigm in the lectures of physicist Tom Campbell and immediately understood how agreeable this knowledge is with the knowledge of the meaning of Christ as Logos. (Note I have not heard Mr. Campbell make the same connections I did so do not attribute my ideas to him.) I simply found his ideas as complementary to the notion of Logos. Whether you have a spiritual or merely physical interest in the nature of reality Campbell's work is always edifying.

The heart of the Gospel of the Kingdom proclamation had as it's purpose revealing the unity of all that is represented by Christ as Logos. It is this unity which is described in the Gospel of the Kingdom.  In effect it is another way of thinking about oneself as well as another way of regarding the spiritual nature of life and reality in general.

By engaging ones consciousness with the knowledge of Christ as the 'light of the world' whose words are said to be 'spirit and life' one can encounter all kinds of calamity and endure it all. But let's be clear. Any redemptive power in the Gospel of the Kingdom resides in it's ability to communicate the reality of Logos to your understanding.

There is a story told about Jesus and his disciples.  Jesus and three of the disciples were caught in the middle of a storm and the disciples feared they would drown.  They asked Jesus to save them.  But they had to wake him up first. He was sound asleep in the midst of the gale.

Well Jesus wasn't all that pleased with being woken up as he had been working hard and needed the rest.  What did he say to his frightened disciples?  His words to them were:  "Where is your faith?"  I find this significant because faith is an attribute of consciousness, and consciousness is the fundamental matrix of reality.  If the disciples had understood, as the enlightened One, Christ, understood, they would have realized no matter what happened they were secure. For those who have the 'mind of Christ' to die and cease to exist is similar to the act of changing ones clothes.

This line of thinking only makes sense if one begins with the premise that reality has consciousness as its foundation.

Fare thee well.

Passing through the valley of the shadow: visionary art and poetry

Passing Through The Valley Of The Shadow is visionary art combined with poetry.  The music provided by YouTube and Bill Canino combine to do a really good job along with the images.

The art is an expression of a quest for an understanding of 'Being' and what it means to find oneself 'Being'.  After all, here we are all headed to the charnel house. Don't you have a few questions?

Upon the realization that life itself is a deathtrap some ask themselves "WTF?  I mean how is it I have to die?"  Before long the materialist answers no longer provide a satisfactory answer to the questioner who knows in his gut that life is not meaningless but that a life that ends in death is indeed ultimately meaningless. Not the living of the life, but life itself must be seen as diminished in value if it must end.  At this point spiritual options are able to step in and fill in the gaps and unsuitable limitations the materialist paradigm places on the human ability to encounter, describe and experience reality.

  
Religion has given spiritual knowledge a bad rap. Religions provide answers and the one who receives the answers is supposed to 'believe' them. I've found such a program not only useless but harmful.

On the other hand the spiritual path is not a group venture.  We do not approach the Holy City as a happy singing bunch of identical cloned saints.  Instead the Spiritual journey is solitary and the encounter with the spiritual is personal and the reason for this is so that you can 'hear' if something is 'spoken'.  Following are some words for the seeker from the Buddha:

  "Long is the night to him who is awake; long is a mile to him who is tired; long is life to the foolish who do not know the true law.

If a traveller does not meet with one who is his better, or his equal, let him firmly keep to his solitary journey; there is no companionship with a fool." 

From Chapter 5 verses 60 and 61 of The Dhammapada Translated from Pali by F. Max Muller.

The purpose of the spiritual quest is a quest for the knowledge of the meaning of ones own existence.  Once that knowledge is acquired one is able to proceed without fear.  This is not the same as belief in a standard theological answer.  Yes you will believe the knowledge, but only because you know it is true.  That is not the same as religious belief which is mainly comprised of answers someone has given you to questions you have asked. Such a practice is like cheating on a test except you can't pass that way.

I Agree With Donald Trump, But I Wonder If He Agrees With Me

In a brief statement on foreign policy the Presidential candidate who claims to be well endowed has proposed a nobrainer. Should Europe defend itself?  What do you think?  We know what Trump of the big Trunk thinks.

“We’re providing a tremendous service,” Trump said in a recorded interview shown on CNN. The U.S. “is stone cold broke,” he said according to a report in Bloomberg News.  Is he suggesting that government should turn a  profit?  That would be outright fascism wouldn't it? According to Wikipedia it just may be.

Should Europeans defend themselves? Of course they should.  Example, fire departments have been known to let houses burn down because they had not been paid to put the fire out. This actually happened! The fire company bordering the property simply stood by and let the sucker burn.   This happened in Tennessee, it was on the evening news.

There was some kind of dispute that had to do with payment for services or political shenanigans or both or something along those lines. Why else would you let a family's home burn down and not be in violation  of "Good Samaritan" laws at the very least?

A similar effect can happen all over Europe on a much grander scale if TRUMP'S POLICIES GO INTO EFFECT. Is that wonderful?

From there we can see that once a nation has to decide to pay for their own damned self-defense they may find a way to make changes which, previously, due to the largess of  the American Congress and the Stupidity and Complicity of the American Taxpayer they did not have to pay.  Trump seems to be saying if they want the fire out, they can pay or they can let it burn.  Simple. Is TRUMP  right?

Now my question is this.  Is this an example of libertarian Darwinism, socialism or a blending of both?  We have not known a world like the one proposed by Donald Trump in our lifetime.  I am sure you remember how, during another long dragged out unpopular war, patriotic Americans were proud that the U.S was the 'Policeman of the World'.  TRUMP IS NOW SAYING JUST THE OPPOSITE and so called patriots of today cheer him.  There must be two faces of patriotism is all I can say.  I wasn't in favor of either war.

Is either position right? Was either position ever right? In reality, does being right matter when mad men have taken control and your vote is nothing more than the plaintive 'mew' of a kitten at the door in the middle of a storm that is blowing everything away?

I got ramblin', sorry.  But the real questions are does the TRUMP proposal amount to a marketing of the war industry to individual buyer states with political hopes and dreams different from those of the United States? Certainly Europe will regard the U.S differently after this economic hit proposed by Trump. What will result when unbridled weapon sales from the cornucopia of destruction which is the arms industry of America begins to inflate the economies of Europe turning them into vast areas of social dysfunction just like in the good old US ofA?

The logic in a capitalist system says in such a case there must be a war to support the sale of weapons. This is because money rules everything and the arms industry is a real good place to make money. 

Now, if Trump's proposal gets legs it has the possibility of making immense changes in geo-politics. First of all the previously welfare European states will have to require their taxpayers to cooperate in their own extinction by either being peacenik cheapos or getting on the bandwagon in wholehearted support of the weapons industry and insure that the world will always have enough weapons to fight a war in which they will have a part.  This of course will cause greater and greater taxation just like in the U.S.  It looks like one of those damned if you do and damned if you don't situations when a master salesman has you ready to spend more money than you can ever earn in 10 lifetimes for the best deal of your life. This may be thought of as the (F)art of the deal.

If Europe isn't obligated to defend itself that doesn't make Americans obligated to foot the bill by any but the most arcane logic. That's how I read the Trump proposal to cut Europe lose to defend itself.

TRUMP  says: " NO MORE WELFARE WARFARE!". Here he is the perfect capitalist libertarian, indeed it is a kind of  Libertarian Darwinism if you let those ideas mingle together a little. "If you can't take care of yourself you don't deserve to exist," is what he seems to be saying. You can't get more Libertarian than that.

I wonder if he's betting that when the terrorist can of worms is opened that none crawl out, OR is it possible he may be able to profit from the marketing of weapons that sustain war? He could raise the economy drastically that way. Just imagine the nations of Europe dependent on their military infrastructure from the U.S.  For 10 years or so there will be an vast increase in weapons sales on military items not dependent on the limitations imposed by a Pentagon budget in which huge profits will flow in. 

The big problem is that it's a bubble and it will collapse all at once like bubbles do when Europe  no longer buys weapons from U.S. weapons makers but makes their own, better, cheaper weapons. You have to acknowledge the 'free market' at play in that.  God bless the free market lol. What a damned irony ha ha ha. It's like the Capitalist choking on the air he polluted. Poetic justice, but no one wins.

We may get to see if he is right and just what his real purpose is. It might be exciting!!!!  Maybe he will post a picture of his big penis to keep us all in awe.  Whatever the size of his penis is I have a feeling Americans are ready to lay down  (or bend over) and let him screw them with it. While I agree with Trump that Americans should not have to pay to keep Europe safe from the enemies its made for itself over the years I'm not voting for him. When a man talks to a mixed group of people about the size of his penis it should automatically disqualify him from the office of President of the U.S. It also tells you something not so subtle about the Republican Party which embraces this candidate who brags about the size of his dick in public discourses designed to attract voters.

THIS IS MY PERSONAL FEELING.  MOST OF THE WORLD FEELS THE WAR ON TERROR IS MISDIRECTED AND THAT THE ECONOMIC TERRORISTS WHO REGULATE THE FINANCIAL INDUSTRY ARE AT LEAST AS GREAT A THREAT TO GLOBAL WELL BEING AS THE OTHER TERRORISTS  PERHAPS BOTH THREATS  ARE EQUALLY REAL. Chilling isn't it?

THAT'S TODAY'S COMMENTARY ON THE NEWS THAT DOESN'T MATTER ONE BIT BECAUSE VOTING IS USELESS WHEN YOU ONLY GET TO VOTE FOR A CAPITALIST CANDIDATE.

Update:
European nations have joined together in a unanimous declaration stating:  WE THE UNDERSIGNED COALITION OF EUROPEAN PARTNERS AFFIRM THAT
NOT ONLY DOES TRUMP HAVE A BIG DICK
HE IS A BIG DICK.

TRUTH FOR THE OUT OF PHASE CITIZEN
A PRODUCT OF PIE IN THE FACE NEWS.