Our God, Ourselves: knowledge, unknowing, abhorrence of nature, and oddly enough, balloons

 Knowledge allows equally for pleasure, pain, gain and injury…. (Nietzsche, the philosophic life of seekers, in his definition of humanity)

In wisdom is cause for trouble, perplexity,

and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow. (Ecclesiastes 1:18)

…not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.  For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 

(1 Cor 1:17:18)

….consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 

(1 Cor 1:26-29)

A balloon is known by its containing edges. So it is that existence and non-existence give birth the one to each other; that difficulty and ease produce the one and the idea of the other. (Tao Te Ching)

“I agree with you,” replied the stranger; “we are unfashioned creatures, but half made up, if one wiser, better, dearer than ourselves—such a friend ought to be—do not lend his aid to perfectionate our weak and faulty natures. .... You have hope, and the world before you, and have no cause for despair.” 

-Mary Wollingstonecraft Shelley

Where we find the deepest Mystery, each and every thing is subtle and wonderous...(Tao Te Ching)

We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom...

We impute the wisdom of God. We are seekers; we believe and we seek, such that all of life offers its view of God that we see the hand of God, his wisdom and his plans for us in all the world around us.  

(1 Cor 2:7)

God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. (1 Cor 2:10)

"...we might offer up our best intentions, actions, plans and hopes to the gods daily, in hymns or psalms. For we should be at the helm at least once a day. The whole of the day should not be daytime; there should be one hour, if no more, which the day did not bring forth." -Henry David Thoreau

Merton has it that our view of ourselves is actually our view of God, 

and I retort that our view of God is how we view ourselves-- 

its a thing of nucleii -- what we are to ourselves, what God is to us, and how we are to those who are always with us, to those that we should impute mercy and forbearance. How we worship God, and how we tend our own -- the believer doesn't do anything inside a vacuum, and nature abhors, we have what we have, and others have what they choose.

...and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. (1 Cor 2:4-6)

“I’ve got it now, so’s you can savvy,” he said. “What we want is a

gospel-sharp. See?”

“A what?”

“Gospel-sharp. Parson.”

“Oh! Why did you not say so before? I am a clergyman—a parson.”

“Now you talk! You see my blind and straddle it like a man. Put it

there!”—extending a brawny paw, which closed over the minister’s small

hand and gave it a shake indicative of fraternal sympathy and fervent

gratification.

“Now we’re all right, pard. Let’s start fresh. Don’t you mind my

snuffling a little—becuz we’re in a power of trouble. You see, one of

the boys has gone up the flume—”

“Gone where?”

“Up the flume—throwed up the sponge, you understand.”

“Thrown up the sponge?”

“Yes—kicked the bucket—”

“Ah—has departed to that mysterious country from whose bourne no

traveler returns.”

“Return! I reckon not. Why pard, he’s dead!”

“Yes, I understand.”

“Oh, you do? Well I thought maybe you might be getting tangled some

more. Yes, you see he’s dead again—”

“Again? Why, has he ever been dead before?” 

-"Roughing It", Mark Twain

our fractalized looking glass highlight reel of faith.

The prophet murdered by his Israeli audience, speaking of the Man of Sorrows: the great Messianic prophecy. Where did normative behavioral statute end and the dirge of the downtrodden Christ begin?

He would not stop those who wanted to burn; he would not succor nor hinder those in the throes. A sort of secret burn, a sort of deeply personal hurt: he would not heal them? And yet he was sent to empty those types of prisonhouses of their dogends, to loose the chord around the bundle, to reveal a more profound connection between God and man.

How then, the magic that elapses?

If its so literal, so dogmatic, then–

How did his heretical sentencing and execution do anything for any of you?

all shining flax and purple blotted bamboo fronds…..

it was a no-touch cure, the great chemtrail of truth and contemplation that blanketed, not a personal God finger on your heart, but a very something of the air about it

something as irrevocable as free air to breath

I tell them time and again in my daily life. If people knew the source of my happiness, there would be a new tax aimed at monetizing it; to wit, if men knew, they would try to ruin it, being the smoking flax, the bruised reed, in their respective hatred(flax) and sadness(reed)--but to guard it is too brash, does not edify–in the world of darkness we must be f*cking light bulbs, my friends, and never reflect back the broken world, but show the world, through our fractalized looking apparatus, all it could be.

To show it beauty, Dorian. Beauty.

Show it its own beauty, that what it denies, ignores, guards or doubts, that its own best is no myth.

Isaiah 42 KJV

2 He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street.

3 A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth.

4 He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.

5 Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:

6 I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;

Ephesians 1 NIV

having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints……

and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power in us who believe, according to the working of his great might

Isaiah 42 

7 To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.

20 Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set him at his own right hand in the heavenly places, 21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:

22 And hath put all things under his feet, and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, 23 Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

8 I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.

As for me, I am fuscia, violet, preserved in a looking glass high atop a mystical mountain--and what elsewise have we seen? Why, its social string theory, my babies, string theory, unified fields, and the only uncertainty is the quickness and measure of the most certain--and our most common guilt is not the we crawl on our bellies, but the very uncertainty of the certain.

--the contempt for contemplation is not a way to indulge; simplicity is something, as the clean edge brings less ill effect---

 --objects of faith, attributions personifications contemplations are what we think we know, or can only true in drawing aim on the most noble of ambitions: 

the love of God, the love of people.

Frere, wherever we may go, is the Frere.

E’re I go, to be found, of the tree;

E’re I go their eyes look right through me.

E’re I go, to be bound, snugged to the Tree.

There be festivals, and in the smiling faces to see

Ignominy, doubt and bitterness, boredom, redundancy.

The drink their fill, fuggoff the wee hours, dance-out eternity

E’re I go, to be bound, a low-born Good Frere on the Tree.

It befogged them, didn’t it?

Good shepherd, and both, Lamb Of God?

E’re to be found in the infamous book,

E’re I go they speak of the Good Frere on the Tree.

That I was he, and he was you, and you were me–

And we three were exponents, opponents, push pulls infernally

They say he carried our debt of sin;

But then we too, bidden take up the burden,

So which is it, what did he gift to us:

That Good Frere on the Tree.

“He who made the Lamb made thee.”

And “did he smile his work to see”

This he did for you, and for you unto me,

The Good Frere on the Tree.

Wisdom from Philippians chapter 4.

In whatever circumstances, whether in lack, whether in abundance: 

they had sent Paul money

and he turned it into a veritable seminar, after debating the Stoics(Stoicks, as the King James has it) on Mars Hill, it had really did some rejiggering of his perspective. He would be all things to each and every one, for sake of the Gospel. If only today's believer took to the message, were not so closed-off to shun local ministry, a combined contempt for the indolent, the addict, and the atheist when scripture tells each believer to strive to impute those undesirables belief!

Most people in America are doing much better than they believe. Its selective that we pull from scripture "life and life more abundantly", while ignoring "in whatever circumstances". Sure, sure it is the American frisson to want everything, and therein is the purest conundrum of the present depression among our eager populace, because its not always possible, when all the fish are schooling in the same direction: someone makes the donuts, someone hands you your gourmet hotdog.

If we had what they have, we'd share in their misery, after all, and we see so many of the wealthy, those that have supposedly won in the game, tell us its a facade, that happiness comes from within, that churning the milk into butter is life, not the butter after, not the butter after. Imagine if our very misconception was reality, we'd trade today for what? The uncommon and unlikely Lebron, Beyonce, Theron? We are ourselves, first, and we don't sacrifice that, we don't give over today and tomorrow for a few years in repose. Such was the point of the phrase "one must imagine Sisyphus happy", enjoying the process, an advertising slogan about "enjoying the journey".

One doesn't salt mine 80% of his life, in other words, for the purpose of unfettered enjoyment 20% of his life.

Because

Life is that struggle of 80%. That's what Keanu, Oprah, et al tell us. People who can't read, misunderstand geography, never balanced a checkbook, tend to see only the money, missing the truth, and told in the media to mistrust those luminaries, roundly indulge in a misuse of their own lifespan.

It was the Myth Of Sisyphus, Carpe Diem, the Romantic movement with Wordsworth, the eclectic beat poets in Ginsburg and Whitman, the Stoics("The obstacle is the way").

wandering and bottomless, clutching our ideals, irrespective

It requires no particular circumstance that given a choice, as in the willing yoke of chains of security, people would toss down their weapons so to grab hold of their piece of prosperity. Yet, history roundly crayons it that humankind is betimes neither particular human, and less kind. For the very wrongest of reasons do people instead clutch their own ideals and give time and treasure to the violent, totems of resolute behaviors that act irrespective of the future: not to sacrifice to better ideals, but just to grab hold of whatever glints their own imagination.

In the age that heretofore has clearly needed the apostle John, they reach towards John Wick, or needing the peace of doves, they instead would opt to destroy all they hated such that only peaceful embers inhabited earth, to murder the pebble in the shoe, to hate instead of acknowledge. Variously, they could use more Keanu Reeves than any John Wick; let John Wick be a fairy tale, and Keanu our partner on the early constitutional. Were we to rich man/poor man our lives, let it be that we had much of the poor man's peace, and the same of the rich man's leisure, but still today do we have that Bigger, Better, Bolder unction such that we have the poor man's wandering appetite for food and the rich man's bottomless appetite for entertainments.

"unless we allow it to..." reflections, ruminations, refractions, replications, repercussions of Galatians.

Consider each thing of itself...  ...for the days are full of evil.

Man is a social animal and all things work together top to bottom in cooperation to bring us to God's appointed ends. Though temptation may abound, risking our peace and joy, our salvation doesn't rely on feelings; and days full of evil are given to us as an examples. A bright beginning does not necessarily facilitate a bright future, or a bright ending: while I trust God, I set my watch expecting Satan, with his fingerprint of subterfuge and misdirection, his chaos and usury.

And days full of evil give us examples, that life is a series of what man believes to be choices(though God knows your heart). Always our common burden in our cooperation with mankind and nature is the weight of choices, along with the consequences of decisions. Obedience to God is based on faith; we trust God, while expecting Satan's wiles. 

And days full of evil give us examples: forgive with great mercy as you were forgiven, if we are to cling to the confines of the Narrow Way. Its protective, that not-limitation but the appropriate suggestion based on the promises of God. Would we that we believe each of us our own doubts? "Thoughts can be brought into captivity" says the Pentacostal, knowing the weight of his words, and in days filled with evil, he knows his burden, he knows your burden, being the weight of choice and the consequences that always follow.

God and hope, as we have, and hope, and Jesus as the mediator, holder of our hope of reconciliation.

YOU that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled: his body of flesh presents you unblamed and unreprovable in his sight:

--knitted together in love--

'stablished, grounded and settled in mercy, peace, magnanimity, love, equanimity: inner balance.

--not moved away from the hope of the Gospel, which reached our ears and is proclaimed to all living creatures.

Thus it is about us all to see, hear and holding, beholding, is the eternal: we see, hear, and handle the Word of Life.

WE speak of Jesus, the product of the Eternal that lights the Narrow Way, to give you a lasting joy. Jesus is our advocate, our forgiveness and our connection to the Eternal.

The Eternal God is light, and in him is no darkness whatsoever.

In the light is Christ Jesus, waiting for our fellowship, our friendship, bearing our forgiveness.

IN our need for forgiveness, we cannot lie about having sin; if we say we have no sin, we deceive even our own selves, and the Truth is not in us, the Word is not with us, and the Eternal, the Narrow Way, darkened. Christ is our hope and our reconciliation, after all, and that reward is the same for anyone, be it in fervor or hopelessness, in the dawn or in the twilight: the Eternal reward does not vary.