Greetings
I have had a good email from a guy who`s posted some videos on youtube. His name is Zak and he is a reasonable chap. He doesn't believe in God and I respect his disbelief. I also share some if not all his views that a lot of harm has been done in the name of religion.
I don't want to throw the baby out with the bath water. During the second world war. There were some good Christians, who happened to be Germans and also in the army. They used their positions to enable Jews to be smuggled out of Germany.
On the same point many people will seek positions of power in all different faiths, with some even inventing their own, with the sole purpose of `Their` will being done. Not that of a higher power.
Its by the fruit of a persons works they should be judged. Empty words cannot even hold a candle to silent prayer.
I must just pop out on to my balcony and see if I can capture the brighter sky this morning!
Okay floks/ sorry folks, that's better. Its bitterly cold out. I envy those who live in Alaska and Siberia, they should try living here in Luton. Actually, I was trying to be funny. Thinking about it though, I wouldn't mind a little stint in wherever the warmest part of Alaska is in their summer. Siberia, that's definitely not anywhere on my scanner. Nor Liberia.
What makes the composition in the photo below work for me is the red. Take out either one of the red chairs, or the red towel and it wouldnt work for me!
As usual for me I enjoy having my head in clouds. It sure beats those with their minds in the gutter. Like some of the press. Not that its me beating them. They do it to themselves!
artists can, perhaps see a face in the photo above and
branches in the one below. There aren't. Its imagination
Below though one can see some water reflecting a tree!
PEACE SHADOWMAN
What a bright day it is both outside and for me, inside also. The birdsong seems to be telling me that my consciousness is developing and appears to be extending in two directions. O glory of glories.
When I read the following, then I do identify with it.
A consciousness developing in two fundamental ways of apprehending Reality, may be called the Eternal and Temporal, transcendent and immanent, Absolute and dynamic aspects of Truth. They comprise the twofold knowledge of a God Who is both Being and Becoming, near and far: pairs of opposites which ecstasy will carry up into a higher synthesis. But the first awakening of the mystic sense, the first breaking in of the supra-sensible upon the soul, will involve the emergence of one only of these two complementary forms of perception. One side always wakes first: the incoming message always choosing the path of least resistance. Hence mystical conversion tends to belong to one of two distinctive types: tends also as regards its expression to follow that temperamental inclination to objectivize Reality as a Place, a Person, or a State which we found to govern the symbolic systems of the mystics.
There is first, then, the apprehension of a splendour without: an expansive, formless, ineffable vision, a snatching up of the self, as it were, from knowledge of this world to some vague yet veritable knowledge of the next. The veil parts, and the Godhead is perceived under Its aspect of Transcendence. Not the personal touch of love transfiguring the soul, but the impersonal glory of a transfigured universe is the dominant note of this experience: and the reaction of the self takes the form of awe and rapture rather than of intimate affection. Of such a kind was the conversion of Suso, and in a less degree of Brother Lawrence. If this kind also were the Light which Rulman Merswin saw, and the mystical perception of the being of the universe reported by Richard Jefferies and countless others.
This experience if it is to be complete, if it is to involve the definite emergence of the the self from "the prison of I-hood," its setting out upon the Mystic Way, requires an act of concentration on the self`s part as the compliment of its initial act of expansion. It must pass beyond the stage of metaphysical rapture or fluid splendour, and crystallise into a definite concept, a definite and personal relation set up between the self and the Absolute Life. The vitality and efficiency of the conversion from sense to spirit, says Eucken, depends on the vividness of the apprehension of the new reality and on its authority for life. To be a spectator of Reality is not enough . The awakened subject is not merely to perceive transcendent life, but to participate therein. In Jefferies`s case this crystallisation, this heroic effort towards participation did not take place, and he never therefore laid hold of "the glory that has been revealed." In Suso`s case it did, "exciting in him a most lively desire for God."
In many conversions to the mystic life, the revelation of an external splendour, the shining vision of the transcendent spiritual world, is wholly absent. The self awakes that which is within, rather than to that which is without: to the Immanent not the Transcendent God, to the personal not the cosmic relation. Where those who look out receive the receive the receive the revelation of Divine Beauty, those who look in receive rather the wound of Divine Love.
I shall leave this here as for those of you who wish to take in what is written, then this is more than enough to be going on with. At least for me anyhow. For those who have no interest in the subject I bow to your endurance and patience for persisting to here. Hang on. Just a few one liners;
Dear God: I have a problem. Its me.
When we get tangled up in our problems, be still. God wants us to be still so he can untangle the knot.
God wants spiritual fruit, not religious nuts.
Silence is often misinterpreted, but never misquoted.
Do the math. Count you blessings.
This is the immortal spiritual being who is having an human experiance as brother Peter, send love and blessings to all beings. To you and through you. Peace.
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