  God is the one who sits behind God.
God is not the denotation but the motivation for the word “God.” God is the one who holds silent as the people talk of God. God is the one who whispers whenever they finally stop talking. God is in the religion right up until you make it a religion, and God is in your resolve when you reject it for the right reason.  But Abram said, “O LORD God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.” (Genesis 15:2)
Ugh! Not all around dorkus and widely known doofus, Eliezer of Damascus! The tone of this line that Abram just tosses out there, devoid of any context, as if everyone, including the Most High, should already know what a notorious trainwreck E of D is, never fails to crack me up. I imagine some poor schmuck in the corner just trying to sip his tea and forget about another long day of menial chores ahead for someone who is never going to treat him as anything other than a second-class tagalong. He overhears Abram muttering in his prayers, “Blecckk, Eliezer of Damascus…," throws up his arms, “Me!? What did I ever do besides shovel your goat manure for these last fifteen years!?”   I’m about halfway through a book that could be read in an hour and contemplated for a lifetime—Matthew Fox’s reflections on Meister Eckhart. Here are some excerpts:
Eckhart writes: For you ask me: Who is God? What is God? I reply: Isness Isness is God Where there is isness, there God is. Creation is the giving of isness from God And that is why God becomes Where any creature expresses God. If you were able to deprive God of isness, A stone would be more noble than God, For a stone has isness. What is God? God is! My thoughts: I doubt any thinking adult still consciously subscribes to the cartoonish image of a bearded gentleman in the sky that solidified in most of our minds when we were young. But rather than   To all our friends who have supported us these last three years, apologies that it’s taken this long to write this. On the one hand, it always feels a bit narcissistic to me when breweries come out with statements presuming that everyone has been waiting on the edge of their seat to get the scoop on stuff like this. When a CVS pharmacy closes down, we don’t bite our nails in hopes that management will give us an explanation why. We already know why. Side note, why is it that you never see a CVS close down? I go there for travel sized toothpaste, and never see more than two or three other customers doing the same. Why are there no Advil enthusiast groups online trying to explain that?
On the other hand, though, I fully understand the sense of sadness and well-wishing we’ve received the last several weeks. Since 2018 we’ve been building more than a beer following.   I recently attended a professional workshop led by an expert. There seems to be a suspicious number of these things coming from somewhere like water spots on a popcorn ceiling, but in the humble spirit of a lifelong learner, I continue to put on an brave face in hopes that the next might be the one that finally gets me over the hump of mediocrity. The hour and a half session prefaced as if the primary focus were going to be theology. I like theology and it’s relevant to my profession, so I decided to attend. But besides my newly refreshed coffee, everything that followed was a tour de frustration.
An invitation to our upcoming series starting Tuesdays at 7pm on May 18th on Practical Spirituality: Practices that Help...
Sabbath Examen Fasting Enneagram Giving Cheers and Peace, Jared  Jared Witt | April 9, 2021  Jesus didn’t save humanity. He saved Zaccheus, who realized he needed more out of his relationships with others than just what he could swindle from them.
Jesus didn’t redeem humanity. He redeemed the criminal hanging beside him who said, “Remember me, when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus didn’t forgive humanity. He forgave his executers who were casting lots for his clothing. Jesus didn’t have compassion for humanity. He had compassion for the woman at the well who had had five husbands.  Jared Witt | April 2, 2021  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? Silence. No response. I shout again into the silent vacuum. I cry to the void and hear nothing back. Can I speak more clearly? Did I enunciate? Were they not the pious cries you’d hoped to hear? I cry out differently and in a different tone. Still nothing. Nothing. Nihilo. Silence.  Jared Witt | April 1, 2021  If you spend enough time with Jesus, there may come a time where someone looks at you a bit puzzled and says, “What kind of Christian are you, exactly?”
They’re puzzled, because you seem to show no interest in belonging to an exclusive religious club; you’re intellectually nimble and open-minded rather than calcified and dogmatic; you don’t just mindlessly discriminate against certain groups of people because the people who wrote your holy book 2,000 years ago discriminated against them; you’re less concerned with convincing them to be a Christian than you are with showing them that you are one. In short, you associate a whole bunch of behaviors and characteristics with Jesus, which they don’t associate with Christians. And now they’re confused. |
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