Revelation 5 broke my heart this week.
Category Archives: Christianity
Posts clarifying the relationship of Christian scripture and teaching to the evolution of Human Nature.
Speak Through Me
Years afterward, I was asked by a peer “How many people go to college, Brian, and come away with a fully-developed philosophy of life?” I was shocked. It had never occurred to me that someone would go to college for any other reason.
I could have seen the difference, I guess, except that it was pretty embarrassing. Every conversation with a stranger unfolded at a million words a minute – a flood garbled in my haste, a defect of expression that I am confronting fully only now in my review of the videos at Love Returns.
My uncle Phil had borne the brunt of these exchanges more than once. Naturally concerned when I was preparing to read a passage at his brother’s funeral, he came by to advise me to draw out my vowels. My aunt had chosen some beautiful words, though, and I was well beyond that in my preparation of the reading. When I delivered the final “He is at peace,” the gathering paused in silence.
That was my first experience of having words work through me. Knowing that my aunt’s choice was an emotional one, I took in the meaning of the words but also received the deep, mature wisdom of the author’s emotional experience. A crescendo of loss wracked the middle of the passage, and when it came through me, the congregation leaned back.
In reading Scripture, the emotions are all that relates to our modern age. The situations are described only briefly; essential social context is often missing. To make them relatable, we project our own situations, along with our own emotions. This can lead us astray.
Monday night at Bible study, we focused on Matt. 20:20-34. The passages relate Jesus’s response to two pleas: one from the mother of James and John that her sons should sit on the left and right of his throne. The other is from two blind men that cry out for healing. In both situations, the onlookers rebuke those making the request. Jesus turns to heal the two blind men. His response to James and John is ambiguous.
Ambiguous? It may not seem that way, for Jesus challenges them with this question [Matt. 20:22]:
Can you drink the cup that I am going to drink?
To which the brothers reply: “We can.” Jesus does not dispute this, observing only [Matt. 20:23]:
My cup you will indeed drink.
Commonly, this is read as a rebuke, something like “Oh, you sorry fools – sending your mother to plead for power.” But it can also be read as an affirmation of respect: “Yes, you can.”
The study leader noted that the mother was Jesus’s aunt; her sons were Jesus’s cousins. Given this, the emotions swept in, and I saw the situation in a different light. They may have known what others were planning, and as family were pleading: “You know that you can trust us. Please let us protect you.”
When I shared this perspective, the woman sitting next to me seemed to expand. I felt her reaching back into that moment, and she began “And did Mary know this as well?” Here was another piece: Jesus had cast aside his mother’s protection, but still she loved him. Was it Mary that had organized this plea by John and James?
From this perspective, the parallels between the two stories are heightened. John and James are blind to the spiritual consequences of their service, but they wish to serve, just as Jesus commands of those that rebuke them [Matt. 20:27-28]:
…whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Just so, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.
James was martyred by Herod, the first of the Apostles to so suffer, and perhaps demonstrating the determination needed by the others. John suffered a different bitterness, being the Apostle left to grieve the persecution of the early Christians, including all of his Apostolic brothers. In that grief was a trial of bitterness. It was a trial that he passed, qualifying himself to bring the wisdom of Revelation to the world.
Cruise Out-Of-Control
Genesis 2 introduces the seventh day of Creation with a brief lull in the relationship between God and the world.
By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. Then God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.
[NIV Gen. 2:2-3]
Having rested, God – who is Unconditional Love – then picks up his work in the Garden of Eden, demonstrating to Adam and Eve the virtues of love. In that context, there is peace between the animals. That peace is shattered when Adam and Eve choose to eat of the fruit of “the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” They chose no longer to submit to the guidance of love. They chose to figure out how to do it on their own.
Jesus is the hope of the world because he had the strength to demonstrate the power that stands behind those that chose to love unconditionally. In the years both before and after that demonstration, however, we see that the Darwinian practices of brutal confrontation are often strong in the human relationships and politics. Many people still live like animals.
This is the context for my reaction to the decision by the Trump Administration to launch missile strikes against the regime of Syria’s dictator, Bashar Assad. The immediate response of Russia has been to claim the diplomatic high ground, asserting that the US action was illegal.
Assad has survived in Syria for one reason, and one reason only: Putin’s support. Russia has used its veto power in the UN security council to prevent coordinated global action against the Syrian tyrant. When the rebels were poised to oust Assad, Russia then intervened militarily, and along with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, have now put the rebels on the defensive.
In a series of votes in the UN Security Council, the Obama Administration had established Russian complicity in the humanitarian crisis in Syria. Our NATO ally, Turkey, has suffered greatly as the destination of opportunity for 3 million Syrians fleeing the war. Both of those institutions – the United Nations and NATO – were therefore poised to demand Russia’s removal from the UN security council, allowing unified international action to suppress Russian and Chinese military adventurism around the globe.
Russia was the guarantor the Syria had no chemical weapons. By resorting to force before the international community had established that indeed a chemical weapons attack had occurred using sarin gas, Trump has made the conflict one of brute force between two parties. By acting without consultation with our allies, Trump has undermined the institutions that could have acted to discipline Putin across the globe.
It’s all very satisfying to punch a bully in the nose, but it just adds confusion to a situation that should be managed by institutions of law enforcement. Trump has undermined US authority in those institutions – NATO and the United Nations. His action will have long-term consequences that will be to the advantage of those that seek to sow chaos across the globe – principally for the purpose of preventing humanity from grasping the enormous power that arises when we adopt peace and love as the guides to our conduct in all spheres of life.
A far better course would have been to mount a campaign to expel Russia from the UN security council.
Two More Videos
I finally got my business credit card to pay for my subscription out at Wistia. The videos I did the last two weekends are therefore posted at Love Returns.
Raising Tyrants
In Revelation, the One on the Throne – which is Unconditional Love – has seven virtues in his midst. Taking the numerological insight, these should be set against the methods of Self, released from the scroll when the seven seals are broken.
So we have this (I apologize for the clumsy formatting – I can’t figure out how to style the table in WordPress):
| Love | Self |
|---|---|
| Stewardship | Dominance |
| Harmony | Conflict |
| Innovation | Opportunism |
| Peace | Death |
| Justice | Vengeance |
| Creativity | Destruction |
| Passion | Rage |
In each pairing, we see that adding love to the method of self ennobles its expression.
So I wake up at 2 this morning, with Bannon and Rove and Putin grumpily groping for dominance, projecting negativity into my domain, and how do I deal with it? I spent an hour our so trying to damp it down, and finally decided that stronger methods were needed.
Here’s the principle: dominance is about forcing people to pay attention to your demands. That involves establishing a spiritual network for communication. So I just inject a stronger signal.
I put in my earbuds and turned the volume up as loud as comfortable, and started with songs of hope for those trapped in bondage:
- Francesca Batistelli – “Write Your Story”
- Lauren Daigle – “O’Lord” and “I Am Yours”
Followed immediately by a message of redemption to those enforcing selfishness:
- Lauren Daigle – “Once and For All” and “How Can It Be?”
Finally toning it down with:
- The Katinas – Draw Me Close
The early visualizations came in from all over the world, and were primarily feminine. I eventually found myself looking at the world from the outside, trying to push power down into the points of contact that had been established, projecting them into ever widening circles of influence.
The message of redemption came with a shift to the oligarchy, with specific individuals considering whether the effort of trying to maintain control was actually gaining them anything. Underneath we exposed the serpent on its throne. The tyrants were forced to confront their own obeisance.
It was nice at the end to find myself again among friends, relaxing in peace back into my mattress.
I hope that you see the strategy, dear readers: don’t fight them. Just use them as a transmission network. We only need to stick together, and when they die, we’ll recover those that they’ve tried to wall off behind their greed. They have one life; we have eternity.
Pick Number Three, M’Lord!
Third video is up at love-returns.org.
I forgot to put up a notice for the second video.
My friend is not amused.
First Video Posted on Love Returns
I spent the weekend producing my first video out at Love Returns (Doors to Love). The experience was a little humbling. My face is complicated, and I haven’t had to pay attention to my diction given that I spend most of my time teaching computers with my fingers. But I decided to push it out so that I could gauge the effort required to do a weekly video.
In the end, I’m surprised how easy it was to make a high-quality product, limited only by the qualities of the presenter (i.e. – myself). Vegas Movie Studio is a great tool, my greatest frustration being addressed once I learned to put a marker in every time I wanted to switch video clips. The titler also has an odd quirk, in that the time length of the animation must be set before entering the setup screen.
What surprised me most was the intensity of the emotions that came up as I did the first of the two recordings (the one with me seated). I didn’t use many of those moments in the final cut, preferring the less agitated demeanor of the close-up. I didn’t think to turn the Handycam viewer around, so the framing of the close-up is a little odd, but I hope that there’s some charm in that.
For those that can’t bear to watch the whole thing, I’ve also posted the transcript.
AMPed
I went out to San Dimas this weekend for the AMP (Apologetics-Mission-Partnership) Conference. Four speakers presented on Friday night, with six more on Saturday. For an Evangelical gathering, the speakers were surprisingly diverse. Several were unapologetic in their religious chauvinism, targeting Islam as well as “marginal” Christians. Others were surprisingly liberal, most markedly the scholar who asserted that between Genesis 1-2 and Revelation 21-22, the Bible was a testimony to human error. This struck me because the organizing agency, Reasons to Believe, upholds the purpose of proving the inerrancy of the Bible.
The most stimulating talk was Dr. Ross on the geological processes that stabilized the climate long enough to allow homo sapiens to cover the earth. One chart in particular was mind-boggling: it turns out that prior to the Laurentian, temperatures oscillated in a 24 F range around the mean. The oscillation is driven by the gravitational dynamics of the solar system and the wobbles of Earth’s rotation, and is large enough that large-scale agriculture is impossible. But when the last Ice Age ended, temperatures settled into a 3 F band. No scientific explanation is known, but that stability allowed humanity to cover the planet and then turn its attention to religious and scientific inquiry.
Given my intentions out at Love Returns Ministry, the most valuable part of the event was the opportunities that I had to talk with young adults. A young man in high school walked up on Saturday morning to ask me whether I understood Dr. Ross’s reference to “large and small dimensions.” I don’t know why he imagined that I would be able to answer the question, but he got a survey of the problems in the reigning model of fundamental physics. He chased me down during the morning break, eager for my opinions. As the conversation unfolded, he revealed that he had taken the evolution side of the creation debate in class. When I suggested that Genesis was evolution, he was taken aback until I made the connection between photosynthesis and “Let there be light.”
Then there were three young adults, two caught up in conversation during breaks and one that I searched out to supplement the response she had been given by the presenter of a talk on how as a Christian to talk to youth about sex and relationships. I focused on two messages: first, that Islam was merely a compression of the Hebrew tutelage to faith, with a shift from history to psychological analysis of the Old Testament heroes. Secondly, I emphasized that the presence of love in the heart was the best guide to our relationships, with the ultimate goal of becoming “spiritual engineers.” I found myself doing most of the talking, but when I stopped to apologize, they all responded with variations of “No, thanks for sharing.”
Far better to receive that than the attentions of the scholars at RTB. They are all so terribly certain of the truths they propagate. What’s important to me, however, is that the future manifest new possibilities – the possibilities allowed by hearts and minds that commit themselves in service to Unconditional Love. A positive reception by the participants in that future (our young adults) tells me that I’m doing the right thing.
Love Returns Ministry
I’ve engaged LegalZoom to set up a DBA in California as “Love Returns Ministry.” The logo is in the final stages of jewelry design, which I’ll be taking around the gift shops to raise funds. I’ve reserved the love-returns.org domain through WordPress, but have to figure out how to get it transferred to a new blog (currently it will redirect to this home page).
This has been building for a while. Through my writing, I haven’t been able to engage intellectual or religious leaders, which means that they aren’t the people that need me. I encounter those that do while dancing or getting my hair cut or at the lunch counter. They are people hanging on to love by their fingernails, just doing the best that they can. They are courageous and determined, and they need reason to hope.
So I threw this together a couple of Saturdays ago:
MEN
Jesus proved that we have the power and strength to create a world ruled by
LOVE
Each of us has a part to play, but teams don’t win games unless they know the rules and their opponent, and share a strategy. Without that, we score two points and give up four. If you are a good man, you know that struggle.
THE BOOK OF REVELATION
Describes the love and strength that God has invested in preparing us to win the game. Now is the time to
UNITE FOR VICTORY OVER SORROW
And to create a safe place for
WOMEN TO HEAL US
Then last Saturday, I went out to the pier and my new friend Harold asked me “Are you a Christian?” I stopped, having considered this moment, and coyly replied “Well, I’m about as Christian a man as can be.” We started discussing points of theology, and I realized that everybody was listening to me speak. Struggling with hubris, I knelt on the boards, testified that “I need to humble myself.” Harold reached up to the sky and started offering praise to the Father for the teaching that I had brought to them that day.
I’m struggling with logistics still. The DBA will take a week or so. The announcement needs some graphic design to attract the right people. My color laser printer is on the fritz. I need to get the new blog up, and figure out how to organize the material logically, rather than by date.
But in between I’ve outlined some of the discussions, focusing on the nature of love and sin; the nature of the heavenly realm; the reconciliation of Darwin and the Bible. I have this vision of an open Socratic discussion, myself doodling on a flip chart to explain the science and philosophy and history of the Human journey, and realizing that people seeking answers have every reason to trust what I have to say.
In those visions, I feel their brokenness reaching out to me, and responsive power moving through my heart from the Father.
He loves us. We are strong enough. Come to Him.
God’s Plan: A Love Story
Translation: Combining science and the Bible, we know that it took a billion years before any living creature was capable of loving the entire world (the Garden of Eden). Unfortunately, animal behaviors are strong. The most powerful animals dominate through fear and anger, which cause the brain to degrade, so today the world is ruled by angry vegetables. When they’ve finished making a mess, the rest of humanity will join with the angels and other living creatures to cover the world with love.
everdeepening 