Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
Clement Clarke Moore
or
Henry Livingston, Jr.
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Hello Ally
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Tis the day before Christmas and all through my apartment there is no stirring, scurrying nor hurrying. There is no family around here, no reason to cook and no space for a tree. I will celebrate Christmas as I usually do, quietly and gracefully by myself. I will dine on a bowl of grits and some clam chowder. Don't feel sorry for me, I can afford the chowder. Because I cooked the grits I can now afford the chowder. It's a matter of simple economics, something Congress seems to have some confusion about.
Christmas is one of those days, like Thanksgiving and July Fourth, when we can forget the way we behave the rest of the year. The holidays usually just mean to me a day when the mail doesn't come. But this year Christmas is on Sunday and the mail wouldn't come anyway, so what's the difference?
Since I'm not affiliated with any church I'm not bound to the traditional rubrics of liturgical Christmas celebrations. But if I am anything, if I have to be categorized to differentiate myself from others, I'm a Christian. What I definitely am not is a Conservative. Any thinking Christian would know that Christianity and Conservatism is an emulsion, two things that don't mix. Any earnest Bible scholar, which I am (though not exclusively to be sure), would see why that is true.
Christmas day is the traditional celebration of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, a most remarkable man who brought to the world a clearer, more liberal, more spiritual interpretation, of the Jewish theology. He was often homeless, worked on the Sabbath, had compassion on the poor, ill and destitute, got angry, hungry and thirsty, and sleepy. He had friends, enjoyed parties, loved kids and had a sense of humor. (If you don't believe that read John 1: 45 - 50 (Stick around, you ain't seen nothing yet.) or John 21: 4 - 6.)
Jesus never involved himself in politics, he never joined any party, association, committee or group, he stood up to and rebuked the priests, scribes and Pharisees, the conservatives of his day. And, like Socrates before him, he refused to break the law to save his life.
This is a time to celebrate, to love, to roam through pleasant memories,and to delight in new experiences. It's a time to renew bonds and to remember why we come together. I will celebrate Christmas in my own quiet way. And if you are celebrating it I wish you a day of joy and merriment and great blessings for the year to follow.
"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"
Dana Bate - Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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Look here. I have 10 Guest Author entries since I started offering this invitation. Now I want yours. If you haven't posted one here yet, please do so, or Santa won't come down your chimney. (I know he won't anyway, but that's beside the point.)
This is an invitation for anyone and everyone to post an entry of their own on my journal, Vagabond Journeys http://vagabondjourneys.blogspot.com/.
The end of the year holidays are upon us and since it is a time for celebrations, remembrances, resolutions and plans for the future I know that people have things to say.
Not to take away from the postings on your own journals, but to add to the joy of my own celebrations is why I invite you to write for mine.
I want to read what your thoughts are about this magical time of the year. This invitation is open to everyone: Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Pagans, Agnostics, Atheists and the Uncertain.
Tell me your thoughts on Chanukah, Christmas, Ashura, Kwanzaa, the Winter Solstice, New Years Eve. or any subject you wish or associate with this holiday season.
There are no limits in regard to length. The only limitation is that, for reasons so far unexplained to me, my blog does not take photographs, animations, videos or pictures of any kind. I deal in words.
Please accept my invitation. Send your entry to my email address dbdacoba@aol.com I will copy and paste it into my journal and it will be displayed promptly. You may sign your name or not as you wish, and you may leave a link to your blog or your email or not, as you wish. I will do NO editing or censoring. Eloquence is not necessary, mind or heart or both is all.
I have 10 Guest Authors so far. Check them out. Can I hear from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America? All are welcome. Admission is free.
DB
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Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jesus. Show all posts
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Behind The Veil
Enlightenment - that magnificent escape from anguish and ignorance - never happens by accident. It results from the brave and sometimes lonely battle of one person against his own weaknesses.
Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano
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Hello Kate
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The older I get and the more I try to grasp and understand the things that are the most important to me, the more I realize that they are easily within my reach. So then why is it I don't have universal wisdom safely tucked into my back pack?
Nyanasobhano, who is an American born, Dartmouth educated, former actor, Buddhist, says it is because of my weaknesses. I ponder that and I can't identify my weakness itself, but I can see the effects of it. Principally it is the common human desire to find easy explanations for things, to try to accept things as they only appear to be, to avoid the fearful task of looking for the reality behind the masquerade. Nyanasobhano implies in his writings that if we really understood the Nature that we take for granted we could find a universe of peace and beauty hiding there. But, in fact, it isn't hiding. It is just that we have put up veils in front of it.
It was veils that hid from the Israelites the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle and allowed only the high priest to enter.
It was a veil that hid the face of Moses from his followers because his skin shown from his own understanding of truth and reality. And it frightened them.
Veils hide the faces of beautiful Arab women, and it was veils that Salome cast off of herself when she danced for Herod.
It was the veil of the Temple that was torn in half when Jesus was crucified.
What's with these veils?
A veil is nothing, it has no power, no intelligence. It's just used to hide things. We all have our own veils. What we see, hear, feel, etc., the senses are our veils. The geologist is staring at a chunk of moon rock. Is it just a rock, or is it a path, a journey to knowledge and then to understanding and maybe then to wisdom, enlightenment? A man can make a silly, ugly noise vibrating his lips together. But when he does it into the mouth piece of a horn out the other end comes a beautiful tone. What is that tone? What does it mean in the overall cosmic scheme of things? Is it just a tone, or is it a journey? Is Nature explaining it's true self to us in a language we can't understand because we don't look past what we think it is?
My ignorance resides in my avoiding the brave and lonely battle with my weakness, with my failure to look beyond the veil, to dare, to question, to imagine, even to plead for the real truth of things.
DB - The Original Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
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AUTUMN QUESTION
What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?
Autumn is moving along.
Only 5 answers so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
I eagerly await your answers.
DB
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Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano
************************
Hello Kate
************************
The older I get and the more I try to grasp and understand the things that are the most important to me, the more I realize that they are easily within my reach. So then why is it I don't have universal wisdom safely tucked into my back pack?
Nyanasobhano, who is an American born, Dartmouth educated, former actor, Buddhist, says it is because of my weaknesses. I ponder that and I can't identify my weakness itself, but I can see the effects of it. Principally it is the common human desire to find easy explanations for things, to try to accept things as they only appear to be, to avoid the fearful task of looking for the reality behind the masquerade. Nyanasobhano implies in his writings that if we really understood the Nature that we take for granted we could find a universe of peace and beauty hiding there. But, in fact, it isn't hiding. It is just that we have put up veils in front of it.
It was veils that hid from the Israelites the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle and allowed only the high priest to enter.
It was a veil that hid the face of Moses from his followers because his skin shown from his own understanding of truth and reality. And it frightened them.
Veils hide the faces of beautiful Arab women, and it was veils that Salome cast off of herself when she danced for Herod.
It was the veil of the Temple that was torn in half when Jesus was crucified.
What's with these veils?
A veil is nothing, it has no power, no intelligence. It's just used to hide things. We all have our own veils. What we see, hear, feel, etc., the senses are our veils. The geologist is staring at a chunk of moon rock. Is it just a rock, or is it a path, a journey to knowledge and then to understanding and maybe then to wisdom, enlightenment? A man can make a silly, ugly noise vibrating his lips together. But when he does it into the mouth piece of a horn out the other end comes a beautiful tone. What is that tone? What does it mean in the overall cosmic scheme of things? Is it just a tone, or is it a journey? Is Nature explaining it's true self to us in a language we can't understand because we don't look past what we think it is?
My ignorance resides in my avoiding the brave and lonely battle with my weakness, with my failure to look beyond the veil, to dare, to question, to imagine, even to plead for the real truth of things.
DB - The Original Vagabond Journeys
Never Give Up
**************************************
AUTUMN QUESTION
What event over the past year changed your life, a lot or a little?
Autumn is moving along.
Only 5 answers so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
I eagerly await your answers.
DB
********************
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Clarified Consciousness 5/03/09
We should free ourselves of the prejudice that rational insight is "mysterious."
Tim Crane
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Welcome aboard.
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A mystery is a phenomenon for which we have no explanation. Fortunately for the human race there are people, scientists and philosophers, who will not settle for the "unexplainable." Things happen according to law: natural law and (yes) divine law. And laws are identifiable, measurable and explainable.
One of the most graphic examples of natural law is happening right now in our northern hemisphere. We call it Spring. The farmer doesn't make his crops grow. Natural law does that, but the farmer needs to know and respect the natural law to bring his crops to harvest. I often tell people when asked that the art of acting must conform to natural law. In that case the farmer's field is the actor's mind, but the law is the same. The end result in both cases may seem miraculous, but it is not mysterious.
Great marvels performed by spiritual leaders of the past certainly seemed mysterious but when explanations were asked for by rational thinkers, they were forthcoming. That we can't understand some of those explanations doesn't make them mysterious. It simply means we haven't yet graduated from elementary school.
The ancient prophets knew about divine law and some of them wrote about it. They were not irrational thinkers. How did Moses bring bread down from the sky to feed his followers? What was Elisha doing while he was sitting on a rock making a tempest brew up out of a clear sky? How did Jesus change the water into wine? "I can of my own self do nothing" he said. And "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets." That is, divine law.
There may be many phenomena in this universe that we will never know about, but that doesn't mean that we couldn't understand them if we did know. Some ancient peoples used to worship the rising of the sun, the phases of the moon and other phenomena as gods or acts of god that needed to be feared and praised. Some peoples still do. But that useless, primitive theology was dispelled by rational thinkers uncovering what those phenomena are about and the laws which govern them. Some people still bow down to hurricanes and earthquakes. Why is it that many people don't want to accept the discoveries of the scientific mind as anything but mysterious? To say that it is God's will that the hurricane destroyed one house while it left standing the one next to it is nonsense.
Some pseudo prophets have come forward with their own interpretation of various scriptures but none of them seem to agree with each other. Theories abound in the scientific, philosophical and religious communities, but to accept any of them as facts until they have been rationally proved and their laws discovered is wasteful foolishness.
How far along the trail have we come from the babbling tower? Some have come further than others, but it's all relative, since we are all still in mental and spiritual infancy. But I don't think the human race will progress very quickly toward enlightenment until we stop accepting things as mere "mysteries" and let it go at that.
If this entry offends or insults your religious beliefs I can understand that, believe me I can, but just know that the words here do not come from shallow thinking.
DB _ Vagabond Journeys
__________________
May you see new blossoms today.
*************************
Tim Crane
*************
Welcome aboard.
_____________
A mystery is a phenomenon for which we have no explanation. Fortunately for the human race there are people, scientists and philosophers, who will not settle for the "unexplainable." Things happen according to law: natural law and (yes) divine law. And laws are identifiable, measurable and explainable.
One of the most graphic examples of natural law is happening right now in our northern hemisphere. We call it Spring. The farmer doesn't make his crops grow. Natural law does that, but the farmer needs to know and respect the natural law to bring his crops to harvest. I often tell people when asked that the art of acting must conform to natural law. In that case the farmer's field is the actor's mind, but the law is the same. The end result in both cases may seem miraculous, but it is not mysterious.
Great marvels performed by spiritual leaders of the past certainly seemed mysterious but when explanations were asked for by rational thinkers, they were forthcoming. That we can't understand some of those explanations doesn't make them mysterious. It simply means we haven't yet graduated from elementary school.
The ancient prophets knew about divine law and some of them wrote about it. They were not irrational thinkers. How did Moses bring bread down from the sky to feed his followers? What was Elisha doing while he was sitting on a rock making a tempest brew up out of a clear sky? How did Jesus change the water into wine? "I can of my own self do nothing" he said. And "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets." That is, divine law.
There may be many phenomena in this universe that we will never know about, but that doesn't mean that we couldn't understand them if we did know. Some ancient peoples used to worship the rising of the sun, the phases of the moon and other phenomena as gods or acts of god that needed to be feared and praised. Some peoples still do. But that useless, primitive theology was dispelled by rational thinkers uncovering what those phenomena are about and the laws which govern them. Some people still bow down to hurricanes and earthquakes. Why is it that many people don't want to accept the discoveries of the scientific mind as anything but mysterious? To say that it is God's will that the hurricane destroyed one house while it left standing the one next to it is nonsense.
Some pseudo prophets have come forward with their own interpretation of various scriptures but none of them seem to agree with each other. Theories abound in the scientific, philosophical and religious communities, but to accept any of them as facts until they have been rationally proved and their laws discovered is wasteful foolishness.
How far along the trail have we come from the babbling tower? Some have come further than others, but it's all relative, since we are all still in mental and spiritual infancy. But I don't think the human race will progress very quickly toward enlightenment until we stop accepting things as mere "mysteries" and let it go at that.
If this entry offends or insults your religious beliefs I can understand that, believe me I can, but just know that the words here do not come from shallow thinking.
DB _ Vagabond Journeys
__________________
May you see new blossoms today.
*************************
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