Honest response. The outward manifestation is not profession....but rather an evidence based on behavior and attitude that allows the freedom love itself grants (yet desires reciprocity, without fear, guilt, accolades...)

...physical parable supersedes lexical misinterpretations. Note the teachings center around STORY (central plot, moral, meta-message paramount-IE LEFT BRAIN: NOT the formulaic, definitive logical, analytic RIGHT BRAIN stuff we sometimes spout)
Consider for how many generations the pentateuch was only oral tradition, and not written in ANY language...them consider its re-translations through the ensuing millenia, culture, and language. No question God's truth is NOT dependent on purely any single lexical definition or version.

The lexical betrayal is far beyond mere ego-understanding. Wonder what that universal, pre-babel "tongue" was!!!!




Scale implied (not by writer); either we express the inward-written LAW (ie LOVE)
...or not.
Attestation absent corroborative behavior not sufficient. (ego confounds here)
Willingness to love another who chooses to reject that, even kill you....
incontrovertible evidence of perfect expression of that inward-writ law.


Yes, work of the heart, NOT head, or hand. Hand does, head knows. HEART MERELY IS.
If my heart accepts its identity as a love-hungry orphan who has been adopted by the author of love....
i will live far differently than the orphan who does not accept his inheritance.

I know there are (quite) a few unaddressed points here; these discussions are so stilted when expressed 2 dimensionally via few words, oft misunderstood/misused. Methinks that in the ideal we would "get" each other far more effectively. nonetheless, love these forums...

But do we ALLOW the greater question (can i question myself that I don't know everything?)
and entertain the reality i CANNOT....and (rightly, i suppose) question myself FIRST.
John the baptists words ring loud; are YOU the one...OR DO I SEEK ANOTHER?

He KNEW the stories from Elizabeth and Mary;
he KNEW the prophecies about the 2 births.
He KNEW the manifestation of the Spirit, descending as a dove...
He KNEW that 99% of the "religious re-interpreters" rejected jesus summarily....
and while questioning JESUS, also questioned HIMSELF....

do we seek another....

a true post-modern, yet a wild man of the desert....
a learned man, who questioned self...
beyond all that.... a man who loved truth....to death itself.

Thanks g for letting me know 'cause i don't alway write lucidly.

dab

Taking credit is something the ego likes to do. I used the word 'credit' mainly because if we can not take credit then we also cannot be under an obligation or constrait. It would be better if I had left out the word 'credit' and just said we have no ability or obligation to construct that love. Ego just can't do it. Ego cannot rule the heart.

"Does God operate on ego in that he needs to continually remind us that we are inferior lovers?"

I have come to think that "God" is not accessible to the ego - and he does not operate there. He works from far deeper within us. So there is no need to set up a scale of love to compare with our own love. It it 'egotistical' to do so. Trying to be like God is also egotistical. I believe with you that it better to focus on what seems true - the only other alternative is to be insincere - hypocritical.

I find it useful for me to disassociate myself from the ego; to find my Self within. The true Self is a gift from God - and one with him.

Just be yourSelf! :)

dab

That IS a nice way to put it. That concept rings true to me.



This is a nice complementary concept to the one before.

I understand the nature of story and myth. What doesn't make sense to me is the need to retain these particular stories as special. It also doesn't make sense that if there was a god who felt these particular stories were important that they were not retained in a much better condition. The problem with most of them is somebody has to be wrong. In my experience these types of tales create very immature individuals.



As soon as we appeal to evidence we have entered the realm of the ego and the left brain. As soon as we engage law as an expression of love, we have reduced love.



I can see how this might have a certain romantic appeal to places in our life where we might feel alone. And it is an expression of how we might be abandoning ourselves based on a lie we have been told our whole life or more likely it is not a lie, but simply a stage of development.



This, at least to me, ignores the mythical nature of all of these characters and takes characters who were archetypes adapted from pagan gods and made real people to sustain the Jewish idea of monotheism. From what I have studied this recreation of religious ideas was the norm and history shows us an evolutionary progression rather than a revelationary one.

cardw, did you make this up or get it from somewhere?
"I will die on a Roman tree to show my love, even if you kill me.
AND I WILL LOVE YOU NO LESS!"
Almost sounds like something that Jesus prayed to his Father. Personally I don't think that Jesus would have said it that way.

pk

It's something that heartseeker wrote.

Oh I didn't catch that, I guess I'll look it up and ask him, unless he read's the post and answers it. But thanks.

pk

The following quote stated by Einstein to Picasso from a Steve Martin play makes a difference humorously.

John 15:13 comes to mind...inverse in Job 13:15.
The theme that Jesus prayed for forgiveness for His enemies
(which we all were till accepting the inheritance)
loved even those very ones who reviled and nailed Him...
("i had a hammer, too")


Its from an early sermonette i wrote some years ago....
paraphrased, abridged, personal experiential reading of all 66.