The Kingdom of God

Jesus of Nazareth announced the coming of God's kingdom 2000 years ago - "Now is the time," he said.  "Here comes God's kingdom!  Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!" (Mk. 1: 15 CEB)  Reading the gospels, one may say that indeed God was active in a dramatic way in the ministry of Jesus, but what about now, in the year 2012 A.D.?  Where is the kingdom of God today?
Well, today as then, the kingdom of God is mostly invisible, people don't see it for the most part.  It is visible in acts of kindness and goodness by individuals.  God rules over the hearts and minds of some persons who have a mystical relationship with Him/Her.  I'm afraid that's it.  God is a strange person.  He/She is omnipotent, but chooses to defer to people's own will in exercising power.  His/Her kingdom is a very delicate matter.   

Rambling Thoughts/Alone on a Saturday Night

I'm always alone, but thank God for family who care!  Humans lack direction.  We have minds, which can figure things out, but our minds don't really provide us with long-range goals.  Oh scrap this.  I don't know what I'm talking about it seems.  I'm already over my head and don't know how to continue.

Where is God?

Where is God?  That this question is asked shows that God is not known.  No wonder there are atheists in the world. 
                                                                           .mmm, hey

Hi God.  How you doing today? 

Announcement - God Spoke to Me Tonight

I was sleeping with the tv on as background noise.  Actually I had my laptop connected to tv, with rainymood.com  going.  I like the sounds of rain.  Suddenly a feeling of perhaps shutting off the tv came over me, it was sort of an emotional question - 'shouldn't the tv be turned off?'  My body stirred a bit and mentally I said, 'no, I'm not shutting off the tv unless God tells me to; I mean really tells me to.'  I stirred a bit more.  The question firmed up in my head - 'shouldn't the tv be turned off' - and I examined it, seeking its origin, determining its tone and  its mood.  I realized this feeling and thought came from  my unconscious, certainly not from a Supreme Being.  I reiterated my refusal and started to return to sleep, when suddenly a deeper feeling arose, something alien, a mixture of expectation, waiting for something and a kind of fear.  My ears came to attention, so to speak, and I heard, mentally, "mmmm, hey."  That's it, "mmmm, hey," that's all I heard, the content of the thought so to speak.  I asked myself, 'what is this,' 'some kind of a test?'  I turned over in my head this new feeling and the accompanying 'words.'  It was an attestation of the original feeling and vague question concerning turning off the tv.  I had a feeling of having been addressed by a strange and powerful presence, something now in the past.  The thought ocurred - 'alright you wanted God to speak, he spoke, what now (are you going to obey?).  A brief feeling of disgust came through me.  I argued with myself.  'This didn't sound like God; it sounded like a surfer dude - "mmm, hey" - like I was walking on the beach and a dude just walks up, board in hand, all dripping from the ocean and greets me as he passes by.  Another analogy was as if someone had just woke up, spotted me and said, "mmm, hey."  Did God just wake up and decide to speak to me?  These were not the words I'd expect God to use, but I couldn't deny the awe that went along with the words.  I remembered a passage from Isaiah, "my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways."  I concluded that God indeed had spoken to me.  Now what was I to do?  'Shall I exert myself, turn off the tv, or turn over and go back to sleep,' I wondered.  I got up and at the same time I suddenly heard a loud sound, like a car door slamming, coming through the back door of the house (the screen door was closed and locked, but the heavy wood door was open, it's summer, so sounds from the back of the house could easily pass inward); understand that it was about 1:30 am, I had been asleep since 10 pm; I grabbed the remote, shut off the tv, went to the back door and looked out on the dark scene of my backyard and the neighbor's driveway to the right - nothing.  I returned and went to the laptop and wrote this blog.        

A Comment on a Facial Expression

'The Third Man' is one of my all-time favorite movies. It was made in 1949, 6 years before I was born. It was written by Graham Greene, British author of novels and travelogue, short stories and essays that comprise a literary landscape well worth exploring. He was a movie buff too. Directed by Carol Reed, the film starred Orson Welles, Joe Cotten, Alida Valli and Trevor Howard. The film is placed in post-WWII Vienna and is about the military police trying to stamp out the black market for penicillin. The mood of the city is palpable in the wet cobblestones of its streets and alleys. There are some gorgeous shots of Miss Valli's face with traces of tears on her cheeks that would make any actress wish they were her. The beauty of love lost to death she expresses, its wistfulness, is magic.
The movie conveys existential truth. I'm especially thinking of the deep truth of the classcial Greek myth of Sisyphus, so eloquently essayed by Albert Camus. Over and over again, Sisyphus must roll a boulder up a hill. He can never get it quite to the top, he can never rest. This was punishment for hubris, deserved.
'The Third Man,' near its denouement, as the police are staked out to trap Harry Lime (Orson Welles), leader of the black market for penicillin, has a scene with a drunken old man selling balloons, trying to sell them to the police, begging. Trevor Howard finally gives in and buys one and the the old man is happy for a second, but then his facial expression changes to one of angst. He realizes, I think, that he still has many more to sell. This is the human condition, to which all are fated. We never make it quite to the top; never can rest. Why doesn't happiness last?

DeathPoem

Death is cool, death is less
death is coming,
death is best.

--suicidal sicko

'Sick of Being Sick'

My cousin Cindy posted on Facebook that she was "sick of being sick" and wanted to get better so she could accomplish some things. Her phrase struck a chord with me and put me in mind of the human condition, generally, according to Biblical teaching and thinkers, theist and atheist, who build on that foundation. Every schoolboy knows that Adam and Eve sinned, disobeyed God, in the garden of Eden, and were exiled from paradise; and so all humanity is living in exile. All of us are infected with original sin, a spiritual disease that requires divine intervention and remediation. Whether or not one accepts the Genesis version of human alienation, the Marxian, Freud's cultural psychoanalysis of the human malaise, Hindu, Buddhist or Islamic paths to salvation, the point here is that many, many wise people agree that something is fundamentally wrong within the human way of being. Many do not realize they're spiritually sick. The first principle of Buddhism is to become Buddha, that is, wake up. This was also the zeitgeist of the 1960s in western nations (raising consciousness, implying the human mind is not sufficiently aware), an era I passed through to today, 2010. What's the answer? Where is the solution, the cure? Here's the hypothesis: become sick of being sick, investigate self-loathing, self-disgust, examine yourself. Are you morally or spiritually sick?