No God Up Over Us…Where Then God?

NO GOD UP OVER US?…is that what the prophets were leading up to?…that God has no desire to be on a pedestal for us?  …that God would rather be WITH US than OVER US on any given day?

That God has no desire to be UP OVER us?

Do we even think to wonder what God desires in this regard?

…so busy are we guarding and defending those parts of holy scriptures which claim and insist that God has made “His” desires abundantly clear…

…as if God is no longer with us and all we have to go by is his last will and testament.

 Our desire for a god-up-there is every bit as strong as the ancients’ belief in idols. 

The ancients were not stupid; they knew the world to be an ever-changing place over which they had little control.

Idols were the ancient psychotherapeutic tools to keep existential anxiety in check. Otherwise, humanity might have frozen in panic and denial, unable to evolve in consciousness.

 In our modern world of uncertainty principles and so-called security guards everywhere, which of us would choose to give up belief which keeps us calm and sane in the midst of seeming chaos?

YET THERE IS ABUNDANT REASON TODAY TO MOVE AWAY FROM THE ANCIENT NOTION OF A GOD UP OVER US…more than abundant reason…VITAL NECESSITY!

 Belief in a GOD UP OVER US is inadvertently killing us and causing us to kill one another!  No matter the god’s name, be it secular or religious…GOD UP OVER US is still a killing belief!  Sometimes, a killing-us-slowly-and-softly belief, but still a killing belief!

More importantly to some among us, we NEED to wonder why God would desire to be UP OVER US because…

1. This belief does nothing for God or God’s image among us, unless God is a starving egomaniac deep into force and control masked as love.

2. Belief in a GOD UP OVER US does a great deal of damage to us and humanity at large today…almost as if the sedative to remain sane has turned into anesthesia preventing us from thinking clearly and acting decisively.

Most importantly, belief in a GOD UP OVER US allows us, encourages us to renege on our responsibility to ourselves, to each other and to all creation.

 As long as there is a parent-god waiting in the wings, we shall never take full responsibility for our lives, our beliefs or our part in this world!

There is an alternative belief in God, a paradigm shift away from the ancient GOD UP OVER US concept which evolved from sun worship, faith in idols, and the need for some sense of order in the midst of chaos.

There is ample scriptural evidence of a GOD WITH US, both separate from, yet one WITH us.

We are in the middle of this religious paradigm shift with one leg in each camp

…as each leg, each image of God moves farther apart from the other

…and we are forced to choose one or the other

…for these two images of GOD UP OVER US and GOD WITH US can no longer co-exist, can they?

LET US CHOOSE LIFE!

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“Bomb, Bomb” Poem from God

“Bomb, Bomb Iran” like “Bomb, Bomb Vietnam”?
All about
who’s got the most and biggest bombs?

Like boys comparing penis size
and
how far one can shoot his urine stream?

 

“Bomb, Bomb Iran” like “Bomb, Bomb Vietnam”?

Bomb the shite out of “them”…
your turds falling from the sky,
screeching their “scared shitless” sounds
all the way to ground?

 

No better way to deal with
fear of losing National Superiority and Greatness
than exploding shite
on those who don’t do as they are told?
* * * * *

GOD GOING ROGUE

Who GOD is NOT

Does God care about EARTH?

Regardless of how you believe or don’t believe in God, this video is worth watching..if only for the sake of our planet and all those who come after us!

“Ten Commandments to Avoid Extinction: Reality’s Rules” by Michael Dowd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJj33_omnkg&feature=youtu.be

 

My comments after viewing the video:

Michael, I get personification and its idolatrous aspects!

Isn’t there a transcendent dimension of person though?  a transcendent dimension of nature and cosmos?   …”transcendent” being a separateness from other…”immanent” being our oneness with other.

Without the inter-course of transcendent and immanent aspects of reality,  wouldn’t cosmos simply be one big blob of reality convulsing within itself, birthing “little replications” of itself perhaps?

Personhood is about the “Separate yet One-with” relationship we need with the earth, cosmos and each other.  With no separateness/only oneness, there is no dynamic relational energy to continuously create ANEW!  Without the separateness part of personhood, wouldn’t’ reality be just us humans/trees/whatever responding or not to some cosmos set in motion by some green???

Family Synod? I’m Cynodical.

Image God speaking: “Do these elderly patriarchs have ears to hear or eyes to see more clearly, or will they just remain blind guides to the sheep who still look to them for spiritual sustenance?” We want to have faith in them, but how can we when they even fight the pope who is trying to re-open windows in the Church?

Painted Ponderings

“Of course we know what families need!”

There they go, old celibate men, off to discuss and decide how christian families should live. They will argue over criteria for belonging to the larger but rapidly shrinking Christian family. Meanwhile modern families have struggled and broadened to include members of various faith perspectives, sexual preferences, races and nationalities, and to respect various marriage statuses. Couples have assumed their right to procreate or not responsibly. Women and men are redefining their roles within the family and society while patriarchal structures are fighting to regain control. Do these elderly patriarchs have ears to hear or eyes to see more clearly, or will they just remain blind guides to the sheep who still look to them for spiritual sustenance?

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Church of Misfits and Loners

CATHOLIC, Non-Roman Western Style

Misfits and Loners by Consilia Karli

We are all misfits and loners, whether we know it or not.Anyone who thinks is a misfit, for no two people think exactly alike. Anyone who feels is a misfit, for no two humans feel exactly the same about anything. As misfits, we tend to sacrifice our individual thinking and feeling for the reward of fitting in and belonging, all in order to escape from our very human and very important individual loneness, our unique and sacred separateness.

Unfortunately, church too often becomes a gathering of the sealed, saved and delivered, a church of the safe and secure. Yet “church of the safe and secure” is an oxymoron insofar as this life goes, for life is forever calling upon itself and us to change. And change, no matter how well pre-planned, is always full of aloneness, risk and uncertainty.

Time and again, the…

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GOD Wants Prayers?

Watercolor by Consilia Karli

 

GOD WANTS PRAYERS?  

I’ve spent my life praying.  I can assure you…

 God has absolutely no need for prayers and no desire for them.  Neither does God wait for our petitions in order to grant favors.

We need to examine the whole concept of prayer and why we pray:

…so prayer can help us lay down our judgments and assumptions about self, others, life, the world, God, et al

…so prayer can help OPEN our minds to the MYSTERY OF LIVING unfolding before our eyes at every moment

..the mystery of each of us, the mystery of our relationships and our times.

 

 

 

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Wait for God?

Who GOD is Not

“Wait for God” by Consilia Karli

Too much suffering has been left unaddressed in our world, dismissed by “God will take care of it” resignation.

What if God is not the cosmic babysitter?

What if the Great Mystery of the universe simply calls all forth,

calls US forth to get up and leave the dust of suffering called evil behind us…

…like God called Moses and Miriam forth to leave Egypt and lead those slaves out of bondage who would follow. (There will always be those who stay behind.)

What if we are NOT supposed to endure familial or systemic evil as if it were inevitable or inescapable?

What if we are to walk compassionately to the edge of suffering while refusing to be sucked into it…

…even needing to walk away from it when it threatens to bury us…

…with courage and full confidence in aGood that is larger…

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Pope Says People Should Doubt Church

Pope Says People Should Doubt Church

Again, doubt is an important element of faith.  After reading Kyle Cupp’s article above about the pope, read the book NOTHING SACRED by Douglas Rushkoff. “Many will be outraged and even furious at Rushkoff for daring to revise the Jewish tradition of self-questioning.”  This tradition should be an all-faith tradition so that religion doesn’t degenerate into idolatry.

The Emptiness, this NOTHING of which Rushkoff speaks in his book is space for the divine to emerge in the midst of us. This Nothing space is SACRED!  This is definitely a book for people of all faiths to read and study together!

What’s Up With the Nigerian Church?

SUFFERING CAUSED BY BAD THEOLOGY
Read the story of this misery from the first hand words of a Nigerian woman (courtesy of Rebecca Trotter). “Armed robbers have been known to pray before robbery and even pay their tithes and offerings. Some pastors bless the guns of some armed robbers.”

The Upside Down World

My brain is all confudled after all the technical difficulties over the last few days. And the $900 car repair bill. And the fact that my husband has been traveling and I have too many children and I’d really just like to go veg somewhere for a week without being interrupted multiple times an hour. So this post is going to be really unfancy, but I think it’s important.

I mentioned recently that a small group of Nigerian Christians found the blog and reached out to me not long ago. And they are awesome. Real keepers. Some of our discussions have centered on the state of the church in Nigeria and their relationship with it. And what they share, while more extreme than what we usually find here in the West, is sadly familiar. There’s serious work to be done.

First, a little background. In addition to being the most populous country…

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No Perfect God

 

Perfectly Imperfect World

 

Perfect gods are boring and stilted and static and dead.

No need for intercourse or interaction with us.

They just make rules or rituals for us to follow.

Or do we make the rules and rituals to fit our perfect gods?

 

A real God would never be perfect.

A real God would never create a perfect world,

For that would be a world as dead as a perfect god.

 

A real God would be intercoursing back and forth with us,

wanting to know us more intimately,

wanting to experience the mystery of us,

calling that mystery forth from us,

as only Love does.

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