Thanks class for all the great writings and insights you have all posted for this wonderful class. This has been a tremendous experience for me as I am sure it has been for everyone in the class. Thank You Rev. Guy Williams for your insight and dedication to the Hebrew Bible and sharing it with us in such a delightful way.
Les DeMarco
Song of Solomon
Isn’t this just a love song/poem?
How does one find passion in something that is so dry?
I suppose the answers are poor translation, different culture and century, and my inability to find this to be anything more than a call to move past the animalistic desires of life and allow Love to blossom and grow. I have read this passage numerous times in my life and it does the same nothing for me now as it did then. I am not compelled to be inspired by flowery words, or romantic language. I do not find value in or partake of, cooing or wooing. The artistry of this passage is certainly lovely and probably needed by the church to romanticize the relationship of God and Man, and I am certain that someone somewhere has a built a church on just this book alone.
I can guess what it must be like to have so many wives and what turmoil that might lead the soul into. Hence the quantity of reunification with the beauty and the passion that is displayed outwardly through word (though as I mentioned—it does nothing for me). I can see where the variety of verse could lead one into believing that one man might not have written this song (and being a songwriter if find the verse far from poetic). We actually don’t even know if this isn’t biblical satire being translated as some grand poem, I mean, none of us were there nor were the scholars that interpret and translate this. At best, at the council of Nicea, they must have needed something of a romantic nature and felt this best suited the role. Definitely there is some allegory towards man’s relationship with God within, and one doesn’t have to stretch too far to make this scenario fit. We have much more romantic stuff from St. John of the Cross, or St. Francis of Assisi, than that which is contained within this Song of Solomon, but in their prose we cannot miss that it is definitely about individual relationship and adoration for the Divine. You might even think that some of it is rather sexual connotative as we could also sense in Song of Solomon. But nonetheless, it is interpretation and how one chooses to perceive these writings.
.
Kings
Take me to the construction of the temple! Don’t give me the finish schedule give me the structural details of its construction. How many men did it take to achieve this grand model? What tools were used? Who was the architect? What was the foundation made of? How was it lit and who made the windows to let in the light? Only two Angels at the pillars? How was it plumbed? These things interest me. That wood doesn’t exist anymore. Where are the ruins? Do we have any pieces left to be seen anywhere? I know the temple was destroyed, but I shall build it up in three days! The direct lineage of Jesus comes from David according to biblical pointing. Yet why is there so much mention of various people in Kings? If everything is an aspect of our consciousness and we are all of and in and using the One Mind, then that which I seek I already am.
So the names clearly mean things as we have discussed through previous papers, and this isn’t just about the travels and ancestry of the Hebrew tribes. There is something intriguing about the nature of what should be historical content, and we don’t have a lot of evidence that this is so, but these names and these stories are continuing to be told.
So we have two chief players Solomon and David. Two major thrones, two major artists by right. One clearly a visionary for architecture and one for psalm and musicianship. Both grand leaders and just lords. One gives in to the passion he lives for women, and one the passion he lives for love. Yet both love God and serve its laws. A great savior is said to have come from the line of David, and that line goes way back through the patriarchs (but this is taking the biblical history as fact and then we have nothing but incest anyway). However Solomon was a great romanticizer and remained close to God and performed just actions as a ruler using wisdom and fairness as a basis for his throne. 1, 000 wives! Holy cow! I can’t imagine what that must be like. Now if it is just for the sake of variety, then the story might be told differently, but then when we read some of Solomon’s wisdom and we might read the proverbs such as, “It is better to live in a house with a leaky roof than to live with a nagging woman,” we can see where the issues begin to arise and convince Solomon of what it is he is in love with. We’ve all read the books so no need to rehash it!
I believe there is a feminine side to him that completed him and he matched each of the majesty and the mystery that men may not see in themselves, by being in relation with multiple wives or concubines. He was vain, flamboyant, and opulent in his reign. Yet justice prevailed through the wisdom of being wholly united with both aspects of himself: the feminine and the masculine.
If I were a psychologist I might go into the various archetypes that show up in these books. If was a criminologist I might investigate the polygamy and try to uncover criminal behavior from today’s standards. If I was a Mormon, I might use Solomon as an example of biblical pointing to why polygamy is of God. If I was an historian, I could pick apart the lineage and the discrepancies within the stories here. But I am none of these. I am a metaphysician that sees the metaphors and the allegories as applicable to my life and to my ministry; and what I have discovered is the ability to be wise in council, sound in judgment, humble before the Presence of God within, and obedient to the principles that I understand about the Universe. I take great pleasure in understanding my inherent Divinity and that in others, and am just as proud to serve as Solomon and David. This is what I get from these stories/books. Love for God and its creations, its laws, and its Beauty.
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Job & Ezekiel
Judith P. Pando
11/2/09
Metaphysical Bible I
A Practitioner Session with Job
If I were Job’s Practitioner, I would like to think that I would be much more compassionate and empathetic than his ‘friends’ Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. But, what does a Practitioner do with the all too common problem of innocent suffering? Job lost everything, his family, his prosperity and his health, and he saw himself as blameless. He had done everything right according to his viewpoint, he feared God and worshipped Him; he cared for his family and appreciated the gifts he had been given. He was a good man, an upright man and was rewarded for his goodness as, according to tradition, was his due. God Himself declared: There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was PERFECT. Yet, God, on an apparent whim took it all away. And Job lamented, he grieved, he wished he had never been born. And his ‘friends’ kept telling him that he must have done something to disserve it, that he should repent. Eliphaz believes Job is suffering because he has sinned; Bildad ponders that if Job was more upright, he would not be in the trouble he’s in; Zophar rebukes Job for being so self-righteous and fearful, and urges him to repent. But Job remains faithful “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and receive the bad.” Job reproaches his friends for being judgmental and feels forsaken by his friends and God. "I have been wronged. I cry for help, but there is no justice." (19:7)
Job was self-righteous, and self-righteousness comes out of fear; and the things Job feared the most came upon him. His friends had no answer for him because they looked only at the level of effect. Job continued to argue with them that he was totally blameless. So a 4th friend, Elihu, the interpreter, gave his opinion of the situation. He suggests that who are we, a mere mortal to say what is good or what is bad, right or wrong. God will define righteousness and He knows what is just. Then the Lord speaks to Job “out of the whirlwind”. God displays the wonders of creation to Job, and Job has a mystical experience of the sacred. And Job is humbled, his eyes are open; he sees things in a completely new way. He repents and prays for his friends and is forgiven and healed. And the Lord blessed him.
As I look at my life, I have had my own Job experiences, although not to the degree that Job suffered. There have been times when God has thumped me on the side of the head to get my attention and I spent altogether too much time in shame, blame and regret, my three friends. Spiritual practices help me to see things differently; to inoculate myself against the viral infection of fear and to create a new life of my choosing—until I get another thump. Perhaps my spiritual practices should include the ability to get a new life without the thump in the future.
Getting back to my original question, what does a Practitioner do when a Job walks into her office? I would listen with a loving compassionate, empathetic heart, and know the truth for the individual. I would pray and meditate, and with time, maybe help him reveal his own transformation.
The Prophet Ezekiel
Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, I was among the captives by the river of Chebar that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God
Thus starts the Book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a prophet and a priest. He prophesized while in captivity in Babylon. Ezekiel denotes a couple different meanings - God is strong, God strengthens or God makes hard. Ezekiel had a number of very mystical visions. These visions have Shamanistic elements in that Ezekiel enters into a trance like state and is given messages from God to relay to the people of Israel. He carried several different messages to the people, the first being that God was not only in the Temple, but was with them wherever they are just as He was when they were pastoral nomads. The second is that Jerusalem and the Temple will be destroyed because of their sins and disobedience. Third, that only when the nation as a whole and each individual within it returned to their covenant with God, would they be able to return to Jerusalem.
In his first vision, Ezekiel saw God in a spectacular chariot, in the sky above him. And then God entered him and spoke to him. This was significant because the Judeans thought that they could worship their God only in the temple. How would they be able to worship Him when they were now in a distant land? Was their God still available to them? Ezekiel speaks to this problem. He first explains that the Judean exile is a punishment for disobedience and he then offers hope to the exiles, suggesting that the exile will be reversed once they return to God. God will come to them, they are not abandoned. God was not defeated; He caused the destruction because they would no longer hear Him and because of their lack of morality. The third prophecy was important, because God was telling His people that not only the nation, but each individual is personally responsible for his life and maybe the sins of the father don’t really impact the son after all. Chapter 18 deals with the idea of social responsibility. God is charging his people to be just and to not worship idols.
The soul that sinneth shall die. But if a man be just and do what is lawful and right…Hath walked in my statutes, and have kept my judgments, to deal truly he shall truly live, sayeth the Lord God.
How might I apply this teaching in my own life, to my ministry? First the idea of not worshiping idols strikes me as an important message for today. I must ask myself what it is that I am putting before my God, my good; money, diversion, or something like conditional loving. Where is it that I am experiencing separation? I believe that it is the will of the divine to bring about greater and greater good in my life and to bring harm to no one. But it is my responsibility to do the work, to hold the vision and to raise my own consciousness because everything I think, say or do has an influence the world.
11/2/09
Metaphysical Bible I
A Practitioner Session with Job
If I were Job’s Practitioner, I would like to think that I would be much more compassionate and empathetic than his ‘friends’ Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. But, what does a Practitioner do with the all too common problem of innocent suffering? Job lost everything, his family, his prosperity and his health, and he saw himself as blameless. He had done everything right according to his viewpoint, he feared God and worshipped Him; he cared for his family and appreciated the gifts he had been given. He was a good man, an upright man and was rewarded for his goodness as, according to tradition, was his due. God Himself declared: There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was PERFECT. Yet, God, on an apparent whim took it all away. And Job lamented, he grieved, he wished he had never been born. And his ‘friends’ kept telling him that he must have done something to disserve it, that he should repent. Eliphaz believes Job is suffering because he has sinned; Bildad ponders that if Job was more upright, he would not be in the trouble he’s in; Zophar rebukes Job for being so self-righteous and fearful, and urges him to repent. But Job remains faithful “Shall we receive the good at the hand of God and receive the bad.” Job reproaches his friends for being judgmental and feels forsaken by his friends and God. "I have been wronged. I cry for help, but there is no justice." (19:7)
Job was self-righteous, and self-righteousness comes out of fear; and the things Job feared the most came upon him. His friends had no answer for him because they looked only at the level of effect. Job continued to argue with them that he was totally blameless. So a 4th friend, Elihu, the interpreter, gave his opinion of the situation. He suggests that who are we, a mere mortal to say what is good or what is bad, right or wrong. God will define righteousness and He knows what is just. Then the Lord speaks to Job “out of the whirlwind”. God displays the wonders of creation to Job, and Job has a mystical experience of the sacred. And Job is humbled, his eyes are open; he sees things in a completely new way. He repents and prays for his friends and is forgiven and healed. And the Lord blessed him.
As I look at my life, I have had my own Job experiences, although not to the degree that Job suffered. There have been times when God has thumped me on the side of the head to get my attention and I spent altogether too much time in shame, blame and regret, my three friends. Spiritual practices help me to see things differently; to inoculate myself against the viral infection of fear and to create a new life of my choosing—until I get another thump. Perhaps my spiritual practices should include the ability to get a new life without the thump in the future.
Getting back to my original question, what does a Practitioner do when a Job walks into her office? I would listen with a loving compassionate, empathetic heart, and know the truth for the individual. I would pray and meditate, and with time, maybe help him reveal his own transformation.
The Prophet Ezekiel
Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, in the fifth day of the month, I was among the captives by the river of Chebar that the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God
Thus starts the Book of Ezekiel. Ezekiel was a prophet and a priest. He prophesized while in captivity in Babylon. Ezekiel denotes a couple different meanings - God is strong, God strengthens or God makes hard. Ezekiel had a number of very mystical visions. These visions have Shamanistic elements in that Ezekiel enters into a trance like state and is given messages from God to relay to the people of Israel. He carried several different messages to the people, the first being that God was not only in the Temple, but was with them wherever they are just as He was when they were pastoral nomads. The second is that Jerusalem and the Temple will be destroyed because of their sins and disobedience. Third, that only when the nation as a whole and each individual within it returned to their covenant with God, would they be able to return to Jerusalem.
In his first vision, Ezekiel saw God in a spectacular chariot, in the sky above him. And then God entered him and spoke to him. This was significant because the Judeans thought that they could worship their God only in the temple. How would they be able to worship Him when they were now in a distant land? Was their God still available to them? Ezekiel speaks to this problem. He first explains that the Judean exile is a punishment for disobedience and he then offers hope to the exiles, suggesting that the exile will be reversed once they return to God. God will come to them, they are not abandoned. God was not defeated; He caused the destruction because they would no longer hear Him and because of their lack of morality. The third prophecy was important, because God was telling His people that not only the nation, but each individual is personally responsible for his life and maybe the sins of the father don’t really impact the son after all. Chapter 18 deals with the idea of social responsibility. God is charging his people to be just and to not worship idols.
The soul that sinneth shall die. But if a man be just and do what is lawful and right…Hath walked in my statutes, and have kept my judgments, to deal truly he shall truly live, sayeth the Lord God.
How might I apply this teaching in my own life, to my ministry? First the idea of not worshiping idols strikes me as an important message for today. I must ask myself what it is that I am putting before my God, my good; money, diversion, or something like conditional loving. Where is it that I am experiencing separation? I believe that it is the will of the divine to bring about greater and greater good in my life and to bring harm to no one. But it is my responsibility to do the work, to hold the vision and to raise my own consciousness because everything I think, say or do has an influence the world.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Joyce Kinzel
My Thoughts on Job and Ezekiel
JOB
The story of Job is a story of the soul. It is the soul’s journey. I can relate to it in my own journey of evolving consciousness. Job goes from why is this happening to me and living outside of him to having to come to terms with his inner journey. What Job feared most came upon him, like when we continue to live in fear and doubt.
Then his three friends come along to comfort and argue with him. They represented the accusations against the self, that we are less than. The friends attempt to justify the outer world of appearances, like our world does for us.
Elihu, the interpreter, opens Job’s eyes to his higher consciousness. The outside cannot bring about higher consciousness; it only comes from within as we open up our mind and hearts. So love and wisdom cannot reign supreme until it comes from the inside out. This can only be done through changing how we see and behave in our world. Our thoughts and actions must change in order to bring about transformation.
Job has to forgive himself in order to heal. When Job turned to God and prayed for his friends he was released by God and given more than he ever had before. When we let go the old stuff and are willing to forgive ourselves and others, we are open to the transformation of the soul. We receive more that we could ever have dreamed of. Like all of our journeys, Job’s was one of transformation.
EZEKIEL
Ezekiel was open and placed his full faith and trust in God. In Ezekiel I see the importance of totally being open and trusting God knowing all is taken care of. He showed us how to be strong.
Ezekiel had a vision in which God’s glory was revealed to him. God told him to be not afraid for he would be there to support him. As God is showing me the direction of my ministry, I must remain strong and full of trust and faith. I must remember to be steadfast and know that as Ezekiel’s name means, God strengthens me.
As Ezekiel learned in his spiritual growth, we must go forth and carry the message knowing that God is always there to support us. In ministry we must be open vessels in carrying the message of transformation forward. We must provide people with a safe space to expand their consciousness’’. Reminding them that God is open to all equally. God is not bound to a place, like the temple. God can be encountered anywhere, even from within. We must all stand and not be afraid to be our God selves.
For me in my ministry, I want be like an open vessel. To provide a safe and nurturing place for people to open and become vessels of expanding consciousness. I also want my ministry to be in integrity, to treat people with compassion and justice. To always remember that God strengthens me as I continue on my journey transformation.
Thanks Rev Guy for your willingness to share your genuine love of the Bible from the metaphysical perspective. I am now seeing the Bible from a more metaphysical place and less linearly.
My Thoughts on Job and Ezekiel
JOB
The story of Job is a story of the soul. It is the soul’s journey. I can relate to it in my own journey of evolving consciousness. Job goes from why is this happening to me and living outside of him to having to come to terms with his inner journey. What Job feared most came upon him, like when we continue to live in fear and doubt.
Then his three friends come along to comfort and argue with him. They represented the accusations against the self, that we are less than. The friends attempt to justify the outer world of appearances, like our world does for us.
Elihu, the interpreter, opens Job’s eyes to his higher consciousness. The outside cannot bring about higher consciousness; it only comes from within as we open up our mind and hearts. So love and wisdom cannot reign supreme until it comes from the inside out. This can only be done through changing how we see and behave in our world. Our thoughts and actions must change in order to bring about transformation.
Job has to forgive himself in order to heal. When Job turned to God and prayed for his friends he was released by God and given more than he ever had before. When we let go the old stuff and are willing to forgive ourselves and others, we are open to the transformation of the soul. We receive more that we could ever have dreamed of. Like all of our journeys, Job’s was one of transformation.
EZEKIEL
Ezekiel was open and placed his full faith and trust in God. In Ezekiel I see the importance of totally being open and trusting God knowing all is taken care of. He showed us how to be strong.
Ezekiel had a vision in which God’s glory was revealed to him. God told him to be not afraid for he would be there to support him. As God is showing me the direction of my ministry, I must remain strong and full of trust and faith. I must remember to be steadfast and know that as Ezekiel’s name means, God strengthens me.
As Ezekiel learned in his spiritual growth, we must go forth and carry the message knowing that God is always there to support us. In ministry we must be open vessels in carrying the message of transformation forward. We must provide people with a safe space to expand their consciousness’’. Reminding them that God is open to all equally. God is not bound to a place, like the temple. God can be encountered anywhere, even from within. We must all stand and not be afraid to be our God selves.
For me in my ministry, I want be like an open vessel. To provide a safe and nurturing place for people to open and become vessels of expanding consciousness. I also want my ministry to be in integrity, to treat people with compassion and justice. To always remember that God strengthens me as I continue on my journey transformation.
Thanks Rev Guy for your willingness to share your genuine love of the Bible from the metaphysical perspective. I am now seeing the Bible from a more metaphysical place and less linearly.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Job and Ezekial and My Ministry
Job reveals to me I must never rest on my progress for long. My soul’s journey is a lifelong process and putting it off has its costs. I put off writing this paper until the price I pay in self-inflicted guilt and silent nagging is more costly that the writing of it. Reading Job I understand that who and what I think God is at any given moment is the smallest glimpse of only a miniscule part of God. Any claim to know God exclusively is a display of ignorance beyond measure. Promises given by organizations that their knowledge is complete and exclusive are a clear demonstration of my own desire to stop my own personal search and rest on the progress of another. From this class alone I find that one sentence or one passage in the Bible can reveal so much more than I ever thought about God and each time I read it my perception changes again. On my own soul’s journey I awaken to new truths nearly every day. I believe, today anyway, that my job is to stay awake as much as I possibly can. To stay awake I have to have reminders around to prod me or the lull of the race consciousness can have me snoring before I realize it. The Bible and its wondrous contents can help me do that. Like Job the voices in my head and the voices of the people that I draw into my life can pull me into confusion and doubt. When I participate in confusion or doubt and use intellectual arguments to detain me I drift away and initiate a fear that grows so fast and loud I can lose my way with little effort. Reading the news can send me on that roller coaster ride daily. I will know the strength of my faith when I can read the news and stay in peace. The more I engage in fear the more I become the victim. I give my power away to self pity. I get engrossed in defending my innocence at the expense of my peace of mind. I become self righteous and think I know so much and am so enlightened and undeserving of whatever the condition presenting in my experience. I separate myself from everything. Next I think I am subject to circumstance and have no say at all. After that I just want to give up and I begin to doubt everything I once thought to be true. My logic fails me. Suddenly I firmly believe there are two powers demonstrated in my life. I am persecuted. I lose the use of my intuition and I return to a level of survival. After some time spent in that dark place I finally do give up and turn in desperation to the Spirit within/ the Holy Spirit, and from sincere humility I ask for a new perception, a truer perception. I let go of ego and see that I have never left the union of all that is and I become more compassionate of my fellow man and experience a deep feeling of love. I am teachable again. I am renewed and back on my path which incidentally I never really left. I feel I am at a higher position on the spiral of my growth. This is not the end however as the questions reawaken and the ride begins again. Each time I take the ride it looks more and more familiar and some arguments never surface a second time. This is what growth looks like. It is not a linear path. I find the book of Job very useful in my ministry as I see its expression today. Today I still see it as a teaching ministry and Job’s story is so full of lessons for the soul that it could be taught on different levels forever. It is a story of joy for me now. Before this class it was for me a story of woe and one of anger and a cause for a belief in an unjust and vicious God.
Ezekial still escapes me more than I would like. I understand more from my class notes than from the text. He demonstrates taking the knowledge into the world whereas Job showed us the path of the soul of the individual. My notes indicate he teaches us not to be afraid when trials come. We must demonstrate our Spiritual strength by monitoring our thoughts. We must know that our thoughts are powerful and that good exists and evil does not exist. If we turn to God we are strengthened. Our work is within. We find God within. We must be the message ourselves not just tell others what the message is. As Emerson tells us who we are speaks so loud no one can hear what we are saying. We must create from some other place than experience. We must create from our imagination. This is our job, to create. We create from our intentions, then we let the visions come. Deciphering Ezekial’s visions are still a real challenge for me. Ezekial coming from Babylon where no one understood each other is perfect. I still am in the dark on most of it. He does speak the truth without fear to power though which is courageous. I see that reflected in our country’s political climate. It seems to me that our leader needs to believe enough in his own guidence to speak truth to the lobbyists without fear or dread. Ezekial afflicts the comfortable with his truth. He prompts me to question whom I serve and how much attention I give to my own intuition. This is an important question to my ministry. It can't be wishy washy. I can serve only one path or neither is served at all. I learn from Ezekial that I must eat my sorrows and meditate upon them, address my spirit within with an intention to gain insight. I must do this on a daily basis in order to evolve my own ability to develop my own visions. I must engage in visions of peace and love and abundance clearly. This is how we can all shift the collective mind away from fear and separation. My visions of winning the lottery are ones of fantasy, of rescue and do not serve the collective. I see a need for my own visions to include a change of heart in business and leadership throughout the world. Billy Graham said at the turn of the century that the one most important thing the world needs is a change of heart. I think of that phrase he spoke often. If my ministry continues as one solely of teaching or even if it becomes something else I believe visioning is a very important part of whatever path it takes and will become a very useful and valuable tool to use and teach others to use. Ezekial gives me much to take into the world.
Ezekial still escapes me more than I would like. I understand more from my class notes than from the text. He demonstrates taking the knowledge into the world whereas Job showed us the path of the soul of the individual. My notes indicate he teaches us not to be afraid when trials come. We must demonstrate our Spiritual strength by monitoring our thoughts. We must know that our thoughts are powerful and that good exists and evil does not exist. If we turn to God we are strengthened. Our work is within. We find God within. We must be the message ourselves not just tell others what the message is. As Emerson tells us who we are speaks so loud no one can hear what we are saying. We must create from some other place than experience. We must create from our imagination. This is our job, to create. We create from our intentions, then we let the visions come. Deciphering Ezekial’s visions are still a real challenge for me. Ezekial coming from Babylon where no one understood each other is perfect. I still am in the dark on most of it. He does speak the truth without fear to power though which is courageous. I see that reflected in our country’s political climate. It seems to me that our leader needs to believe enough in his own guidence to speak truth to the lobbyists without fear or dread. Ezekial afflicts the comfortable with his truth. He prompts me to question whom I serve and how much attention I give to my own intuition. This is an important question to my ministry. It can't be wishy washy. I can serve only one path or neither is served at all. I learn from Ezekial that I must eat my sorrows and meditate upon them, address my spirit within with an intention to gain insight. I must do this on a daily basis in order to evolve my own ability to develop my own visions. I must engage in visions of peace and love and abundance clearly. This is how we can all shift the collective mind away from fear and separation. My visions of winning the lottery are ones of fantasy, of rescue and do not serve the collective. I see a need for my own visions to include a change of heart in business and leadership throughout the world. Billy Graham said at the turn of the century that the one most important thing the world needs is a change of heart. I think of that phrase he spoke often. If my ministry continues as one solely of teaching or even if it becomes something else I believe visioning is a very important part of whatever path it takes and will become a very useful and valuable tool to use and teach others to use. Ezekial gives me much to take into the world.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
sorry for the multiples
I kept getting an error message saying that the client have process a bad request so my post wasn't going through. I kept getting bumped out before I could save of preview, and then when I could preview and attempt to publish I got the error message again. I tried one last time after sending it to Rev. Guy via email and wouldn't you know it, it worked. I viewed the post and now all three are there! ARGH. Sorry about that! Love to all. Les
Job and Ezekiel
Lets just pretend for a moment that we are blindly ignorant, that we have no sense of reason and that there is no path to life for meaning. We are just robots functioning, moving from point A to point B, in a lifeless gesture of existence. We are fed, famous, financed and fondled. Everything that is necessary for a happy and successful life is already demonstrating in our lives and there is no cause for concern. This is the life of Job up until the question/doubt moment. But the plot thickens and Job, harkens to doubt, questioning his righteousness and forcing his awareness to rise up (or go deeper introspectively---which ever suits you). It is this moment that alters his experience.
As children, maybe up until the age of six, we really don’t have a sense of need. Our parents have supplied us with those things that have given us the ability to have a high sense of satisfaction and security (though we might now know this at this age). We go on about our days with our ritualistic performances, playing, bathing, eating, sleeping, and feeling secure in our family unit. (Can you see any resemblance to Job?) A young consciousness, obeying the ritual and sacramental laws just as the child obeys the order and directives of the parents (up to a certain age). Then all of a sudden, what is it in the child that pushes him/her into that stage of inquiry? Or that stage that appears to be rebellious? Is it anger? Not usually. Is it self-esteem? Not typically at the age. Is it hatred? Life has been good up to now. So what is it?
Well, Bildad offers us a key: “the great desire of the partially awakened intellect to contend and strive for that which appears right to it…” But hasn’t the child felt fulfilled, satisfied? Something shifted. “the judgments and decisions are being founded more in outer appearances than in Truth.” The child is starting to have more thoughts of its own, seeking desires that can no longer be satisfied with the status of the norm that the parents provide. There is a longing for deeper satisfaction, something internal is rising up to meet normality and questioning its relevance. So what happens?
Satan happens. The state of mind of the child has shifted away form the parents and has begun to believe in its own sufficiency independent of its creative source---the parents! This Satanic event is common place within each of us just as it was with Job. The desire to move beyond the status quo and to create or achieve greater, whether that be in consciousness or in effect (same thing right?) the puffed up sense of ego steps forward. But something typically happens at this stage…the temptation has a foe!
Zopar shows us where we have limited thoughts. Here we have our own doubts and how those doubts are propelled by imaginary reasoning. This opponent we face is enraged (just like our parents get at this point when we seek our independence) and hostile, quick to point our every flaw the error of the child’s ways, however, as reasonable as Zopar may be, the child cannot understand his faults while the parent is pointing to what is wrong.
Why does Job act this way? What course of reasoning does he take? He points to stars, and speaks of the heavens and of the power of God. Here is what is most important is that something has awoken with him. He cannot see the Truth as of yet, but he starts to get some awareness (which is why he begins to tell his friends how they cannot know his pain). He has “a faint awareness of the Truth that God is always brooding over the earth and bringing about the fulfilling of the natural processes” and this is what begins to bring him some satisfaction and his mind begins to move away from his condition.
But does he recant?
Only after he sees the light and believes that others may suffer if he comes into his enlightenment. His saving grace is that he loses his self-pity and calls for God to be graceful and merciful to his friends (those thoughts about himself that compelled him to doubt---his three friends).
The story is really about us having compassion and demanding that forgiveness be enforced within the individual consciousness. It is about growing into the right-full stage of seeing that no suffering should be imposed by us or by our thoughts toward any one thing. It is Keren-happuch! We are using the “elevating power of light” seeing “spiritual beauty”, and knowing the “Truth”, that all Life is “a beautiful soul expressing in a beautiful character.”
For me this is great in the intellect, but it is more difficult to practice. I find the ways of Job a continual process for me as I move towards greater revelation of what ministry holds for me and what I hold for it in my consciousness. Being a minister is a huge call, and is something that calls me to compassion and integrity, to being that center for Spirit to emanate and express through meunencumbered. I seek for Jobs daughters to have a larger expression in my consciousness so that I may be “refined and established in the true Christ righteousness.”
Ezekiel is a crazy discourse of constant “on this day the Lord said that to me.”
This Lord that I sense here is really the same battle that Job was having. Job had all the despair and nothing changes here except for the receiver. Who is God mad at? Why all this judgment and destruction? What is the purpose of the foretelling of doom?
I find myself unable to understand much of what is in Ezekiel because it is scattered and is not timelined in a reasonable fashion. But I can look up the words, the names. What do I find?
It all deals with the errors of thought! Darkened consciousness not yet brought to the light. Desires! Woah! I always thought God is in favor of our desires…that it brought pleasure to the soul of man to express God through our desires. These people were destroyed for their desires. They weren’t worshiping correctly. But if God is an unconditionally loving God, would it really need our recognition? No it must be some petty egotistical, miniscule proto-power incapable of knowing anything other than itself. (just a play on words there but maybe you can find the simile).
We serve our thoughts about a thing. The message is the petty desires of the flesh, and those of the argumentative mind (the mind that wants to argue for its limitation), is what leads us astray (out of our sense of wholeness and completeness). It really doesn’t matter what we think, or what we desire, it only matters what we think about those things and those thoughts that really determine if we are serving God or serving man’s image of himself/herself. I know we talked about this in class, “whom will you serve today?” I believe the follow up to that would be, “Man cannot serve two masters, either he will love the one and hate the other…” and I believe that Ezekiel is really trying to tell us to get with the program.
So to move away from the metaphysics of it and to move toward the relevance for me is, “Am I all the way in or all the way out?” There is no half-stepping to ministry! The power of God within me is that capable success, that wisdom to provide, that energy to ensure, and that love to always deliver the light where there appears to be darkness.
I get that our bodies must be well maintained and that our minds must be filled with the Spirit of the Divine, and the ongoing practice of meditation and prayer, mixed with a vision for a world that works for everyone, is mandatory. I see the importance of always testing the word that I hear against some sacred text to find its validity, and that all there really needs to be is imagination to create the new.
I can’t say as yet that I can imagine what ministry I may proceed with, but what I can say is that I am quite certain God has some genius within us all, and that we all possess some gift that the world has been waiting for, and when we give it, we shall rebuild the temple and re-establish the Holy City.
As children, maybe up until the age of six, we really don’t have a sense of need. Our parents have supplied us with those things that have given us the ability to have a high sense of satisfaction and security (though we might now know this at this age). We go on about our days with our ritualistic performances, playing, bathing, eating, sleeping, and feeling secure in our family unit. (Can you see any resemblance to Job?) A young consciousness, obeying the ritual and sacramental laws just as the child obeys the order and directives of the parents (up to a certain age). Then all of a sudden, what is it in the child that pushes him/her into that stage of inquiry? Or that stage that appears to be rebellious? Is it anger? Not usually. Is it self-esteem? Not typically at the age. Is it hatred? Life has been good up to now. So what is it?
Well, Bildad offers us a key: “the great desire of the partially awakened intellect to contend and strive for that which appears right to it…” But hasn’t the child felt fulfilled, satisfied? Something shifted. “the judgments and decisions are being founded more in outer appearances than in Truth.” The child is starting to have more thoughts of its own, seeking desires that can no longer be satisfied with the status of the norm that the parents provide. There is a longing for deeper satisfaction, something internal is rising up to meet normality and questioning its relevance. So what happens?
Satan happens. The state of mind of the child has shifted away form the parents and has begun to believe in its own sufficiency independent of its creative source---the parents! This Satanic event is common place within each of us just as it was with Job. The desire to move beyond the status quo and to create or achieve greater, whether that be in consciousness or in effect (same thing right?) the puffed up sense of ego steps forward. But something typically happens at this stage…the temptation has a foe!
Zopar shows us where we have limited thoughts. Here we have our own doubts and how those doubts are propelled by imaginary reasoning. This opponent we face is enraged (just like our parents get at this point when we seek our independence) and hostile, quick to point our every flaw the error of the child’s ways, however, as reasonable as Zopar may be, the child cannot understand his faults while the parent is pointing to what is wrong.
Why does Job act this way? What course of reasoning does he take? He points to stars, and speaks of the heavens and of the power of God. Here is what is most important is that something has awoken with him. He cannot see the Truth as of yet, but he starts to get some awareness (which is why he begins to tell his friends how they cannot know his pain). He has “a faint awareness of the Truth that God is always brooding over the earth and bringing about the fulfilling of the natural processes” and this is what begins to bring him some satisfaction and his mind begins to move away from his condition.
But does he recant?
Only after he sees the light and believes that others may suffer if he comes into his enlightenment. His saving grace is that he loses his self-pity and calls for God to be graceful and merciful to his friends (those thoughts about himself that compelled him to doubt---his three friends).
The story is really about us having compassion and demanding that forgiveness be enforced within the individual consciousness. It is about growing into the right-full stage of seeing that no suffering should be imposed by us or by our thoughts toward any one thing. It is Keren-happuch! We are using the “elevating power of light” seeing “spiritual beauty”, and knowing the “Truth”, that all Life is “a beautiful soul expressing in a beautiful character.”
For me this is great in the intellect, but it is more difficult to practice. I find the ways of Job a continual process for me as I move towards greater revelation of what ministry holds for me and what I hold for it in my consciousness. Being a minister is a huge call, and is something that calls me to compassion and integrity, to being that center for Spirit to emanate and express through meunencumbered. I seek for Jobs daughters to have a larger expression in my consciousness so that I may be “refined and established in the true Christ righteousness.”
Ezekiel is a crazy discourse of constant “on this day the Lord said that to me.”
This Lord that I sense here is really the same battle that Job was having. Job had all the despair and nothing changes here except for the receiver. Who is God mad at? Why all this judgment and destruction? What is the purpose of the foretelling of doom?
I find myself unable to understand much of what is in Ezekiel because it is scattered and is not timelined in a reasonable fashion. But I can look up the words, the names. What do I find?
It all deals with the errors of thought! Darkened consciousness not yet brought to the light. Desires! Woah! I always thought God is in favor of our desires…that it brought pleasure to the soul of man to express God through our desires. These people were destroyed for their desires. They weren’t worshiping correctly. But if God is an unconditionally loving God, would it really need our recognition? No it must be some petty egotistical, miniscule proto-power incapable of knowing anything other than itself. (just a play on words there but maybe you can find the simile).
We serve our thoughts about a thing. The message is the petty desires of the flesh, and those of the argumentative mind (the mind that wants to argue for its limitation), is what leads us astray (out of our sense of wholeness and completeness). It really doesn’t matter what we think, or what we desire, it only matters what we think about those things and those thoughts that really determine if we are serving God or serving man’s image of himself/herself. I know we talked about this in class, “whom will you serve today?” I believe the follow up to that would be, “Man cannot serve two masters, either he will love the one and hate the other…” and I believe that Ezekiel is really trying to tell us to get with the program.
So to move away from the metaphysics of it and to move toward the relevance for me is, “Am I all the way in or all the way out?” There is no half-stepping to ministry! The power of God within me is that capable success, that wisdom to provide, that energy to ensure, and that love to always deliver the light where there appears to be darkness.
I get that our bodies must be well maintained and that our minds must be filled with the Spirit of the Divine, and the ongoing practice of meditation and prayer, mixed with a vision for a world that works for everyone, is mandatory. I see the importance of always testing the word that I hear against some sacred text to find its validity, and that all there really needs to be is imagination to create the new.
I can’t say as yet that I can imagine what ministry I may proceed with, but what I can say is that I am quite certain God has some genius within us all, and that we all possess some gift that the world has been waiting for, and when we give it, we shall rebuild the temple and re-establish the Holy City.
Job and Ezekiel
Okay try number four.
this is really buggy!
Here is the paper on Job and Ezekiel. I took a different approach and really enjoyed working on this. I really have enjoyed the class and wanted to let everyone know that commenting has not worked from this end but I have read all the papers. I wanted to submit the final paper while it was closest in my brain. I will submit the missing paper for kings and solomon next week. Again, Rev. Guy (and classmates) thank you so much for this class. What a delight!
Here's Job and Ezekiel...
Lets just pretend for a moment that we are blindly ignorant, that we have no sense of reason and that there is no path to life for meaning. We are just robots functioning, moving from point A to point B, in a lifeless gesture of existence. We are fed, famous, financed and fondled. Everything that is necessary for a happy and successful life is already demonstrating in our lives and there is no cause for concern. This is the life of Job up until the question/doubt moment. But the plot thickens and Job, harkens to doubt, questioning his righteousness and forcing his awareness to rise up (or go deeper introspectively---which ever suits you). It is this moment that alters his experience.
As children, maybe up until the age of six, we really don’t have a sense of need. Our parents have supplied us with those things that have given us the ability to have a high sense of satisfaction and security (though we might now know this at this age). We go on about our days with our ritualistic performances, playing, bathing, eating, sleeping, and feeling secure in our family unit. (Can you see any resemblance to Job?) A young consciousness, obeying the ritual and sacramental laws just as the child obeys the order and directives of the parents (up to a certain age). Then all of a sudden, what is it in the child that pushes him/her into that stage of inquiry? Or that stage that appears to be rebellious? Is it anger? Not usually. Is it self-esteem? Not typically at the age. Is it hatred? Life has been good up to now. So what is it?
Well, Bildad offers us a key: “the great desire of the partially awakened intellect to contend and strive for that which appears right to it…” But hasn’t the child felt fulfilled, satisfied? Something shifted. “the judgments and decisions are being founded more in outer appearances than in Truth.” The child is starting to have more thoughts of its own, seeking desires that can no longer be satisfied with the status of the norm that the parents provide. There is a longing for deeper satisfaction, something internal is rising up to meet normality and questioning its relevance. So what happens?
Satan happens. The state of mind of the child has shifted away form the parents and has begun to believe in its own sufficiency independent of its creative source---the parents! This Satanic event is common place within each of us just as it was with Job. The desire to move beyond the status quo and to create or achieve greater, whether that be in consciousness or in effect (same thing right?) the puffed up sense of ego steps forward. But something typically happens at this stage…the temptation has a foe!
Zopar shows us where we have limited thoughts. Here we have our own doubts and how those doubts are propelled by imaginary reasoning. This opponent we face is enraged (just like our parents get at this point when we seek our independence) and hostile, quick to point our every flaw the error of the child’s ways, however, as reasonable as Zopar may be, the child cannot understand his faults while the parent is pointing to what is wrong.
Why does Job act this way? What course of reasoning does he take? He points to stars, and speaks of the heavens and of the power of God. Here is what is most important is that something has awoken with him. He cannot see the Truth as of yet, but he starts to get some awareness (which is why he begins to tell his friends how they cannot know his pain). He has “a faint awareness of the Truth that God is always brooding over the earth and bringing about the fulfilling of the natural processes” and this is what begins to bring him some satisfaction and his mind begins to move away from his condition.
But does he recant?
Only after he sees the light and believes that others may suffer if he comes into his enlightenment. His saving grace is that he loses his self-pity and calls for God to be graceful and merciful to his friends (those thoughts about himself that compelled him to doubt---his three friends).
The story is really about us having compassion and demanding that forgiveness be enforced within the individual consciousness. It is about growing into the right-full stage of seeing that no suffering should be imposed by us or by our thoughts toward any one thing. It is Keren-happuch! We are using the “elevating power of light” seeing “spiritual beauty”, and knowing the “Truth”, that all Life is “a beautiful soul expressing in a beautiful character.”
For me this is great in the intellect, but it is more difficult to practice. I find the ways of Job a continual process for me as I move towards greater revelation of what ministry holds for me and what I hold for it in my consciousness. Being a minister is a huge call, and is something that calls me to compassion and integrity, to being that center for Spirit to emanate and express through meunencumbered. I seek for Jobs daughters to have a larger expression in my consciousness so that I may be “refined and established in the true Christ righteousness.”
Ezekiel is a crazy discourse of constant “on this day the Lord said that to me.”
This Lord that I sense here is really the same battle that Job was having. Job had all the despair and nothing changes here except for the receiver. Who is God mad at? Why all this judgment and destruction? What is the purpose of the foretelling of doom?
I find myself unable to understand much of what is in Ezekiel because it is scattered and is not timelined in a reasonable fashion. But I can look up the words, the names. What do I find?
It all deals with the errors of thought! Darkened consciousness not yet brought to the light. Desires! Woah! I always thought God is in favor of our desires…that it brought pleasure to the soul of man to express God through our desires. These people were destroyed for their desires. They weren’t worshiping correctly. But if God is an unconditionally loving God, would it really need our recognition? No it must be some petty egotistical, miniscule proto-power incapable of knowing anything other than itself. (just a play on words there but maybe you can find the simile).
We serve our thoughts about a thing. The message is the petty desires of the flesh, and those of the argumentative mind (the mind that wants to argue for its limitation), is what leads us astray (out of our sense of wholeness and completeness). It really doesn’t matter what we think, or what we desire, it only matters what we think about those things and those thoughts that really determine if we are serving God or serving man’s image of himself/herself. I know we talked about this in class, “whom will you serve today?” I believe the follow up to that would be, “Man cannot serve two masters, either he will love the one and hate the other…” and I believe that Ezekiel is really trying to tell us to get with the program.
So to move away from the metaphysics of it and to move toward the relevance for me is, “Am I all the way in or all the way out?” There is no half-stepping to ministry! The power of God within me is that capable success, that wisdom to provide, that energy to ensure, and that love to always deliver the light where there appears to be darkness.
I get that our bodies must be well maintained and that our minds must be filled with the Spirit of the Divine, and the ongoing practice of meditation and prayer, mixed with a vision for a world that works for everyone, is mandatory. I see the importance of always testing the word that I hear against some sacred text to find its validity, and that all there really needs to be is imagination to create the new.
I can’t say as yet that I can imagine what ministry I may proceed with, but what I can say is that I am quite certain God has some genius within us all, and that we all possess some gift that the world has been waiting for, and when we give it, we shall rebuild the temple and re-establish the Holy City.
this is really buggy!
Here is the paper on Job and Ezekiel. I took a different approach and really enjoyed working on this. I really have enjoyed the class and wanted to let everyone know that commenting has not worked from this end but I have read all the papers. I wanted to submit the final paper while it was closest in my brain. I will submit the missing paper for kings and solomon next week. Again, Rev. Guy (and classmates) thank you so much for this class. What a delight!
Here's Job and Ezekiel...
Lets just pretend for a moment that we are blindly ignorant, that we have no sense of reason and that there is no path to life for meaning. We are just robots functioning, moving from point A to point B, in a lifeless gesture of existence. We are fed, famous, financed and fondled. Everything that is necessary for a happy and successful life is already demonstrating in our lives and there is no cause for concern. This is the life of Job up until the question/doubt moment. But the plot thickens and Job, harkens to doubt, questioning his righteousness and forcing his awareness to rise up (or go deeper introspectively---which ever suits you). It is this moment that alters his experience.
As children, maybe up until the age of six, we really don’t have a sense of need. Our parents have supplied us with those things that have given us the ability to have a high sense of satisfaction and security (though we might now know this at this age). We go on about our days with our ritualistic performances, playing, bathing, eating, sleeping, and feeling secure in our family unit. (Can you see any resemblance to Job?) A young consciousness, obeying the ritual and sacramental laws just as the child obeys the order and directives of the parents (up to a certain age). Then all of a sudden, what is it in the child that pushes him/her into that stage of inquiry? Or that stage that appears to be rebellious? Is it anger? Not usually. Is it self-esteem? Not typically at the age. Is it hatred? Life has been good up to now. So what is it?
Well, Bildad offers us a key: “the great desire of the partially awakened intellect to contend and strive for that which appears right to it…” But hasn’t the child felt fulfilled, satisfied? Something shifted. “the judgments and decisions are being founded more in outer appearances than in Truth.” The child is starting to have more thoughts of its own, seeking desires that can no longer be satisfied with the status of the norm that the parents provide. There is a longing for deeper satisfaction, something internal is rising up to meet normality and questioning its relevance. So what happens?
Satan happens. The state of mind of the child has shifted away form the parents and has begun to believe in its own sufficiency independent of its creative source---the parents! This Satanic event is common place within each of us just as it was with Job. The desire to move beyond the status quo and to create or achieve greater, whether that be in consciousness or in effect (same thing right?) the puffed up sense of ego steps forward. But something typically happens at this stage…the temptation has a foe!
Zopar shows us where we have limited thoughts. Here we have our own doubts and how those doubts are propelled by imaginary reasoning. This opponent we face is enraged (just like our parents get at this point when we seek our independence) and hostile, quick to point our every flaw the error of the child’s ways, however, as reasonable as Zopar may be, the child cannot understand his faults while the parent is pointing to what is wrong.
Why does Job act this way? What course of reasoning does he take? He points to stars, and speaks of the heavens and of the power of God. Here is what is most important is that something has awoken with him. He cannot see the Truth as of yet, but he starts to get some awareness (which is why he begins to tell his friends how they cannot know his pain). He has “a faint awareness of the Truth that God is always brooding over the earth and bringing about the fulfilling of the natural processes” and this is what begins to bring him some satisfaction and his mind begins to move away from his condition.
But does he recant?
Only after he sees the light and believes that others may suffer if he comes into his enlightenment. His saving grace is that he loses his self-pity and calls for God to be graceful and merciful to his friends (those thoughts about himself that compelled him to doubt---his three friends).
The story is really about us having compassion and demanding that forgiveness be enforced within the individual consciousness. It is about growing into the right-full stage of seeing that no suffering should be imposed by us or by our thoughts toward any one thing. It is Keren-happuch! We are using the “elevating power of light” seeing “spiritual beauty”, and knowing the “Truth”, that all Life is “a beautiful soul expressing in a beautiful character.”
For me this is great in the intellect, but it is more difficult to practice. I find the ways of Job a continual process for me as I move towards greater revelation of what ministry holds for me and what I hold for it in my consciousness. Being a minister is a huge call, and is something that calls me to compassion and integrity, to being that center for Spirit to emanate and express through meunencumbered. I seek for Jobs daughters to have a larger expression in my consciousness so that I may be “refined and established in the true Christ righteousness.”
Ezekiel is a crazy discourse of constant “on this day the Lord said that to me.”
This Lord that I sense here is really the same battle that Job was having. Job had all the despair and nothing changes here except for the receiver. Who is God mad at? Why all this judgment and destruction? What is the purpose of the foretelling of doom?
I find myself unable to understand much of what is in Ezekiel because it is scattered and is not timelined in a reasonable fashion. But I can look up the words, the names. What do I find?
It all deals with the errors of thought! Darkened consciousness not yet brought to the light. Desires! Woah! I always thought God is in favor of our desires…that it brought pleasure to the soul of man to express God through our desires. These people were destroyed for their desires. They weren’t worshiping correctly. But if God is an unconditionally loving God, would it really need our recognition? No it must be some petty egotistical, miniscule proto-power incapable of knowing anything other than itself. (just a play on words there but maybe you can find the simile).
We serve our thoughts about a thing. The message is the petty desires of the flesh, and those of the argumentative mind (the mind that wants to argue for its limitation), is what leads us astray (out of our sense of wholeness and completeness). It really doesn’t matter what we think, or what we desire, it only matters what we think about those things and those thoughts that really determine if we are serving God or serving man’s image of himself/herself. I know we talked about this in class, “whom will you serve today?” I believe the follow up to that would be, “Man cannot serve two masters, either he will love the one and hate the other…” and I believe that Ezekiel is really trying to tell us to get with the program.
So to move away from the metaphysics of it and to move toward the relevance for me is, “Am I all the way in or all the way out?” There is no half-stepping to ministry! The power of God within me is that capable success, that wisdom to provide, that energy to ensure, and that love to always deliver the light where there appears to be darkness.
I get that our bodies must be well maintained and that our minds must be filled with the Spirit of the Divine, and the ongoing practice of meditation and prayer, mixed with a vision for a world that works for everyone, is mandatory. I see the importance of always testing the word that I hear against some sacred text to find its validity, and that all there really needs to be is imagination to create the new.
I can’t say as yet that I can imagine what ministry I may proceed with, but what I can say is that I am quite certain God has some genius within us all, and that we all possess some gift that the world has been waiting for, and when we give it, we shall rebuild the temple and re-establish the Holy City.
Job and Ezekiel
I wanted to get this out before the kings and solomon paper because it was closer to my brain right now. As usual I took a different approach. Will get the paper I am missing in this coming week. Thank all of you for a wonderful class and expereince. Am enjoying reading the posts though finding commenting difficult because they don't post. See all of you soon enough! Much Love. Les
Lets just pretend for a moment that we are blindly ignorant, that we have no sense of reason and that there is no path to life for meaning. We are just robots functioning, moving from point A to point B, in a lifeless gesture of existence. We are fed, famous, financed and fondled. Everything that is necessary for a happy and successful life is already demonstrating in our lives and there is no cause for concern. This is the life of Job up until the question/doubt moment. But the plot thickens and Job, harkens to doubt, questioning his righteousness and forcing his awareness to rise up (or go deeper introspectively---which ever suits you). It is this moment that alters his experience.
As children, maybe up until the age of six, we really don’t have a sense of need. Our parents have supplied us with those things that have given us the ability to have a high sense of satisfaction and security (though we might now know this at this age). We go on about our days with our ritualistic performances, playing, bathing, eating, sleeping, and feeling secure in our family unit. (Can you see any resemblance to Job?) A young consciousness, obeying the ritual and sacramental laws just as the child obeys the order and directives of the parents (up to a certain age). Then all of a sudden, what is it in the child that pushes him/her into that stage of inquiry? Or that stage that appears to be rebellious? Is it anger? Not usually. Is it self-esteem? Not typically at the age. Is it hatred? Life has been good up to now. So what is it?
Well, Bildad offers us a key: “the great desire of the partially awakened intellect to contend and strive for that which appears right to it…” But hasn’t the child felt fulfilled, satisfied? Something shifted. “the judgments and decisions are being founded more in outer appearances than in Truth.” The child is starting to have more thoughts of its own, seeking desires that can no longer be satisfied with the status of the norm that the parents provide. There is a longing for deeper satisfaction, something internal is rising up to meet normality and questioning its relevance. So what happens?
Satan happens. The state of mind of the child has shifted away form the parents and has begun to believe in its own sufficiency independent of its creative source---the parents! This Satanic event is common place within each of us just as it was with Job. The desire to move beyond the status quo and to create or achieve greater, whether that be in consciousness or in effect (same thing right?) the puffed up sense of ego steps forward. But something typically happens at this stage…the temptation has a foe!
Zopar shows us where we have limited thoughts. Here we have our own doubts and how those doubts are propelled by imaginary reasoning. This opponent we face is enraged (just like our parents get at this point when we seek our independence) and hostile, quick to point our every flaw the error of the child’s ways, however, as reasonable as Zopar may be, the child cannot understand his faults while the parent is pointing to what is wrong.
Why does Job act this way? What course of reasoning does he take? He points to stars, and speaks of the heavens and of the power of God. Here is what is most important is that something has awoken with him. He cannot see the Truth as of yet, but he starts to get some awareness (which is why he begins to tell his friends how they cannot know his pain). He has “a faint awareness of the Truth that God is always brooding over the earth and bringing about the fulfilling of the natural processes” and this is what begins to bring him some satisfaction and his mind begins to move away from his condition.
But does he recant?
Only after he sees the light and believes that others may suffer if he comes into his enlightenment. His saving grace is that he loses his self-pity and calls for God to be graceful and merciful to his friends (those thoughts about himself that compelled him to doubt---his three friends).
The story is really about us having compassion and demanding that forgiveness be enforced within the individual consciousness. It is about growing into the right-full stage of seeing that no suffering should be imposed by us or by our thoughts toward any one thing. It is Keren-happuch! We are using the “elevating power of light” seeing “spiritual beauty”, and knowing the “Truth”, that all Life is “a beautiful soul expressing in a beautiful character.”
For me this is great in the intellect, but it is more difficult to practice. I find the ways of Job a continual process for me as I move towards greater revelation of what ministry holds for me and what I hold for it in my consciousness. Being a minister is a huge call, and is something that calls me to compassion and integrity, to being that center for Spirit to emanate and express through meunencumbered. I seek for Jobs daughters to have a larger expression in my consciousness so that I may be “refined and established in the true Christ righteousness.”
Ezekiel is a crazy discourse of constant “on this day the Lord said that to me.”
This Lord that I sense here is really the same battle that Job was having. Job had all the despair and nothing changes here except for the receiver. Who is God mad at? Why all this judgment and destruction? What is the purpose of the foretelling of doom?
I find myself unable to understand much of what is in Ezekiel because it is scattered and is not timelined in a reasonable fashion. But I can look up the words, the names. What do I find?
It all deals with the errors of thought! Darkened consciousness not yet brought to the light. Desires! Woah! I always thought God is in favor of our desires…that it brought pleasure to the soul of man to express God through our desires. These people were destroyed for their desires. They weren’t worshiping correctly. But if God is an unconditionally loving God, would it really need our recognition? No it must be some petty egotistical, miniscule proto-power incapable of knowing anything other than itself. (just a play on words there but maybe you can find the simile).
We serve our thoughts about a thing. The message is the petty desires of the flesh, and those of the argumentative mind (the mind that wants to argue for its limitation), is what leads us astray (out of our sense of wholeness and completeness). It really doesn’t matter what we think, or what we desire, it only matters what we think about those things and those thoughts that really determine if we are serving God or serving man’s image of himself/herself. I know we talked about this in class, “whom will you serve today?” I believe the follow up to that would be, “Man cannot serve two masters, either he will love the one and hate the other…” and I believe that Ezekiel is really trying to tell us to get with the program.
So to move away from the metaphysics of it and to move toward the relevance for me is, “Am I all the way in or all the way out?” There is no half-stepping to ministry! The power of God within me is that capable success, that wisdom to provide, that energy to ensure, and that love to always deliver the light where there appears to be darkness.
I get that our bodies must be well maintained and that our minds must be filled with the Spirit of the Divine, and the ongoing practice of meditation and prayer, mixed with a vision for a world that works for everyone, is mandatory. I see the importance of always testing the word that I hear against some sacred text to find its validity, and that all there really needs to be is imagination to create the new.
I can’t say as yet that I can imagine what ministry I may proceed with, but what I can say is that I am quite certain God has some genius within us all, and that we all possess some gift that the world has been waiting for, and when we give it, we shall rebuild the temple and re-establish the Holy City.
Lets just pretend for a moment that we are blindly ignorant, that we have no sense of reason and that there is no path to life for meaning. We are just robots functioning, moving from point A to point B, in a lifeless gesture of existence. We are fed, famous, financed and fondled. Everything that is necessary for a happy and successful life is already demonstrating in our lives and there is no cause for concern. This is the life of Job up until the question/doubt moment. But the plot thickens and Job, harkens to doubt, questioning his righteousness and forcing his awareness to rise up (or go deeper introspectively---which ever suits you). It is this moment that alters his experience.
As children, maybe up until the age of six, we really don’t have a sense of need. Our parents have supplied us with those things that have given us the ability to have a high sense of satisfaction and security (though we might now know this at this age). We go on about our days with our ritualistic performances, playing, bathing, eating, sleeping, and feeling secure in our family unit. (Can you see any resemblance to Job?) A young consciousness, obeying the ritual and sacramental laws just as the child obeys the order and directives of the parents (up to a certain age). Then all of a sudden, what is it in the child that pushes him/her into that stage of inquiry? Or that stage that appears to be rebellious? Is it anger? Not usually. Is it self-esteem? Not typically at the age. Is it hatred? Life has been good up to now. So what is it?
Well, Bildad offers us a key: “the great desire of the partially awakened intellect to contend and strive for that which appears right to it…” But hasn’t the child felt fulfilled, satisfied? Something shifted. “the judgments and decisions are being founded more in outer appearances than in Truth.” The child is starting to have more thoughts of its own, seeking desires that can no longer be satisfied with the status of the norm that the parents provide. There is a longing for deeper satisfaction, something internal is rising up to meet normality and questioning its relevance. So what happens?
Satan happens. The state of mind of the child has shifted away form the parents and has begun to believe in its own sufficiency independent of its creative source---the parents! This Satanic event is common place within each of us just as it was with Job. The desire to move beyond the status quo and to create or achieve greater, whether that be in consciousness or in effect (same thing right?) the puffed up sense of ego steps forward. But something typically happens at this stage…the temptation has a foe!
Zopar shows us where we have limited thoughts. Here we have our own doubts and how those doubts are propelled by imaginary reasoning. This opponent we face is enraged (just like our parents get at this point when we seek our independence) and hostile, quick to point our every flaw the error of the child’s ways, however, as reasonable as Zopar may be, the child cannot understand his faults while the parent is pointing to what is wrong.
Why does Job act this way? What course of reasoning does he take? He points to stars, and speaks of the heavens and of the power of God. Here is what is most important is that something has awoken with him. He cannot see the Truth as of yet, but he starts to get some awareness (which is why he begins to tell his friends how they cannot know his pain). He has “a faint awareness of the Truth that God is always brooding over the earth and bringing about the fulfilling of the natural processes” and this is what begins to bring him some satisfaction and his mind begins to move away from his condition.
But does he recant?
Only after he sees the light and believes that others may suffer if he comes into his enlightenment. His saving grace is that he loses his self-pity and calls for God to be graceful and merciful to his friends (those thoughts about himself that compelled him to doubt---his three friends).
The story is really about us having compassion and demanding that forgiveness be enforced within the individual consciousness. It is about growing into the right-full stage of seeing that no suffering should be imposed by us or by our thoughts toward any one thing. It is Keren-happuch! We are using the “elevating power of light” seeing “spiritual beauty”, and knowing the “Truth”, that all Life is “a beautiful soul expressing in a beautiful character.”
For me this is great in the intellect, but it is more difficult to practice. I find the ways of Job a continual process for me as I move towards greater revelation of what ministry holds for me and what I hold for it in my consciousness. Being a minister is a huge call, and is something that calls me to compassion and integrity, to being that center for Spirit to emanate and express through meunencumbered. I seek for Jobs daughters to have a larger expression in my consciousness so that I may be “refined and established in the true Christ righteousness.”
Ezekiel is a crazy discourse of constant “on this day the Lord said that to me.”
This Lord that I sense here is really the same battle that Job was having. Job had all the despair and nothing changes here except for the receiver. Who is God mad at? Why all this judgment and destruction? What is the purpose of the foretelling of doom?
I find myself unable to understand much of what is in Ezekiel because it is scattered and is not timelined in a reasonable fashion. But I can look up the words, the names. What do I find?
It all deals with the errors of thought! Darkened consciousness not yet brought to the light. Desires! Woah! I always thought God is in favor of our desires…that it brought pleasure to the soul of man to express God through our desires. These people were destroyed for their desires. They weren’t worshiping correctly. But if God is an unconditionally loving God, would it really need our recognition? No it must be some petty egotistical, miniscule proto-power incapable of knowing anything other than itself. (just a play on words there but maybe you can find the simile).
We serve our thoughts about a thing. The message is the petty desires of the flesh, and those of the argumentative mind (the mind that wants to argue for its limitation), is what leads us astray (out of our sense of wholeness and completeness). It really doesn’t matter what we think, or what we desire, it only matters what we think about those things and those thoughts that really determine if we are serving God or serving man’s image of himself/herself. I know we talked about this in class, “whom will you serve today?” I believe the follow up to that would be, “Man cannot serve two masters, either he will love the one and hate the other…” and I believe that Ezekiel is really trying to tell us to get with the program.
So to move away from the metaphysics of it and to move toward the relevance for me is, “Am I all the way in or all the way out?” There is no half-stepping to ministry! The power of God within me is that capable success, that wisdom to provide, that energy to ensure, and that love to always deliver the light where there appears to be darkness.
I get that our bodies must be well maintained and that our minds must be filled with the Spirit of the Divine, and the ongoing practice of meditation and prayer, mixed with a vision for a world that works for everyone, is mandatory. I see the importance of always testing the word that I hear against some sacred text to find its validity, and that all there really needs to be is imagination to create the new.
I can’t say as yet that I can imagine what ministry I may proceed with, but what I can say is that I am quite certain God has some genius within us all, and that we all possess some gift that the world has been waiting for, and when we give it, we shall rebuild the temple and re-establish the Holy City.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Metaphysical Bible I
Joyce Kinzel
10/17/09
My Thoughts on
1 & 2 Kings and Song of Solomon
1 & 2 KINGS
The books of Kings tell us about the establishment of the lineage and leadership of the kings Israel and Judea. Through these stories metaphysically we see developing a belief omnipresence of God and a belief unity rather than separation. Humankind is constantly learning by trial and error.
David starts out as a common shepherd who was a poet. He was able to soothe King Saul painful headaches through his music. This shows how the power of love can quell pain and discord. David, which means the beloved, was promised by God that his descendants would rule Jerusalem forever. David represented the divine love in human consciousness. David was a beloved king. He was flawed and always brought back to God.
Through the efforts of his mother Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan, Solomon was anointed king, while David was still alive. Metaphysically the name Solomon is when in consciousness the soul unifies wisdom and love.
Solomon had quite a reign, which included eliminating his enemies, the building of the temple, reorganized the country and 700 wives and 300 concubines. Solomon also recognized the importance of the divine feminine. He was also a man with legendary wisdom and judgment.
Solomon represents a journey of the soul that as it opens up to wisdom it evolves in consciousness. Our quality of life improves when we are open to giving and receiving love. When we let the ego out maneuver our spiritual side, we become vulnerable to the world of appearances.
As discussed in class the triune nature developed during this time:
wisdom – strength – beauty
spirit – soul – body
thinking – willing – feeling
SONG OF SOLOMON
The Song of Solomon is a collection love poems. They are about human love with all of its passion and deep emotion between and man and a woman. These poems have been attributed to King Solomon; however, it is very unlikely that he or any one poet wrote them.
I believe the only way they could have been included in the Old Testament was as an allegory. The allegory is talking about God and his people, god was the bridegroom and Israel was the bride.
From a metaphysical perspective, as we discussed in class, this is about loving others and ourselves as a regular spiritual practice. It is always seeing the divine in yourself and in your world.
Joyce Kinzel
10/17/09
My Thoughts on
1 & 2 Kings and Song of Solomon
1 & 2 KINGS
The books of Kings tell us about the establishment of the lineage and leadership of the kings Israel and Judea. Through these stories metaphysically we see developing a belief omnipresence of God and a belief unity rather than separation. Humankind is constantly learning by trial and error.
David starts out as a common shepherd who was a poet. He was able to soothe King Saul painful headaches through his music. This shows how the power of love can quell pain and discord. David, which means the beloved, was promised by God that his descendants would rule Jerusalem forever. David represented the divine love in human consciousness. David was a beloved king. He was flawed and always brought back to God.
Through the efforts of his mother Bathsheba and the prophet Nathan, Solomon was anointed king, while David was still alive. Metaphysically the name Solomon is when in consciousness the soul unifies wisdom and love.
Solomon had quite a reign, which included eliminating his enemies, the building of the temple, reorganized the country and 700 wives and 300 concubines. Solomon also recognized the importance of the divine feminine. He was also a man with legendary wisdom and judgment.
Solomon represents a journey of the soul that as it opens up to wisdom it evolves in consciousness. Our quality of life improves when we are open to giving and receiving love. When we let the ego out maneuver our spiritual side, we become vulnerable to the world of appearances.
As discussed in class the triune nature developed during this time:
wisdom – strength – beauty
spirit – soul – body
thinking – willing – feeling
SONG OF SOLOMON
The Song of Solomon is a collection love poems. They are about human love with all of its passion and deep emotion between and man and a woman. These poems have been attributed to King Solomon; however, it is very unlikely that he or any one poet wrote them.
I believe the only way they could have been included in the Old Testament was as an allegory. The allegory is talking about God and his people, god was the bridegroom and Israel was the bride.
From a metaphysical perspective, as we discussed in class, this is about loving others and ourselves as a regular spiritual practice. It is always seeing the divine in yourself and in your world.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Judith P. Pando
Metaphysical Bible I
The Song of Solomon
Finding the Divine Feminine in the Hebrew Bible
According to Ernest Holmes, Divine Companionship is defined as: “Man’s re-enacts the Divine Nature, and makes use of the same Laws that God uses. We find in man the same androgynous nature that we find in God. This nature we call his objective and subjective faculties. His objective mentality impregnates his subjective with ideas; and in turn the subjective, gathering force and energy, projects these ideas into forms.”
The name Solomon is related to the Hebrew ‘shalom’ meaning ‘peace’. Shalom means the kind of peace that comes from being in harmony with God and with all of humankind. Shalom implies wholeness. Solomon was King David’s son and successor. In a dream, he prayed to God for wisdom; “Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy people that I may discern between good and evil…” And God was pleased with this request and granted it; “Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days.” So the story goes that Solomon was wise, and accomplished many great deeds. He built the Temple and placed the Arc of the Covenant inside. The Arc of the Covenant, according to Fillmore represents “The sum total of man’s conscious understanding of Truth, combined with faith affirmations and loyalty within and without to the principles of Truth.” And two cherubim spread their wings over the place of the arc and covered it. This according to our beloved instructor represented the joining together of the male and female principle guarding and birthing the Truth principle. It is an embrace, also representing the joining together of the love of God and Israel.
I see in Solomon that androgynous nature that Dr. Holmes speaks of. He uses his intuition to ask God for that quality, wisdom, so that he can serve from a place of desiring the highest good for himself and all the people of his kingdom. He did not ask for power or strength or for all his enemies to be destroyed, but for wisdom. He surrounded himself with women. He loved women and integrated the symbols of the goddess in much of what he created. It was said that Solomon had 1000 wives and concubines. These wives were from different lands and had different ideas about God. The introduction of the different ways of being influenced Solomon. This caused the people of Israel to believe that Solomon had turned away from the Lord God of Israel; a breaking of the covenant. One wonders, however, whether the inclusion of the different ways of thinking may have actually increased Solomon’s wisdom, it represents inclusion, which is contrary to the thinking of the time which was tribal.
The Song of Solomon poetically tells a love story between a man and a woman. Shulamite is the Hebrew form of Solomon. They both mean wholeness and wholeness is a result of knowing both our masculine and feminine sides. Solomon and Shulamite can be thought of as two aspects of the same person. In this Song, love and emotions are very important; it speaks to the heart. The imagery in the Song is archetypal; the man and the woman to join together to form completeness. Yet, Solomon and Shulamite is one person finding completeness within him/her by marrying the outer, masculine to the inner feminine aspect. The Song can also be seen as a metaphor for our relationship with the Divine. Once we awaken to the Divine Love that is already there within us, we can become a vehicle for Love to come through us. Love transcends all flaws in the beloved. This is the way God Loves, unconditionally, flaws and all.
Ernest Holmes describes the masculine principle as “The Assertive Principle of Being; the Self-Conscious, Self-Propelling Power of Spirit.” The Feminine Principle is the Universal Soul; the Womb of Nature and the Holy Mother. Both of these divine elements are within each and every person. Both of are represented in the myths and legends of the Hebrew Bible. We are complete within ourselves when these two powers are well integrated. Having said that, I agree with my classmates that, if one reads the Hebrew Bible literally is overwhelmingly male orientated. One must dig and study to find the female principle.
Oppressive interpretations of the Bible do kill, literally. You’ll find no denial of that here. Massive injustice has been and continues to be done in the name of the Bible . . . . Meanwhile the Bible is also about the beauty and goodness of creation itself; about the ancient human struggle for freedom and liberation; about frustration with violence and injustice throughout the generations; and about experiences of exultation, expectation, and inspiration that can sustain the human quest for wisdom, justice, and peace.
—JOHN A. BUEHRENS, Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics,
Seekers, and Religious Liberals
To understand why the Bible is written in this manner would involve looking into the historical context, as well as gathering anthropological information among other modalities of study, which is beyond the scope of this class. Sharon Coggan, PhD who is teaching the World Religion class this quarter suggests that God manifests Itself in ways that humankind can understand and relate to at the level of their development. In the case of the desert pastoral nomads, they needed a Warrior God to protect them and to defeat their enemies. This may be one of the reasons why the text seems so violent and unattractive to us today. We need a loving God who will protect us from ourselves.
Metaphysical Bible I
The Song of Solomon
Finding the Divine Feminine in the Hebrew Bible
According to Ernest Holmes, Divine Companionship is defined as: “Man’s re-enacts the Divine Nature, and makes use of the same Laws that God uses. We find in man the same androgynous nature that we find in God. This nature we call his objective and subjective faculties. His objective mentality impregnates his subjective with ideas; and in turn the subjective, gathering force and energy, projects these ideas into forms.”
The name Solomon is related to the Hebrew ‘shalom’ meaning ‘peace’. Shalom means the kind of peace that comes from being in harmony with God and with all of humankind. Shalom implies wholeness. Solomon was King David’s son and successor. In a dream, he prayed to God for wisdom; “Give thy servant therefore an understanding mind to govern thy people that I may discern between good and evil…” And God was pleased with this request and granted it; “Behold, I give you a wise and discerning mind, so that none like you has been before and none like you shall arise after you. I give you also what you have not asked, both riches and honor, so that no other king shall compare with you, all your days.” So the story goes that Solomon was wise, and accomplished many great deeds. He built the Temple and placed the Arc of the Covenant inside. The Arc of the Covenant, according to Fillmore represents “The sum total of man’s conscious understanding of Truth, combined with faith affirmations and loyalty within and without to the principles of Truth.” And two cherubim spread their wings over the place of the arc and covered it. This according to our beloved instructor represented the joining together of the male and female principle guarding and birthing the Truth principle. It is an embrace, also representing the joining together of the love of God and Israel.
I see in Solomon that androgynous nature that Dr. Holmes speaks of. He uses his intuition to ask God for that quality, wisdom, so that he can serve from a place of desiring the highest good for himself and all the people of his kingdom. He did not ask for power or strength or for all his enemies to be destroyed, but for wisdom. He surrounded himself with women. He loved women and integrated the symbols of the goddess in much of what he created. It was said that Solomon had 1000 wives and concubines. These wives were from different lands and had different ideas about God. The introduction of the different ways of being influenced Solomon. This caused the people of Israel to believe that Solomon had turned away from the Lord God of Israel; a breaking of the covenant. One wonders, however, whether the inclusion of the different ways of thinking may have actually increased Solomon’s wisdom, it represents inclusion, which is contrary to the thinking of the time which was tribal.
The Song of Solomon poetically tells a love story between a man and a woman. Shulamite is the Hebrew form of Solomon. They both mean wholeness and wholeness is a result of knowing both our masculine and feminine sides. Solomon and Shulamite can be thought of as two aspects of the same person. In this Song, love and emotions are very important; it speaks to the heart. The imagery in the Song is archetypal; the man and the woman to join together to form completeness. Yet, Solomon and Shulamite is one person finding completeness within him/her by marrying the outer, masculine to the inner feminine aspect. The Song can also be seen as a metaphor for our relationship with the Divine. Once we awaken to the Divine Love that is already there within us, we can become a vehicle for Love to come through us. Love transcends all flaws in the beloved. This is the way God Loves, unconditionally, flaws and all.
Ernest Holmes describes the masculine principle as “The Assertive Principle of Being; the Self-Conscious, Self-Propelling Power of Spirit.” The Feminine Principle is the Universal Soul; the Womb of Nature and the Holy Mother. Both of these divine elements are within each and every person. Both of are represented in the myths and legends of the Hebrew Bible. We are complete within ourselves when these two powers are well integrated. Having said that, I agree with my classmates that, if one reads the Hebrew Bible literally is overwhelmingly male orientated. One must dig and study to find the female principle.
Oppressive interpretations of the Bible do kill, literally. You’ll find no denial of that here. Massive injustice has been and continues to be done in the name of the Bible . . . . Meanwhile the Bible is also about the beauty and goodness of creation itself; about the ancient human struggle for freedom and liberation; about frustration with violence and injustice throughout the generations; and about experiences of exultation, expectation, and inspiration that can sustain the human quest for wisdom, justice, and peace.
—JOHN A. BUEHRENS, Understanding the Bible: An Introduction for Skeptics,
Seekers, and Religious Liberals
To understand why the Bible is written in this manner would involve looking into the historical context, as well as gathering anthropological information among other modalities of study, which is beyond the scope of this class. Sharon Coggan, PhD who is teaching the World Religion class this quarter suggests that God manifests Itself in ways that humankind can understand and relate to at the level of their development. In the case of the desert pastoral nomads, they needed a Warrior God to protect them and to defeat their enemies. This may be one of the reasons why the text seems so violent and unattractive to us today. We need a loving God who will protect us from ourselves.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Job in Me
I am compelled to get this out on paper as it is swimming around in my head in pieces that don’t fit. I want them to fit. I am a slave to making things fit. I have voices in my head much like Job’s “friends”. I identify with Job’s pride in that I think I know how spirituality should be taught and experienced. Of course sometimes I know that I know nothing too. When I speak very long to my Mother as she tells me how God is angry and quotes from the bible to demonstrate it, I get a voice telling me I have superior knowledge and am therefore superior to her. My other voice tells me that that belief is pride and we are equals in the eyes of God. Another voice tells me to look for punishment for my pride and that it will come to me well deserved. I treat on that thought and start the cycle over again. On and on it goes and I feel like I am on a merry-go-round getting nauseous and hoping to be thrown to safety soon. Having read and studied the story of Job it has rarely left my mind these last two weeks. I go from self aggrandizement to absolute humility all in a matter of minutes.
In the past my false beliefs have brought conditions to me that others in my family experience after I hear about them. My mother was looking at a photo on my mantle and my broadsword that was leaning against the fireplace fell on her foot and broke her toe. My toe hurt for months and I was nowhere near the sword. My father only spoke of amputees and his admiration for them all my life and I became an amputee. Soon I told my family not to express any more maladies to me. As I matured I seemed to have healed that tendency of manifesting conditions I only heard about. I have a voice in my head this week telling me that is not true that I am still maintaining that false belief.
This week I began feeling pain in my breast. I went to the gynocologist and could not bear even the lightest touch on any part of my female anatomy. My thoughts went to the treatment and beliefs of females in Biblical times. A voice in my head told me I was too aggressive and that I needed to learn and demonstrate the suppressed demeanor required of my gender throughout history. More voices, more conflicting thoughts. Now I am facing the upcoming ultrasound appointments for my uterus and my breasts. The fear that Job experienced I am now entertaining. I ask his questions of "what did I do, why me, I love God afterall". One voice tells me I am whole and complete and the other tells me this is the punishment I well deserve for my pride along with my other faults. Another voice tells me my false beliefs have taken over again and they are too powerful for me to overcome. Another voice tells me it is my fear that is my enemy. Another voice tells me that there is only one Power and that all else is a projection of my fear. False Evidence Appearing Real. Another voice tells me I have until the date of the ultrasounds to change my mind and release my false beliefs or all is lost. Once the ultra sound finds conditions I have collapsed only that possibility to the exclusion of all others. Another voice tells me that too is a false belief and one befitting a victim in kingdom one. I feel there is a lesson for me to learn and I am in too remedial a life experience class to learn it this lifetime. Another victim thought.
This is my present experience of Job in my life. It is affecting me deeply. It is not a pleasant experience but certainly has my attention.
In the past my false beliefs have brought conditions to me that others in my family experience after I hear about them. My mother was looking at a photo on my mantle and my broadsword that was leaning against the fireplace fell on her foot and broke her toe. My toe hurt for months and I was nowhere near the sword. My father only spoke of amputees and his admiration for them all my life and I became an amputee. Soon I told my family not to express any more maladies to me. As I matured I seemed to have healed that tendency of manifesting conditions I only heard about. I have a voice in my head this week telling me that is not true that I am still maintaining that false belief.
This week I began feeling pain in my breast. I went to the gynocologist and could not bear even the lightest touch on any part of my female anatomy. My thoughts went to the treatment and beliefs of females in Biblical times. A voice in my head told me I was too aggressive and that I needed to learn and demonstrate the suppressed demeanor required of my gender throughout history. More voices, more conflicting thoughts. Now I am facing the upcoming ultrasound appointments for my uterus and my breasts. The fear that Job experienced I am now entertaining. I ask his questions of "what did I do, why me, I love God afterall". One voice tells me I am whole and complete and the other tells me this is the punishment I well deserve for my pride along with my other faults. Another voice tells me my false beliefs have taken over again and they are too powerful for me to overcome. Another voice tells me it is my fear that is my enemy. Another voice tells me that there is only one Power and that all else is a projection of my fear. False Evidence Appearing Real. Another voice tells me I have until the date of the ultrasounds to change my mind and release my false beliefs or all is lost. Once the ultra sound finds conditions I have collapsed only that possibility to the exclusion of all others. Another voice tells me that too is a false belief and one befitting a victim in kingdom one. I feel there is a lesson for me to learn and I am in too remedial a life experience class to learn it this lifetime. Another victim thought.
This is my present experience of Job in my life. It is affecting me deeply. It is not a pleasant experience but certainly has my attention.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Just checking in, please find 2nd paper
I am back from Italy and I haven't seen the previous paper I sent to Rev. Guy from Italy. I couldn't get this blog site in english while in Italy so I asked Rev. Guy to post for me which he agreed. I am home now and will post myself. I apologize for the delay but here is my second paper. I got the homework from Joyce and Joanne and will be listening to the class prior to Saturday's class. Wanted everyone to know that I missed them, but had a good time anyway! Here is the paper on Jacob.
Regional Class: Metaphysical Bible I
Instructor: Rev. Guy Williams
Holmes Institute
Los Angeles Campus
Interpretation of the Story of Jacob, Hebrew Bible
Prepared by: Les DeMarco, RScP
As I study the story, I keep trying to place historical content into a theme, forgetting that the allegory of this is in relevance to me personally through interpretation.
So how might I reinterpret this?
Where do I see myself as Jacob (unfolding consciousness), moving from the darkness of ignorance (Egypt) towards a realized spiritual awareness (Haran)?
But as the story begins, I ask myself, “What am I holding on to that can hinder me or keep me stuck so that I feel a sense of separation (Luz) while the desire is waning to create unity (Nebojath) through this struggle?”
The narrative is more like this:
“I have fallen asleep, wandering through the vast ethers of mental anguish and trickery. The arguments I have had with myself linger on as memories, sometimes comforting me and at other times leaving me scared to death. I tremble, and feel as if I must awaken from this dream. My head hurts! It feels like I am sleeping on the tombstones of past existence, struggling to understand my place in life; the life my parents may have dreamed for me; the hopes I have had for myself; and the imprisonment of having to live with the life that now exists outside this holy nightmare.
Somehow, I see a ladder in the distance, a way to climb out from under this vision that is held by me and for me. The ideas flood my brain (descending the ladder) and stimulate my body (ascending the ladder) and I am in ecstasy with this stolen mirage. I watch as each idea demonstrates a more powerful experience of life. I see the movement in harmonious patterns; the vision keeps expanding and with it, as the Spirit moves within me, the ideas fall like rain into the fertile soil of my desires. I see the glorious exchange of love and wisdom, as they dance together in force and companionship. I find the tombstones of existence now exalted into holy sacrament, as the new moment arises to reveal its power and abundance. I claim the inheritance that is mine on this earthly plane and accept the intertwined activity of thought (mental) and action (body), reveling in the instances of seeming discord. For I know the power of Spirit is endless and purposeful. I want to speak of this life, this dream, but ears struggle to hear my voice. The truth falls on the hopeful and the angry, and some are satisfied.
Those that are my family (the hungry, the needy, the sleeping, the angry, the listless and the helpless) cling to me and multiply, as the caress of divine inspiration moves through me. Something stirs within them, as the light of understanding moves them toward self-discovery. Those of my family that have been born of the Truth, spread out into the fields of illusion bringing with them realization and hope. A new family is born and becomes the descendants of Love.
As I awake from my dream, I am taken captive by a stranger, yet I struggle in my slumber to overcome. I wrestle with indecision and uncertainty as to the future of my ministry. Suddenly I am victorious! My mind is clear, yet the stain of my injury lingers on and I walk vicariously between two worlds. Those that knew me before the dream no longer recognize me, and those upon whom my eyes now gaze know me by a different name.”
Though the version in the Hebrew Bible is told in a fashion that lends itself to many interpretations, faith is by far the continuous theme. There is faith in Rebekkah by Jacob. Faith in Laban that Jacob will finally get the wife he desires. Faith in God. Faith in Jacob’s ancestry. Faith in his dreams. Faith that he is safe to speak his dream. Faith that Rachael will have children. Faith that God will entreat Rachael. It goes on and on. There is much else to this story as well, but I figured one theme is enough to bring forward.
For me as a minister, I feel that to continue to trust Divine Inspiration is the fruit of my faith. This inner calling must have a way to demonstrate itself or it cannot be of God (Universal Consciousness). The idea in this story, fear versus trust, applies to me personally in that I have now become keenly aware of what fear looks like and how I act (show up in the world) when I move from a place of fear. Though I don’t always have a clear view of the activity of trust, or should I say, what the outcome of my faith might demonstrate, there is no doubt in my mind of the power of the Mind of God or my use of it!
Regional Class: Metaphysical Bible I
Instructor: Rev. Guy Williams
Holmes Institute
Los Angeles Campus
Interpretation of the Story of Jacob, Hebrew Bible
Prepared by: Les DeMarco, RScP
As I study the story, I keep trying to place historical content into a theme, forgetting that the allegory of this is in relevance to me personally through interpretation.
So how might I reinterpret this?
Where do I see myself as Jacob (unfolding consciousness), moving from the darkness of ignorance (Egypt) towards a realized spiritual awareness (Haran)?
But as the story begins, I ask myself, “What am I holding on to that can hinder me or keep me stuck so that I feel a sense of separation (Luz) while the desire is waning to create unity (Nebojath) through this struggle?”
The narrative is more like this:
“I have fallen asleep, wandering through the vast ethers of mental anguish and trickery. The arguments I have had with myself linger on as memories, sometimes comforting me and at other times leaving me scared to death. I tremble, and feel as if I must awaken from this dream. My head hurts! It feels like I am sleeping on the tombstones of past existence, struggling to understand my place in life; the life my parents may have dreamed for me; the hopes I have had for myself; and the imprisonment of having to live with the life that now exists outside this holy nightmare.
Somehow, I see a ladder in the distance, a way to climb out from under this vision that is held by me and for me. The ideas flood my brain (descending the ladder) and stimulate my body (ascending the ladder) and I am in ecstasy with this stolen mirage. I watch as each idea demonstrates a more powerful experience of life. I see the movement in harmonious patterns; the vision keeps expanding and with it, as the Spirit moves within me, the ideas fall like rain into the fertile soil of my desires. I see the glorious exchange of love and wisdom, as they dance together in force and companionship. I find the tombstones of existence now exalted into holy sacrament, as the new moment arises to reveal its power and abundance. I claim the inheritance that is mine on this earthly plane and accept the intertwined activity of thought (mental) and action (body), reveling in the instances of seeming discord. For I know the power of Spirit is endless and purposeful. I want to speak of this life, this dream, but ears struggle to hear my voice. The truth falls on the hopeful and the angry, and some are satisfied.
Those that are my family (the hungry, the needy, the sleeping, the angry, the listless and the helpless) cling to me and multiply, as the caress of divine inspiration moves through me. Something stirs within them, as the light of understanding moves them toward self-discovery. Those of my family that have been born of the Truth, spread out into the fields of illusion bringing with them realization and hope. A new family is born and becomes the descendants of Love.
As I awake from my dream, I am taken captive by a stranger, yet I struggle in my slumber to overcome. I wrestle with indecision and uncertainty as to the future of my ministry. Suddenly I am victorious! My mind is clear, yet the stain of my injury lingers on and I walk vicariously between two worlds. Those that knew me before the dream no longer recognize me, and those upon whom my eyes now gaze know me by a different name.”
Though the version in the Hebrew Bible is told in a fashion that lends itself to many interpretations, faith is by far the continuous theme. There is faith in Rebekkah by Jacob. Faith in Laban that Jacob will finally get the wife he desires. Faith in God. Faith in Jacob’s ancestry. Faith in his dreams. Faith that he is safe to speak his dream. Faith that Rachael will have children. Faith that God will entreat Rachael. It goes on and on. There is much else to this story as well, but I figured one theme is enough to bring forward.
For me as a minister, I feel that to continue to trust Divine Inspiration is the fruit of my faith. This inner calling must have a way to demonstrate itself or it cannot be of God (Universal Consciousness). The idea in this story, fear versus trust, applies to me personally in that I have now become keenly aware of what fear looks like and how I act (show up in the world) when I move from a place of fear. Though I don’t always have a clear view of the activity of trust, or should I say, what the outcome of my faith might demonstrate, there is no doubt in my mind of the power of the Mind of God or my use of it!
Friday, October 9, 2009
Metaphysical Interpretation of Kings and the Song of Solomon.
Kings 1 and 11 is a story of the evolution of Kings. It is the story of the evolution of leadership. Belief in unity and the omnipresence of God and the equality of all men brings more peace and abundance than separation and inequality. The soul learns through trial and error but it continues to advance with a few slips backwards. The Song of Solomon expresses this as well.
Once again we see the theme that the second son is the wiser and is the son that becomes more prominent in the story.
Bathsheba is the favorite wife and we see that she represents stolen waters which are always sweeter. Solomon’s numerous wives represent his thoughts. The good thoughts multiply therefore he has a thousand wives. His abundance is unlimited.
Rev. Guy explains that fulfillment of ourselves is only one thought away. I love that.
David represents the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that Abraham’s descendents will be kings forever. Our king David is risen from being a shepherd, someone who was also a poet and was able to sooth the king with his music and poetry when the king was suffering from what may have been migraine headaches. It appears all our leaders in the Bible are raised from lower positions in life. Moses and Jacob and Joseph are some we have read about.
David means “The Beloved”. Solomon means “Wisdom”. This journey of the soul indeed guides the beloved and as it attains wisdom we evolve and advance. The temple is a demonstration in consciousness. The demonstration is of wisdom, strength, and beauty. The wisdom inspires us, the strength sustains us and the beauty adorns. The quality of life is improved. When we are open to giving and receiving then love awakens in us.
When Solomon lets his ego reign over his spiritual side his kingdom and his temple becomes vulnerable.
Nathan, the prophet, represents guidance and keeps giving to the beloved just as we are always receiving guidance each on our own path. The gift is our intuition. We need only listen for it and will know how to live. Ignoring it and following only the ego can be treacherous and dangerous. We find this to be demonstrated in the Song of Solomon as well.
The Song of Solomon is a sweet story of man’s experience of loving God. At first there is the fresh experience of new young love, involved in the physical sensations and always in the honeymoon mode. It becomes obsessed with its seeming imperfections and has self esteem inner conflicts. This prevents total immersion in the pure love it seeks to experience. God sees only man’s perfection and loves him/her completely. In the next section the soul matures to the middle stage and becomes aware of the pull of the material world. It becomes less involved with spiritual contact and experiences separation. It feels as though it can stand alone and be self sufficient. It flounders alone. Sadness ensues and the sense of loss becomes overwhelming. It begins to seek to reunite with its source. Emptiness brings it to the brink of desperation. It is in crisis. This is the moment of another awakening. It searches and cries out and follows through on the awakening urge to make connection again. Ego is released and intuition is heard again. Separation dissipates and gladness ensues as it awakens and reunites and basks in the knowledge of Oneness. Muriel pointed out that it is a sort of treatment which I am beginning to see as well.
Once again we see the theme that the second son is the wiser and is the son that becomes more prominent in the story.
Bathsheba is the favorite wife and we see that she represents stolen waters which are always sweeter. Solomon’s numerous wives represent his thoughts. The good thoughts multiply therefore he has a thousand wives. His abundance is unlimited.
Rev. Guy explains that fulfillment of ourselves is only one thought away. I love that.
David represents the fulfillment of God’s promise to Abraham that Abraham’s descendents will be kings forever. Our king David is risen from being a shepherd, someone who was also a poet and was able to sooth the king with his music and poetry when the king was suffering from what may have been migraine headaches. It appears all our leaders in the Bible are raised from lower positions in life. Moses and Jacob and Joseph are some we have read about.
David means “The Beloved”. Solomon means “Wisdom”. This journey of the soul indeed guides the beloved and as it attains wisdom we evolve and advance. The temple is a demonstration in consciousness. The demonstration is of wisdom, strength, and beauty. The wisdom inspires us, the strength sustains us and the beauty adorns. The quality of life is improved. When we are open to giving and receiving then love awakens in us.
When Solomon lets his ego reign over his spiritual side his kingdom and his temple becomes vulnerable.
Nathan, the prophet, represents guidance and keeps giving to the beloved just as we are always receiving guidance each on our own path. The gift is our intuition. We need only listen for it and will know how to live. Ignoring it and following only the ego can be treacherous and dangerous. We find this to be demonstrated in the Song of Solomon as well.
The Song of Solomon is a sweet story of man’s experience of loving God. At first there is the fresh experience of new young love, involved in the physical sensations and always in the honeymoon mode. It becomes obsessed with its seeming imperfections and has self esteem inner conflicts. This prevents total immersion in the pure love it seeks to experience. God sees only man’s perfection and loves him/her completely. In the next section the soul matures to the middle stage and becomes aware of the pull of the material world. It becomes less involved with spiritual contact and experiences separation. It feels as though it can stand alone and be self sufficient. It flounders alone. Sadness ensues and the sense of loss becomes overwhelming. It begins to seek to reunite with its source. Emptiness brings it to the brink of desperation. It is in crisis. This is the moment of another awakening. It searches and cries out and follows through on the awakening urge to make connection again. Ego is released and intuition is heard again. Separation dissipates and gladness ensues as it awakens and reunites and basks in the knowledge of Oneness. Muriel pointed out that it is a sort of treatment which I am beginning to see as well.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Jacob
Metaphysical Bible I
Joyce Kinzel
10/6/09
Jacob and his twin brother Esau were born after 20 years of marriage to Isaac and Rebecca. They were grandsons of Abraham and Sarah. Rebecca was extremely uncomfortable during the pregnancy and would ask why she was suffering. She was told that twins were fighting in her womb. They would continue to fight their whole lives. She was also told that the older would serve the younger. When Rebecca gave birth, the first child was red and hairy all over. The second child was holding to the heel of the first. The first was named Esau and the second Jacob.
As they grew up the boys developed very different natures. Esau became a hunter and outdoor person. Jacob was a simple man, a “dweller in tents.” Isaac favored Esau and Rebecca favored Jacob.
When the boys were about 15, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentil stew, because he was famished. Esau was a hunter; he found pleasure in the animal world. The cravings of the lower nature are in ascendancy, so Esau gives up his birthright appease his hunger. Because nature evolves first and then the spiritual, after survival needs are met. The mental must overcome the physical.
The story of Jacob and Esau is one of evolving consciousness. Jacob and Esau represent the mental and animal consciousness in humans. Esau represents the animal nature which came first in humans. Most people allow the animal nature to rule their consciousness. As humans evolve the animal nature must be evolved by a higher consciousness. Jacob is the “supplanter” or higher consciousness.
When Isaac was blind and old, he wanted to give his blessing to Esau. He sent Esau out to trap some savory game and then prepare it for him. Once he ate the game, he would bless Esau. Rebecca overhead the conversation and then she remembered what she had been told before the twins were born, that the older son would serve the younger one. So she had Jacob bring her two goats and she cooked them the way Isaac loved.
When she told Jacob to take food to Isaac in place of Esau, he protested that Isaac would recognize him and curse him. Rebecca told him the curse would be on her. She then dressed him in Esau’s garments and laid goatskins on his arms and neck to simulate hairy skin.
So Jacob went to Isaac’s room. Isaac was surprised Esau was back so soon. Isaac was confused, because he felt the skin of Esau and heard the voice of Jacob. He asked. “Are you my son, Esau?” Jacob simply said, “I am.” Isaac ate the food and then blessed Jacob.
Shortly after Jacob was blessed, Esau returned to prepare his food. Isaac was shocked at the deception, but he did not change the blessing. Esau was devastated by the deception and he begged for his own blessing.
By their deception this is what Jacob and Rebecca created a moving forward of consciousness. With the deception of Isaac they got him to acknowledge the mind as higher consciousness.
Jacob and Rebecca’s apparent duplicity in what they did to Esau, when looked at in the light of spiritual evolvement, the incident loses its charge. What is happening here is the evolvement of the soul under the guidance of God. We must always move forward to meet and over come all limitations.
Esau had total hatred for his brother for taking away both his birthright and his blessing. He vowed to kill Jacob after Isaac died. When Rebecca found out she sent Jacob to her brother Laban’s house in Haran, until Esau cooled down. She convinced Isaac that she did not want Jacob to marry a local Canaanite girl, because they were idol worshippers.
When Jacob was near Luz on his way to Haran, a high place in consciousness, it represents the mind moving into a higher state of consciousness. There he lays his head on three stones as a pillow and according to the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, “At ‘a certain place’ in consciousness the understanding is un-illumined. He had a dream of a ladder reaching into heaven, with angels going up and down it. He heard God’s voice from the top of the latter giving him many blessings. The ladder represents the step by step realization of the Truth. “The pure thoughts ascend and descend in consciousness,” according to the dictionary. God is the “I AM” and the highest place in consciousness. The “Truth” thoughts of the mind become seeds and bless the earth.
God is always with us and we must eventually come into divine consciousness. God is an omnipresent principle. The body is the temple of God and the mind is the way to God.
When Jacob woke up to continue his journey, he changed the name of this place from Luz, which means separation, to Bethel which signifies the “house of God.” By changing the name of Luz to Bethel Jacob brings unity.
According to the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary in Chapter 28:20-22, “represents the first attempt of an enlightened mind to covenant with God and trust Spirit for all things. Keeping the law of giving and receiving is recognized as a step in spiritual development.”
At Haran Jacob met Laban’s youngest daughter Rachel (migrating). He fell in love immediately and after a month asked to marry her. In return he would work for Laban for seven years. After seven years he asked for Rachel, Laban deceived him by giving him the older sister Leah (human soul) as his veiled bride.
Laban justified it by saying in his country younger daughters did not marry before older ones. However, he did agree to give Rachel in marriage if Jacob worked another seven years. So Jacob married Rachel also and worked another seven years. Jacob’s marriage to Rachel represents unification of the love principle in its higher aspects.
With Laban Jacob grew rapidly in spiritual understanding. After his son Joseph is born, he decides its time to return to his parent’s house. Laban did not want him to go because he had prospered with Jacob. Laban wanted to know what he could pay him; Jacob proposed that all the spotted, speckled and brown goats and sheep in Laban’s flock become his. Jacob’s herds increase and he became very wealthy. When it was noticed that Jacob was taking a larger portion of the flocks, Laban’s attitude began to change. God then told Jacob that they needed to leave, so they do so without telling Laban. A very angry Laban pursed Jacob for seven days. Right before he caught up to Jacob, God appeared to Laban and warned him not to say anything good or bad to Jacob.
On his way back to Canaan before reuniting with Esau, Jacob in a dream wrestles with a being. The wrestled until daybreak. When the being realized he could not overpower Jacob, he touched his thigh and Jacob developed a limp. Jacob would not let the being go until he blest him. So the being declared that Jacob would now be known as Israel (the one who has power with God and man). The metaphysical significance of the name change is according to the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary is: “the mind controls the body through the nerves, and a great nerve, the sciatic, runs down the leg through the hollow of the thigh. The will acts directly through this nerve and when the individual, through his mentality or understanding, exercises his I AM power upon a natural man in an attempt to make unity between Spirit and the divine-natural, there is a letting go of the human will. A great light of understanding breaks in the struggling soul when it discovers that there is a divine-natural body, and it clings to the inner life and strength and eventually brings it to the surface in perpetual vigor.”
Jacob asks the being for its name and it refuses to give it. Afterward Jacob names the place Peniel (face of god) and said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”
In the reunion of Jacob and Esau, it is the rejoining of mind and body so divine law can be fulfilled. After the mind and body are reconciled, they share the gifts of the Spirit.
The story now focuses on Joseph in Egypt and he saves his family. Jacob’s final years were spent in Egypt with his twelve sons. Jacob died at the age of 147 after giving his last words to his sons. Joseph, with the Pharaoh’s permission embalmed Jacob and led a huge state funeral back to Canaan.
This is a story about the evolution of consciousness.
Joyce Kinzel
10/6/09
Jacob and his twin brother Esau were born after 20 years of marriage to Isaac and Rebecca. They were grandsons of Abraham and Sarah. Rebecca was extremely uncomfortable during the pregnancy and would ask why she was suffering. She was told that twins were fighting in her womb. They would continue to fight their whole lives. She was also told that the older would serve the younger. When Rebecca gave birth, the first child was red and hairy all over. The second child was holding to the heel of the first. The first was named Esau and the second Jacob.
As they grew up the boys developed very different natures. Esau became a hunter and outdoor person. Jacob was a simple man, a “dweller in tents.” Isaac favored Esau and Rebecca favored Jacob.
When the boys were about 15, Esau sold his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of lentil stew, because he was famished. Esau was a hunter; he found pleasure in the animal world. The cravings of the lower nature are in ascendancy, so Esau gives up his birthright appease his hunger. Because nature evolves first and then the spiritual, after survival needs are met. The mental must overcome the physical.
The story of Jacob and Esau is one of evolving consciousness. Jacob and Esau represent the mental and animal consciousness in humans. Esau represents the animal nature which came first in humans. Most people allow the animal nature to rule their consciousness. As humans evolve the animal nature must be evolved by a higher consciousness. Jacob is the “supplanter” or higher consciousness.
When Isaac was blind and old, he wanted to give his blessing to Esau. He sent Esau out to trap some savory game and then prepare it for him. Once he ate the game, he would bless Esau. Rebecca overhead the conversation and then she remembered what she had been told before the twins were born, that the older son would serve the younger one. So she had Jacob bring her two goats and she cooked them the way Isaac loved.
When she told Jacob to take food to Isaac in place of Esau, he protested that Isaac would recognize him and curse him. Rebecca told him the curse would be on her. She then dressed him in Esau’s garments and laid goatskins on his arms and neck to simulate hairy skin.
So Jacob went to Isaac’s room. Isaac was surprised Esau was back so soon. Isaac was confused, because he felt the skin of Esau and heard the voice of Jacob. He asked. “Are you my son, Esau?” Jacob simply said, “I am.” Isaac ate the food and then blessed Jacob.
Shortly after Jacob was blessed, Esau returned to prepare his food. Isaac was shocked at the deception, but he did not change the blessing. Esau was devastated by the deception and he begged for his own blessing.
By their deception this is what Jacob and Rebecca created a moving forward of consciousness. With the deception of Isaac they got him to acknowledge the mind as higher consciousness.
Jacob and Rebecca’s apparent duplicity in what they did to Esau, when looked at in the light of spiritual evolvement, the incident loses its charge. What is happening here is the evolvement of the soul under the guidance of God. We must always move forward to meet and over come all limitations.
Esau had total hatred for his brother for taking away both his birthright and his blessing. He vowed to kill Jacob after Isaac died. When Rebecca found out she sent Jacob to her brother Laban’s house in Haran, until Esau cooled down. She convinced Isaac that she did not want Jacob to marry a local Canaanite girl, because they were idol worshippers.
When Jacob was near Luz on his way to Haran, a high place in consciousness, it represents the mind moving into a higher state of consciousness. There he lays his head on three stones as a pillow and according to the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary, “At ‘a certain place’ in consciousness the understanding is un-illumined. He had a dream of a ladder reaching into heaven, with angels going up and down it. He heard God’s voice from the top of the latter giving him many blessings. The ladder represents the step by step realization of the Truth. “The pure thoughts ascend and descend in consciousness,” according to the dictionary. God is the “I AM” and the highest place in consciousness. The “Truth” thoughts of the mind become seeds and bless the earth.
God is always with us and we must eventually come into divine consciousness. God is an omnipresent principle. The body is the temple of God and the mind is the way to God.
When Jacob woke up to continue his journey, he changed the name of this place from Luz, which means separation, to Bethel which signifies the “house of God.” By changing the name of Luz to Bethel Jacob brings unity.
According to the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary in Chapter 28:20-22, “represents the first attempt of an enlightened mind to covenant with God and trust Spirit for all things. Keeping the law of giving and receiving is recognized as a step in spiritual development.”
At Haran Jacob met Laban’s youngest daughter Rachel (migrating). He fell in love immediately and after a month asked to marry her. In return he would work for Laban for seven years. After seven years he asked for Rachel, Laban deceived him by giving him the older sister Leah (human soul) as his veiled bride.
Laban justified it by saying in his country younger daughters did not marry before older ones. However, he did agree to give Rachel in marriage if Jacob worked another seven years. So Jacob married Rachel also and worked another seven years. Jacob’s marriage to Rachel represents unification of the love principle in its higher aspects.
With Laban Jacob grew rapidly in spiritual understanding. After his son Joseph is born, he decides its time to return to his parent’s house. Laban did not want him to go because he had prospered with Jacob. Laban wanted to know what he could pay him; Jacob proposed that all the spotted, speckled and brown goats and sheep in Laban’s flock become his. Jacob’s herds increase and he became very wealthy. When it was noticed that Jacob was taking a larger portion of the flocks, Laban’s attitude began to change. God then told Jacob that they needed to leave, so they do so without telling Laban. A very angry Laban pursed Jacob for seven days. Right before he caught up to Jacob, God appeared to Laban and warned him not to say anything good or bad to Jacob.
On his way back to Canaan before reuniting with Esau, Jacob in a dream wrestles with a being. The wrestled until daybreak. When the being realized he could not overpower Jacob, he touched his thigh and Jacob developed a limp. Jacob would not let the being go until he blest him. So the being declared that Jacob would now be known as Israel (the one who has power with God and man). The metaphysical significance of the name change is according to the Metaphysical Bible Dictionary is: “the mind controls the body through the nerves, and a great nerve, the sciatic, runs down the leg through the hollow of the thigh. The will acts directly through this nerve and when the individual, through his mentality or understanding, exercises his I AM power upon a natural man in an attempt to make unity between Spirit and the divine-natural, there is a letting go of the human will. A great light of understanding breaks in the struggling soul when it discovers that there is a divine-natural body, and it clings to the inner life and strength and eventually brings it to the surface in perpetual vigor.”
Jacob asks the being for its name and it refuses to give it. Afterward Jacob names the place Peniel (face of god) and said, “I have seen God face to face, and my life is preserved.”
In the reunion of Jacob and Esau, it is the rejoining of mind and body so divine law can be fulfilled. After the mind and body are reconciled, they share the gifts of the Spirit.
The story now focuses on Joseph in Egypt and he saves his family. Jacob’s final years were spent in Egypt with his twelve sons. Jacob died at the age of 147 after giving his last words to his sons. Joseph, with the Pharaoh’s permission embalmed Jacob and led a huge state funeral back to Canaan.
This is a story about the evolution of consciousness.
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
food for thought
Hi Folks,
Not sure this is the way to promote discussion but I will give it a try this way. If as Rev. Guy tells us the bible was taken literally only since the 19th century what was burning Joan of Arc about and what was the Inquisition about? Why were they taking things so literally? If these actions were merely in response to church dogma who was reading the bible metaphorically at that time? Any thoughts?
Not sure this is the way to promote discussion but I will give it a try this way. If as Rev. Guy tells us the bible was taken literally only since the 19th century what was burning Joan of Arc about and what was the Inquisition about? Why were they taking things so literally? If these actions were merely in response to church dogma who was reading the bible metaphorically at that time? Any thoughts?
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Judith P. Pando
Metaphysical Bible I
October 3, 2009
The Metaphysical Story of Jacob
The story of Jacob is one of transformation; a change in consciousness. He was born the 2nd twin to Rebekka and Isaac. As his brother Esau was leaving his mother’s womb, Jacob held on to his heel, and thus he was named Jacob, which means, according to Fillmore’s Metaphysical Bible, “heel catcher, lier in wait, supplanter, leaving behind, bringing to an end, recompensing and rewarding”. Esau, Jacob’s brother by a few moments, was hairy and rough. Jacob was smooth and soft. The two brothers could not be more different. In metaphysical terms, again according to Fillmore, Esau represents the body or physical vigor. It is an immature, animal consciousness, moved by desire. Appetite and passions are satisfied despite the consequence. Jacob, on the other hand represents the mentality or understanding. Esau was the favorite son of Isaac; but Rebekka favored Jacob. As the brothers grew, their differences became more pronounced. Esau was a good hunter and outdoorsman; Jacob “was a plain man, dwelling in tents”.
According to the custom of that time, it is the eldest son who gets the blessing from the father, as well as all the worldly inheritance. This did not seem a fair to Jacob and Rebecca. And Jacob finds an opportunity to use his mental abilities against Esau. Esau, representing the “lower consciousness”, the natural man, sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of pottage, immediate gratification over long term consequences. Despite the promise made by Esau, Isaac still favored the elder son, and when Isaac lay dying in his bed, he called for Esau to come to him to give the blessing, but first he asked Esau to prepare a meal for him. While Esau was hunting, Rebekka and Jacob conspired to deceive Isaac which results in Jacob getting the blessing instead. This may signify the idea of the spiritual gaining supremacy over the physical. When Esau returns, he is angry and told by his father that he will serve his younger brother. Jacob flees fearing for his life.
Charles Fillmore: “When read in the light of spiritual understanding or considered as part of the history of unfoldment of the individual soul, the incident loses its aspect of duplicity and we find that it is a description of the subtle working of the soul in spiritual evolution, under the guidance of Diving Mind. The soul is progressive. We must go forward. The soul must meet and overcome its limitations.”
Jacob leaves his home and moves to “the people of the east”, the land of his mother’s family for 2 purposes, to find a wife and to stay away from Esau. On the way, he stopped for the night, took stones as pillows and had a dream. In this dream, he sees a ladder to heaven. The symbolism is pretty clear; the ladder is the step by step process whereby one enters a higher state of consciousness. It opens a window to heaven. Jacob heard the voice of God and is afraid. Jacob had a numinous moment. He is told that God is with him now and always and everywhere he goes; that this land is his, and that his family will be blessed. Jacob may have been afraid because there was no going back to old way of being and thinking. Jacob was most probably awestruck at the enormity of the new ideas. Jacob trusts all things to Spirit and vows to tithe 10% to God. This was Jacob’s first attempt at making a covenant with God. Jacob then declares the spot upon which he slept to be holy ground and consecrates it and names it Beth-el, house of God.
Jacob then continues his travels to Haran, which means exalted, mountain to live with Laban, his mother’s brother. Laban means white, clear, shinning, gentle, and noble. There he meets Rachel, and instantly falls in love. He weeps and kisses her and asks Laban if he can marry her. Rachel means migrating, journeying in droves, ewe, lamb. She is “The feminine, receptive or soul phase of the pure natural life…This phase of life that Rachel represents is a transitory state (migrating). It is fruitful only on the higher, spiritual plane of ideas.” Rachel is the younger daughter of Laban. Jacob agrees to work for Laban for seven years in exchange for having Rachel for his wife. The number seven refers to fullness in the world. It always refers to the divine law of perfection for the divine-natural man.
Jacob worked with his uncle raising and selling livestock. Eventually, he becomes successful and prosperous. When he has worked the seven years, he claims Rachel to be his wife. Now the trickster is tricked for instead of Rachel, he was given poor unloved Leah (somehow Jacob didn’t notice the switch). Leah means weary, exhausted, faint, sluggish; but according to Fillmore, she also represents the human soul. Leah is described in the text as “tender eyed”, which could mean that she is weak, or it could mean that she had light colored eyes. When Jacob realizes that he has the wrong woman, he goes back to Laban and confronts him. Laban explained that it is customary for the eldest to marry before the younger. He set a price for Rachel of seven more years of work and Jacob complies. During this time, he becomes even more skilled and prosperous and grew Laban’s flock beyond all expectations. In the interim, Leah gave birth to 6 sons; Rachel was, of course, barren (as was Rebecca and Saha). Later in life Rachel gives birth to 2 sons and between her, Leah, and 2 slaves, Jacob had 12 sons.
But Jacob knew that he had a past that needed to heal. He decides to leave and take with him all his wives, children and a large number of Laban’s flock. Laban was not pleased with the idea of losing his sheep, but when he catches up with Jacob, the strike a deal and all is well with the in-laws. Jacob knows that he must finally face his brother so he retraces his steps and heads west. Along the way, he has another numinous moment. According to the text, he wrestles with ‘a man’ all night and refuses to let him go until ‘the man’ gives him a blessing. This wrestling could be seen as Jacob’s wrestling with himself with his past errors, with his sense of right and wrong. The result of this was that Jacob was a changed man. The God within him gave him a new name, Israel. Israel means who prevails with God, a prince with God, rulership with God.
As Jacob nears his home, he gets word that Esau is on his way to meet him with 400 of Esau’s tribe. Jacob sends his wives and children away, divides his livestock as an offering to Esau and Faces Esau alone. The brothers reunite, and Esau does serve his younger brother. Metaphysically, this represents the mind and the body uniting, but with the mind ruling the body both work in harmony.
This brief overview of the story of Jacob is not the entire story, nor is it the end of the story, but Rev. Guy asked us to personalize it, and I believe that I can relate to some of the lessons the story of Jacob demonstrates. First lesson, God keeps his promises. Throughout Genesis, there is a recurring story of barren women who pray to God to give to give them a child. After waiting for what must have seen a very long time, the precious children are born. I believe that this could be an allegory for reaching any goal that one may strive to attain. My inner wisdom will ensure that the goal will be achieved, but it may not happen as quickly or in the same manner as I would like. God also promised to protect Jacob on his journey. I think God protects all us in our spiritual journeys. Lesson two, the soul is progressive (and productive, at least in the case of Leah). The soul must meet and overcome its limitations. We must move forward. Lesson 3, the mind and the body must work together on this plane of existence. My body is indeed a temple, it should be cared for and healed, but my mind must be in charge and they must work in harmony. Lesson 4, the ladder represents a step by step process that all on a spiritual path must climb in order to learn the Truth. Lesson 4, life is a journey where we encounter obstacles. When our human brain tries to figure out how to overcome them, suffering may occur. However, when we listen to our higher wisdom self, when we trust that God is on our side and there is really nothing against us, not only we grow spiritually, but we thrive. Lesson 5, when you wrestle with God, you may get hurt, but in a good way.
Metaphysical Bible I
October 3, 2009
The Metaphysical Story of Jacob
The story of Jacob is one of transformation; a change in consciousness. He was born the 2nd twin to Rebekka and Isaac. As his brother Esau was leaving his mother’s womb, Jacob held on to his heel, and thus he was named Jacob, which means, according to Fillmore’s Metaphysical Bible, “heel catcher, lier in wait, supplanter, leaving behind, bringing to an end, recompensing and rewarding”. Esau, Jacob’s brother by a few moments, was hairy and rough. Jacob was smooth and soft. The two brothers could not be more different. In metaphysical terms, again according to Fillmore, Esau represents the body or physical vigor. It is an immature, animal consciousness, moved by desire. Appetite and passions are satisfied despite the consequence. Jacob, on the other hand represents the mentality or understanding. Esau was the favorite son of Isaac; but Rebekka favored Jacob. As the brothers grew, their differences became more pronounced. Esau was a good hunter and outdoorsman; Jacob “was a plain man, dwelling in tents”.
According to the custom of that time, it is the eldest son who gets the blessing from the father, as well as all the worldly inheritance. This did not seem a fair to Jacob and Rebecca. And Jacob finds an opportunity to use his mental abilities against Esau. Esau, representing the “lower consciousness”, the natural man, sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of pottage, immediate gratification over long term consequences. Despite the promise made by Esau, Isaac still favored the elder son, and when Isaac lay dying in his bed, he called for Esau to come to him to give the blessing, but first he asked Esau to prepare a meal for him. While Esau was hunting, Rebekka and Jacob conspired to deceive Isaac which results in Jacob getting the blessing instead. This may signify the idea of the spiritual gaining supremacy over the physical. When Esau returns, he is angry and told by his father that he will serve his younger brother. Jacob flees fearing for his life.
Charles Fillmore: “When read in the light of spiritual understanding or considered as part of the history of unfoldment of the individual soul, the incident loses its aspect of duplicity and we find that it is a description of the subtle working of the soul in spiritual evolution, under the guidance of Diving Mind. The soul is progressive. We must go forward. The soul must meet and overcome its limitations.”
Jacob leaves his home and moves to “the people of the east”, the land of his mother’s family for 2 purposes, to find a wife and to stay away from Esau. On the way, he stopped for the night, took stones as pillows and had a dream. In this dream, he sees a ladder to heaven. The symbolism is pretty clear; the ladder is the step by step process whereby one enters a higher state of consciousness. It opens a window to heaven. Jacob heard the voice of God and is afraid. Jacob had a numinous moment. He is told that God is with him now and always and everywhere he goes; that this land is his, and that his family will be blessed. Jacob may have been afraid because there was no going back to old way of being and thinking. Jacob was most probably awestruck at the enormity of the new ideas. Jacob trusts all things to Spirit and vows to tithe 10% to God. This was Jacob’s first attempt at making a covenant with God. Jacob then declares the spot upon which he slept to be holy ground and consecrates it and names it Beth-el, house of God.
Jacob then continues his travels to Haran, which means exalted, mountain to live with Laban, his mother’s brother. Laban means white, clear, shinning, gentle, and noble. There he meets Rachel, and instantly falls in love. He weeps and kisses her and asks Laban if he can marry her. Rachel means migrating, journeying in droves, ewe, lamb. She is “The feminine, receptive or soul phase of the pure natural life…This phase of life that Rachel represents is a transitory state (migrating). It is fruitful only on the higher, spiritual plane of ideas.” Rachel is the younger daughter of Laban. Jacob agrees to work for Laban for seven years in exchange for having Rachel for his wife. The number seven refers to fullness in the world. It always refers to the divine law of perfection for the divine-natural man.
Jacob worked with his uncle raising and selling livestock. Eventually, he becomes successful and prosperous. When he has worked the seven years, he claims Rachel to be his wife. Now the trickster is tricked for instead of Rachel, he was given poor unloved Leah (somehow Jacob didn’t notice the switch). Leah means weary, exhausted, faint, sluggish; but according to Fillmore, she also represents the human soul. Leah is described in the text as “tender eyed”, which could mean that she is weak, or it could mean that she had light colored eyes. When Jacob realizes that he has the wrong woman, he goes back to Laban and confronts him. Laban explained that it is customary for the eldest to marry before the younger. He set a price for Rachel of seven more years of work and Jacob complies. During this time, he becomes even more skilled and prosperous and grew Laban’s flock beyond all expectations. In the interim, Leah gave birth to 6 sons; Rachel was, of course, barren (as was Rebecca and Saha). Later in life Rachel gives birth to 2 sons and between her, Leah, and 2 slaves, Jacob had 12 sons.
But Jacob knew that he had a past that needed to heal. He decides to leave and take with him all his wives, children and a large number of Laban’s flock. Laban was not pleased with the idea of losing his sheep, but when he catches up with Jacob, the strike a deal and all is well with the in-laws. Jacob knows that he must finally face his brother so he retraces his steps and heads west. Along the way, he has another numinous moment. According to the text, he wrestles with ‘a man’ all night and refuses to let him go until ‘the man’ gives him a blessing. This wrestling could be seen as Jacob’s wrestling with himself with his past errors, with his sense of right and wrong. The result of this was that Jacob was a changed man. The God within him gave him a new name, Israel. Israel means who prevails with God, a prince with God, rulership with God.
As Jacob nears his home, he gets word that Esau is on his way to meet him with 400 of Esau’s tribe. Jacob sends his wives and children away, divides his livestock as an offering to Esau and Faces Esau alone. The brothers reunite, and Esau does serve his younger brother. Metaphysically, this represents the mind and the body uniting, but with the mind ruling the body both work in harmony.
This brief overview of the story of Jacob is not the entire story, nor is it the end of the story, but Rev. Guy asked us to personalize it, and I believe that I can relate to some of the lessons the story of Jacob demonstrates. First lesson, God keeps his promises. Throughout Genesis, there is a recurring story of barren women who pray to God to give to give them a child. After waiting for what must have seen a very long time, the precious children are born. I believe that this could be an allegory for reaching any goal that one may strive to attain. My inner wisdom will ensure that the goal will be achieved, but it may not happen as quickly or in the same manner as I would like. God also promised to protect Jacob on his journey. I think God protects all us in our spiritual journeys. Lesson two, the soul is progressive (and productive, at least in the case of Leah). The soul must meet and overcome its limitations. We must move forward. Lesson 3, the mind and the body must work together on this plane of existence. My body is indeed a temple, it should be cared for and healed, but my mind must be in charge and they must work in harmony. Lesson 4, the ladder represents a step by step process that all on a spiritual path must climb in order to learn the Truth. Lesson 4, life is a journey where we encounter obstacles. When our human brain tries to figure out how to overcome them, suffering may occur. However, when we listen to our higher wisdom self, when we trust that God is on our side and there is really nothing against us, not only we grow spiritually, but we thrive. Lesson 5, when you wrestle with God, you may get hurt, but in a good way.
Friday, October 2, 2009
The challenging story of Jacob in Genesis as I see it this day so far.
Abraham who represents faith in the unseen God reveals to us that a person does not have to change his residence to enter a new country. We, or the soul, enter the new consciousness of real substance. The son Zimran represents the expression of joy, and harmony, the first conscious result of the awakening faith in Abraham. Jokshan represents the soul’s treacherous and deceitful tendency if we give way to it and see situations as difficult. The sons of Keturrah represent divided thought. Isaac is joy, the son of God and Ishmael is personality which struggles with error. The cave represents a higher awakening . Thoughts work in the conscious and subconscious mind. Ephron is a place that represents letting go of the old and receiving the new. There is an effort to bring forth spiritual possibilities. Rebeka is the beauty that snares. She is has as her father, Bethual who represents conscious unity with God and the Intellect. Her Brother Laban represents exalted ideas. Isaac’s two sons are twins, Esau and Jacob. The soul now must overcome its limitations. The struggle of who is first born is the soul’s struggle with his spirituality vs. his humanity. Esau represents the realm of animal forces. He gave his birthright to appease his hunger. I have been that hungry myself. This “man” is the first in man’s evolution. He is not wise. It is necessary to supplant and suppress him to move the soul forward. Hence the deception of Jacob and Rebekah. The natural man wants to kill the spiritual man. Intellect wins. The mental must gain prominence. Jacob goes to Haran where the soul enters a higher state of consciousness. Laban lives in Paddan-aram where the intellect is lifted. Esau marries Bismath out of Ishmael and personality becomes involved in error. On Jacob’s way to Haran he stops at a place where understanding is limited. The stone he puts under his head represents the contact of understanding with material conditions. In the dream he has, the ladder represents the step by step realizations of Truth. The angels symbolize pure thoughts going up and down in consciousness. God is in the highest step. The spiritualized thoughts of the mind become the seed and bless all the earth (body consciousness). The mind is startled to discover God to be an omnipresent principle. The body is the temple and the mind is the gate to harmony. Beth-el signifies house of God. Luz means separation; that which has seemed separate and apart is brought into unity. Keeping the law of giving and receiving is a step to spiritual development. Taking a wife symbolizes a unification of the I Am with the affections. The marriages point the way to unification with the love principle in its higher aspects. Bilba a handmaid given to Jacob has two sons which are judgment and strengths. He has 12 sons which represent 12 foundation faculties of man i.e. seeing hearing etc. all threefold in spirit, body and soul. Jacob tricks Laban out of most of his herd and Rebekah tricks Laban out his other valuables. Once again the soul triumphs over lesser tendencies. Now Jacob or the soul returns to Esau, the animal tendencies with trepidation The soul learns to make adjustments and promises are made to let each other go their own path. The union of mind and body in all the seven natural faculties is closer. Humility is born of surrender of the self and comes into expression. The body must be uplifted to share in the gifts of Spirit. Jacob which is the mind must go before Esau which is the body and direct the way. New ideas are established in consciousness. The body becomes a servant to the mind and they are unified in Divine mind.
. In Jabbock he gives up present ideas so he can receive new ones. This seems awfully repetitive but then so is my own learning throughout my life. I always have to learn things over and over and on different levels.
He wrestles with an angel. I guess he is struggling to evolve in some quantum leap. The blessing changes his name to Israel, son or prince of God. He named the wrestling place Peniel meaning coming face to face with God and prevailing.
Esau comes along and they were happily met and camped in Succoth. Their tent facilities represents the body is spirit i.e. temporary housing. Dinah who is intuition goes out to see what’s happening in town and gets ravished. This brings out the ideas of vengeance and punishment and evil. When man becomes more spiritual he sees not evil. The killing that follows represents man’s sensual worldly mind, stubbornness and foolishness. This doesn’t seem to resolve in any definite way or I missed it anyway.
Jacob is told by God to go to Bethal which represents Unity where Deborah who represents a sense of perception dies for some reason still a mystery to me. He goes from Bethel to a place of abundance. Now the soul knows abundance is available to the awakened. Israel is one who has power with God and goes to his father in Mamre where faith in God evolves vigor, and supply, spiritually awakening intellect.
Esau leaves finding the land could not sustain both animal instincts and roughness along with enlightenment.
Jacob has abson Joseph who has a spiritual sense of imagination. This talent brings out envy and he is persecuted by his brothers. Joseph has a successful time once his is bought by Egyptians with a faux pas or two during his stay. Higher thought has come to the darkness which Egypt represents. The wife of Potiphat represents sensual pleasure which locks up good, but higher will shows its God given power in time. Joseph teaches good stewardship with supply. He has two sons which symbolize denial and affirmation. When they are in harmony Divine Order is established. The brothers who betrayed him come along with a need for him to give them supply. Through many tests Joseph tries to reunite the 12 brothers. Joseph has been sent by God to prepare the way for others to come together. The soul is more cohesive at this point. Now Israel comes to Beersheba wherein the Spiritual transmutes the physical into spiritual thought and manifestation. They all live in the land of Goshen which symbolizes the unification of the “I Am” with all the faculties of the mind, life energies, and the substance of the whole man. Jacob adopts Joseph’s offspring of denial and affirmation. Rueben is rejected who represents something terrible I haven’t figured out. Simon and Levi for their anger are also rejected. Joseph is prince of the brothers and the 12 become the tribes of Israel. Jacob is buried in the Ephron which is letting go of the old. Joseph recognizes that God has used his brother’s faults for good so maybe all the rejection is forgotten. This is a major development that I have to remind myself of often, that God uses man’s faults for good.
The better parts of this came from Fillmore obviously. Those made on my own are very unwieldy.
. In Jabbock he gives up present ideas so he can receive new ones. This seems awfully repetitive but then so is my own learning throughout my life. I always have to learn things over and over and on different levels.
He wrestles with an angel. I guess he is struggling to evolve in some quantum leap. The blessing changes his name to Israel, son or prince of God. He named the wrestling place Peniel meaning coming face to face with God and prevailing.
Esau comes along and they were happily met and camped in Succoth. Their tent facilities represents the body is spirit i.e. temporary housing. Dinah who is intuition goes out to see what’s happening in town and gets ravished. This brings out the ideas of vengeance and punishment and evil. When man becomes more spiritual he sees not evil. The killing that follows represents man’s sensual worldly mind, stubbornness and foolishness. This doesn’t seem to resolve in any definite way or I missed it anyway.
Jacob is told by God to go to Bethal which represents Unity where Deborah who represents a sense of perception dies for some reason still a mystery to me. He goes from Bethel to a place of abundance. Now the soul knows abundance is available to the awakened. Israel is one who has power with God and goes to his father in Mamre where faith in God evolves vigor, and supply, spiritually awakening intellect.
Esau leaves finding the land could not sustain both animal instincts and roughness along with enlightenment.
Jacob has abson Joseph who has a spiritual sense of imagination. This talent brings out envy and he is persecuted by his brothers. Joseph has a successful time once his is bought by Egyptians with a faux pas or two during his stay. Higher thought has come to the darkness which Egypt represents. The wife of Potiphat represents sensual pleasure which locks up good, but higher will shows its God given power in time. Joseph teaches good stewardship with supply. He has two sons which symbolize denial and affirmation. When they are in harmony Divine Order is established. The brothers who betrayed him come along with a need for him to give them supply. Through many tests Joseph tries to reunite the 12 brothers. Joseph has been sent by God to prepare the way for others to come together. The soul is more cohesive at this point. Now Israel comes to Beersheba wherein the Spiritual transmutes the physical into spiritual thought and manifestation. They all live in the land of Goshen which symbolizes the unification of the “I Am” with all the faculties of the mind, life energies, and the substance of the whole man. Jacob adopts Joseph’s offspring of denial and affirmation. Rueben is rejected who represents something terrible I haven’t figured out. Simon and Levi for their anger are also rejected. Joseph is prince of the brothers and the 12 become the tribes of Israel. Jacob is buried in the Ephron which is letting go of the old. Joseph recognizes that God has used his brother’s faults for good so maybe all the rejection is forgotten. This is a major development that I have to remind myself of often, that God uses man’s faults for good.
The better parts of this came from Fillmore obviously. Those made on my own are very unwieldy.
Psalm 72Psalm 72 was written by King David to his son Solomon. It may have been a dying blessing from a father to a son; from one King passing the torch to another. And how sweet and beautiful it is for David to ask God to endow his son with the wisdom and grace to know and do his duty. I too would ask of God that my ministry reveal decency, honesty, fairness and wisdom through me. My prayer is that my ministry prospers and grows as I advocate for those who may benefit from my service. I know that the principles that we teach and use will endure “…as long as the sun, as long as the moon, through all generations”. And I love the gentile image of my service falling “…like rain on a mown field, like showers watering the earth”. Bringing peace and comfort to those dealing with illness and death, and those providing care giving is my calling, and it is my intention to allow Spirit to speak through me in such situations. I plan to use my ministry from “sea to sea” as well as to the desert (maybe Texas?), for wherever my ministry takes me, I will be. Psalm 72 is part prayer, poem, and prophesy, not only of King Solomon’s reign, but, it is said it is a prophecy of the kingdom of the coming Messiah. And I intend to use the Christ Consciousness in the delivery of my ministry. I have no expectation or desire to have anyone bow down to me or give me presents. I only expect to be of service. I will try to follow the example of the Master Teacher and learn to love my enemies. I will see with the eyes of Spirit that the ‘needy’ and the ‘afflicted’ are precious children of God, whole, perfect and complete, exactly as they are. I see oppression and violence as metaphors for problems that need to be overcome. I expect to use my talents, knowledge and SOM principles to help my clients to rise above their present circumstances, know that they are not alone, or at least, see things in a different way.And I trust that God will provide whatever is needed to ensure that this ministry will thrive. May people pray for me and bless me every day and to God goes the Glory.
September 27, 2009 2:07 PM
September 27, 2009 2:07 PM
Psalm 72 --- HEllo from Florence, Italy!
Regional Class: Metaphysical Bible I
Instructor: Rev. Guy Williams
Holmes Institute
Los Angeles Campus
Thought Paper on Psalms 72
Prepared by: Les DeMarco, RScP
It is interesting to see that there is a mix of messages between what is actually contained within the names located in this psalm. Though there may be ample truth to what I discovered in the names, I do not correlate anything towards a ministry except that if I were to glean anything from this psalm, it would only be through some definite searching for something that very well, might not be there. Upon first read it seems confusing and unmeaningful.
I reviewed the names within the psalm through research in the metaphysical dictionary, but this all seemed like it was talking about balance and manipulation.
I went further to try to uncover some hidden meaning that what I could find at a face value read and started trying to find any single word from the psalm in the dictionary.
As far as my ministry is concerned, this psalm reinforces that it would be served through clear thought, and peaceable justice. I also relates to the body of the ministry as well as my individual body. It is nice to see that there is reference to the body, and the body that I would view here, in context to a ministry is: What is the body of my church? Is it well nourished; bathed in truth’s light? How does the way I keep my body affect my ministry? Is the body of the congregation capable of understanding what I am saying and teaching? Do I turn inward often enough to support a vision of wholesome growth? Is there anything in me which battles with my consciousness for the right to maintain constant focus?
Certainly, I, if I can be called that, must be guided and guarded. Do I know that I could get up and raise a church up to see the kingdom of heaven, within themselves and those who may occupy a seat next to them on Sunday? Do we really know such a thing?
I like that there is so much reference to intelligence and faith in this psalm. And it is only through this right use of intelligence that faith is strengthened.
After reviewing every word that I could find within this dictionary, I discovered that all the words supported the definitions of previous words. I saw plenty of positive and negative energy, healthy and unhealthy body stuff, limited thinking and rightful thought, as well as soul-full actions and those actions that are less than desirable.How this relates to my ministry, is really challenging for me, seeing as I don’t even know what that looks like yet. I surely wouldn’t want to pretend that I know at this point.
Instructor: Rev. Guy Williams
Holmes Institute
Los Angeles Campus
Thought Paper on Psalms 72
Prepared by: Les DeMarco, RScP
It is interesting to see that there is a mix of messages between what is actually contained within the names located in this psalm. Though there may be ample truth to what I discovered in the names, I do not correlate anything towards a ministry except that if I were to glean anything from this psalm, it would only be through some definite searching for something that very well, might not be there. Upon first read it seems confusing and unmeaningful.
I reviewed the names within the psalm through research in the metaphysical dictionary, but this all seemed like it was talking about balance and manipulation.
I went further to try to uncover some hidden meaning that what I could find at a face value read and started trying to find any single word from the psalm in the dictionary.
As far as my ministry is concerned, this psalm reinforces that it would be served through clear thought, and peaceable justice. I also relates to the body of the ministry as well as my individual body. It is nice to see that there is reference to the body, and the body that I would view here, in context to a ministry is: What is the body of my church? Is it well nourished; bathed in truth’s light? How does the way I keep my body affect my ministry? Is the body of the congregation capable of understanding what I am saying and teaching? Do I turn inward often enough to support a vision of wholesome growth? Is there anything in me which battles with my consciousness for the right to maintain constant focus?
Certainly, I, if I can be called that, must be guided and guarded. Do I know that I could get up and raise a church up to see the kingdom of heaven, within themselves and those who may occupy a seat next to them on Sunday? Do we really know such a thing?
I like that there is so much reference to intelligence and faith in this psalm. And it is only through this right use of intelligence that faith is strengthened.
After reviewing every word that I could find within this dictionary, I discovered that all the words supported the definitions of previous words. I saw plenty of positive and negative energy, healthy and unhealthy body stuff, limited thinking and rightful thought, as well as soul-full actions and those actions that are less than desirable.How this relates to my ministry, is really challenging for me, seeing as I don’t even know what that looks like yet. I surely wouldn’t want to pretend that I know at this point.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
A Psalm for Solomon
Please feel free to substitute “ Her “
rather than “He” when referring to God.
In this psalm the king asks God for advice
for His knowledge , and for his son
to receive God’s spirit of righteousness.
The king is a person of authority; someone who
is responsible, someone who has free will .
He believes in God , a God of Wisdom and justice .
He is powerful and generous for He can
and does give of His Spirit .
The king’s desire and his function is to follow
and use God’s wisdom and righteousness for himself and
for dealing with others .
Therefore his Will and God’s Will are one.
Those who apply the Law of God will be in awe ( in Love),
but those who don’t will be in fear .
Those who receive God’s spirit will extend it unto the earth.
They will be filled with spiritual consciousness ( Christ consciousness),
the Law will be fulfilled and there will be peace till the end of time.
They shall have dominion over the earth , but those who are lost should surrender,
and those who go against His law will not experience His gifts.
We also read in this psalm that God is loving, and compassionate.
He takes care of the needy, the poor, and the lonely,
and set them free.
The offering of gifts and praises also
shows that it is a loving relationship,
From this love miracles happen, there will
be abundance where there is scarcity.
We also read that God is omnipotent and eternal.
Even though i am not in ministerial school my life is my ministry .
Reading this psalm reminds me of the teaching of Science of mind
and of my responsibility as one of its practitioners to recognize
that there is a power that is Omniscient , Omnipotent omnipresent
that i call God and to have a loving relationship with Him,
to receive and to express God’s Will, to know Oneness and to live a loving
peaceful abundant life, to recognize that God’s Love,
God’s Law is the source of this miraculous life.
It is the law of cause and effect. When i entertain loving thoughts,
I am part of the kingdom , one with God filled with Spirit,
I have dominion over my lower thoughts, my fearful thoughts of
lack and limitation, of need and separation. I must be willing
to surrender these thoughts and replace them with new thoughts
like king David who bring his son to God and allow
myself to be filled with Spirit (the Christ Consciousness) that I may
have life abundantly.
It is my function to be loving , compassionate to care and to help
others.
Amen.
rather than “He” when referring to God.
In this psalm the king asks God for advice
for His knowledge , and for his son
to receive God’s spirit of righteousness.
The king is a person of authority; someone who
is responsible, someone who has free will .
He believes in God , a God of Wisdom and justice .
He is powerful and generous for He can
and does give of His Spirit .
The king’s desire and his function is to follow
and use God’s wisdom and righteousness for himself and
for dealing with others .
Therefore his Will and God’s Will are one.
Those who apply the Law of God will be in awe ( in Love),
but those who don’t will be in fear .
Those who receive God’s spirit will extend it unto the earth.
They will be filled with spiritual consciousness ( Christ consciousness),
the Law will be fulfilled and there will be peace till the end of time.
They shall have dominion over the earth , but those who are lost should surrender,
and those who go against His law will not experience His gifts.
We also read in this psalm that God is loving, and compassionate.
He takes care of the needy, the poor, and the lonely,
and set them free.
The offering of gifts and praises also
shows that it is a loving relationship,
From this love miracles happen, there will
be abundance where there is scarcity.
We also read that God is omnipotent and eternal.
Even though i am not in ministerial school my life is my ministry .
Reading this psalm reminds me of the teaching of Science of mind
and of my responsibility as one of its practitioners to recognize
that there is a power that is Omniscient , Omnipotent omnipresent
that i call God and to have a loving relationship with Him,
to receive and to express God’s Will, to know Oneness and to live a loving
peaceful abundant life, to recognize that God’s Love,
God’s Law is the source of this miraculous life.
It is the law of cause and effect. When i entertain loving thoughts,
I am part of the kingdom , one with God filled with Spirit,
I have dominion over my lower thoughts, my fearful thoughts of
lack and limitation, of need and separation. I must be willing
to surrender these thoughts and replace them with new thoughts
like king David who bring his son to God and allow
myself to be filled with Spirit (the Christ Consciousness) that I may
have life abundantly.
It is my function to be loving , compassionate to care and to help
others.
Amen.
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