Jesus, Christ et al.

[Dondi]

Are we talking about souls? Or are we talking about denominations?

If we are talking about souls, when it gets right down to it, we are on an even plane. As I said in another post, when all is said and done, and we stand before our Maker, the only church that will matter, in regard our soul, is the Church of You.

[Thomas]

If we are talking about souls, when it gets right down to it, we are on an even plane. As I said in another post, when all is said and done, and we stand before our Maker, the only church that will matter, in regard our soul, is the Church of You.

So 'you' is the paradigm against which all is measured?

[wil]

I don't see where we all need to get 'beyond' denominations. I currently wish to though. I want to get beyond religions. I can accept that others enjoy, believe in, and even need their perspective boxes. The security that comes from that is appealing.

I also enjoy my box, but I also enjoy getting out and visiting other boxes (denominations/religions/philosophies). I'd like to understand the shape, nature and feel of your box. I'd like to respect your reverence for your box.

As indicated before I'm currently working on a couple of interfaith projects, bringing various religions into our church on a weekly basis and an event with the goal of 12 religions being represented for a service kicking off 24 hours of prayer. And an interfaith retreat with middle school kids.

So an associate sends me this cd and says you have to listen to it. It is a Rabbi disecting the information from the Matrix from his perspective. All quite good, moves right along very informative, until he gets to his hate section. Blaming all Christians as the problem in the world, Christianity fueling anti-semmitism and being false in umpteen different ways.

I don't care where it comes from. When Christians indicate that everyone else is going to Hell, because they don't believe in Jesus....When a Muslim screams all infedels must die...or when a Rabbi incites hate speach in youth (this was a talk given to what sounded like Jr/Sr High boys). This is where I have issues with those building boxes.

These are the people I most often see standing and indicating they are right, everyone else is wrong and diversity is evil.

Now this is something I obviously need to work on, come to grips with as it pulls me from what I wish to be my Christ nature.

[Dondi]

Originally Posted by wil

I don't see where we all need to get 'beyond' denominations. I currently wish to though. I want to get beyond religions. I can accept that others enjoy, believe in, and even need their perspective boxes. The security that comes from that is appealing.

I also enjoy my box, but I also enjoy getting out and visiting other boxes (denominations/religions/philosophies). I'd like to understand the shape, nature and feel of your box. I'd like to respect your reverence for your box.

As indicated before I'm currently working on a couple of interfaith projects, bringing various religions into our church on a weekly basis and an event with the goal of 12 religions being represented for a service kicking off 24 hours of prayer. And an interfaith retreat with middle school kids.

So an associate sends me this cd and says you have to listen to it. It is a Rabbi disecting the information from the Matrix from his perspective. All quite good, moves right along very informative, until he gets to his hate section. Blaming all Christians as the problem in the world, Christianity fueling anti-semmitism and being false in umpteen different ways.

I don't care where it comes from. When Christians indicate that everyone else is going to Hell, because they don't believe in Jesus....When a Muslim screams all infedels must die...or when a Rabbi incites hate speach in youth (this was a talk given to what sounded like Jr/Sr High boys). This is where I have issues with those building boxes.

These are the people I most often see standing and indicating they are right, everyone else is wrong and diversity is evil.

Now this is something I obviously need to work on, come to grips with as it pulls me from what I wish to be my Christ nature.

It's hard to build one big box for everyone, if people don't want to come out and play.

[leastone]

Dear Readers and Writers,

I once had the opportunity to build a very large picture puzzle, depicting a scene of an olde English country garden, containing a myriad of flowers. Of course, you know how one starts to build a puzzle: you select all the easy-to-identify, straight-edged pieces, and once you have them in place, you have a frame in which all the other pieces fit.

Well, to my surprise, those pieces were missing. I decided to go ahead anyway, by starting somewhere and just adding on to the original so as to progressively form a larger picture. While building in this way, I realized that our whole picture of God and Truth was formed in the traditional Western
puzzle-build way. We are handed, or choose, a certain frame of reference. If something does not fit our frame, we reject it as false or not of God. It doesn't suit our view of life.

But there is another approach. Every puzzle piece contained some of that garden, and by adding on to it continuously on would get a bigger and better idea of the garden, and if you could rise above it, you would see that it spills over the fences and is part of the bonny landscape of the English Isle, and beyond that, part of the planet and of the universe. In life, one should therefore grab hold of what you know to be good and true, and build onto it what fits one hundred percent, as with puzzle pieces. Only the right piece slot in properly. As you and your picture grows, it will transcend whatever fences attempting to contain it.

Frames of reference are necessary, though. If I want to study engineering, I have to limit myself to the course subjects that will enable me to qualify in that "field." But once I am able to build bridges, I can move over across that bridge and be available for service in other dimensions.

Spiritual growth of necessity will let you transcend all former boxes," whether they be denominations, faiths, religions, or philosophies. But you can only start within one, and when you are ripe and ready, God will nudge you out of the nest to take responsibility for what has been invested in you by the very structures that held you before.

Growing into the fullness of the measure of the stature of Christ might enable us to see, also, as we walk out of town and sit on a rock on the mountain overlooking it, that all the churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples are in the same street. For if we truly believe that, "In Him we move, and live, and have our being," we must acknowledge that we can be nowhere where he is not, and that He is not contained in our constructs, even though He might be present (but perhaps hidden) in them.

Only, being "outside the camp" is usually a place of humiliation, rejection, aloneness, and everything else that suffering might entail, is to be found. Here God awaits you with his stretched-out arms and open, bleeding hands.

No pain, no gain.

[Dondi]

Trouble with your puzzle analogy is that everyone has their own puzzles. Your puzzle piece may or may not fit into mine, and vice versa. Not that we should try, but we are going to come up with something other than what's pictured on the outside of the box. And even then, any commonality with be limited in scope, so the picture will be small. But the hope is that what we will end up with is that which is most needful.

[leastone]

Good reflection, Dondi.

The picture on the box always indicates the pattern.

The pattern we should seek is not the deck of cards already in hand.

We are to seek that pattern from beyond ourselves, from the revelation (glimpse) of the heavenly pattern as expressed in both earth (science) and heaven (spiritual).

Our purpose is to discover and uncover that pattern, that would hopefully center on knowing God (more than we do now, yea, even in a new way), rather than new doctrines about Him.

We consult the known pattern, for this knowledge guides us as we move up ahead into the unknown, limited by seeing and knowing in part, because of our body of humiliation, stuck in time and space.

The puzzle box picture is not all there is. This is not like the flat earth with an abyss awaiting at the perimeters of the box. Packaging always presents limitations. Its what they hold that matters.

The wonderful thing about puzzle building is that when you get stuck, and simply cannot see where to go next, somebody like Dondi comes along, picks up a piece, and voilà! It fits perfectly. It helps me along, especially if it was that one critical piece I searched for in vain. Then you unlock a door and a whole new world opens up. Ask, seek, knock. It shall be given.

If you insist that it's only my picture, fine, then you've added value to it.

Respectfully,

Learner.

P.S. What makes you buy (into) a particular puzzle in the first place? What makes you like it (more than others)? What gives you an idea of how easy/difficult it is? You always consult the picture on the box. It's the picture outside that reveals in the inside.

There must be a very good reason for not showing the contents as a picture of a chaotic heap of puzzle pieces. Once the content is aligned with order, it will reflect the same image and likeness of the picture that we pursued in the first place, only much larger and unable to go back to the box it came from, unless its all broken up into pieces once more.

[neosnoia]

Originally Posted by Thomas

So 'you' is the paradigm against which all is measured?

In your opinion, what paradigm should be used as the "measuring stick"?

[Thomas]

The original one.

I would rather argue, based on the lives of the saints and sages, that 'growth' is actually into, not out of ... for my own part, and from my own tradition, Scripture is inexhaustible ... the 'box' is Infinite - but only from inside the box. Outside, it looks just like a box ...

Thomas

[earl]

Thomas-what a wonderful way to put it. A much better way than what I was struggling to put into words when I responded to the issue of beliefs on the knowledge vs. belief thread in another forum. earl

[neosnoia]

Originally Posted by Thomas

The original one.

I would rather argue, based on the lives of the saints and sages, that 'growth' is actually into, not out of ... for my own part, and from my own tradition, Scripture is inexhaustible ... the 'box' is Infinite - but only from inside the box. Outside, it looks just like a box ...

Thomas

Nice way to put it.

I recently heard an illustration (that I found quoted in part on the web) that agrees with your point. It is from Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell:

"An answer... raises even deeper questions. ...Truth always leads to more...truth. Because truth is insight into God and God is infinite and God has no boundaries or edges. So truth always has layers and depth and texture. ...It's like a pool that you dive into...no matter how hard and fast you swim downward the pool keeps getting...deeper. The bottom will always be out of reach ... The very nature of orthodox Christian faith is that we never come to the end. It begs for more. More discussion, more inquiry, more debate, more questions ... It's not so much that the Christian faith has a lot of paradoxes. It's that it is a paradox. And we cannot resolve a paradox. We have to let it be what it is."

All truth is God's truth. It's been my experience that every truth I find elsewhere leads me back to God and to Christ and to scripture. It's all "in there."

[Thomas]

Earl pointed towards Raimon Panikkar recently - a useful reference for any Interfaith Dialogue - there is much I agree with, and some that causes a frown, but one point impresses itself upon me more and more, every day:

"Before entering into an inter-religious dialogue, one must first depth the reality of one's own tradition. This is to say that intra-religious dialogue is primary."

Thomas

[wil]

Originally Posted by Thomas

"Before entering into an inter-religious dialogue, one must first depth the reality of one's own tradition. This is to say that intra-religious dialogue is primary."

When you look at any tradition, they are outnumbered as far as beliefs of the rest of the world goes....course an old friend of mine often stated, "If it is G-d and me, we are the majority"

But as you explore there is so much that you must either categorize as poppy-cock....stuff that millions, billions believe in, stake their lives on...but if it were true it would pull the rug out from under my belief system.

That is what got me to look more closely at what I believe and why it was so weak that it made me question it at every turn, why did I want to seek elsewhere.

I am currently at a space, a very Christian space in my book, where I can explore and enjoy and embrace so many theologies and so many peoples, while having my feet happily planted. Tis amazing that freedom.

And when I run into things that I question, that tug at my sensibilities, I look forward to that moment where I will develop an understanding of this situation as well.

peace and blessings

[Seeker_of_truth]

Originally Posted by wil

Jesus, Jesus Christ, Jesus the Christ, Christed Jesus, Christ....
Different players? Where do we all sit? Again diversity in my mind allows us to know we have differing levels of understanding. I'm really not expecting us to agree....No Liberal Creed or Council....yet.

Jesus, elder brother and wayshower, showed us what is possible and that we to could do what he accomplished and more....as he headed to the Father.

Jesus Christ, I'm more of a Jesus the Christ fan. I feel that as he understood his oneness with all that is, he realized the power one has in this life, and showed us that way.

I believe Jesus the Christ as saviour, as he showed us the way. I'm not big on the cycle of sinning, repenting, forgiving, pennance, I think it is up to us to save ourselves from that.

So looking forward to the thoughts, concepts and understandings of others.

Namaste, Namaskar, The Christ in me, recognizes and honors the Christ in you.

I myself prefer to refer to the Christ spirit in Muhammad as well as the Christ spirit in Jesus.

[wil]

Originally Posted by Seeker_of_truth

I myself prefer to refer to the Christ spirit in Muhammad as well as the Christ spirit in Jesus.

Exactly the Christ exists in all...tis our choice whether and how much we express...