Apples of Gold

[D. Allan]

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty,

darkness was over the surface of the deep,

and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

God saw that the light was good,

and He separated the light from the darkness.

God called the light "day," and the darkness he called 'night'.

And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.

And God said, "Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water."

So God made the expanse and separated the water under the expanse from the water above it.

And it was so.

God called the expanse "sky."

And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

And God said, "Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear."

And it was so.

God called the dry ground "land," and the gathered waters he called "seas."

And God saw that it was good." - Genesis 1:1-10 (NIV)

[D. Allan]

At first was neither Being nor Nonbeing.

There was not air nor yet sky beyond.

What was its wrapping? Where? In whose protection?

Was Water there, unfathomable and deep?

There was no death then, nor yet deathlessness;

of night or day there was not any sign.

The One breathed without breath, by its own impulse.

Other than that was nothing else at all.

Darkness was there, all wrapped around by darkness,

and all was Water indiscriminate. Then

that which was hidden by the Void, that One, emerging,

stirring, through power of Ardor, came to be.

In the beginning Love arose,

which was the primal germ cell of the mind. -The Hymn of the Origins, Rig Veda X. 129

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Ahhh. Another pagan verse... I like these too much..

I best stick to the Bible.

[D. Allan]

"But I say to all

Of you who will listen to me:

'Love your enemies,'

'Do good to those who hate you,'

'Bless those who curse you,'

'And pray for those who treat you badly.'

As for the man who hits you

On one cheek

Offer him the other one as well!

And if a man is taking away your coat,

Do not stop him from taking your shirt as well.

Give to everyone who asks you,

And when a man has taken what belongs to you,

Don't demand it back.

Treat men exactly as you would

Like them to treat you.

If you love only those who love you,

What credit is that to you?

Even sinners love those who love them!

And if you do good only to those who do good to you,

What credit is that to you?

Even sinners do that.

And if you lend only to those from whom

You hope to get your money back,

What credit is that to you?

Even sinners lend to sinners

And expect to get their money back.

NO, you are to love your [size:14pt] enemies

And do good and lend without hope of return.

Your reward will be wonderful

And you will be sons of the most high.

For he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked!" - Luke 6: 27-35, The New Testament in Modern English, J. B. Phillips

[D. Allan]

"'Love your enemies!' Mark you, not simply those who happen not to be your friends, but your enemies, your positive and active enemies. Either this is a mere Oriental hyperbole, a bit of verbal extravagance, meaning only that we should, as far as we can, abate our animosities, or else it is sincere and literal. Outside of certain cases of intimate individual relation, it seldom has been taken literally. Yet it makes one ask the question: Can there in general be a level of emotion so unifying, so obliterative of differences between man and man, that even enmity may come to be an irrelevant circumstance and fail to inhibit the friendlier interests aroused? If positive well-wishing could attain so supreme a degree of excitement, those who were swayed by it might well seem superhuman beings. Their life would be morally discrete from the life of other men, and there is no saying, in the absence of positive experience of an authentic kind,..., - what the effects might be: they might conceivably transform the world." - William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

[D. Allan]

Psychologically and in principal, the precept 'Love your enemies is not self-contradictory. It is merely the extreme limit of a kind of magnanimity with which, in the shape of pitying tolerance of our oppressors, we are fairly familiar. Yet if radically followed, it would involve such a breach with our instinctive springs of action as a whole, and with the present world's arrangements, that a critical point would practically be passed, and we should be born into another kingom of being. Religioius emotion makes us feel that other kingdom to be close at hand, within our reach. (emphasis added) - William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience

[Gail]

Well, that's what the new birth is supposed to do- actually make it happen

[D. Allan]

That is right, Gail, and it is why I posted Mr. James' obsevation. It seems possible and then at times it seems sooo impossible. The answer, the solution is found I think in these words of the one who completely identified with God:

"I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me ye can do nothing." - John 15:5 (KJV)

[D. Allan]

"... the faith that affected my life, the only real faith I had, was faith in perfection. But I could not have said what perfection consisted of or what its purpose might be. I tried to achieve intellectual perfection; I studied everything I could, everything that life gave me a chance to study. I tried to perfect my will and set up rules for myself that I endeavored to follow. I strove for physical perfection by doing all the exercies that develop strength and agility and by undergoing all the hardships that discipline the self in endurance and perseverance. I took all this to be perfection. The starting point of it all was, of course moral perfection, but this was soon replaced by a belief in overall perfection, that is a desire to be better in the eyes of other people. And this effort to be better in the eyes of other people was very quickly displaced by a longing to be stronger than other people, that is, more renowned, more important, wealthier than others." - Leo Tolstoy, A Confession

[D. Allan]

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

- Saint Paul in a letter to the Galatians 1:9-11 (NIV)

[D. Allan]

"I have come in order that you might have [size:14pt]life - life in all its fullness ." - Jesus of Nazareth, as reported by his disciple : - John 10:10

[D. Allan]

God made a little Gentian -

It tried - to be a Rose -

And failed - and all the Summer laughed -

But just before the Snows -

There rose a Purple Creature -

That ravished all the Hill -

And Summer hid her Forehead -

And Mockery - was still -

The Frosts were her condition -

The Tyrian* would not come

Until the North - invoke it -

Creator - Shall I - [size:14pt]bloom ? - Emily Dickinson (1830 - 1886), Poem #442

*Tyrian - 1513, from L. Tyrius "of Tyre," island-city in the Levant,.... Especially in ref. to Tyrian purple, a dye made there in ancient times from certain mollusks.

(Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper)

[D. Allan]

My period had come for Prayer-

No other Art - would do -

My Tactics missed a rudiment -

Creator - Was it you?

God grows above - so those who pray

Horizons - must ascend -

And so I stepped upon the North

To see this Curious Friend -

His house was not - no sign had He -

By Chimney - nor by Door

Could I infer his Residence -

Vast Prairies of Air

Unbroken by a Settler -

Were all that I could see -

Infinitude - Had'st Thou no face

That I might look on Thee?

The Silence condescended -

Creation stopped - for Me -

But awed beyond my errand -

I worshipped - did not "pray" -

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), poem #564

[D. Allan]

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. -- Paul's letter to the Romans 8:26-28, The Message

[D. Allan]

"When I do something wrong I tend to alibi, to make excuses, blame someone else. Until I can accept whatever it is that I have done, I am only widening the gap between my real and my ontological self, and I am thus excluding myself so that I begin to think that I am unforgiveable.

We need to be forgiven:

To be forgiven in this time when the fish are dying in our rivers; in this time of poison gas dumped on the ocean floor and in the less and less breathable air of our cities, of children starving; being burned to death in wars which stumble on; being attacked by rats in their cribs...

I heard a man of brilliance cry out that God has withdrawn from nations when they have turned from Him, and surely we are stiff-necked people; why should He not withdraw?

But then I remember Jonah accusing God of overlenience, of foolishness, mercy, and compassion.

We desperately need the foolishness of God." - Madeleine L'Engle (1918- ), from her autobiography, A Circle of Quiet

[D. Allan]

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. .... For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength

Saint Paul's first letter to the church at Corinth 1:18,25

[D. Allan]

"...Peter went up to the flat roof to pray. It was about noon, and he was hungry. But while lunch was being prepared, he fell into a trance. He saw the sky open, and something like a large sheet was let down by its four corners. In the sheet were all sorts of animals, reptiles, and birds. Then a voice said to him,

'Get up, Peter; kill and eat them.'

'Never, Lord,' Peter declared. 'I have never in all my life eaten anything forbidden by our Jewish laws.'

The voice spoke again, 'If God says something is acceptable, don't say it isn't.'

The same vision was repeated three times and then the sheet was pulled up to heaven....

....Peter told them. 'You know it is against the Jewish laws for me to come into a Gentile home like this. But God has shown me that I should never think of anyone as impure. So I came as soon as I was sent for....'

.... 'I see very clearly that God doesn't show partiality. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right.'"

- from Saint Luke's account of the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 10,(NLT)

[D. Allan]

It was about 1874 that Sri Ramakrishna interested himself actively in Christianity....

One day, while Sri Ramakrishna was seated in the drawing room of another devotee's home, he saw a picture of the Madonna and Child. Absorbed in contemplation of this picture, he saw it suddenly become living and effulgent. An ecstatic love for Christ filled Sri Ramakrishna's heart, and a vision came to him of a Christian church in which devotees were burning incense and lighting candles before Jesus. For three days Sri Ramakrishna lived under the spell of this experience. On the fourth day, while he was walking in a grove at Dakshineswar, he saw a person of serene countenance approaching with his gaze fixed on him. From the inmost recesses of Sri Ramakrishna's heart came the realization, "This is Jesus, who poured out his heart's blood for the redemption of mankind. This is none other than Christ, the embodiment of love." The Son of Man then embraced Sri Ramakrishna.... Thus was Sri Ramakrishna convinced of Christ's divinity.

- - Swami Prabhavananda, The Sermon on the Mount According to Vedanta, (1963)

Jesus said, ...""I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel."

Saint Luke's Gospel 7:9 (NIV)

[D. Allan]

"What are we to consider the greatest commandment of all?"

"The first and most important one is this," Jesus replied - "'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one: and thou shalt love the Lord thay God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.'"

- The Gospel of Mark, Phillips' The New Testament in Modern English

"Sometimes with the Heart

Seldom with the Soul

Scarcer once with the Might

Few - love at all"

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), Poem #1680

[D. Allan]

OF BEING

I know this happiness

is provisional:

.........the looming presences-

.........great suffering, great fear-

.........withdraw only

.........into peripheral vision:

but ineluctable this shimmering

of wind in the blue leaves:

this flood of stillness

widening the lake of sky:

this need to dance,

this need to kneel:

......................this mystery:

PRIMARY WONDER

Days pass when I forget the mystery.

Problems insoluble and problems offering

their own ignored solutions

jostle for my attention, they crowd its antechamber

along with a host of diversions, my courtiers, wearing

their colored clothes; cap and bells.

once more the quiet mystery

is present to me, the throng's clamor

recedes: the mystery

that there is anything, anything at all,

let alone cosmos, joy, memory, everything,

rather than void: and that, O Lord,

Creator, Hallowed One, You still,

hour by hour sustain it.

-Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

[D. Allan]

"But gray - nuance - is what is going to save the world. Not black or white."

- Sean Scully (1945), American printmaker and renowned abstract painter

[D. Allan]

The LORD'S lovingkindnesses indeed never cease,

For His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

"The LORD is my portion," says my soul,

"Therefore I have hope in Him."

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,

To the person who seeks Him.

It is good that he waits silently

For the salvation of the LORD.

- Lamentations of Jeremiah (circa 586 B.C.) 3:22-26

Let my first Knowing be of thee

With morning's warming Light -

- Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) from poem #1218

[D. Allan]

"Because of Christ and our faith in him,

we can now come fearlessly into God's presence, assured of his glad welcome."

St. Paul to the Ephesians, 3:12. (NLT)

"Without wavering, let us hold tightly to the hope we say we have,

for God can be trusted to keep his promise....

Do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord, no matter what happens....

We have faith that assures our salvation.

What is Faith?

It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen.

It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see....

So take a new grip with your tired hands and stand firm on your shaky legs. Mark out a straight path for your feet then those who follow you, though they are weak and lame, will not stumble and fall but will beome strong." From chapter 10,11 and 12 of Hebrews, (NLT)

[D. Allan]

Faith - is the Pierless Bridge

Supporting what We see

Unto the Scene that We do not-

Too slender for the eye

It bears the Soul as bold

As it were rocked in Steel

With Arms of Steel at either side -

It joins - behind the veil

To what, could We presume

The Bridge would cease to be

To Our far, vacillating Feet

A first Necessity.

- Emily Dickinson (1830 -1886)

[D. Allan]

"Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our sufficiency is from God, who has qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills, but the Spirit gives life."

- II Corinthians 3:5-6

"If we look beyond ourselves at that which is greater than we, then we can feel called to help others in just the moment when we ourselves need help most urgently - and , astonishingly, we can help. A power works through us which is not of us.... Perhaps we remember other situations when an action of a person, whose life we knew was disrupted, had a priestly, awakening , and healing effect upon us. It did not come from him, but was in him, as it did not come from us, but was in us.... Against both arrogance and despair stands the word that our qualification does not come from us, nor from any man or any institution, not even from the church, but from God. And if it comes from God it is His Spiritual Presence in our spirit."

- Paul Tillich, The Eternal Now, chapter seven, "Spiritual Presence"