Do not mean to be contrary. I read a lot and find myself incredulous over how writers (especially some of our bloggers here) can find the words to describe and/or say what seems impossible. Someone here mentioned “the pearl clutchers”, a perfect way to describe those of us squeamish about too much vulgarity. (Married and with two sons, I’ve heard it all!)
Judith said
Do not mean to be contrary. I read a lot and find myself incredulous over how writers (especially some of our bloggers here) can find the words to describe and/or say what seems impossible. Someone here mentioned “the pearl clutchers”, a perfect way to describe those of us squeamish about too much vulgarity. (Married and with two sons, I’ve heard it all!)
I used to cuss like the best of them.
Not so much anymore.
Right now, I’m thinking it was long enough ago that I’ve forgotten how. Even forgotten that I did it.
At some point I realized that all my friends of the womanly persuasion were loud and boisterous individuals. After some reflection I figured out that this was because I grew up around Southern Belles, courteous, quiet, chaste, content to be “Daddy’s Girls” until that moment when Tax, Tag and Title were transferred to some Good Ole Boy, i.e., “Bubba”, after which she spent the rest of her life being a devoted Helpmeet.
Yeech! Let me outa here!
“Yeech!”
Would you believe you are exactly right?! To this day my brother-in-law calls my sister and I Virginia Belles. Reared by a grandmother, we knew to cover our knees when sitting etc. etc. Then, I had sons and stood up to my husband in the way they were brought up. A believer, I wanted God to like my sons. It is the one thing I did right.
I grew up in the Northeast, not far outside of Boston, where the Equal Rights movement was pretty much in full swing. Consent down to the nanosecond for both genders is a real stick-with-it point, whether religious, economic, or physical. If it’s not consent, it’s not love, and every child has the right to be a child of love and consent.
There is nothing to be afraid of in God.
No ancient person would have agreed. Their perspective was that the realm of the gods is best avoided except through carefully mediated situations like public feasts and festivals or through a priestly class trained to approach the divine (because they knew how to protect themselves) . To attract the notice of the gods was to run the risk of incurring their displeasure.
If you haven’t experienced it, if you haven’t experienced a kind of oneness with God or JC, I don’t think one person can explain it to another.
I have experienced it. When I was a believer I had an active spiritual life. But I began to see that what was happening was that one part of my brain was talking to another part and giving it an experience that it needed to have in the form it was conditioned to express it.
Something I experienced and wrote some time ago.
** you do not have permission to see this link **
You say, I so wanted to go into the Light, but I was afraid. Finally I couldn’t stand it anymore and decided to go in.This is the fear of which the angels warn. Remember the story I told about the Kirtimukha? The fear is not inside the Holy of Holies but in the approach. (Do not think I am saying the experience itself is not real.)
The ancient poets animated all sensible objects with Gods or Geniuses, calling them by the names and adorning them with properties of woods, rivers, mountains, lakes, cities, nations, and whatever their enlarged and numerous senses could perceive. And particularly they studied the Genius of each city and country, placing it under its mental deity. Till a system was formed, which some took advantage of and enslaved the vulgar by attempting to realize or abstract the mental deities from their objects. Thus began Priesthood. Choosing forms of worship from poetic tales. And at length they pronounced that the Gods had ordered such things. Thus men forgot that all deities reside in the human breast.
-William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
Stephen said
And another whose source I cannot recall:
All authentic revelations contain a component of terror. The first words from the mouth of the angels is always “Fear not!”
Sounds like Rudolf Otto maybe? Also reminds me of Rainer Maria Rilke: “** you do not have permission to see this link **.”
Rilke is wonderful. When I read him (although it has been awhile) or Angelus Silesius (Johann Scheffler), I truly regret not knowing German.
“Die Rose ist ohne Warum. Sie blühet, weil sie blühet,
Sie achtet nicht ihrer selbst, fragt nicht, ob man sie siehet.”
I don’t care what the ancients thought, or what the moderns think, I still really do believe there is nothing to fear in God.
If it involves fear, it’s not God. — & I’m willing to stand alone in this.
——————————————-
Stephen – Your link doesn’t work, at least not for me.
Stephen – Your link doesn’t work, at least not for me.
The only links in my previous post were copied and pasted from older posts. The ‘copy & paste’ function sometimes carries the links and other times not. You might have to go back to the original posts I copied to respond to.
I still really do believe there is nothing to fear in God.
Many other people’s gods are not quite so benign as yours. If you wish to encounter a truly psychopathic god read the literature of Calvinism.
I don’t care what the ancients thought…
Regretful since there is real value in an encounter with other ways of thinking. I remember the line from Kipling:
And what should they know of England who only England know?
Stephen, I’m smiling at what you just wrote. When beginning as a blogger on The Forum (first and ever blog for me), I would use quotes quite often but then you said something not altogether positive (so it seemed to me) about using quotes. So, I’ve learned! Even so, I delight when seeing you using one 🙂
Stephen said
I still really do believe there is nothing to fear in God.
Many other people’s gods are not quite so benign as yours. If you wish to encounter a truly psychopathic god read the literature of Calvinism.
I don’t care what the ancients thought…
Regretful since there is real value in an encounter with other ways of thinking. I remember the line from Kipling:
And what should they know of England who only England know?
I don’t care what the ancients thought on this particular subject, about fear being something to do with God or something we should feel or believe in relation to God.
On other subjects, the ancients may be good, fine, or not so good. It depends on what they are talking about. “Ancient” doesn’t make a statement right or wrong.
I’m well aware that there are frightful and damming images of “god”. I grew up with one. It’s not at all missing in the bible either. I just totally disagree with them.
It’s nice to live in a free country, ain’t it? 😉
Stephen said
I remember the line from Kipling:
And what should they know of England who only England know?
Why didn’t they get online and study other places? Then they would understand more about other places and themselves.
And what should they know of any country who only that country know?
Serene said
Helen Young said
I don’t care what the ancients thought, or what the moderns think, I still really do believe there is nothing to fear in God.
If it involves fear, it’s not God. — & I’m willing to stand alone in this
💃 Go Helen, Go Helen
Love it!
Thanks, Serene 🙂
Looks like I’m not standing alone after all. 🙂
Robert said
Helen Young said
Stephen said
I remember the line from Kipling:
And what should they know of England who only England know?Why didn’t they get online and study other places? Then they would understand more about other places and themselves.
And what should they know of any country who only that country know?Rudyard Killing lived and died long before Al Gore invented the Internet.
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