Tears for Fears.

An understanding of what God's representatives (priests and ministers) have told people who decided to sell their souls can bring compassion or sympathy even for Satanists and black magicians.

This is because they were told that God is punitive, severe and unforgiving, anti-sex, anti-gay, and anti-women and that they were going to Hell forever anyway.  Little wonder that they decided Satan was preferable.

Perhaps we can also have compassion for those who have been beaten or abused by fathers or priests, passing on their fear from generation to generation.

This fear of God can create terrorists like Osama Bin Laden or hard line religious leaders.

What is said from the pulpit is vital.

Vitriolic sermons in Uganda have brought about a demand for the death penalty for homosexuals in that country.  Fear drives this demand.

The Religious Right in America derives from a particularly fearful form of Christianity. Their violent rhetoric is a response to violence attributed to God in the Bible.  But it is fear that drives them.  Fear of judgement, fear of Hell, fear of punishment.  Perhaps they were punished by their parents or priests.  The Catholic Church goes out of its way to terrify children.

May we have compassion for them even as their violence affects us.  May we see the fear that drives them.  May we have understanding and sympathy for those who attack us.

And we pray that we can overcome our fears.


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The Seven Deadly Fears.

The seven deadly sins are all manifestations of fear.


Anger - is an instinctive reaction to anything we fear.

Lying - is fear of what will happen if we tell the truth.

Avarice - is fear of not having enough.

Gluttony - is fear of hunger.

Lust - is fear of living without love.

Envy - is fear of not being as good as your brother or sister and therefore of losing love.

Sloth - is fear of work.


All suffering is caused by sin.

All sin is caused by fear.

So everything is forgivable.


When we are able to see the cause of an action we are able to forgive the perpetrator through compassion or sympathy (tears).


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Fear or Respect.

"I will meditate on your precepts,
    and fix my eyes on* your ways."  Palm 119:15.  (NRSV)

* The expression fix my eyes on was rendered as respect in the older translation.

"There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear: for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love."  1 John 4:18.  (NRSV)

How much suffering has been caused in the world through a simple mistranslation.

Fear will close the heart, make it hard and cold, even cruel.

But love overcomes fear.

We overcome our fears when our love is greater than our fear.

If we retranslate fear God in the Old Testament as respect God how much difference it will make.

We think that fear God means punishment or judgement (which is punishment).  But God is not a punisher of men and women.

What was meant by the Old Testament writers was that we should respect God and not do otherwise than God's ways.

Fear is not a positive emotion.

We cannot really love someone if we are afraid of them.

When we let go of our fear we feel love.

So do not fear God.

Respect and love God.


(Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.)

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Dukkha.

The Buddha is reported to have said, "All life is suffering", but the word which is translated as "suffering", dukkha, is more accurately translated as unsatisfactory.

I would not agree.  There are times in life when things are quite satisfactory and there are times when things are not.

The condition which the Buddha called unsatisfactory is the result of a lack of love which is caused by closed or hardened hearts.

We experience the feeling of this lack of love as children and assume that this is the normal condition of humanity.

If we examine our experience closely, however, we will find that the difference between feeling O.K. and not feeling O.K. corresponds exactly to the presence or absence of love in our lives.


What we seek is not knowledge or power but love.

Enlightenment or realization flows from love.

What do we benefit from knowledge or power if we have not love?

What do we benefit from wealth or possessions if we have not love?

What is adulation or fame but a pale facsimile of love?

All sex is looking for love.


What causes us to close our hearts but fear.

Fear of ridicule.

Fear of rejection.

Fear of violence.

What is jealousy but fear of losing love?


What causes us to harden our hearts but fear?  

Fear of strangers.

Fear of crime.


What causes us to open our hearts but our tears and our compassion for our brothers' and sisters' suffering.


In the end our lives are not so much about the state of our minds as the condition of our hearts.



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A Saint.

                                            

A saint is not a violent, judgemental wowser.

A saint is a harmless, forgiving lover.


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A Tsunami of Compassion.

We can be overcome with misfortune by accidents of nature or the misdeeds of our brothers and sisters.  But God is not in the accidents or the misdeeds, God is in the helping hand and the acts of kindness and compassion which follow upon misfortune.

God "is patient with you, not wanting any to perish"*(NRSV) and God requires of His followers that they should be the same.  Otherwise "what more are you doing than others?"**(NRSV).

*2 Peter 3:9.
**Matthew 5:47.


(Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible,copyright © 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.)

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God in His Universal Form.

The paradigm shift from the theistic God to the universal God is paralleled almost perfectly in the Bhagavad-Gita when the personal form of God in Krishna, Arjuna's charioteer, shows Arjuna his universal form with it's myriad eyes, its thousand suns, all the sages, and the holy serpents....birthless, deathless....shining....

If we disregard the fear images at the end of the vision - the bloodthirsty mouths etc. - the Shape of the Infinite God fits almost perfectly the new paradigm which is everyone and everything and more (panentheiistic).

At the end Krishna re-assumes his human form to bring peace back to Arjuna.

God can appear in any form but would seem to assume the form which the individual experiencing the vision will recognize as God.

Inasmuch as the personal form of God is the Father, the universal form of God is the Father of Fathers.

  
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