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Ongoing spiritual growth….we can ask no more of our life, we should ask no more of others, and God asks no more of us.
Pachinko Minds excerpt
Evolutionary selection also shapes spiritual messages, incomprehensible foundational truth being filtered, distilled, and distorted to accommodate the capacity of the populace. An accidental mutation in a random environment allows a lucky species to thrive. An eccentric teaching in a destabilized society allows a religion to take root. Ironically the statistically random results are majestic, revealing a structure of Life embedded in the primal foundations of the universe, unveiling loving Purpose patiently waiting on the free choice of its battered and misled children. Read all of Pachinko Minds
Excerpt from Truth.....Any Takers?. Click to read the whole thing.
Copyright 2020 Don Ray
Truth…..would we even recognize it if it landed on our doorstep?
If it got delivered to each of us would yours be the same as mine?
Eternal Truth.
Yeah, maybe someday.
Sounds a little impractical for now though.
Besides, we've occasionally received some sneak previews and free samples
and it didn’t go over very well.
Worst of all what if it included the truth about us?!
We spend our entire life running from that!
If we had the Truth dumped on us
how could we then make up our own?
Shock Prayer
Copyright 2020 Don Ray
God, help us.
God, shock us.
Shock us out of complacency and status quo. Don’t let us slip away from any lessons without learning them, don’t let us finish any day without changing and growing in your Spirit.
Amen.
That Person Next to You
(The Scrum of Our Beliefs)
Copyright 2018,2019, 2020 Don Ray
Inter-human interactions…..
no experience comes closer to knowing God.
No experience can so promptly and radically drive us away from all that is holy.
We may see God in those interactions if we have already made God’s acquaintance.
We may in those inter-human interactions see the reason for hell.
There, in the grip of the handshake or the blow of the fist, we will feel whatever of God is within us and will sense the Void only God can fill.
In our interactions with and responses to our fellow humanity we will experience the breadth of goodness and the depths of evil.
It is there, there in the interactions with our fellow children of God, that the questions of the ages will arise and the contradictory answers will be lost.
There, there in the confusion and conflict of the scrum of our beliefs, we find our redemption and salvation in the ample opportunities for compassion and forgiveness.
Crumbling Temples, Crumbling Lessons
Copyright 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 Don Ray
On the train leaving Roma (Rome)
In each of those Roman temples we now see as ruins there had to be a last priest of that cult. Someone had to face the reality that their center of worship, the center for a worldwide empire, the center of their life, was no more.
Did economic conditions or waning faith of the populace simply mean the priest could no longer make a living? Was his faith mercenary in nature, and did the lack of paying clients provide opportunity to get out of that stinkin’ job and move on to something better? Or did he grieve over society’s faithlessness, and mourn their consequent fate?...…….
Read more of Crumbling Temples, Crumbling Lessons
The Bass Voice of God
Why would God need masks or altars or guilt or amplifiers to reach us? What is it we feel in those invocations of fear, ecstasy, guilt, awe, and vibrating chest cavity? Why do we want to be manipulated? If the manipulation opens our heart and mind to Creator and Holy Spirit and Love, is it necessarily bad? Have you heard The Bass Voice of God?!...read on.
Read all of Personalized Scripture
Copyright 2018 - 2019 Don Ray
……..It is not the unambiguous interpretation that gives life to scripture. In fact, the unambiguous interpretation drains the Life from scripture.
It is the intimate, personal interpretation, that interpretation that is intently relevant, that interpretation that is not blandly universal but excitingly applicable for that particular person in that particular moment of their life, that is the living meaning that breathes life into scripture and allows scripture to breathe the Spirit into our lives.
Read all of: Why is Prayer a Pain?
Copyright 2018, 2019, 2020 Don Ray
...…...The difficulty of contemplative prayer does not speak of a problem with contemplative prayer, it reveals the problem with the rest of our lives, worldly and disconnected from Source.
So apply the discipline, reserve the time, try to quiet the mind, accept awareness of the beautiful but also awareness of that within and without that is anything but beautiful; breathe in the Holy Spirit in times of contemplative prayer that we may breathe out Love while busy in the world.
Read all of Temporally Senseless
Copyright 2018 - 2020 Don Ray
……... If we say Yeshu's parables are paradoxical and impractical, we are correct per the perspectives of this temporal world. But that begs a nagging question. How much sense do our worldly values, priorities, and lives make from an eternal perspective?
Ongoing spiritual growth….we can ask no more of our life, we should ask no more of others, and God asks no more of us.
Pachinko Minds excerpt
Evolutionary selection also shapes spiritual messages, incomprehensible foundational truth being filtered, distilled, and distorted to accommodate the capacity of the populace. An accidental mutation in a random environment allows a lucky species to thrive. An eccentric teaching in a destabilized society allows a religion to take root. Ironically the statistically random results are majestic, revealing a structure of Life embedded in the primal foundations of the universe, unveiling loving Purpose patiently waiting on the free choice of its battered and misled children. Read all of Pachinko Minds
Excerpt from Truth.....Any Takers?. Click to read the whole thing.
Copyright 2020 Don Ray
Truth…..would we even recognize it if it landed on our doorstep?
If it got delivered to each of us would yours be the same as mine?
Eternal Truth.
Yeah, maybe someday.
Sounds a little impractical for now though.
Besides, we've occasionally received some sneak previews and free samples
and it didn’t go over very well.
Worst of all what if it included the truth about us?!
We spend our entire life running from that!
If we had the Truth dumped on us
how could we then make up our own?
Shock Prayer
Copyright 2020 Don Ray
God, help us.
God, shock us.
Shock us out of complacency and status quo. Don’t let us slip away from any lessons without learning them, don’t let us finish any day without changing and growing in your Spirit.
Amen.
That Person Next to You
(The Scrum of Our Beliefs)
Copyright 2018,2019, 2020 Don Ray
Inter-human interactions…..
no experience comes closer to knowing God.
No experience can so promptly and radically drive us away from all that is holy.
We may see God in those interactions if we have already made God’s acquaintance.
We may in those inter-human interactions see the reason for hell.
There, in the grip of the handshake or the blow of the fist, we will feel whatever of God is within us and will sense the Void only God can fill.
In our interactions with and responses to our fellow humanity we will experience the breadth of goodness and the depths of evil.
It is there, there in the interactions with our fellow children of God, that the questions of the ages will arise and the contradictory answers will be lost.
There, there in the confusion and conflict of the scrum of our beliefs, we find our redemption and salvation in the ample opportunities for compassion and forgiveness.
Crumbling Temples, Crumbling Lessons
Copyright 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 Don Ray
On the train leaving Roma (Rome)
In each of those Roman temples we now see as ruins there had to be a last priest of that cult. Someone had to face the reality that their center of worship, the center for a worldwide empire, the center of their life, was no more.
Did economic conditions or waning faith of the populace simply mean the priest could no longer make a living? Was his faith mercenary in nature, and did the lack of paying clients provide opportunity to get out of that stinkin’ job and move on to something better? Or did he grieve over society’s faithlessness, and mourn their consequent fate?...…….
Read more of Crumbling Temples, Crumbling Lessons
The Bass Voice of God
Why would God need masks or altars or guilt or amplifiers to reach us? What is it we feel in those invocations of fear, ecstasy, guilt, awe, and vibrating chest cavity? Why do we want to be manipulated? If the manipulation opens our heart and mind to Creator and Holy Spirit and Love, is it necessarily bad? Have you heard The Bass Voice of God?!...read on.
Read all of Personalized Scripture
Copyright 2018 - 2019 Don Ray
……..It is not the unambiguous interpretation that gives life to scripture. In fact, the unambiguous interpretation drains the Life from scripture.
It is the intimate, personal interpretation, that interpretation that is intently relevant, that interpretation that is not blandly universal but excitingly applicable for that particular person in that particular moment of their life, that is the living meaning that breathes life into scripture and allows scripture to breathe the Spirit into our lives.
Read all of: Why is Prayer a Pain?
Copyright 2018, 2019, 2020 Don Ray
...…...The difficulty of contemplative prayer does not speak of a problem with contemplative prayer, it reveals the problem with the rest of our lives, worldly and disconnected from Source.
So apply the discipline, reserve the time, try to quiet the mind, accept awareness of the beautiful but also awareness of that within and without that is anything but beautiful; breathe in the Holy Spirit in times of contemplative prayer that we may breathe out Love while busy in the world.
Read all of Temporally Senseless
Copyright 2018 - 2020 Don Ray
……... If we say Yeshu's parables are paradoxical and impractical, we are correct per the perspectives of this temporal world. But that begs a nagging question. How much sense do our worldly values, priorities, and lives make from an eternal perspective?