Form I exemplars

moving to New York City

It was 1947. just the end of WWII, when John O.'s father came to him after he was returning home from school on a Thursday afternoon and declared, "Son, your mother is divorcing me." Age 9, John was confused.  He knew his parents were not getting along for whatever reason, but he was just learning that it meant the marriage was over.  He talked with his mother at dinnertime about what would happen now.  The children and she were to be relegated to the second floor to live, until the house was sold and the proceeds awarded by the court to her.

Making her plans for becoming a legal secretary, perhaps even a lawyer, John's mom decided to pursue a degree in law; she already had a bachelors degree.  But she did not want to remain in Buffalo, New York, because she felt she had to start anew someplace else.  The times were such getting a divorce was tantamount to becoming a social pariah--it just was not done in those days.

She had recently completed a B.A. at University of Buffalo; and with one of her professor's connections, she was able to be accepted quickly into law school at New York University.  The family had visited New York several times and with the promise of starting-over with law-degree training, she decided to jump at the chance forthwith.

"Sheila, would you go with me to find an apartment we could rent there?" she asked her young daughter of 17.  Her daughter of 20 was already engaged to a bus driver in Buffalo and would not make the move with Sheila, John and her--that was to comprise the new family--because the date had already been set for the wedding.

The day to journey to New York and look over the prospect for the move had been set.  The trip would last up to a week, money holding out.  John joined his sister and Mom in prayer through the next days before the two would depart by train to New York.  He also was excited about the prospect of going to New York to live, because he already suffered each winter from the frigid cold of Buffalo weather that would incapacitate him in bed for at a month during the long below freezing weather.

The very day Mother and daughter were to board the train, John ran to the makeshift kitchen on the home's second floor they made for themselves (while his father domiciled on the first floor, where his law office at home was also located), and announced boldly, "I woke up with a vision that you'll find a place in Manhattan.  Don't worry so much!  You'll come across an intersection.  One side is the apartment building--it's about four or five stories high, but there's a place for rent on the first floor.  Actually, you don't get to it by the front entrance of the building, but there's a side entrance you have to go through.  And, Sheila, there's a high school a few blocks away up a hill aways.  But there's a really large building on the other side just opposite where the apartment is where people live, though it's different from an apartment building.  That's the area I saw in my mind.  Nothing more was said about John's imagining before Mother and daughter were on their way to New York.

They came back with news that they leased an apartment.  It was more than my Mother wanted to pay but with the court settlement felt we could live there for awhile.  It matched John's vision to a 'T'.  And the three of them moved to that apartment.  Their neighbors soon informed the newly composed family that they were living in a city rent-controlled unit and the rent was reduced by two-thirds of the initial price.  John loved the education he received at the private schools he attended through high school; and after that vision dedicated his life to do Christian service.

That  "large building people lived in but was not an apartment" turned out to be an old-folks home.

additions: 12/  /19






         


 
 

Forms of Religious Knowledge--# 1

The Forms of Religious Knowledge--wherein God has provided us with the power to change, do the unthinkable good thing, experience His grace, rededicate ourselves, become rejuvenated with His purposes for our lives

I.  The Testimonies and Reports written in third person
--what happened: who said what; who did what
--what was God's response to the individual; what did he learn from God; what did he come to realize he should do henceforth
--solicited from church goers and Christian believers

II.  Seminars including a Q and A session
--ideas and concepts we find useful to live by as devout Christians
--our ruminations about our experiences as a Christian, what we have learned and the changes it has meant for us
--solicited from ministers of the Gospel irrespective when It became part of God's word to live by for us

III.  Hymns of Praise to God
--our joyful response to God's presence in our lives and daily activities
--religious, particularly Christian, poetry
--solicited materials from church music directors

IV.  Moments of Revelation, of Religious Imparting
--personal feelings recounted, e.g., "God's in His heaven"
--what we suddenly realized we could do
--discovering with God's help our human potential, e.g., through science we may learn how to see in the dark as bats do; and become even more Godlike in our actions; discovering our potential as humans
--envisioned events to come (prophesies)
--mankind expanded to be even closer to God


additions: 12/02/19

Book Proposal: Bible of Contemporary Religious Knowledge

Why the need for a bible of contemporary religious knowledge?
1. The clergy find it difficult to sermonize over passages of Scripture written in pre-technological civilizations and cultures.
2.  Parishioners are dwindling, I believe of the difficulty for people in our generation to understand explanations and accounts of events occurring thousands of years ago.  The rise of science is also part of this causal effect: people just can't understand the events as purported.
3.  Nevertheless, there's a Christian message that has endured for these many centuries that the many witnesses will attest to.

Format of the book:
1. Present the means by which religious knowledge is ascertained today.  In the church setting, the Eucharist or Mass is commonplace to provide the aura whereby the power of God is experienced by churchgoers.  There are innumerable ways that God has communicated with man as reported by the Christian mystics.

1a.  Means of getting in touch with "one's still small voice" in the Jewish tradition is also a vehicle to experience God.  These personal experiences are detailed in William James' book, Varieties of  the Religious Experience written a century ago.

2.  Present topically an individual's account where God has provided direction and inspiration to achieve God's will in his or her own life.  These will be edited to permit vocal reading of such accounts in church services--edited for literary and poetical purposes to maintain the solemnity  during which these are read in Christian churches.

Withal, these passages of personal experience in which God has led mankind will attest to the continual testimony of religious faith in human existence.

 3.  A cross reference of items and persons will form the third portion of the opus.   

additions: 12/  /19

There's a crying need for new paradigms in religion!

Each major religion of today--Christianity, Judaism, Muslim--uses the stories of centuries ago as paradigms to show the relevance of living in society today --a really preposterous thing to do!  We can't well relate sowing seeds for harvest and enriching our plates today any more than we can think of our wearing a toga to work on Monday morning.

The point is that religion would do well to end the controversies dividing them because one religion thinks it must establish a kingdom here on earth--even if it be in a desert--while another thinks its kingdom can wait until the end of time, as we know it.  All these controversies miss what is invaluable to religious insight:  how we can relate to forces and Being beyond what we can see around us through its material presence in the physical world.

 

Prior to His arrest, Jesus was praying to God, while Peter, tired, was sleeping!

The story of Jesus, just prior to His arrest and trial, is illustrative, how the believer must push the body to perform its normal limits of endurance for the sake of being prepared to accomplish God's plan in our life.

Indeed, Jesus scolded Peter that he should be alert rather than yield to his bodily want for rest.

But for the human being to accomplish great things for the sake of principle and right, we all must maintain a steadfast readiness.  It was Abraham Lincoln, who sensing the great need to preserve the Union during the Civil War, he stood for the just cause that won out in the end.

We must push our bodies to perform to the utmost for the sake of justice, freedom and religious rectitude. At this Easter season, let us rededicate ourselves to God's will in our lives. 

And God declared the Seventh Day, a day of Reflection and Evaluation

At the Episcopal Church St. Stephens and the Incarnation, the Priest Martin Smith recently delivered a sermon on the meaning of the Sabbath in the eyes of God.  To him, it is a day when God rested, having completed the creation of the universe.

Well, yes, God is reported to have rested on that day, but only after having taken stock of what HE had done!  For He claimed at that juncture, "it was good"--the whole had truly been, magnificently and wonderfully, done!

The importance of HIS evaluation is that we, too, need a chance to reflect upon how we're making progress toward the goals in projects we're involved in for HIS sake.  We need that time to take stock of things.

Personally, I note my forward progress every Sunday while at the altar to receive the Eucharist.  It is during those moments before the Cross that I remember what Jesus hath wraught, and how thankful I am for having a part--howbeit tiny--in doing God's work on earth.  At that time, I also implore God to unleash His mighty power through the Holy Spirit so that I continue on to pursue a life filled with the adventure of working my part in God's accomplishing HIS will for the world.

Cultural Reforms in Religious Theology--Badly Needed Today

Theological treatises must be developed and promulgated according to the culture in which the particular religious faith is professed.  Here are some prominent principles that should be incorporated into the articles of their respective religions.

I.  Cultural Reform in the Christianity of Today
    Those believers of the Western nations are concerned with:
     1.  Climate Change.  Ignoring the issue would make Christianity irrelevant to the Christian's life in our Century.  We must get away from fossil fuels, especially.
      2.  Concern over the sanctity of human life implies the need to prevent unwanted pregnancies and avoidance of responsibility for lives that come into the world.  There must be a statement of the woman's right to exercise birth control procedures.

II.  Cultural Reform in the Islam of Today.
      1.  Muslims must learn to respect the professed faith of one another!  Specifically, as have the Christians several centuries ago, they must not turn the sword on one another.  Those Muslims in need of food and clothing must be attended to peacefully and with religious concern.  The Sunnais and the Shia'a must embrace one another as devotees of a common core of beliefs and practices.

III. Cultural Reform in the Hinduism of Today
      1.  Human life should be more highly valued than any other living biological thing!  That means cows and lower forms of animal life ought to be given a lower status in God's creation.  The waters of the rivers must be made pure for human consumption, including that of the Ganges.

In sum, the believer ought to make his religion applicable to his cultural values in ways that support human life.  God made man in His image!
 

Realm of Religious Theology (RT): Overview

The topic is: Realm of Religious Theology.

In this section, I shall be advancing ideas to be incorporated into modern theologies of specific extant faiths.  Older versions of theologies are products of human minds of religious persons expressing their faith in the Supreme to peoples who have gone before us..  They are products of cultures and civilizations that contain knowledge and faith of that particular period of mankind's development.  We know now so much more about the Creation of the world  and universe.  I believe we should periodically "reform" the tenets of each major religion to stand for the faith of our fathers recast in contemporary life.  This section represents only my attempt at making our religious faith vital in a particular contemporary age: faith cast and practiced in a modern lifestyle.