How are we to think about God's perspective of an earthly event? This question was essentially posed in Sara's recent meditation (at Grace Episcopal Church, Wash. DC). Remember the Biblical statement that God's thoughts are not our thoughts neither are His ways our ways?
Then too, the Jews in the Old Testament expressed the thought that God's nature is Justice and Truth: He is a JUST GOD.
Put together what we may draw from these utterances is that HIS PERSPECTIVE is truly universal--looking at an event from any perspective of it, i.e., in which it can be described. I submit that this is the meaning of "a third party" opinion--the point of view that is interest-neutral to sides that could possibly benefit by a judge's ruling that favors one argument in contradistinction to its opposite.
Now in jurisprudence, the only way to achieve that level of what we adjudge is true objectivity is to remove any legitimate claim to bias for any one's claimant position. Justice must be totally impartial, having nothing to gain monetarily or otherwise by a judge's adjudication.
Parenthetically, that's why I have favored in my political career taking no money over and against the accusation of favoring one viewpoint or political philosophy over its counterpart for the sake of personal gain.
Wednesday, July 11, 2018
CD with Sara: Jesus' Understanding of the Concept: LOVE
I've been introduced to Sara, who has become our leader of Saturday meditations at Grace Church, Washington, DC. I have found her understanding of the Christian message refreshing and useful as a vehicle for greater depth in what we believe.
So, I'm including discussions at the luncheon she has originated and carried forth, when the points she makes are of value in my spiritual journey.
I start off with the comment she made recently that Jesus' emphasis on the power of love has universal application to our relationships with others and with God Himself--what He referred to a His list of 2 religious commandments. I raised my hand to make the comment that Jesus' understanding as to the universality of love in structuring our daily relationships with one another may indeed signify the Greek philosophical idea of love as an ultimate universal principle of the cosmos. In that vein, what binds physical elements is love as the force of attraction, or as we might infer, as the power of gravity. In this way, truly, LOVE is the bind that unites all peoples and other animate creatures and all inanimate objects throughout the universe.
So, I'm including discussions at the luncheon she has originated and carried forth, when the points she makes are of value in my spiritual journey.
I start off with the comment she made recently that Jesus' emphasis on the power of love has universal application to our relationships with others and with God Himself--what He referred to a His list of 2 religious commandments. I raised my hand to make the comment that Jesus' understanding as to the universality of love in structuring our daily relationships with one another may indeed signify the Greek philosophical idea of love as an ultimate universal principle of the cosmos. In that vein, what binds physical elements is love as the force of attraction, or as we might infer, as the power of gravity. In this way, truly, LOVE is the bind that unites all peoples and other animate creatures and all inanimate objects throughout the universe.
Saturday, June 23, 2018
(GL#2) Globalization must take advantage of advances in efficiency
African farming may now be taking advantage of the great revolution occurring in farming in the US and other advanced countries: the use of the great combines in the fields.
This means that the proposal that Africa cultivate the small farm, owned and managed by a single landowner is virtually dead. Companies like the great International Harvester must take its gigantic machines across the African plains! It means that the American know-how must be part of the education of the African farmer, who will likely work for an American company on his own soil.
This means that the proposal that Africa cultivate the small farm, owned and managed by a single landowner is virtually dead. Companies like the great International Harvester must take its gigantic machines across the African plains! It means that the American know-how must be part of the education of the African farmer, who will likely work for an American company on his own soil.
Thursday, March 29, 2018
(GL#1) Trump's Import Duty Tax may further spark a Creative Surge in Manufacturing!
By encouraging companies to "come back home," Donald Trump may inadvertently have increased intra-rivalry among manufacturing profit-centers of one company. Say, some company has taken its manufacture of steel to Sweden. Under Trump's dicta, the company must pay an import tax of 25% or so to sell its Swedish-produced steel here in the States.
But suppose it decides to build a smaller plant to make and sell steel in the US. It still is making steel in Sweden but for the US market, it makes and sells steel for its US market. Two profit centers for the same profit. And, then suddenly, the US plant comes up with some innovation that meets not only the US market but also some other markets in the world and captures a greater share of the production outlay. Then, the same company is reaping greater profit by selling steel in its variants!
In short, competition--even in divisions of the same company--can be a spur to ingenuity and innovation!
But suppose it decides to build a smaller plant to make and sell steel in the US. It still is making steel in Sweden but for the US market, it makes and sells steel for its US market. Two profit centers for the same profit. And, then suddenly, the US plant comes up with some innovation that meets not only the US market but also some other markets in the world and captures a greater share of the production outlay. Then, the same company is reaping greater profit by selling steel in its variants!
In short, competition--even in divisions of the same company--can be a spur to ingenuity and innovation!
Monday, January 22, 2018
CD at St. Stephen's Episcopal: The Cleric as a Religious Confidante
More like an adviser in a major subject at a college or a mentor on the job at a business. The Reverend Martin Smith last Sunday at St. Clement's Church and the Incarnation, Washington, DC in the Columbia Heights area of town spoke on his theology of reconciliation. He thought the one-on-one relationship between a cleric, given confidentiality status in a confessional setting, has advantages that permit the confessor to open up freely without recrimination. After the service ended, the Rev. Susan Walker and I began to muse over the possibilities of promoting a more intimate setting, where parisionher and cleric could discuss issues confronting the former in his religious quest not just for forgiveness, but for spiritual growth and development. We seemed to share the same opinion: we need to promote the mentorship idea in the churches.
I recall growing up from the age of 10 without a father in my life. My mother reached out to her friends to find some minister who could provide me with religious insight and teachings pertinent to my maturity level. She latched on to a cleric she had been introduced to in Buffalo, prior to her divorce from my father and our move to New York City, where my mother received additional training in law at NYU. It was from the time of the move till the time I graduated from graduate school myself at NYU, the spiritual mentorship of the cleric my mother kept in touch with ended, that I benefited from that relationship--including his advice related to my Christian commitment.
Rev. Martin Smith pointed out in his sermon that the fact that a relationship that kept confidential what was said (or, admitted to a minister in the confidence of the 'confessional setting') permitted a frank and open evaluation of how to improve upon and highlight one's religious values is something that is not always available in a group situation.
In any case, I found that Rev. Martin Smith's discussion of the confessional confidentiality of a relationship between the parishioner and a spiritual mentor to be an appropriate description of something I had experienced during the days of my youth with my mother's ministerial friend as my "advisor-spiritual mentor."
I recall growing up from the age of 10 without a father in my life. My mother reached out to her friends to find some minister who could provide me with religious insight and teachings pertinent to my maturity level. She latched on to a cleric she had been introduced to in Buffalo, prior to her divorce from my father and our move to New York City, where my mother received additional training in law at NYU. It was from the time of the move till the time I graduated from graduate school myself at NYU, the spiritual mentorship of the cleric my mother kept in touch with ended, that I benefited from that relationship--including his advice related to my Christian commitment.
Rev. Martin Smith pointed out in his sermon that the fact that a relationship that kept confidential what was said (or, admitted to a minister in the confidence of the 'confessional setting') permitted a frank and open evaluation of how to improve upon and highlight one's religious values is something that is not always available in a group situation.
In any case, I found that Rev. Martin Smith's discussion of the confessional confidentiality of a relationship between the parishioner and a spiritual mentor to be an appropriate description of something I had experienced during the days of my youth with my mother's ministerial friend as my "advisor-spiritual mentor."
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Jesus lived through earthly hell for our Salvation!
In the Thursday Bible Class at St. Clement's Church here in El Paso, we've been reading one of the Books in the Old Testament. One of the pet peeves I have is to approach the Old Testament Scriptures as if we Christians were Jews--I mean devout Jews. We know that the Jewish priests of Jesus' time did the most to persecute him. They objected to His attempts to instruct the priests at the temple in His interpretation of the Jewish scriptures at His age of 12. They scolded Him for failing to observe the rules and regulations that guided the believers of His day; and they regarded His contention that there are only 2 rules basic to religion: love God and love your neighbor as yourself! Outrageous!
And, to be sure, these clerics must have rejoiced that they rid Him on the cross at Calvary.
It is with this backdrop of their treatment of our Lord that I refrain from regarding the origins of our Lord's ministry stemming from Judaism as something sacred to Christianity. Indeed, Paul had to disassociate himself from the Church of Jerusalem's tendencies to insist that Christians become "good" Jews first!
My own approach to the Old Testament writings is to see them in anticipation to the divine revelation of the New Testament, i.e., the New Covenant, where Jesus declares He leaves us with God's Comforter, the Holy Spirit. For God as the Holy Spirit attests to God's forgiveness of our shortcomings and through His Absolution imbues us with the power of God the Father, the Creator, to go forth in newness of life and determination to do what He has planned for us to do.
Let us never forget nor gloss over the fact of the hell Jesus endured lo those year of His Ministry at the hands of His religious priestly tormentors that wanted Him dead! Nevertheless, Jesus forgave them.
And, to be sure, these clerics must have rejoiced that they rid Him on the cross at Calvary.
It is with this backdrop of their treatment of our Lord that I refrain from regarding the origins of our Lord's ministry stemming from Judaism as something sacred to Christianity. Indeed, Paul had to disassociate himself from the Church of Jerusalem's tendencies to insist that Christians become "good" Jews first!
My own approach to the Old Testament writings is to see them in anticipation to the divine revelation of the New Testament, i.e., the New Covenant, where Jesus declares He leaves us with God's Comforter, the Holy Spirit. For God as the Holy Spirit attests to God's forgiveness of our shortcomings and through His Absolution imbues us with the power of God the Father, the Creator, to go forth in newness of life and determination to do what He has planned for us to do.
Let us never forget nor gloss over the fact of the hell Jesus endured lo those year of His Ministry at the hands of His religious priestly tormentors that wanted Him dead! Nevertheless, Jesus forgave them.
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
CD: Christianity's Religious Progress over Judaism and Islam
Sometimes, religious clerics balk at thinking that in religion, there's progress in religious belief and practice. Yet, no one today believes in the advocacy of throwing human beings as sacrifices off mountain-tops; and few parishioners today practice the burning of women at the stake. Then too, the concept of religious progress can account for the popularity among Christian believers in the efficacy of the mass or Eucharistic service as the mode to worship God.
It is in the spirit that the concept of religious progress can account for how current practices and beliefs in Christianity differ from those in either Judaism or Islam, which are, admittedly, related religions.
World Religions based on nationalism, i.e., believers belonging to a political entity they espouse
I place Judaism and Islam closer together in belief structure because both take a believer's belonging to a nation or a political entity seriously. In Judaism initially, Yahweh God was the invisible "king" of the Israelites. Through its founding leader of Yahweh worship, Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt into God's promised land--a land flowing of milk and honey. Then prophets after Moses' leadership, became conduits of a dialogue with His people, the Jews. With the coming of the prophet Samuel, kings were crowned as the kingdom became divided into two, Israel and Judea. Nevertheless, the original covenant between Yahweh and the Jewish people (embodied in the Ten Commandments given to Moses) was maintained to proclaim the Jews as the people of Yahweh-God. That tradition continues to this very day through the variants of Judaism, e.g., Orthodox; Conservative and Reformed.
It is interesting to note that although Muhammad, knew of Jesus and the Christian faith, he leaned toward the structure of Judaism for understanding the ways of God, whom he called Allah. He himself became a warlord, conquering the whole of the Arabian Peninsula. God revealed Himself in revelations and direct encounters; and Muhammad became a conduit by which the Koran, the Holy Scriptures, was to be written down, even memorized.
As in Judaism, in Islam, God's kingdom is identified with temporal nation(s) of a time and a place; and religious believers are known as those who cherish a divine Scriptures--in Islam, the Koran and in Judaism, the Old Testament that incorporates the Pentateuch supposedly stemming from the time of Moses. Traditionally, the political entity in Islam was the Caliphate and its head was a Caliph. But in modern times, the several Muslim nations simply announce their allegiance to Islam and retain an independent political structure from the Islamic.
The "Advance in religion" made by Christianity: personal relation to God, The Creator
The Old Testament Book of Genesis recounts how God, The Creator, made and sustains the universe.
It takes the entire New Testament to explain how God, through the works of His Son Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit upon which we Christians rely to accomplish God's plan for our lives. For he wants us to lead a happy life in His care henceforth.
It is the essence of Christianity that we can call upon the Creator of the Universe to provide us the power sufficiently adequate to sustain us through the Holy Spirit's ever-constant infusion into our being. Central to this understanding, we must all call upon the name of the Lord. The service said daily is the Mass or Eucharist in which we declare our shortcomings and inadequacies as descendants of Adam and Eve to a life of sin, pursuing worldly goods and material "things," forsaking our spiritual, fundamental nature. Nevertheless, Paul, in his epistles, urges us to prefer to do and say those things that seek the good for our fellow human beings as well as ourselves--to give up our tendencies toward selfishness and a debased yielding for self-gratification at the expense of doing things that benefit the community of believers to which we have become enjoined into the Kingdom of God.
The latter notion--the kingdom of God--is not an earthly political reality but a spiritual communion shared among those who have come to know and believe in Jesus as our personal guide to bring about a happy state in ourselves (as prayerful members in the mystical realm of religious practitioners) and a dedication to seeking peace in our world of brothers and sisters.
Rather than abiding by a host of rules and regulations, Christians ask God to provide us the strength to live up to our capacities to become a unique ideal of God's handiwork in the world. We seek His guidance to come know ourselves as creatures molded by God Himself to live for a time and place for His and our neighbors' and our own self-delight. For it is with His image and His nature He has sent us into the world insitu.
It is in the spirit that the concept of religious progress can account for how current practices and beliefs in Christianity differ from those in either Judaism or Islam, which are, admittedly, related religions.
World Religions based on nationalism, i.e., believers belonging to a political entity they espouse
I place Judaism and Islam closer together in belief structure because both take a believer's belonging to a nation or a political entity seriously. In Judaism initially, Yahweh God was the invisible "king" of the Israelites. Through its founding leader of Yahweh worship, Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt into God's promised land--a land flowing of milk and honey. Then prophets after Moses' leadership, became conduits of a dialogue with His people, the Jews. With the coming of the prophet Samuel, kings were crowned as the kingdom became divided into two, Israel and Judea. Nevertheless, the original covenant between Yahweh and the Jewish people (embodied in the Ten Commandments given to Moses) was maintained to proclaim the Jews as the people of Yahweh-God. That tradition continues to this very day through the variants of Judaism, e.g., Orthodox; Conservative and Reformed.
It is interesting to note that although Muhammad, knew of Jesus and the Christian faith, he leaned toward the structure of Judaism for understanding the ways of God, whom he called Allah. He himself became a warlord, conquering the whole of the Arabian Peninsula. God revealed Himself in revelations and direct encounters; and Muhammad became a conduit by which the Koran, the Holy Scriptures, was to be written down, even memorized.
As in Judaism, in Islam, God's kingdom is identified with temporal nation(s) of a time and a place; and religious believers are known as those who cherish a divine Scriptures--in Islam, the Koran and in Judaism, the Old Testament that incorporates the Pentateuch supposedly stemming from the time of Moses. Traditionally, the political entity in Islam was the Caliphate and its head was a Caliph. But in modern times, the several Muslim nations simply announce their allegiance to Islam and retain an independent political structure from the Islamic.
The "Advance in religion" made by Christianity: personal relation to God, The Creator
The Old Testament Book of Genesis recounts how God, The Creator, made and sustains the universe.
It takes the entire New Testament to explain how God, through the works of His Son Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit upon which we Christians rely to accomplish God's plan for our lives. For he wants us to lead a happy life in His care henceforth.
It is the essence of Christianity that we can call upon the Creator of the Universe to provide us the power sufficiently adequate to sustain us through the Holy Spirit's ever-constant infusion into our being. Central to this understanding, we must all call upon the name of the Lord. The service said daily is the Mass or Eucharist in which we declare our shortcomings and inadequacies as descendants of Adam and Eve to a life of sin, pursuing worldly goods and material "things," forsaking our spiritual, fundamental nature. Nevertheless, Paul, in his epistles, urges us to prefer to do and say those things that seek the good for our fellow human beings as well as ourselves--to give up our tendencies toward selfishness and a debased yielding for self-gratification at the expense of doing things that benefit the community of believers to which we have become enjoined into the Kingdom of God.
The latter notion--the kingdom of God--is not an earthly political reality but a spiritual communion shared among those who have come to know and believe in Jesus as our personal guide to bring about a happy state in ourselves (as prayerful members in the mystical realm of religious practitioners) and a dedication to seeking peace in our world of brothers and sisters.
Rather than abiding by a host of rules and regulations, Christians ask God to provide us the strength to live up to our capacities to become a unique ideal of God's handiwork in the world. We seek His guidance to come know ourselves as creatures molded by God Himself to live for a time and place for His and our neighbors' and our own self-delight. For it is with His image and His nature He has sent us into the world insitu.
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