Did you know? The Tower of Babel...

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I'm very fond of all the diversity of faiths and religions we have to share with each other and in those moments of sharing it never fails to amaze me when I realize we are expressing an under laying "sameness" but using different words, thoughts and metaphors to express it. All the patients and efforts of  listening to each other until we get to that recognition of a hidden likeness that connects us to each is worth more than gold!  Having experienced these moments and the profound gifts that we get from them I have been drawn back to the biblical story in Genesis 11, "The Tower of Babel" and I am left asking what was so wrong with having one language and one speech? And what is wrong with a collective joint effort to build something together?

After reading many commentaries and listening to many versions of "the wrong" I could not be satisfied with it was "sinful people" and the all so bad "ego self" that corrupted this language and speech with their self serving acts.  So I have turned to the one source I'm coming to trust, "that still small voice" that remains inside and I'm asking for answers to be poured out from the heart...

To read the story of Babel my first question was "what is the word language referring to?"

I was surprised to find that it is referring to "lips, brinks, (banks, shore, edge of sea, cup, river) binding, etc...
(Thus: lips are the edge of a sea of words)

Speech?
Surprised again, it refers to saying, utterance, matters, acts, commands, thing, something, etc...
(Thus: speech is referring to the one certain matter or idea)

The phrase "Go to" in the story means give, give to, grant, permit and ascribe, etc...

So now I can see that these people were asking for everyone/each other to ascribe to a set boundary of one idea that they would build together.

The outer building of this idea and concept would be memorialize in a tower, but the tower would be built inside a city (the boundaries *the language*)...they were not just building a tower but a city also...

What does the word city refer to? Here is the "Did you know!"

The word in the story that was translated as city actually means
"excitement, anguish

a) of terror

I have often wondered what would have happened if everyone had ascribed to the Dec. 2012 doomsday hype?

 And the LORD said, Behold, the people [is] one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

The awe-verwhelming part to this story is when I realized that the Lord confounded their language (lips/city) but not their speech (the central common idea/tower)  and what's more they only left off building the city (terror) but not the tower...

Be Blessed

The Second Journey in Life

"As the first part of our lives are spent on a path of entering into this world so is the second part spent on a path of leaving this world"

When I was younger my life was so busy with the entering in part that I could not grasp the reality of the truth that at some point on my path it was going to change and this change was not going to be by choosing another path or freely deciding to change directions. Just like being born, it happens rather you choose it or not, so is the beginning of the second journey, there will come a point in time, in the blink of an eye that your whole knowing of yourself and world dissolves, the illusions of all the meanings and purposes that drove you to gather all that you did on your journey of entering in will turn to water in your hands, the container that once held all your stuff for you will just vanish, it won't just shatter into pieces, there will be no trace of it left for you.

When this happens you may find yourself very disoriented, everything looks familiar but yet seems so foreign. We have all seen images on the news of people standing in the aftermath of a natural disaster where their homes and livelihoods have been destroyed and yet to compare that to what the beginning of the second journey feels like, imagine that feeling but yet everything on the outside is the same, your house is still standing and nothing outwardly has really changed, the natural disaster took place in the unseen part of your world. You are left with wondering why you're still here, do you even want to be here, what is the purpose for being here and where else is there to go? You can't even grasp who "You" is anymore, nothing seems to make sense and all the meanings you once held and used to define your reality with are water trickling through the cracks of your fingers as you make one last effort to hang on to them.

While in my twenties I can remember some of my older friends talking about the different phases in life, some said there is the "Mid life crisis" that mainly tried to express what older men went through and "The Change" that older women were destine for, I found it curious that it was perceived that men would be in a crisis and women would just simply slip out of and change outfits!  I think the better understanding is that both the crisis and change happens to men and women alike. You are going to feel the crisis that causes you to change and so we now call it the "Mid life Transition"

The younger understanding of me use to roll my eyes when I would hear about these changes and say "so what! changes are happening to all of us everyday, people go through bad stuff all the time!" and then I would reason that the older folks were just getting too old and couldn't handle that reality very well any more. Little did the younger me know and understand that all that "bad stuff all the time" coming to me or being taken from me would be looked upon as all the good things that happened to me in the form of giving me baby step lessons in how to handle the ultimate "Change" of dieing but yet remaining live, this time I have past memories of my first journey that can help me in this second journey. Because I can remember not having a choice in being born the first time and know that I survived and even remained, so too can my hope now move into faith of knowing I can trust even when I don't have a choice in what is happening to me and truth be told if it were left up to me alone to make the change, I would not make the change. Now that I have entered into the second journey of my life and truly -Our life- words fail me to express the gratitude and awe I now have for all of creation and for the Creator that I have chose to call God, it's been said that God has no beginning, how truly awe-verwhelming is it to know that he gave me a beginning that I can remember and I can only think that because it is said he has no ending so it shall be with me too and I can also now remember coming to the end of my first journey...will not the first ending help me get through the next one also.

Be blessed

    

Quotes and Phrases (Frases)

Just some of my favorites!



“Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you’re alive, it isn’t.” ~ Richard Bach


Never look down on anybody unless you're helping him up.  ~Jesse Jackson

  It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.  ~Author Unknown

 Today, give a stranger one of your smiles.  It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.  ~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

There is no greater loan than a sympathetic ear.  ~Frank Tyger

 An apology is a good way to have the last word.  ~Author Unknown

 Never ruin an apology with an excuse.  ~Kimberly Johnson

True remorse is never just a regret over consequence; it is a regret over motive.  ~Mignon McLaughlin


Friendship isn't a big thing - it's a million little things.  ~Author Unknown

Most of us don't need a psychiatric therapist as much as a friend to be silly with.  ~Robert Brault


The antidote for fifty enemies is one friend.  ~Aristotle
 Only your real friends will tell you when your face is dirty.  ~Sicilian Proverb

 The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.  ~Elisabeth Foley


It takes a long time to grow an old friend.  ~John Leonard

True friends stab you in the front.  ~Oscar Wilde

 A friend can tell you things you don't want to tell yourself.  ~Frances Ward Weller
None of us is as smart as all of us.  ~Ken Blanchard


We must all hang together or most assuredly we shall hang separately.  ~Benjamin Franklin

 Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world.  Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.  ~Margaret Meade

 Teamwork is essential - it allows you to blame someone else.  ~Author Unknown

 A snowflake is one of God's most fragile creations, but look what they can do when they stick together!  ~Author Unknown

 The weak can never forgive.  Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.  ~Mahatma Gandhi


Forgiveness is a funny thing.  It warms the heart and cools the sting.  ~William Arthur Ward


He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass.  ~George Herbert


If nothing ever changed, there'd be no butterflies.  ~Author Unknown


The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.  ~Attributed to George Carlin


What you don't see with your eyes, don't witness with your mouth.  ~Jewish Proverb


The Puritan's idea of hell is a place where everybody has to mind his own business.  ~Wendell Phillips











 

Answer "the door"

     In a world and society that is built upon fear, I have been drenched in beliefs and teachings that have left me void and filled with chaos, running "to and fro" searching for knowledge and seeking the chosen special one or ones that could help me find the door to exit this hell. Having grown up in the bible belt, Christianity had the major influences in my search for relief but what I was met with was more chaos and teachings telling me to react and add to the fears I was drowning in. Sure, some of it did throw me a life preserver I could cling to but swimming was my goal.

So accepting what was given to me to work with while I cling to the presever, sandwiched between the fear filled world and the fear filled guidance of Christianity, I had the bible, God and Satan, and a bunch of fearful woe is me must do's and must not do's. After collapsing under that pressure my opinion and truth came pouring out, "God you gave me a crap load of .."dysfunctional" (aahum!) that does not work and does not help!"

To make a long story short, that slip of "truth" opened a door within me and has since taught and shown me that we are each "the door" that can open to the "the way" of light shining in darkness, giving each of us our own knowledge and skills of understanding how to use whatever it is that has been given to us, to take the dysfunctional and turn it into functional, rather than being stuck and helpless in choas.

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life:
Behold, I stand at the door, and knock:

Jesus is not going to knock on someone else's door to speak with you, so get a grip and stop running around trying to find others and their doors to receive Him through, you are your own and only door!

I have new goals besides just swimming now, some want ancient signs and wonders as proof of God with "part these waters so I can walk on dry ground!" but I will say "nay" give me understanding and skills to walk on water and on dry ground!

Finding God After Leaving Religion

Steve McSwain wrote in his article "Finding God After Leaving Religion",


"If you went to church looking for relief from the stress and burdens of living, you might have found more of the same, only dressed as beliefs and dogmas, rules and expectations Then, there's the debating, disagreement, and division that goes on between churches, as well as between people in the same church. I call it the "We're right! You're Wrong!" syndrome: each group insisting that their beliefs are right, which by implication means that everyone else's beliefs are wrong. "We're in; you're out!" "We're the chosen ones; you're not!" Maybe those who came looking for some sanity in life are leaving the church to preserve what little remains."


I spent hours trying to decide what words would best describe "Overcomers to New Beginnings", a title that was chosen by a small group of people a few years ago, we never defined or really considered the words that we chose for this small group other than it described our departure and split from a larger group, religious people trying not to be religious.  Like a drop that hits the surface of the water the waves have rippled and moved out into the distance. We unknowingly described our paths with that title, "moving onward" for neither group is together today. But of course not the idea and understanding was built upon what Mr. McSwain shared in his article, "We're in; you're out!"


Having provided the space for this group (private on-line forum) I'm left with the title and the space, I can not delete the forum but I can shut it down...or I can give it new meanings with new beginnings. When I stopped trying so hard to figure out the new meaning to place on that title "Finding God after Religion" poured out the ends of my typing fingers into the google search engine! I had never heard of Steve McSwain before "Mr. All Knowing Google" pointed the way to his article. 


"Among the many realizations to which I awakened was this: "You don't have to go to church to know God." For reasons too obvious to mention, this isn't the kind of message the church, or any religion, wants spread around. But it's true nonetheless. There is no religion, not even the Christian religion, holding the title deed to God. God's grace is not limited to a select few. The moment any religion believes it is, you can be sure that religion knows nothing of God."


When I consider Mr. McSwain's statement above I would be hard pressed to not point out that when we say "religion" we are talking about people, individual people and I suspect all people know God rather they realize it or not, even the ones that build upon "We're in; you're out!"  For I'm sure Mr. McSwain didn't pay close attention to his words in this paragraph and see how he basically implied what he had already stated to be the down fall of so many religious organizations, by saying "some could know nothing of God" some are "wrong"....I would say these people simply do not realize nor do they pay attention to the "knowing" that we all have God and the reason for this distraction is because there are so many "searching" for what they think and believe they do not have. If we believe we do not have it that must be so for others also..what happens when we believe and know we have God...it must be so for others too.


Even the title to this article, "Finding God After Religion," seems to imply that there's something you must "do" to know God. But the real truth is this: there is nothing you need to do to know God. You know God already.


In all my years of reading, studying, discussing, contemplating and listening to others about what the bible says and teaches, very few have ever wanted to talk about an end result, a goal to the teachings..


1Cr 15:28  "That God may be all in all"




Steve McSwain's article was a breath of fresh air and all I had to do was stand still and "know" to feel the wind stirring in it.

To hear more from Steve McSwain:

http://www.stevemcswain.com/publications/the-enoch-factor/