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Showing posts with label Paradise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paradise. Show all posts
6.27.2019
6.13.2019
5.14.2019
Stop! F****** stop! The notion of Utopia is a poison to exactly that. What? External. Always about external. Never about the internal. What? The only Utopia could......
Stop! F****** stop! The notion of Utopia is a poison to exactly that. What? External. Always about external. Never about the internal. What? The only Utopia could see a place of near total extreme Humanity, goodness, within each citizen. Only when the individual bricks have such Integrity can the overall structure in body Integrity. Who writes this? Who reads this? Who wants this? No one. Because wherever we are given fish deadly distracting impossible delaying ideas. Be the change the world needs to see. There is no other answer. No other answer has ever been or ever will be possible.
5.08.2019
Profoundly important. The Holy Grail, has James finally rediscovered it?
James has been very much alive these last twenty years, escaping the insane asylum that is our cultural norms, our prescribed cultural way of being walking death. But these years do not match the freshman year in college for James.
It is still indescribable. There were material aspects. It was materially a conducive environment, an upscale liberal College in a program where James had near complete Freedom of Choice over courses.
But that wasn't it. What James had for that year was a feeling of complete liberation of his psychological being.
It was a Holy Grail lost that following summer and never reclaimed, maybe until yesterday?
Time will tell. But this is the first time that James has had an inkling of what happened, what was going on, and how to recover it.
And as of this morning this is the theory that James will pursue. James freshman year in college from the start he became a soul in charge of his head and Flesh. It just happens. Although it happened because he had been a captive of his flesh and secondarily his head all the years up until then, and it's some deep level James knew it wasn't working. So he tried something different, something immensely effective, but he didn't know what it was.
James was very much aware of his flesh, and of his head, but they were never in charge. They were tools for him, respected and treasured vehicles for his soul. What he now understands to be his soul, his limbic system, was every breath in charge. This was unconscious competence, now finally after all these decades becoming conscious?
It was a constant sense of being part of the infinite. It was unending Joy.
James is now plagued by chronic back pain except as the day wears on and James is up right and under those circumstances for the most part the pain subsides.
Yesterday wrote James of becoming aware that this pain was empowering his flesh to be in charge. Very understandable. But what a waste of existence? How inferior to the experience of the Soul being in charge? For James, yes. He encountered this before, five years ago, during painful and debilitating many months of cancer treatment. And only toward the end of those many months did James begin to realize that his life was being directed by the pain and that it was no life at all. And he began to move his Consciousness out to those he was trying to serve and it helped a lot.
But it was nowhere near the clarity that James seems to have achieved this morning. The soul being in charge. Is that a device for denying the pain? It is a means of denying the pain to be in control. And more importantly, choosing to be a soul in a meat suit (thanks Mel) with that pain.
James realizes this is inconclusive, but it is the first time in almost 60 years has had any idea at all what he had that he lost that freshman year.
But he has been acutely aware all that time that he had the Supreme, and it was lost, and that he had no idea how to reclaim it.
Now he has some idea.
He will now gain some experience and knowledge as to if he is correct.
And although he knew when he lost it, now for the first time he has some inkling of why. His doting, beloved father, decided that James would like to learn flying airplanes. James did not think it a bad idea and went along with the idea of his father who he revered above everyone, and still.
The flight instructor, and one is alone with the instructor during all the training, was criminally abusive psychologically. Probably a military background. The name and the appearance of this creature totally Escapes Me. But the psychological pain, the brilliant attack on the soul was relentless and excruciating. And as this back pain was moving James out of the soul and into the flesh, this monster achieve that with James, with the excruciating unrelenting barrage of psychological pain. And without the conscious competence that maybe he finally has, he was defenseless.
And without the conscious competence he had not a clue of exactly what he had lost, or how to go about regaining it. It was agony for many many years.
4.26.2019
4.25.2019
Ignite soul log April 25th. Beloved Freddy Perlman, against Leviathan falling into the ultimate trap?
Tremendous respect from James to Freddy. Tremendous courageous brilliant relentless truth seeker he seems to be. A giant. Tremendously stimulating book in an important way.
But the trap of almost all of the greats seems to have been fallen into by Freddy.
What trap? That paradise is external. Such a shame, for James. If he fell into that trap. That he fell into that trap. Such a great intellect. James needed him to go beyond so James could learn more.
Freedom is not freedom from just Leviathan, but freedom from that illusion that the ultimate experience is any sort of external environment. It is not. It cannot be. We are creatures trapped within our nervous system. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Point being when we decide that external circumstances are necessary to optimeyes our internal experience, we have to that degree sacrificed our freedom and our joy.
My point is not to find fault with Freddy. My point is to reflect on and learn from what I'm finding there.
Although it is too late for the mastery of cultural abomination drenched history to make the future different, to some degree it can inform my work as a physician of the soul. An igniter of soul. And probably Freddy's work will be sucked dry by James further for this potential advantage.
Although somewhat crippled in use from this by the absence of notes at the end of the book, citing his sources in detail, James continues to find that the courageous truth seeking speaks loudly from the pages and therefore James will go deeper regardless. Grateful. Much appreciation. And even despite this tremendous deficiency mentioned at the top of this post. Still much of tremendous educational useful value in this book. What a wonderful contribution.
However, neither, this is critically important, neither can the optimal internal state of the nervous system be divorced from what it perceives in the external reality! This is the most important point in the world. To paraphrase, live as tho the entire world depends upon what you do, that your entire joy depends upon what you accomplish, and realize that you will probably make no difference at all, except in the attempt you will be infinitely joyful!
3.04.2019
Ransoming Souls log March 4th. The centuries of saving paradise everyone but Jesus has a say.
Benedict, Anselm avalor, Eloise the list of authors decade by decade century by century, untold. Almost never the slightest evidence that anyone thinks to look at the words teachings and example of Jesus. It doesn't happen. It doesn't occur to them.
This is certainly the right of each individual. But that it is never seemingly explicit. That it is never seemingly recognized or deliberate. And they even Brock and Parker reporting on it seem not to understand the implications is mind exploding. The fish are the last to discover water.
Rock and Parker, excellent cerebral scholars, excellent, appear to like the idea that right headed Christianity has been searching to establish material paradise on earth and that has a spiritual component, but in that order of priority. Occasionally their words suggest that logically spirit, psychology, the lymbic system, soul in charge itself is paradise but never do these words seem to be a stopping point for them, rather, a casual mention from which they immediately move on to their pree conceived notion, an notion desired by their overly developed head and flash, it's the answer they want. How much more useful and satisfying if they recognized the choice and made it deliberately and explained to us their choice. If ever I could access them I would hope to respectfully try and bring this to their attention because based on their scholarship their processing of this choice could be very very valuable to me. And for some probably to others. Wishful thinking.
The mission to which I am called is a refined version of my entire adulthood call. This refined in call is for joy, serve those poor souls in solidarity. To live that for the joy of it, to communicate it for the potential joy of others. To make it more able to be grasped and held onto in the world and a historical culture that says no, that's not the way. That's not paradise. Ignore Jesus. Ignore Tolstoy.. Buddha didn't mean it, listen to his 20th century, 21st century teachers. And on and on and on. As reported last week a surprise evolution of this is to understand in this imagination I try and use that prospective client, what they demand of James, what they need of James, what they need of us all, more than anything, is become transformational Souls yourself. Powerful Portals to the soul in charge if you will. The equivalent of the sought after wormhole. As reported several days ago initially to me what this seems to mean is be the Limbic system, the soul in charge in your life. It will be amazing to me if this does not intensify in clarity and implication overtime tho it may change, extremely unlikely that it will. This increases my being a tune to those few souls that are or could move toward being transformational with an interest for helping and certainly protecting those. One of the few that I sense maybe approaching physical unsustainability, death. This is moving me for the joy of it, for the call of it, to see if maybe protection for this soul can be arranged. It is far from clear that that's possible. Today's response to this by me was to develop some thinking on this and to share it with a few promising souls I know. And the response of one absolutely astonished me. Immediate generosity. Immediate commitment. Instinctual. Reflexive. Devine. It is no disrespect to this individual being referred to, that it is off, amaze meant, shock, that wells up in me. World class, Olympic caliber performances do that to us, don't they? The person of concern maybe in the final stages of saving themselves. It may be that it is far too late to save them. We have been neglected far too long. It is completely unclear to me how this will work out. But at least two of us, two souls, are now in solidarity to meaningful attempt to provide aid if that proves to beof promise. This is paradise. Agony yes, but the ecstasy also. Such a privilege for me to know such a fellow soul. And such a privilege for us to maybe have the opportunity to help another. Such a gift. This is the gospel. Jesus had none other.
2.26.2019
Profoundly Rich few sentences. Must read. The Paradise in this life of loving community, worth even dying for.
Early Christians did not regard martyrs as victims, but as people who
manifested the power of God. When faced with Rome's coercive threats, the martyrs held fast to their freedom and their relationships within their Christian community. They would not surrender these to an oppressive power. Rome chose to kill them, but they chose to preserve life in paradise. They had already experienced paradise in their earthly life,
and they knew death would not take that from them. Their
witness encouraged others to trust that violence in the worst forms imaginable could not separate them from their beloved community or cut them off from their source of life
and power. A martyr's death was a
paradox; in refusing to submit to unjust power, the martyr witnessed to the true power that generated paradise on earth.
manifested the power of God. When faced with Rome's coercive threats, the martyrs held fast to their freedom and their relationships within their Christian community. They would not surrender these to an oppressive power. Rome chose to kill them, but they chose to preserve life in paradise. They had already experienced paradise in their earthly life,
and they knew death would not take that from them. Their
witness encouraged others to trust that violence in the worst forms imaginable could not separate them from their beloved community or cut them off from their source of life
and power. A martyr's death was a
paradox; in refusing to submit to unjust power, the martyr witnessed to the true power that generated paradise on earth.
2.24.2019
2.22.2019
Jesus religion has never been tried. Christianity was a counterfeit, well intended or not, from the beginning to this day.
Jesus: "The kingdom of God is within you." Parker & Brock: 'Nah, it was and is an external garden.' All two thousand years of Christianity has tried everything except for Jesus religion, "Do unto others all things whatsoever that you would have them do unto you. This is the law and the prophets."
According to Parker and Brock, first 1000 years, it's an external Garden. Next two thousand years, it is a condo in the sky after this life. And now Parker and Brock, no, it's a garden.
Never in 2,000 years has Jesus religion of joy in this life, for Joy, serve those poor souls in solidarity, never has it been seriously tried, or entertained. Immediately the counterfeits we're put in place.
2.20.2019
Saving Paradise, nuggets of immense wealth and piles of manure. Here is a nugget.....
Rev. William Ellery Channing (1780-1842), preached that the human capacities for reason, affection, imagination, will, creativity, aesthetic sensitivity, and moral conscience reflected the imago dei. He said that Christ came to restore the obscured image of God in humanity, the "impulse to what is divine within us." The divine likeness in humanity was found not in supernatural or miraculous gifts but in the human faculties of "understanding, conscience, love, and the moral will." 42 Channing's parishioners applied his imago dei preaching to a range of issues. Margaret Fuller advocated for women's rights. Elizabeth Palmer Peabody started a movement for early childhood education that treated children with reverence. Horace Mann labored to establish free public education for all children, who without it would be inhibited from growing their souls. Lydia Maria Child protested Indian removal and agitated for an end to slavery. She pushed Channing to see that his theology required him to support the antislavery cause. However, Channing's elite Boston congregation was full of merchants whose wealth was built on the labor of slaves, and he was reluctant to call for abolition. For most of his ministry, he protected the comfortable life of his congregants and his affectionate relationships with them. When he finally took a strong, public antislavery stand in 1841, near the end of his life, it cost him his pulpit in a congregation he had served for nearly forty years. 43 Though Channing eventually took a costly stand, his caution in publicly supporting abolition was typical of elite white Christians, who advocated some social reforms but balked at those that would disrupt their privileged identity as "true Americans." That identity, forged by genocide and slavery, maintained Anglo-Saxon economic, social, and political superiority in relationship to African Americans and Native Americans. Many, though morally troubled by slavery, were reluctant jg6 Saving Paradise to relinquish its economic advantages. Slaveholding Quaker families in Maryland and Pennsylvania enjoyed wealth and prominence. 44 White women werejust as inclined as white men to advocate for the end of slavery while also wishing to preserve racial hierarchies. Though many white women labored...
Apologies. Number 6, again. Critical review, saving Paradise, Parker and Brock. Free download archive.org
Pps 2/20. Apologies, of A Sort, or regret maybe? Not that I wish I hadn't done it, I wish it didn't happen. This thing I have with several recent books where after first listening, as the vehicle and I travel, I am so euphoric and by the end of the process of deep study including annotation of the written text, I'm so disappointed. this was true of spiritual Evolution, George vaillant, and this saving Paradise, Brock and Parker. I am not sorry that they came to my attention and receive my deep study. I am profoundly grateful for that. I am not sorry for bringing them to your attention. I am sorry for us all that they in the end come up so terribly short. We are blessed by the maybe even Giant Steps that they give us, vaillant, by giving us back the most important part of our nervous system, the limbic system, soul, Parker and Brock by giving us back the truth of early for the first 1,000 years Christianity that it was 100%, 100%, 100%, 100%, about entering Paradise in this life on this earth now. But so many landmines, so many creation destroying weapons of mass destruction mixed in with their words, no discredit to them.
Anyway, I guess I was so discouraged and disappointed with the end of saving Paradise that until last night I neglected the first point number six, mid article below, until last night when I added it. It was the reason for my initial Euphoria and it is reason for euphoria, Parker and Brock giving us back the fact that for a thousand years Christians believed that paradise was to be found, entirely and only in this life on this Earth. And that is one trillion percent correct. It is 1 trillion per cent incorrect that it depends on, or ever consists of, establishing a physical Paradise, it never has, it never will, it never can, although a physical Paradise can tremendously increase the odds of finding the only Paradise there can ever be, the kingdom of God is within you, as Jesus lived, died, preached, and taught. and as pointed toward by the dozens of greatest Souls that have ever been Among Us many spoken of here LSGIABeing.com inhabited every moment that the individual, or group, For Joy serve those poor souls, in solidarity.
PS 2/19. Crucial note. If you read the earlier version of this please skip to the very bottom to number 6 below. A crucial Omission in the original submission.
Anyway, I guess I was so discouraged and disappointed with the end of saving Paradise that until last night I neglected the first point number six, mid article below, until last night when I added it. It was the reason for my initial Euphoria and it is reason for euphoria, Parker and Brock giving us back the fact that for a thousand years Christians believed that paradise was to be found, entirely and only in this life on this Earth. And that is one trillion percent correct. It is 1 trillion per cent incorrect that it depends on, or ever consists of, establishing a physical Paradise, it never has, it never will, it never can, although a physical Paradise can tremendously increase the odds of finding the only Paradise there can ever be, the kingdom of God is within you, as Jesus lived, died, preached, and taught. and as pointed toward by the dozens of greatest Souls that have ever been Among Us many spoken of here LSGIABeing.com inhabited every moment that the individual, or group, For Joy serve those poor souls, in solidarity.
PS 2/19. Crucial note. If you read the earlier version of this please skip to the very bottom to number 6 below. A crucial Omission in the original submission.
2/18. Saving Paradise, Parker and Brock. Preliminary review.
So you are never going to see the Sistine Chapel, in this example. This analogy. You will never see a picture. But I have just recommended to you a description by two very well intended very bright Scholars that describe it. The best description I know of. Brilliant. But I know of two major flaws in these well-intended Scholars that even they are unaware of. Do I tell you? I do.
If I know they have severe color blindness, and severe astigmatism, I tell you, and I try and help you understand how that impacts their otherwise useful work.
The brilliant work of similarly afflicted psychiatrist dr. George vaillant, spiritual evolution, summarizes for us the indisputable studies of the last decade highlighting The crucial existence and value of the previously denigrated and ignored third brain, the mammalian brain, the limbic system, what I understand to be the soul. This research summarized by him in very real terms gives us our soul in material location. This is profoundly useful. Such a cruel irony that one writing about the soul is limbic system crippled, limbic system, Soul, the only thing that can grasp the essentials of soul. But if this is understood his work is tremendously valuable.
And similarly Brock and Parker. They write of the quest of the Soul, Paradise, Heaven on Earth. And I find their scholarship tremendously helpful. And also a terrible Minefield, terribly crippled by the fact that they cannot see the essence about which they write, Affairs of the Soul, but they write from that which they have, highly developed cerebral cortex, that anatomically cannot grasp the soul.
I'll share ways that the book, their work, is profoundly helpful to me. And it may be of no use to those who have done and or read the scholarship of others of this last four thousand years of religious development, culminating in so-called Christianity of the last two thousand years.
You may laugh, retch, disconnect at this point, take your pick, but so far I know of no one beside myself, zero credit to me, that is grasping where Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Muhammad and others were unknowingly pointing toward, almost reaching, go in the case of Jesus may be reaching, and definitely living. Joy, one of the Myriad alternative states of consciousness, is Paradise, stimulated or discouraged by external factors but never an external Factor , state, or condition, it is only a personal internal phenomenon enabled by our DNA and crippled by the time we are three or four in all but one in a million in the cultures of the last 7000 years. The formula for activating it, and it can be inhabited every breath, is: for Joy, serve those poor souls, in solidarity. Not only are you welcome to disagree, this is all a waste of your time if you don't task yourself with deciding whether what is being stated here is worth reading any further.
For me the work of Brock and Parker is monumentally important.
- They are showing me what I had little if any idea of, there have been historical figures in the last 2 thousand years of the otherwise malignant cancerous organism called Christianity, individuals that in fact have been close to showing us Paradise, as were Jesus and the others I mentioned above, founders of other religious traditions. This is profoundly useful to me and I will be digging in and writing of it soon I hope.
- And actually, it may be that people considering themselves Christians as a group for the first Thousand Years we're largely not far off. This is going to take more work on my part to understand, completing a detailed annotation of saving paradise, and then digging deeper, this because of the color blindness and astigmatism, cerebral cortex dominance, Soul crippling, of Parker and Brock. But for certain a large group of early Christians we're much more on the path or close to it than I had any idea and this is quite encouraging. Why? Salvation of Christianity? No one with a soul, no credit to them, could care less about Christianity, or about any other religion per se. They care about those who are examples of the soul in charge. And what they want, and what I want, and what is needed, what we are dying for, is examples, and in the two respects I just mentioned Parker and Brock have brought to me many more examples than I realized existed, within Christianity, and before. A tremendous contribution to us.
- There are brief passages throughout this book but particularly in the last two chapters that are cerebrally brilliant, and terribly useful distillations of key issues in human development, cultural development, political development, developments within America that have great pertinence to what's going on today, not only in Christianity, but especially in Christianity. Breathtaking glimmers of Brilliance, cerebral though they may be.
- And in contrast to the examples of souls striving for life over the last four thousand years, striving for freedom from dominance and decimation by their own personal head and Flash, and the head and flesh, cerebral cortex and hypothalamus, of others and systems in general, government Etc. In contrast to these examples they also provide a brilliant and tremendously useful look at the inexpressibly evil corrupting factors, maybe no discredit to themselves, that have attacked, perverted, killed, ended, stopped the hopeful shoots that have emerged from time to time throughout history and especially within Christianity, the focus of this book. How extraordinarily useful and important to be brought Closer by Parker and Brock to seeing these examples and hopefully moving toward an understanding of these corrupting factors and how they work.
- And certainly there are other tremendous benefits of the work of these two but this will suffice for this preliminary review.
- They establish with historical Clarity and Authority is that for the first Thousand Years starting with Jesus Christianity was about establishing Paradise on Earth. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven.
As to the analogy, severe color blindness, severe astigmatism, in Parker and Brock? By the way, just for emphasis, if someone has color blindness, to mention it, to someone whose work you otherwise recommend, is that a slender? It is not.
- They are highly religious, extremely degreed preachers, theologians, and each comes from from long family histories of that as I understand it. That is not a slander or a denigration. It is said that the fish are the last ones to discover water. It seems that the water they know is religion. To them the problem has been religion, but the answer is proper religion. These are not fundamentalists. They are extremely accomplished cerebral Scholars, but it is as though they cannot imagine that religion is not the answer. And it is not. A larva becomes a butterfly, fulfilling its DNA, not because of some religion. As does a seed. Does the environment matter? Tremendously. But in nurturing that is within, not imposing from without which is always crippling.
- As cerebrally dominant soul atrophied limbic system crippled, they absolutely cannot grasp the substance, the nature, of what the little bit of good religion is grasping toward, dominance of the Soul, the soul in charge of head and flesh of the individual and the group.
- If you know, and you do not do, you do not know. Anonymous. From a cerebral perspective, they brilliantly and in such useful instances reveal how the White supremacists and the like, unwitting though they might be, pervert their own perceptions such that whatever they do is good and whatever anyone else does is not. And they express this in specific useful ways far better than I just summarized. And yet these poor souls, Parker and Brock, are exactly there. They are so much of the unintended perversion of what the great religious exemplars tried to show us, and they don't see it. Their academic elitism. Their American Supremacy. Their intellectual Supremacy. Their material Supremacy. And on and on and on. It's heartbreaking. Why? Why heartbreaking? Because we need work of the caliber of theirs without these hidden landmines! Yes, they're doing the best they can, and what a tremendous contribution to me.
- I'm quite sure, though I need to read the text carefully, I'm quite sure that either it is certain to Brock and Parker, or they are extremely biased toward, a view that paradise is not as I say and more importantly Jesus says, the kingdom of God is within you) totally and only an individual's psychological State, influenced by external factors but never of them or determined by them, if as I say that is correct, it may well be that Parker and Brock are exactly of the opposite view, that paradise, Heaven, yes on Earth, of this life not some afterlife, they are right about that, is primarily if not entirely external circumstances both of natural environment made healthy, and physical community made loving.
- And our greatest example and teacher in history, the man Jesus, not the blue eyed white guy, the brown-skinned Palestinian guy, they distort, obscure, corrupt that man by never distinguishing in all their work that I could see, never distinguishing the real man, and the roughly 20% of the verses attributed to him in the four gospels, they never distinguish between that real man and the fiction written largely by John but also appearing elsewhere in the New Testament. They comment in their notes that Dominic crossan early on in Courage their work. And then they quickly add that others checked their scholarship. But not Crossing. I suspect this is the reason. It is shocking that they seem to have totally ignored the work of the Jesus seminar that has helped us determine those 20% of the verses attributed to Jesus that Jesus likely actually said.
- Jesus said, in vain do they worship me, preaching as Commandments the doctrines of men. For 2,000 years the so-called Church, and then relentlessly, relentlessly, without exception that I see, done again by these two otherwise fine and certainly well-intended authors!!!! Teaching as Commandments the doctrines of men!!! As mentioned in the point above, not only do they totally ignore the indisputable scholarship that in the gospel only 20% of the verses were actually spoken by Jesus, maybe another 30% by people that got him, not only did they totally ignore that, but no where in the book do they bring Christianity back to his simple teachings!!! He said, do unto others all things whatsoever that you would have them do unto you, on this hangs all the law and the prophets! and of the other 20% of the words in the gospel attributed to him that he actually spoke, all of them contribute to this and none of them diverge. For 2,000 years, including this book, we have had his teaching, we have had his religion of do unto others all things whatsoever, and for two thousand years including this book we have looked for the answer every place but where he told us to find it!!!!!
I expect to continue and complete at high priority my personal annotation of the written text, saving Paradise, mining it for the positive and negative aspects just briefly pointed to above. This will be a tremendous value to me. Whether any of my further results will be shared in a more detailed review remains to be seen. It's quite possible that my duty to you, as someone who has been highly recommending this book as I have, this summary may have to suffice in my duty of warning to you. People with individual questions if they have done their homework my detailed annotation would put me in a position to provide some specific replies.
James
2.15.2019
Paradise, heaven, in this life on Earth, Jesus and all the prophets preached. Perverted Christianity destroyed all that truth.
"Other books such as Leviticus, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, I
Enoch, andJubilees, maintained the mysterious location
of paradise, suggesting that it suffused the entire land of Israel or even the whole Creation.34 One ofthe mysteries ofDilmun and Eden was their precise location.
Whether in the direction of the rising sun or between four great rivers, paradise confused any attempts to pin it
on a map. It eluded the control, captivity, or ownership ofany one nation, people, religion, or time. In direct contrast to the wars, economic exploitation, fratricidal divisions, and environmental devastations of empires, it offered experiences and visions ofjustice, of the goodness of ordinary life,
could be experienced as real and of a
vibrant peace. Paradise was described in terms recognizable as earthly life at its best. In these descriptions, it
not as a permanent state ofbeing but as aspects oflife itself. It flourished where people took responsibility for the well-being ofall
and respected
and protected the great cycles of life that sustain human life.
Enoch, andJubilees, maintained the mysterious location
of paradise, suggesting that it suffused the entire land of Israel or even the whole Creation.34 One ofthe mysteries ofDilmun and Eden was their precise location.
Whether in the direction of the rising sun or between four great rivers, paradise confused any attempts to pin it
on a map. It eluded the control, captivity, or ownership ofany one nation, people, religion, or time. In direct contrast to the wars, economic exploitation, fratricidal divisions, and environmental devastations of empires, it offered experiences and visions ofjustice, of the goodness of ordinary life,
could be experienced as real and of a
vibrant peace. Paradise was described in terms recognizable as earthly life at its best. In these descriptions, it
not as a permanent state ofbeing but as aspects oflife itself. It flourished where people took responsibility for the well-being ofall
and respected
and protected the great cycles of life that sustain human life.
2.14.2019
Humanity, like God, was responsible for making life flourish, so thatjoy and beauty might bless the world. Immediately....
Humanity, like God, was responsible for making life flourish, so thatjoy and beauty might bless the world. Immediately upon finishing the whole Creation, God rested and hallowed Sabbath rest as holy. As an image of divine life, this conclusion, on the seventh day, suggests that taking delight in Creation and stopping work regularly to restore the energies of life are also human values.
In Genesis, humanity was instructed to be vegetarian, as were the animals, rather than rapacious or predatory. God said, "See I have....
In Genesis, humanity was instructed to be vegetarian, as were the animals, rather than rapacious or predatory.
God said, "See I have given you every plant yielding seed that is
upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air,
and to everything that creeps on the earth,
everything that has the breath oflife, I have given every green plant for food." And it
was so. (Gen. 1:29-30)
God said, "See I have given you every plant yielding seed that is
upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food. And to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the air,
and to everything that creeps on the earth,
everything that has the breath oflife, I have given every green plant for food." And it
was so. (Gen. 1:29-30)
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