Your Calling is calling. Sound the (pssst) Trumpets!

At this point in your existential journey, have you been "called"?  

What summoned you? 

What vision do you have of a purpose or mission in the world?  

Are you envisioning?     

Statement of Calling

The Journey.

As child of missionaries who traveled the globe, grew up with mixed Christian and non-Christian challenges.  Saw suffering, fear, rape[TK1] , murder, hunger, and many forms of “thirst[TK2] ”.  In our village, and on a global scale.

Faith:  Never asked, as in Book of Job: “Why God permits Righteous Ones to suffer?”  Never want to increase the suffering; not able to stop it.  Never feel lost—never feel at home, except everywhere, in the Journey.   Never feel Tempted. Not even Tempted to Exist[TK3]  -- leave that up to God to work out.  Never doubt God; many doubts of Men.[TK4] 

Asked my Father and Mother many questions. They did their best, and apologized for preparing me so little for this world. And now, they are passed from it.  Midway, look back, see patterns. Shades of gray outcomes, shape a life.

Career dipped in farming, academia, music, soldiering, and law. 

Many successes and failures – colorful challenging life.  In 2011, my head, handed to me, on platter.  Experience “spirit breakdown[TK5] ”-- euphemism for becoming Eucharist.  [TK6] Had to withdraw.  

Now seeking to rejoin the World in another role. Called not to attend, but to “attend”.  Get tune in right key.  Be good counsel.  Not be voice that “darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge[TK7] ”. Going for Light, staying for company.  Can help. Rebuild Temple.

Cultivating all and the nine fruits of the Spirit.  Clinging particularly to Kindness. (In Nahuatl, no direct word for Kindness which does not connote idiocy or gullibility. Even so, raised by kind people in village). Emulating. Beyond words is words.[TK8]   This won’t be easy. 

The Calling:

In being called, I call.   So much more needed, for counseling, spiritual guidance, and strengthening Churches.  Being called to the Collar is not something one does without building muscles and armamentarium. Need tools for tasks.  Need healthier, better, sharper, gentler perspective.  Kindness.

God’s Mission Statement

After the Fall,

It’s either God’s Call,

or it’s not a Call. 

Disputation abounds.

It is manifestly certain little is certain.

Must build Church. 

All is vanity, and ends.

Not a moment to lose:

Must begin.

Reflection[TK9] :

Holy Cross is mirror: 

Look in, Son of Man looks back.

Rising vector, plunges down; arms swing open, also hold. 

Just when think  magnetism pulls, repels. 

Alone, looking inside outside, see seeing seer. 

Past and Future join black hole Now. 

Eternity spins, from dreidel[TK10]  to grave.

Hologram[TK11]  inside Holy Ghost.

---

 [TK1] Rape.  In fact, this exercise/indulgence explores the patter of issues I have had with “authority”, and whether “connected”. Always a surprise to me. But then again, don’t want to frighten them.

 [TK2] “Thirst” is less abstract than “Desire”.

 [TK3] Sidereal reference to Emil Cioran’s work.

 [TK4]  Unknowable – The answer for what you don’t know is God. Great Unknown.

Life everlasting. The Story of God. Simply the story of existence -- In the beginning...

"Life is self-sustaining." --Morgan Freeman

Regardless of what they believe, people are more or less the same, and different.

 [TK5] Not “spiritual”; nothing spiritual about it. Spirit broke, spat on and stomped. But other than that, just fine.

 [TK6] Eucharist – a thanksgiving meal;  cap to convey idea of Sacrificial Body/Blood of a lamb.

 [TK7] Job 38:3, repeated 42:1, twice.

 [TK8] Beyond IS beyond.

 [TK9] Maimonides Guide to the Perplexed, studied by Leo Straus, Persecution and the Style of Writing. For reflection, we have scriptures and symbols, usually with hidden meanings. Why?

 [TK10]Each side of the dreidel bears a letter of the Hebrew alphabet: נ (Nun), ג (Gimel), ה (He), ש (Shin), which together form the acronym for "נס גדול היה שם" (Nes Gadol Hayah Sham – "a great miracle happened there"). The reference is to Existence, which happened here.

 [TK11] Hologram - The intermediate photograph (or photographic record) that contains information for reproducing a three-dimensional image by holography.

Does anyone study "theology" anymore? Has the "miraculousness" of existence finally risen to Scientific standards? Finally!

Why are you interested in studying "Theology"?     

PURPOSE: To study the miraculous: Everything. Existence and Non-existence.

 Midway upon Journey. 

“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una selva oscura che la diritta via era smarrita.”  Now in a dark forest of mid-life, I find the pathway lost. Turning to Theology as a resource for exploring the next part of the Journey.

It is my intention to live my purpose as a “shining star”.  Philippians 2:15.  Of the nine legendary fruits of the Spirit, I choose kindness to specifically embody.  I was raped at the beginning of my life.  I advanced through a series of remarkably similar incidents which clearly look like a “pattern” of consequences.  I was unaware of the pattern.  The unawareness, in spite of being completely conscious, clouded my choices and judgment. 

Only in maturity, only by the gift of hindsight, was I able to see patterns.

 I was not able to gauge at the time.  Not all Crosses are visible. Without being aware of it, bear its weight. Becoming aware of it, bear its fruit.

  

4    Without an Absolute, the Particulars are Meaningless - Plato. 

Not sure. Hope to find out and focus soon.  Am fairly certain “particulars” are not as important as Absolutes, but what is that in relationships?  The goals of studying are neither necessary nor an excuse.   Life is a long-delayed fulfillment of the opportunities and obligations laid before me.  Journey gives and takes.

Where do we go from (no) here?

We are clearly going to end up where we are headed. How does it look? What can we do that has not already been done, and done, and done in spades?

COHERENCY is not enough. We are heirs to Scholars who have devoted lifetimes to marshaling the facts and composing the rational arguments which derived from those facts. Other scholars have sifted through and prioritized the Learning Points. Great Minds have compiled mountains of coherent conclusions. It is not enough.

PASSION is not enough. We are heirs to the efforts of devoted guides and their disciples who have expressed faithful and heartfelt expressions sufficient to inspire immovable objects and indifferent mountains. Great hearts have leaped upon sweating galloping legions of zealots and the ebb and flow has ebbed and flowed. And it is not enough.

MONEY is not enough. The riches of the world have from time to time been plundered and consolidated and gathered into hands eager for more. And what was achieved in this achievement? It is not enough, Ozymandias, never enough.

POWER is not enough. We have stood in honors before a parade of Caesars, we have sacrificed life and limb, and sons and daughters, to and for the Kings and Popes and Ayatollahs who assumed GOD's power over all the forces and influences at their disposal. We have put entire civilizations to death. And now look, look at the result of that power. To anyone with an feather of judgment left in the quiver, it is not enough.

DIVINE GRACE is not enough. We have prayed to the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-resourceful. We have gone to the Source. Golden altars of petition floating on rivers of tears. Our best martyrs, our purest saints, our most sanctified sacrifices of our most chosen people. The Gospel has been broadcast to every person with a dollar to contribute to its promulgation. Yet, here we are: 7 billion people on the planet, every possible dogma has its day, and not one example of salvation.

KINDNESS is not enough. Even the extremities of friendship, the most intimate associations among the closest tribes, the kinship of twins and paternities have seen betrayal. Under color of charitable motives we have seen predators emerge with billion-dollar booty seized from the gullible, the hopeful, the living and the dead. We have drunk cups of tea to oblivion, shared draughts of kindness, and smoked peace pipes to extinction. Yet suffering has moved in and builds every palace. It is not enough.

Even RUTHLESSNESS and ILL-MOTIVES are not enough. Did Machiavelli manage to send the Borgian Prince to the deepest aperture of Hell by offering him a prescription? Does the Captain of Industry have a name whose manipulation of some rival or mass consumer, or government agency, has laid up some enjoyment which he was able to enjoy more than any meal enjoyed by the lowest grasshopper? Is there a tribe or family more fruitful and happy than that of the innocent tardigrades?