Christmas impermanence

We did it.  We shopped, cooked, pressed through traffic, went to a service, socialized; we Christmassed.  Now it is boxing day in a land without boxing day.  It's just the day after Christmas and a week before New Year.  Anicca (impermanence) is a teaching easily accessed on a day like this, and yes, it can lead to oppressive clouds of dukkha.

In Christian work there are missions and their are ministries.  Ministries are open ended, ongoing service efforts.  Missions are objective defined, an accomplishment to strive for.  The Christmas holiday time functions like a mission, but life is more of a ministry.  Today I want to find a mission to pursue, if for nothing else to elevate faith in something better than the present existing safely, even if it's harbor is beyond the next hill.  I don't want to be forced to feel that the mix of good and bad around me is more or less all there is.  I need to believe that the limitations of the good of the day and the impositions of the troubles of the day are what is temporary, and that a future reckoning will show a boon of goodness.

Pulling back to the broadest view, one of eschatological completion and grandeur, delivers that idea, but it is so difficult to access with feeling in tow.  Shorter cycles of deliverance through exodus and entrance in to abundance through conquering and holding are needed.  I need a mission, even if that mission is to get to where ministry ebbs and flows in unashamed contentment.

achieving

Easy answer: I want ETERNAL achievements, not temporal ones.

Actual answer: What was the question??

I have to figure out my AT&T bill.  Don't want to start the debate till i get my facts straight.  Can't figure out the facts.  Should just talk to them directly.  But I don't want to start the debate till i get my facts straight.

etc.

Should I want eternal achievements or temporal ones?  Yeah, I figured that was the question.  The problem is that I live in the temporal world and am squeezed by it.  How to I abide in the eternal while actually abiding in a temporal mind, body and context??

QT is one answer.  Old spiritual disciplines is a slightly deeper answer.  But the fundamental challenge is using temporal dynamics to direct oneself to trans-temporal ideals.  Hungry, fidgeting, perceiving, wondering and wandering.    The naturalistic identity is rather loud.  Sometimes hard to find the the transcendent identity.  Quite the fight, actually.

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."  (I wonder how hard it was??)

Choosing Church - from Colossians

What is church?  Colossians 1:2

What is the goal of church? 1:9-10 (onto 1:13) and restated in verse 28.

What should church NOT be about?  Colossians 2:16-23

What should church be about?  Colossians 3:1-17

What is church?  Colossians 1:2 

brothers and sisters = a family whose common relative is the Messiah of God

What is the goal of church? 1:9-10 (onto 1:13) and restated in verse 28.

The goal of church is to be increasing wise in relating to God and life such that we live well, with gratitude, as we grow up more and more.

What should church NOT be about?  Colossians 2:16-23

Church should not be about rules, including what you consume or when you have 'services'.  It is also not about following a guru.  Lot's of that kind of stuff seems spiritual, but doesn't work.  ('Work' refers back to the goal of the church, to grow in wise and grateful living in God's world.

What should church be about?  Colossians 3:1-17

treasuring - Christ as your real life and hope [3:1-4]

put off - Dead and dirty ways of the world [3:5-11]

put on  - Love in all its characteristics [3:10-14]

live out - Gratitude in community [3:15-17]

The rest of the book describes what that looks like.  The Story of Christ and his church (Colossians 1:15-23) is displayed in relationships.  Colossians 3:18 and following describe how people should relate to one another, including a list of personal names Paul and others are actually working with to see this happen.

church is about the messiah of God forming a family that works toward God's ways in a world that doesn't.  

So what makes a church a good one?  What is necessary?  What is optional?  How is your church doing?  What part are you playing in that?

moving forward into the fog

The #1 concept rattling about for me right now is life with limited knowledge.  Delusion (a huge fear of mine; partly because I dislike being around delusional people and don't want to become one) is overconfidence in regard to knowledge.  Delinquency, the danger of anti-delusion, is my other big fear.  Somewhere between over-zealous belief and the dropout pattern from despair is the realm of 'ought-ness'; the course of action based on information as best as can be discerned at the time.  That is what I have to get more comfortable with.

So does that mean grading knowledge?  I believe this is true at a level A, that at a level C... etc?  Or is it all more fluid than that?  Too fluid pools in pointlessness, too resolutely confident snaps under the weight of inconsiderate circumstances and other intrusions of reality.
Internalized Kung Fu metaphors.  That's the answer.  OK, on with the day! (nothing like the power of limited insight!!) No time to explain, must act on limited knowledge.

Developing the doctrine of limited knowledge

 Daniel 12, Daniel did not understand.  Job didn't.  Angels don't.  Paul says we look through a rough mirror.  We don't see it all.  Our knowledge is limited.  Being clear on muddledness is a good idea.

Because how I ever got to you, I have no idea
It's like some secret door, well, it just appeared
So, no matter what I do from now on with my time
You will always stay here in my mind
I am certain of this and I am not certain of anything

So I want to get myself attached to something bolted down
So that these winds of circumstance won't keep blowing me around
To when I land to when I leave there is enough time to sleep and sing
I keep running when all I want is to lay motionless   ~ Bright Eyes: Motion Sickness

daniel 7 swirls

(no time set aside to edit.  just writing for me, but open to others if they want)


I think in swirls.  Maybe that's not so uncommon.  I don't know, I can't focus long enough to sort it out.


Daniel 7 is a swirl.  So... maybe I don't need to start with trying to sort it out.  Maybe I should listen to odd music, read it, swirl with it, and see what odd clarity comes of it all.  (ok, that's what I'm already doing, but i tortuously interact with my perception of the "normal" world with misgiving, self-doubt, and efforts of justification)  nuff said.


Sufjan: Transfiguration (music i'm listening to while writing)
Daniel goes to sleep in his Babylonian bed.  I wonder what language he dreams in?  Hebrew?  Chaldean?  Does he have scrolls from Moses, others?  Who does he eat dinner with.  Do they make him laugh?  Annoy him with pedantic speculation about the next shift in Babylonian politics?  Does he try to track what was going on in Egypt?  (I try to, but I can't focus, I just get bits which are now on standby for a sudden synaptical connection which has the illusion of careful study and organized problem solving).  Daniel dreams.  It freaks him out; bad.


4 winds of heaven... blowing over the seas... the Ruach over the Waters.... Genesis 1???  
scary weird ramps up... beasts...
Lion, like Judah?, no, with wings, but they get plucked, all 4 of them (why 4???) and the lion is raised to stand, like a man, then given the mind/heart of man...  Man formed from a noble beast?  What's going on????


(i hit replay on Sufjan Stevens THE TRANSFIGURATION - in the cloud, Son of Man/Son of God... swirling)


New beast.  A bear. ((now I remember mumble rumors of a "bear and an eagle in revelations..." from hanging out under the street light on willingham with teen efforts at our own daoistic mysteries of youthful meaning, power, mysteries, insight... significance... secrets))
But the bear is also tagged with a weird number here, not 4 wings, but 3 ribs (tusks?) hanging out of the mouth, mandated to buffet on flesh.  (Why 3???)


Next beast.  Leopard. 4 wings. 4 heads. dominion.  (#s??)

4th beast is scary and strong (iron teeth and stamping feet) DIFFERENT and 10 horns

10 horns, another one, 3 uprooted.

Eyes of man and big mouthed

Thrones, Ancient of days, white with mobile fire throne

Massive crowd of servants before the fire streaming Ancient. 

Court to judge according to books

Attn pulled to big mouth horn.  Beast killed and burned with fire.

Other beasts lost dominion, but still alive for a while

W/ clouds 'son of man' to Ancient

He gets domion, glorious rule over everyone forever, no end

Daniel: uhhhh, what is all this (to one who stood there)

Ok

4 beasts = 4 earthly kingdoms

Saints of Most High rcv Kingdomthat lasts

Ok so #4?

10 horns?

Other horn?  Big mouth big shot?

Looked =

Horn warred with saints and was on top

But then, Ancient judged for saints

Saints then get kingdom

4th kingdom is unique, global, and destructive.

10 horns = 10 kings. + 1 (unique)

downs 3 kings

Anti-Most High words

Wears out saints (for t t's, part t)

BUT - court judges

Dominion removed, consumed, destroyed to the end (telous in LXX)

All Kingdom dominion summed up as "under the whole heaven"  given to

Snts. Of Most HIGH - doesn't end and rules over subsets (all 'dominions' will serve and obey them)

Conclusion?  I was FREAKED OUT, inside and out, but… I kept it to myself.

And for me???  I couldn't keep up with the swirling.  Skype started percolating with work reminders...  Makes me think the cycle of thinking and speaking is way too short.  Dip, speak, dip, speak... not enough plunging.  Wonder how that would work, what it would do?  What boundaries to employ, or not?  Don't want to end up hanging from a street light in Ca., nor sitting in a cubicle, but what is the middle way (that allows for aft. snacks and non-orange)?

What do I think I think?  I think Daniel was probably stressing from a series of Babylonian regime shifts, and his VISION of Israel, in exile, then returning, had a John the Baptist unsettledness (or at least the temptation for it). Am I really living the Story I think I'm living?  Are we here for 70 years, and then back on course, or am I delusional.  The world really is just mean and shallow and void of transcendent meaning and purpose.  

I'm convinced those feelings, whether thought in useful words or not, happen to almost everyone (suppose there might be exceptions).  The pull to coherence, order, clarity is one pole, the pull to spontaneous, incidental, random, self-sufficient experiential surges (a.k.a meaninglessness) is the other pole.  

So Daniel has a dream with details.  He thinks it must mean something.  Then he has another vision, one with him right in the middle of things, seeing COURT set up with God as an old man with fire.  He is told that th3 4 beasts are 4 kingdoms, and i wonder if he thinks of this more or less like the '4 corners of heaven', as in, all summed (not 1, 2, 3, 4 as much as each and every all together).  But, there is a massive focus on a last one who is extra scary and global and is summed up by us vs. them.  Pole 1 vs. Pole 2.  The Transcendent, GOD pole is the true and victorious one, so, don't get sucked over to the despairing side.  

In other words, life is really confusing, and it is tempting to think God is not over the world, but a bit of nonsense as a subset of human existence, but don't believe those words, God is over the world and being faithful is the way forward (but not easy).  That is what I experience when I swirl with Daniel this Wednesday morning.

Now I need to get to a 'to do' list.  

another review of Daniel 1-7

Our goal is to learn from the book of Daniel directly.  Cross referencing later…

The outline I’m suggesting:

Chapter 1, (in Hebrew), tells how the people of God ended up in Babylon.  It also gives an intro into the main idea, standing with God, even when in the ‘world/babylon’, by trusting on God’s intervention, primarily in the form of revelation, but also in intervention.

The ARAMAIC “world language” section of 2/3/4 5\6\7

Chapter 2 has a worldly king dream about kingdoms, and then God’s man interprets the dream and says God is sovereign over nations and will rule.

  Chapter 3 has a showdown between the world and God’s faithful.  God saves and the world is told that God saves.

      Chapter 4 has a worldly king proud and then humbled, while God and his faithful are vindicated

      Chapter 5 has a worldly king proud and then humbled, while God and his faithful are vindicated

   Chapter 6 has a showdown between the world and God’s faithful.  God saves and the world is told that God saves

Chapter 7 has God’s man dream about Kingdoms, and then God’s messenger interprets the dream and says God is sovereign over nations and will rule

2&7 = It looks like the worldly ways rule, but they ultimately don’t

3&6 = being faithful to God clashes with the world, but being faithful creates a testimony to others

4&5 = arrogant worldliness will be humbled and God’s faithful will be vindicated

Application so far?

As you get more and more information about how complex and harsh the world can be, don’t be surprised to see lots of evidence for reality to be about power and worldliness.  Instead of giving into that, resolve to be faithful to God, even in small matters, and ready to suffer for going against the world and for God.  God can and will be glorified through taking a stand, and ultimately there will be judgment for worldly wrong and vindication for being faithful.