Nonsensical Ramblings of Mark

"Man, by the Fall, fell at the same time from his state of innocence and from his dominion over nature. Both of these losses, however, can even in this life, be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by the arts and sciences." - Sir Francis Bacon "These are the days of miracle and wonder..." - Paul Simon ----------------------- Yes, there are times that the natural world outflanks us (Covid-19 anyone?). That is our lot this side of heaven. Yet God has given us great gifts through the arts and sciences to, in some part, restore our dominion over nature: My children have never feared getting polio. One of my son's friends has the heart of another person beating inside of them. Drone ships  in the middle of the ocean  catch nosecones of rockets in big nets when returning (!) to the earth, and serve as  landing pads for spent stages of the same. Autonomous robots deliver packages to people. Fossil fuel consumption is not needed to power ...

I could probably write a lot more about this, but at some point I need to wrap it up. In the  first part of this I thought about the fact that "freedom" and "connection" is my lot as a human. I cannot be free without being connected to something. In the second part I thought that there were degrees of freedom and that a freedom connected to God and my neighbor is the greater freedom. The lesser freedom is when I am connected to the world system (that is opposed to things of God), the flesh (which is the part of myself that pulls me from him), and the devil (who is the real, personal being who is the author of lies and energizes the world system and my flesh). As I thought about this connected freedom I could not help but draw parallels to the only being in the cosmos that is ultimately connected and ultimately free, namely, God himself. His connected freedom among the members of his divine being, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, form a union of eternal, unbroken ...

In part 1 of this line of thinking I tried to explore the concept of being free and connected at the same time. It seems that we choose freedom and, along with that, there is a corresponding slavery or service. I am, as a human, never free in the ultimate sense. God is the only one who is truly free and the freedom he experiences is one that, from and into eternity, does not have a corresponding service. Yet, the freedom that God experiences is perfectly expressed through connection. Connection in the three persons of the Trinity itself. What a beautiful picture of the Trinity it was as the  the dancers, though connected, saw a freedom much like the one God sees! I may be reading too much into this but, in the Amazing Stories episode, the two dancers moved in front of the stained-glass picture of Christ, his eyes fixed on the Father as he prayed for strength to face the cross chosen for him. What a startling picture of the three persons of the Trinity moving in a concert of freedo...

One of my favorite shows of all time has to be Amazing Stories which I started watching in the 1980's. I have been watching the reboot of the series on AppleTV+ and just finished the fourth episode. Towards the end of the story one of the characters remarks that some dancers she had been watching with her daughter were "so connected yet so free". That phrase struck me. I would think that freedom and connectedness were antithetical to each other. But, as a Christian, this rings true because it describes my position as a son of the earth, son of a man, and a son of God perfectly. As a human, absolute and total freedom from every burden is never to be my lot. Even thinking about what I am constrained to do I find myself in servitude more often than not. I need to eat. I need to drink. I need to sleep. I need to do a lot of things while I am in my earthly body. I am a slave to those physical acts. Now I can choose to free myself from them. There have been plenty of people tha...

In this post  I have considered the idea that theological statements are statements about God or man's position in front of God and that they cannot be applied to a group of people but only to an individual person. It seems like that bears a bit more explanation especially because I am so used to dealing with people as a "group" rather than as an individual. No group, no matter how homogeneous it is, has adherents that are identical in belief and conduct. There is just no way that a group of people that share the experience of a particular denomination, social sphere, skin color, or sex all think and act alike. We would like to wrap a bow around someone, judge them, pretend to know their motives and thoughts, based on who we see them hanging out with or even what they are contributing money to. For example, people assume, because I am registered with the Conservative party, that I voted for the current President, Donald Trump. I did not and will not in the next election. ...

It seems to me that, in these days, I am more aware of theological statements than I ever have been. Now, theological statements are statements about God, or man's relationship to God, that are purported to be true. So, for example, when I say "I am a sinner" I am making a theological statement. I am defining my position before God. I am also saying something about God as well. But more on that later. Or maybe not. At any rate, there are a lot of theological statements that are being bandied about and I want to set my mind on trying to make some sense of it all. When I move from the "is" to the "ought" I am making a theological statement. in other words, I can with my eyes and ears observe someone taking a candy bar from a store and not paying for it. Where I am from we call that stealing and I can see someone stealing. That is a experiential statement and can be verified or proven false through observation. Now, when I say "I ought not to steal,...

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me bring love. Where there is offense, let me bring pardon. Where there is discord, let me bring union. Where there is error, let me bring truth. Where there is doubt, let me bring faith. Where there is despair, let me bring hope. Where there is darkness, let me bring your light. Where there is sadness, let me bring joy. O Master, let me not seek as much to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love, For it is in giving that one receives, it is in self-forgetting that one finds, it is in pardoning that one is pardoned, it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.