Paradigm Shifting

You have to understand: what you see, what you hear, feel, taste and even think—these things hold absolutely no meaning. They are as nothingness in the true scope of reality. What we experience in our day-to-day lives is a joke. It is nothing more than smoke in mirrors, or "shadows and dust!" Yet it is our "reality." How difficult is it for us to grasp the severity of these implications: that our daily experience is, in essence, nothingness: meaningless futility. Solomon had it exactly right when he declared that everything is meaningless & "a chasing after wind." It is so in all utter sincerity. Our understanding and our experience of life is nothing. Absolutely nothing. It doesn't matter what you feel, how you look, who you know, where you live, what you own, or how many pesetas you have in your wallet. None of this adds up to a single quantum particle in the truth of reality.

So then, why this existence? Why smell, taste, sight, sound, touch? Why communication & social order? Why seconds, hours, days and seasons? Why joy or pain? Why weight, mass, length, width, height? Why consciousness? Why interaction and interplay? Why represent reality—why "experience" reality through a meaningless, empty-of-truth projection, masking the true order of reality?

Maybe that is Creation. Maybe none of this being truth and all of this being nothingness is the central core of what the whole of Creation is about. Everything around us is a fabrication; none of it is really "real". Our insertion into this Creation was done by choice. Or, rather, our ability or capacity to recognise the emptiness of true truth in Creation is what characterises Humankind's likeness of the image of God. To grasp truly the truth, the truth that this around is not it—that this around us is nothingness: to be able to appreciate an ascendant order, a true reality outside of Creation where true truth exists, where these dusty shadows emulate real reality. To know God and to know that He is Truth—to comprehend fully that this around us is not truth. That is what it means to be created in the image of God.

This calls for a paradigm shift. A new outlook on "reality." This calls us to live "life" here in accordance to Romans 8, where we are really not living in the flesh at all (in fact, dead), but being made alive in the Spirit. This calls us to understand that any present sufferings we may undergo are really nothing, and that any obstacle set before us that hinders our communion with God is really nothing more that smoke and mirrors, or "shadows and dust!" Look through, see past, grasp the true reality that is really really real and that is really really there.

Around you is nothingness, around you is meaningless. What exists is God & His truth. What exist are those things created in His likeness. The only Life, the only living things are those that are in connection with Christ. All else is either dead or smoke n' mirrors. Life can be had, but only if you choose to really really live.

Grasp the reality.

Food for Thought: Some Quotes From the Lucid-Elusion Translation [LET]

I'm currently in a feverish frenzy (more figuratively & hyperbolically than really) researching the concept & executive structure of prayer—i.e. "What is prayer and how does it work?" It's really quite an exciting adventure: I've unearthed a couple of things that are nothing short of fascinating, and this all from just looking in the Bible! Will I tell you what those findings are? Well... maybe some day. I'm still in the process of tying together a unified theory on "prayer mechanics" (hooray for pretentiousness!!) which I hope actually to test out in the near(ish) future. So, if you're interested in being a guinea pig for a research study on prayer, let me know!

Okay. The preamble's over & done with. Why this entry? Well, I just finished translating the Lord's Prayers found in both Matthew 6 & Luke 11, and I thought that it would be interesting to post my results for you, oh world, to mull over. Let me know what you think. Note the subtle differences between the passages, as they do (for once, since most translators choose merely to gloss them over) actually make a difference:

Luke 11

²[Jesus] Speaking to them, “Whenever you yourself pray, speak thusly: Father, I revere your name. Let your kingdom fully come. ³Give to us each day the bread we need. ⁴And remove from us our failures & shortcomings, being that we are removing all debts owed to us. And do not carry us into trials or temptations.”

(paraphrased: ⁴Forgive us our "sins" (aka, failures or shortcomings) as we forgive the all the wrongs that we hold against others.)

Matt 6

⁹Therefore, pray in this manner: “Our Father in the heavens, I revere your name. ¹⁰Let your kingdom fully come. Make your intentions as they are in heaven, so on earth. ¹¹Our bread for the coming time, you have given to us this day. ¹²And remove from us our failures & shortcomings, as so we removed the debts owed to us. ¹³And do not carry us into trials or temptations, but rescue us from the evil one.”

If you're interested, yes, these translations are made directly from the Nestle-Aland Greek texts and not mere paraphrasing from other English translations.
AP-GM-S;/;AP-GM-S/;/AP-GM-S;AP-GN-S;/AP-GN-S;AP-GN-S/;AP-GM-S/AP-GN-S;AP-GN-S/AP-GM-Sπονηρός

June berry burning bush

I was heading along a wide dirt road late one evening in June. The air was still all around me, but the rich reds and greens in the surrounding terrain that had once been so vibrant now had become a dull blue-grey. Looking up, it was obvious why: Directly overhead was a tormented atmosphere, boiling, fuming and frothing. It was almost as if the sky was having a very bad stomachache, the thick clouds rolling & swelling with the occasional plume billowing outwards in an ominous, sooty jet. Soon, those clouds would vomit their unsettling contents on the unfortunate souls caught between heaven and earth, and all who were looking for escape would be wasting their time trying to avoid the inevitable. I knew that I had to make camp quickly, or else enjoy the pleasantries of being drenched to the bone in sky vomit as I walked along that serene road, where the whole world was perfectly calm and the only sound to be heard was the soft crunch crunch of gravel beneath my boots. Then it came. Storm wind. It is unmistakeable: a soft, yet forceful breeze that trickles through the trees, seeping into the forest leaving no leaf unturned. These clouds meant business. Thankfully, so did I.

Just around the bend in this road I had been hiking along would be my planned campsite. I knew it well, for I spent a couple weeks in the very spot almost a full year earlier. There would be no problem finding an appropriate spot to run a ridgeline & toss my tarp over a nice, soft and flat bit of duff, making my sleep that night rather comfortable. Or so I thought.

It was interesting to see what had changed in the nine months I had been away from that location. Spots in the previous August that had been bone dry were now filled with pools of water. A wooden, makeshift toilet had been erected by some previous individual right in the middle of the area's best camping site. Beer cans, fire pits and lengths of frayed nylon rope were strewn randomly about. It made me sad to see that my expectations of the site and the reality of the very same place did not fit together so well. Alas! My poor, little camping spot... And just then, a chunk of the mountain right across the river to the east began to crash its way down the rocky slopes towards me. Holy crap.

I never saw where the boulder stopped, but it sure did make a huge bang at the end. In fact, I never really even saw the boulder slide down the mountain at all: by now, the queasy clouds had become so engorged that the tips of the treetops above me were now licking those wispy furls of rage. Maybe it had been lightening. I didn't have time to investigate. The echoing rumbles reminded me that camp had to be set up quickly, so I scouted for a grouping of trees that would serve as good anchors, strung my ridgeline & secured my tarp. I was in for a wonderful surprise when I spread out the groundsheet that I had selected for this trip, for to my dismay, the beautiful stretch of polyethylene had three gaping holes torn into it. What luck. Nonetheless, it would have to do.

With the foundations of my shelter set, and with my food bags dangling between a couple of trees off in the distance, I crawled under my burnt-orange scout tarp, wormed my way into my sleeping bag and turned off my headlamp. Some more boulders crashed down the hillside no more than 50 metres to my left as the dark clouds suffocated the remaining light that evening. Stillness ensued after the rumbling echoes came to rest. Then, Pat! The storm's first raindrop exploded on the surface of my tarp. The rest of the kamikaze battalion arrived not much later, plastering my tarp with their little bodies made of cloud vomit. A dazzling flash popped over Island Ridge, to my right. The storm had begun.

I really enjoy sleeping in the rain—so long as I'm not getting wet. Thankfully, the site I chose & the angle of my tarp kept me rather dehumidified. A smile crept over my face as I lay thee, closing my eyes in expectation of a pleasant, restful sleep, being lulled to dreamland by the pattering of many suicidal soldiers exploding on the roof of my makeshift home. It was wonderful. I even began to hear the delightful bolero by a couple violinists performing in concert just for me. Then I crapped my pants as one of those musicians landed on my face and proceeded to suck the blood right out of me.

It must've been due to my irresistible good looks (or perhaps, since we were in the middle of the bush, it was more out of sheer desperation) that she went and told all of her friends that a hot, available man was lying all alone on the forest floor, just waiting to have the blood sucked right out of him in exchange for a nice performance on the violin. It must've been, for in no time at all, I was literally crawling with the little vampiric violinists (for all mosquitoes that harvest blood are female, didn't you know? It's true!) as they played their horror-inducing symphony throughout the storm-filled night.

I think I finally managed to dose off an hour before sunrise, with nothing but a pair of nostrils sticking out of a twoonie-sized hole from the cinched-up end of my sleeping bag.

Things sometimes don't go the way we expect them to. Life—or rather, God—has thrown me a curve ball in the past few weeks. It makes no sense for me to complain or to fight against it. I don't want to end up being slowly digested in a whale stomach for a weekend, eventually being puked up on some foreign shore. Nevertheless, the curve ball is always difficult to deal with. What does He want from me right now? Complete financial reliance on Him. Why? I've no flipping idea. Perhaps, to give me the freedom to minister & serve Him when and where He wants me to. Is it scary? Heck yes. As scary as utter social Castigation. Nonetheless, He is Lord; and though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. I need to. I need to, because He is God. Therefore, I will wait on Him and allow Him to lead me along His set path.

Man, faith is a freaking scary thing.

Today's Prayer

Cry cry, I cry out to you. Lost, lost and alone I feel. Isolated from purpose, isolated from reality, isolated from validation. I hate how I feel. I hate my life right now. I ache for change. Here I sit, rotting, rotting from the inside outside in. Purpose is meaningless, breath is fruitless, life is purpose; action, breath.

I do not know what to do, my God. I have no plan, I have no reference, I have no hope, I have no expectation, I have no direction, I have no means to acquire direction, I have no means to support direction. I am caught in a mire thicker than deep, cavernous black. Abysmal.

You are testing my faith, god, and I don't like it. It feels like crap. It is extremely difficult.

Why should I wait? For how freaking long? Am I even waiting for anything?! Or are you just telling me to wait because you want to?

<...five minute interlude of silence...>

The wait demonstrates obedience. The inaction, dependence and the inability to claim any glory for myself. Reckless abandon of worldly wisdom, adhering to God's will. This will produce greater faith; this will serve as a reminder for future struggles. The Lord must come through. He must. It is nothing about me. It cannot be. It mustn't be.

Therefore, I must remain open. I must remain content. I must praise Him in light of difficulties--and I will. Though my flesh screams rebellion, yet my soul will yield & my knees will bend, as I stoop in reverence to my King, the Lord of All.

Let me know that You love me, and let that be enough.

Readers' Poll

1.) Name two things that others do (or can do) to make you feel safe.



2.) Name two things that people have done (or can do, or wish they would do) to make you feel loved.

Living Water

Lord, I am unhappy

I am lonely and unhappy

I feel pissed off right now

Frustrated

Much of it, I think, is due to my lack of spending time with you. My mind wants to think of other reasons, but my experiences say otherwise.

What is the point of living a life of futility? It's disconcerting knowing that one is easily replaceable.

I want to make a difference, Father. I want to know and feel irreplaceable in at least one person's life. I want to feel valued and special, but right now, I don't.

Why is it that I don't feel like praying, Father? Why don't I want to spend time being with you in a corporate setting? How come I cannot find a place of solitude wherein I can commune with you unhindered by distractions? Why the hell is the city so filled with distractions & disappointments?!

I feel starved & suffocated from lack of You. And because of it, I don't really feel like pursuing You, even though I know it is You who satisfy all things. I am largely dissatisfied with my predicament. I feel that the locus of control has stepped far beyond my reach. I feel helpless, Father.

I need to spend more time with you. At least I'm no longer working disgusting hours. Help me not to be stupid enough to do that again. I am unhealthy without you. Very unhealthy.

Here I am, Lord, feeling useless & helpless, wishing that I felt otherwise. There is no quick fix though, is there? There is no instant remedy. Satisfaction cannot be found in appetitive satiation. My need of feeling valued or meaningful or whole will not be quenched by any person or title or thing, and I know that. Too many times have I tried to fill this feeling of need or longing with approximations of what I've been longing for, and I've seen too many people destroy themselves doing the same thing. Nothing works; there is no substitute. What I am searching for, what I long to have is a right relationship with You. I desire, need, gasp for and suffocate without You. I am hopelessly addicted to Your love & to Your presence. Separation drives me crazy, makes me fall apart.

I need you, Lord I need you. Every hour I need you.

Hungry, I come to You, for I know You satisfy. I am empty, but I know Your love does not run dry.

Breathe on these dry bones. And break these chains.

And I'm desperate for You. And I'm lost without You.

Oh God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you in a dry & weary land where there's no water.

Fill me up, oh Living Water. Fill me up.

יהוה קדש

YHVH Qadash

The God who Sanctifies you.
—Lev. 21

I was born with a disfigured face. During my gestation, I was sharing a very small apartment with a very clingy roommate. Seriously, the guy wouldn't ever leave me alone for a second: always touching me and wondering what I was doing... But hey, the rent was cheap. After a while though, the living conditions were no longer that great. I had been living with this roommate for 8 months in total now, and he had yet to take a shower or bathe or anything. He just sat there, day in & day out. Thank goodness for him that his rent was covered. Nonetheless, our tiny living space had become extremely cramped, so much so that the only way we could even fit in this place was to lie side by side in one big mess of limbs and torsos. It ended up with my roommate pressing his butt cheeks against the left side of my face, while I pushed him against the wall so that he could barely breathe. The authorities caught word of our living conditions & decided that our living quarters were no longer suitable for continued co-habitation. We got evicted.

Upset by this seemingly spontaneous turn of events, I went crying to my mother... And then so did my roommate seven minutes later. The long and short of the story is that during my cramped stay with this roommate, the intense pressure of his body against my face caused some of my facial nerves to become crushed, leaving the lower left quadrant of my mouth irreversibly paralysed.

I guess things could have been worse. I mean, if the doctors & my parents hadn't decided to evict my brother & I a month early from the womb, we would have continued to have grown & the pressure against our bodies would have increased, potentially having caused greater paralysis in my face & possibly killing my brother. As it stands now, though, both of us are living rather healthy lives with only my triangular mouth to point towards any dire predicaments surrounding our gestation.

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm reading through Leviticus. Having just passed through Lev. 21, I have—for the first time—discovered that, were I a Levite of Aaronic lineage, I would be refused entry into the Holy Place due to my disfigurement. I wouldn't be allowed to serve as a full-fledged priest, though I would still be bound by my ancestry to serve within the Tabernacle.

My first reaction to this was, "Well, that's gay. Just because of a physical condition placed upon me through no action of my own, I would be denied the opportunity to serve the Lord as a full-fledged priest. How fair is that?" Then, I finished the chapter and consented to the Law.

You see, the reason that I wouldn't be allowed to serve as a full priest, were I an Aaronic Levite, was because of God's holiness. The Levitical laws were drawn up in order to emphasise God's holiness and his purity, which in turn would emphasise our depravity and sinfulness. The importance of having a serving priesthood without blemish who stood before the Lord as the intercessor between the nation of Israel and the most holy God reminds the people of how utterly perfect and holy the Lord of he Universe actually is. The Lord called it profanity to have anyone with any blemish to enter into the Holy Place (oh, those blemishes also include individuals who do not have 20/20 vision, making me twice as disqualified), which makes sense if you bring into consideration that the precepts and order that God installed through the Mosaic covenant mirror those of the heavenly realm.

In order to commune with God, one must be pure, spotless and 100% holy—no exceptions: God doesn't compromise. He will not accept anything tainted or second rate. God demands the very best, and He deserves nothing less. To have a priest or a sacrifice that was in some way disfigured or misshapen would undercut the importance and the reality of God's utter holiness and perfection. The notion of "it's good enough" would quickly take root, having been given precedent from the presence of those things less than perfect being fit for holy ordinance, and following from humanity's natural tendency to be as lazy as we can possibly be. Soon "holiness" would no longer embody those things set apart by God for God's purposes. Soon, "holiness" would degrade to become equivalent with "mundane" and "menial." The conception of a holy & righteous God who is perfect above all things would no longer be meaningful, and reverence for the Creator of all things would fade just as the tendril-like whisps of smoke do into the vast expanse of surrounding air.

No. Holiness must be reflected by an un-yielding adherence to the highest standard: God's ordained standard (hooray for Jesus). If I were a Levitical Jew of the line of Aaron, I would not allow myself to complain about my exclusion from ministering before the Lord as my brothers would freely be able to do. Instead, I think that I would find myself worshipping God all the more, being constantly reminded of His holiness & perfection.

Crossing the Line

Now I warn you, my readership, what I am going to say next will be anything but popular amongst the beliefs of today's society, which may very well include your own. Nonetheless, I regard what I am about to say as truth, and I feel obligated to say it because I feel it is important for truth to be told.

The natural extension of my thoughts from Leviticus 21, and the importance God places on the perfect state of his priests & sacrifices—which includes no broken bones, no scabs, cuts or bruises—brings my attention to a popular trend in Christian circles that started about 20 years ago. That trend is women serving in primary leadership roles within the Church. It unsettles me to think that what appears to be the larger portion of today's Church can so easily throw away direct instruction from the Bible regarding women's position within the sphere of Christian ministry and the Church. I am just as convinced that the passages in I Cor. 11 & I Tim. 2 are to be ignored because they are "cultural edicts" as I am convinced that Eve being created from Adam should be ignored because of its own paternalistic overtones. God is very clear concerning the office of females within the ministerial order, as the Bible is rife with both edicts and examples throughout the Old and New Testaments. To name a few: Adam was created first, and Eve as his helper; the Lord made covenants with Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, not Sarah, Rebekah, Leah or Rachel; the Mosaic covenant decreed that no female would ever serve as a priest—even if she were the only living descendent of Aaron; Miriam, the prophetess sister of Moses & Aaron, was given no office within the newly-freed nation of Israel & when she complained about Moses' special treatment, God struck her with leprosy; Deborah, the only female judge over Israel, held office after Ehud, sharing the position with both Shagmar & Barak; none of David's daughters (or other female descendants) were ever anointed as rulers over Israel; Jesus was a man; there were no females appointed among the Twelve disciples or apostles; the first seven deacons (or bishops, depending on how you want to entitle them) appointed by the Twelve were all male.

Does this mean that women are by no means allowed to serve within the church? Not at all! Are they able to be influential and effective ministers? By all means, though they must serve in separate, complimentary roles. Just as Eve was a helper to Adam, Sarah pivotal in God's promise to Abraham (as were Rebekah, Leah and Rachel), Deborah key to the team of judges after Ehud, Mary essential for Jesus' birth, Martha and the Marys supportive of and actively involved in Christ's ministry, so are women of today's Church essential in and beneficial to the Christian ministry. It just means that they should be serving in different roles.

Is it unfair that women should not be allowed to be serving as primary leaders & teachers within the Church today? Perhaps, depending on how you evaluate fairness. It is, though, equally unfair for the Levitical Jew of Aaron's descent to be forbidden from priestly service because of a defect upon his body. Both the woman and the Aaronic descendant may be highly educated and gifted in areas that would greatly benefit the ministry, yet nonetheless, they both would still be disqualified from serving in those leadership positions.

God is holy. It is God who sanctifies us. He proclaims that the Levite with a disfigurement is unfit for priestly service, even if the blemish was wholly out of the Levite's power. Why? Because God says so. God also says that He doesn't want women to be holding positions of primary leadership or teaching. Why? Because He says so. Should we complain about this so-called injustice? Should we try to rationalise the bending or breaking of Biblical decrees to fit our selfish ambitions or our perceptions of what we think is right, in light of our current cultural values? Should we profane God's holiness by stepping into the temple, knowing full well that He has disqualified us for the office we are trying to fill? Or, on the other hand, should we recognise that God's ways are holy, perfect & higher than any cultural philosophy? And, should we humbly accept the position that God has ordained for us, worshipping Him all the more through the constant reminder of our disqualification pointing to His utter, unwavering holiness?

As for me & my household, we will worship the Lord. He is YHWH Qadash—The Lord who Sanctifies—the One who makes things holy.