Filed under: Spirit and Religion
Blessed father,
As you are the God of the living, and of justice, truth, love, mercy and creation, I humbly bow before you and praise your name.
May these ideals awaken within the earth, within our hearts. May thy will and thy kingdom of heaven purify all corruption and death.
Sustain our life. Open our eyes to truth, open our ears to wisdom, move our feet to worthiness, let our spirits and temples be cleansed.
Forgive us father. Give us understanding of our wrongdoing and have mercy upon our repentance. Allow us to forgive others as graciously as you forgive us.
Father, be our rock and our shield against that which would steal our destiny or our blessings. Let not corruption overtake us. Deliver us. Allow us to be whole.
Soften our hearts. Help us to know you. Help us to know our true selves. Free us.
Help us to become light amidst a dark world. Help us feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked, care for the sick, visit the imprisoned.
In Jesus’ name
Filed under: Maturing, Spirit and Religion | Tags: lost, searching for god, spirituality
This is my third post to a series I call ‘Searching for God’. It was originally outlined to cover three different topics, but as the writing got started, the first bit snowballed into a post of its own. So without getting too unwieldy, I’ll just post this section and save the rest for subsequent meanderings. As always, feel free to jump in as you will.
The Sacred Question
The question of God’s existence and nature is perhaps the most profound one of all. It is the preeminent mystery that has captivated the hearts and imaginations of humanity since our dawn. Is there really a supreme Being reigning over all the earth and stars? If so, what is God’s true purpose and calling? If not, would that make God the greatest hoax of all of human history? What then would this say about our selves and the world around us? Could God somehow be in the middle of these two possibilities? How can we know one way or another?
This is my second post to a small project I call “Searching for God” where I hope to explore and articulate my perspective of God and invite others to do the same. This is something I have wanted to do for quite a long time and I’m glad to have finally started it up. And by my measure, it has been successful. I have garnered a few nice comments from friends on Facebook, and on my personal weblog, I received a very thoughtful and well written response from a gentleman who stopped by. I would like to encourage all of you out there to continue (or start) to participate if you feel the urge, and to feel welcome to write freely and openly. As I explore and shape my own views, I am always open to new challenges, disillusionments, insights, and forms of expression. I believe it is out of love for God that we seek with candor and honesty.
Do you believe in God?” – a simple enough question, right? I’m sure everybody reading this has been asked this at some point. It could have come from friends, family, classmates, strangers, coworkers, missionaries, preachers, teachers, or any of life’s creatures. Sometimes it’s asked in the spirit of searching; other times it’s asked with a pre-packaged agenda. In either case, it is a pretty profound inquiry. But what the heck does it mean?
I’m not a die-hard Obama supporter. But there is something disgusting about this prayer. Perhaps it is the gall to lecture God about what’s at stake in this election. Perhaps it the folly to assume God’s preference.
Last Sunday I had the pleasure of attending my girlfriend’s church in the suburbs of Seoul (about 90 minutes from my apartment). It is a very small and humble church; just one-room in the basement of a small building. In the morning, Haein teaches Sunday school to a handful of children. After their lessons, I got to say hello to the children (by which I mean being assaulted and grumbling about the lack of Confucian values in today’s youth). Then came the service. The congregation was made up of about 20 people with a choir of five (Haein, her father, and three others). The sermon was in Korean and I couldn’t understand it, so I just read and meditated on the book of Ruth during that time. Afterwards, we set up a small table behind the pews and Haein’s mother served homemade rice, soup, and vegetables. A man sitting close to me commented that I looked like Ned Flanders (I think he meant that as a compliment).
All around it was a positive experience. There is something about a small church and congregation that I really appreciate. Perhaps it’s the simplicity of everything. Or the intimacy. I like how a few folks can keep a church going. It’s an entirely different mood that the mega-churches out there. I guess both have a place as long as they keep it real under heaven. Anyway, the two thing that really endeared me to Haein’s church were that (1) it reminded me so much of the old Knoxville Baptist church my mother grew up in (literally for a year or two) when her family first immigrated to the US. (2) A painting on the wall which is my grandmother’s favorite. Perhaps it is famous, I don’t know. But it is a good sign to me.
(Update: some info on the painting photo here and here)
Thank you and God bless.
a rambling we go…..
From the wonderful book: A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angles, & Other Subversive Spirits by Carol K. Mack & Dinah Mack
“Wang Chih was a traveler in the mountains gathering firewood when he came upon a few old men playing chess. He put down his axe and joined them. They gave him a stone to place in his mouth and, when he did, he lost all appetite and thirst. And so he played for a while. After some games, one of the other players said that perhaps it was time for Wang Chih to return home. He turned to get his axe but it was only dust. He left and returned to his village to find that many, many centuries had passed. So he returned to the mountain and practiced Taoism until he himself became an Immortal.”
Not unlike starting a weblog….
Anyhow, Wang Chih had a chance encounter with Mountain Fairies, perhaps on one of China’s five sacred mountains. In such a nexus, time flows differently; and it was not by his intention or even wisdom that he stumbled across it.
This is lore, my friends and fellow travelers, where demons lurk in the outer bounds: the mysterious seas, the sacred mountains, the teeming forests, and the harsh deserts. The further out one goes (alone and at night), the more wild and powerful the dark forces manifest… and the greater the treasure. The cartographers of old used to mark the uncharted lands simply as ‘where dragons lie’. Yet, is such a distance measured only in footsteps? Or could the supernatural inflect in other ways? As Carol and Dinah Mack explain, “the Other World surrounds us like undetectable ether.”
From Japanese Oni’s to Arabian Djinns, the Teutonic Nixie to the Greek Pan, demons manifest in all cultures and all stories. They are “the essence of human storytelling… Without the choice between the demonic and, for lack of a better word, the angelic, there can be no moral to the story. there cannot even be a plot. There can be no story without internal or external struggle; no hero without antagonist; no pain, no gain; no quelling, no quest. The demon is always a challenge.”
Behold the demon lord, Ravana, who, according to the Hindu epic, Ramayana, has ”ten heads, twenty arms, and fiercely burning eyes…. an almost invulnerable, champion shapeshifter… (who) can break mountains with bare hands and create storms at sea…. When he was born, the universe filled with hideous shrieking noises. His mother was the daughter of a demon chief, and his father was a saint she had tempted in mid-prayer.”
These are awesome and terrible forces, and they are not to be ignored or taken lightly. Carol and Dinah Mack warn, “When they crave they are relentless and almost unstoppable” and “outrageous in wrath“. They “are driven entirely by instinct” and embody “unconscious desires, unbridled lust, and gluttony… the distilled incarnations of our most havoc-wreaking emotions.” They are as seductive as they are powerful, manifesting at times in shadows, and ensnaring the unwise. The apostle Paul writes in Romans, “ What I do, I do not understand. For I do not do what I want, but I do what I hate” and “For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want.”
Have you ever encountered a demon? Have you ever been bewitched? Have you ever unsheathed your sword in the darker strata of the psyche? You are a deep soul, my dear friend. Our most sacred stories show us that perceiving and overcoming the demonic is our rite of passage to the treasure. Such things are far beyond blog posts, wikipedia, science, and even words. They move in another sphere.
Yet ramble on I must! Let us consult our guide, “The human hero has the light of day as well as reason on his side because most demons are doomed to vanish at dawn.” There is something inherently human that can overpower even the greatest of demon lords. Mack and Mack explain further “love is so alien (to demons) it can melt them” and “When human heroes use consciousness, reason, love, and compassion as their ‘weapons’ the demon is rendered helpless.”
We are all heroes in our own journeys. We all have our own personal adversary and our own personal treasure upon overcoming. May the grace sown in your own hearts lead you to victory.
Thanks for reading and Godspeed!
* All italicized quotes are from the above link. Well worth the read.
(Update 6-17 1:44am Edited a sentence and changed a link)
