Facilitating dialogue to promote open and multi-faceted discussion and awareness

I was sitting on a patio today overlooking a beautiful valley with a fork in one hand and a book on Jesus in today’s culture in the other, when a man sat down in front of me. He asked me what I was reading and I showed him. Immediately his eyes lit up, and I knew a good conversation was about to commence, so I laid the book down, laid my fork to rest, and listened. He’s a professor of Greek and Latin in Normandy, and didn’t speak very much, but had much to say. He began relaying the differences between American culture and European. America is still viewed as young, bustling, and growing society. Europe’s view on religion has developed with different chapters in it’s development; i.e.- birth, evangelism, violence, socialization, differing religious thought and the rifts as result of it. Europe has been progressing in religious thought for almost 2000 years (not counting older pagan religions), and it seems now that religion is dying here, with occasional spurts of fervor, but will inevitably fade away. In his view, this was the natural process of all things; all things have a progression, a birth, an adolescence, a maturity, a reminescent, and a death. It is interesting though how Europe’s chapters correlate with America’s today. We have seen great awakenings, we have seen the socialization and politicization of religion, the great evangelistic crusades and television programs, the violence justified oftentimes through scripture, and the rifts cause by differing religious thought. And America is now faced with startling statistics of the decline in religiosity in the forecast of the future generation. Now, with this idea, I was faced with a process of thought contradictory to my own, though subconsciously I’ve been living this idea. I warn you, this is a processing idea, so I have not come to conclusions ( I rarely do, which I think is ok…) but an idea I was confronted with today.

Progress cannot be stopped. There is an idea that things are constant in this world, and yes, I believe certain metaphysical things are constant like ideas of love, and justice, and hope. And these are things that keep the world sane, they keep the world at peace, it separates us from animals. But there seems to be a progression. I look at the human life, from birth to death, and I see process. I see in my youth, as I build blocks, and destroy them only to rebuild. I am both the great creator and the great destroyer; naturally the great explorer. I slowly mature and begin to feel attraction towards girls. I begin to notice changes in me. I am the great lover. Some things don’t bother me like they did when I was younger, while new unfamiliar injustices are brought forth. Soon, I find myself in a committed relationship, the bond is made, and we create something that looks just like both of us. I am the great father. For years I play this role, till eventually that role is no longer needed, and I find myself on the front porch, looking at pictures of old wars, and old friends, and marriage, and children, and grand-children, and reminisce. Men come from all around to hear my stories, to gain from my failures and achievements. I am the great, old wise man, I am the great reminisce-er. And soon after that, I find myself having difficulty breathing, I am laying in bed with someone’s hand in mine, whom I can hardly distinguish but know that touch is needed at this point, not so much for me, but for them. I am dying, my last breath is taken, and I am gone. This is the progress of life. I don’t know much about the afterlife, and I don’t know what happens there, so I cannot really describe it here. I guess I will find out some day. But, our time on earth is fairly predictable. It progresses, and time can never be stopped. Death is very much feared in society. In contemporary religion it is the price you pay for evil. But all things, even those that have never had the capacity to sin, face death. We are born and we die, it is a fact, and maybe death leads to an eternity, again, I don’t personally know.

Now to go a little deeper, what about God. We, made in the image of God, does God progress? I see in the beginning, one who’s created and destroyed, at some points it seems at random. We see a point where he is shown to love, to feel jealousy over a prostitute nation. We see a point where he seems to take on the role of a father, one who loves his children, and reprimands and rewards. And in the end, he takes on the roll of the old wise man, one who sits back for eternity (the death of time) and watches, reminiscing, retells the stories of his youth, his adolescence, his mid-life, his marriage, his wars, his friends and enemies, all of them. Him, the eternal being, may have points where he changes. We see, instead of a world where humans try to reach a God-like point (which became the downfall of man as seen in the Genesis story), a world where God is humanized a little bit. Where men are truly made in the image of God, but with vast difference. A world that, when viewed from a little ways away, makes sense.

The ramifications for this thought process can be great. It’s an idea where death is easily accepted, and where one is faced with what is truly important. In most cases the metaphysical, the things that are eternal, like love and justice, that make the living part easier. That leave legacies in all the little worlds that make up our grand one. But it’s a point where we accept that human is what we were meant to be, and to progress accordingly. I am not looking for miracles in my body, because eventually I will die anyways. I’m not looking for glory, because it’s all around me. Humanity is beautiful, because it was made by God, and in his image, the whole progress. These are my thoughts today. The unseen unity between the dying and the newborn.