Recreation.
The word means to re-create. It is interesting that we choose such a word to describe activities that we consider fun.
Fun is essential to wellness.
We have a person in our Episcopal Church community, the Diocese of West Texas who works with churches and vestry in areas of evangelism and church growth. One of the things he does is some basic personality inventories of leaders and leadership groups.
A few years back I took the test. It showed that I like being a leader, but I also like to have fun. I am best at leading when what we do is creative and fun.
(That may explain why puppets show up in church so much!)
For the last week, Anne, Suzanna, and I have been in Oregon meeting up with our son Colin and other friends and family for some much needed re-creation. And I plan to have fun!!
I am so grateful to God for the opportunity to take a few days to simply be, to visit with family, and to let my brain wander off in different directions for a while.
Thanks be to God for opportunities to be re-created.
Peace - paul
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Monday, May 11, 2009
Spiritual Warfare - 3 Floors or 1 Floor?
Does our spiritual universe have 1 floor, 2 floors or 3 floors?
Anthropologists have noted that the modern, scientifically sensitive,Western world reduces the spiritual universe.
What they mean is that people can conceive of spiritual reality in 3 different ways.
Historically most peoples have used a 3 tiered model that looks like this:
Heaven, God, Hell, etc.
--------------
Earth’s spiritual world: Angels, demons, spirits
--------------
Earth’s material world: People, animals, all matter
But in the West, the universe gets reduced to a 2 tiered world that looks like this:
Heaven, God
--------------
Earth’s material world: People, animals, all matter
Or reduced even further to this:
Earth’s material world: People, animals, all matter
You can see the assumptions that are made with each view of the universe. The 3 tiered model assumes a world that has both seen (material) reality and unseen (spiritual) reality. It assumes that the spiritual world influences the material world. In other words, it believes that spiritual forces are at work all the time, not just a spiritual reality that we find after we die.
Most Westerners assume that that view is the result of leftover primitive superstitions that have been disproved by modern science. We assume that the world of angels, demons, miracles, etc. is the result of ancient peoples attributing powers to parts of the material world which they did not understand. But given the advent of the microscope, the telescope, particle physics, etc. we now know that such a world does not exist.
Some Western people still believe that Heaven is real. (Far less believe that Hell might exist!) And many Westerners have dispensed even with any afterlife at all. They are complete materialists.
I have gone from believing in a materialist one tiered universe to a full fledged belief in a more traditional (primitive?) view of a 3 tiered universe. In my next post, I’ll explain why.
Peace in Christ - Paul
Anthropologists have noted that the modern, scientifically sensitive,Western world reduces the spiritual universe.
What they mean is that people can conceive of spiritual reality in 3 different ways.
Historically most peoples have used a 3 tiered model that looks like this:
Heaven, God, Hell, etc.
--------------
Earth’s spiritual world: Angels, demons, spirits
--------------
Earth’s material world: People, animals, all matter
But in the West, the universe gets reduced to a 2 tiered world that looks like this:
Heaven, God
--------------
Earth’s material world: People, animals, all matter
Or reduced even further to this:
Earth’s material world: People, animals, all matter
You can see the assumptions that are made with each view of the universe. The 3 tiered model assumes a world that has both seen (material) reality and unseen (spiritual) reality. It assumes that the spiritual world influences the material world. In other words, it believes that spiritual forces are at work all the time, not just a spiritual reality that we find after we die.
Most Westerners assume that that view is the result of leftover primitive superstitions that have been disproved by modern science. We assume that the world of angels, demons, miracles, etc. is the result of ancient peoples attributing powers to parts of the material world which they did not understand. But given the advent of the microscope, the telescope, particle physics, etc. we now know that such a world does not exist.
Some Western people still believe that Heaven is real. (Far less believe that Hell might exist!) And many Westerners have dispensed even with any afterlife at all. They are complete materialists.
I have gone from believing in a materialist one tiered universe to a full fledged belief in a more traditional (primitive?) view of a 3 tiered universe. In my next post, I’ll explain why.
Peace in Christ - Paul
Monday, May 4, 2009
Spiritual Warfare continued...
Spiritual Warfare
I quoted C.S. Lewis “Screwtape Letters” book in the May edition of the Christ Church Newsletter. But a longer quote is helpful when writing about spiritual warfare. It is perhaps the best intro about the issue of fallen angels ever written. By examining the portrayal of angels and demons in the arts, Lewis uncovers the root of much of our own beliefs. In doing so, he forced me to examine not what I thought I knew about the subject, but to look again at the biblical passages, and to reflect about how much my worldview is shaped by an comic visual images coupled with an Enlightenment perspective which minimizes or eliminates substantive spiritual reality altogether.
Here is the rather long quote from the intro: (Highlights are mine.)
“The proper question is whether I believe in devils. I do. That is to say, I believe in angels, and I believe that some of these, by the abuse of their free will, have become enemies to God and, as a corollary, to us. These we may call devils. They do not differ in nature from good angels, but their nature is depraved. Devil is the opposite of angel only as Bad Man is the opposite of Good Man. Satan, the leader or dictator of devils, is the opposite, not of God, but of Michael.
I believe this not in the sense that it is part of my creed, but in the sense that it is one of my opinions. My religion would not be in ruins if this opinion were shown to be false. Till that happens -- and proofs of a negative are hard to come by -- I shall retain it. It seems to me to explain a good many facts. It agrees with the plain sense of Scripture, the tradition of Christendom, and the beliefs of most men at most times. And it conflicts with nothing that any of the sciences has shown to be true.
It should be (but it is not) unnecessary to add that a belief in angels, whether good or evil, does not mean a belief in either as they are represented in art and literature. Devils are depicted with bats' wings and good angels with birds' wings, not because any- one holds that moral deterioration would be likely to turn feathers into membrane, but because most men like birds better than bats. They are given wings at all in order to suggest the swiftness of unimpeded intellectual energy. They are given human form be-cause man is the only rational creature we know. Creatures higher in the natural order than ourselves, either incorporeal or animating bodies of a sort we cannot experience, must be represented symbolically if they are to be represented at all.
These forms are not only symbolical but were al- ways known to be symbolical by reflective people. The Greeks did not believe that the gods were really like the beautiful human shapes their sculptors gave them. In their poetry a god who wishes to "appear" to a mortal temporarily assumes the likeness of a man. Christian theology has nearly always explained the "appearance" of an angel in the same way. It is only the ignorant, said Dionysius in the fifth century, who dream that spirits are really winged men.
In the plastic arts these symbols have steadily de- generated. Fra Angelico's angels carry in their face and gesture the peace and authority of Heaven. Later come the chubby infantile nudes of Raphael; finally the soft, slim, girlish, and consolatory angels of nineteenth century art, shapes so feminine that they avoid being voluptuous only by their total insipidity -- the frigid houris of a teatable paradise. They are a pernicious symbol. In Scripture the visitation of an angel is always alarming; it has to begin by saying "Fear not." The Victorian angel looks as if it were going to say, "There, there."
The literary symbols are more dangerous because they are not so easily recognized as symbolical. Those of Dante are the best. Before his angels we sink in awe. His devils, as Ruskin rightly remarked, in their rage, spite, and obscenity, are far more like what the reality must be than anything in Milton. Milton's devils, by their grandeur and high poetry, have done great harm, and his angels owe too much to Homer and Raphael. But the really pernicious image is Goethe's Mephistopheles. It is Faust, not he, who really exhibits the ruthless, sleepless, unsmiling concentration upon self which is the mark of Hell. The humorous, civilised, sensible, adaptable Mephistopheles has helped to strengthen the illusion that evil is liberating.
A little man may sometimes avoid some single error made by a great one, and I was determined that my own symbolism should at least not err in Goethe's way. For humor involves a sense of proportion and a power of seeing yourself from the outside. Whatever else we attribute to beings who sinned through pride, we must not attribute this. Satan, said Chesterton, fell through force of gravity. We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment. This, to begin with. For the rest, my own choice of symbols depended, I suppose, on temperament and on the age.
I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”
In my next post I'll look a bit at the worldview issues involved.
Christ's peace - paul
-
I quoted C.S. Lewis “Screwtape Letters” book in the May edition of the Christ Church Newsletter. But a longer quote is helpful when writing about spiritual warfare. It is perhaps the best intro about the issue of fallen angels ever written. By examining the portrayal of angels and demons in the arts, Lewis uncovers the root of much of our own beliefs. In doing so, he forced me to examine not what I thought I knew about the subject, but to look again at the biblical passages, and to reflect about how much my worldview is shaped by an comic visual images coupled with an Enlightenment perspective which minimizes or eliminates substantive spiritual reality altogether.
Here is the rather long quote from the intro: (Highlights are mine.)
“The proper question is whether I believe in devils. I do. That is to say, I believe in angels, and I believe that some of these, by the abuse of their free will, have become enemies to God and, as a corollary, to us. These we may call devils. They do not differ in nature from good angels, but their nature is depraved. Devil is the opposite of angel only as Bad Man is the opposite of Good Man. Satan, the leader or dictator of devils, is the opposite, not of God, but of Michael.
I believe this not in the sense that it is part of my creed, but in the sense that it is one of my opinions. My religion would not be in ruins if this opinion were shown to be false. Till that happens -- and proofs of a negative are hard to come by -- I shall retain it. It seems to me to explain a good many facts. It agrees with the plain sense of Scripture, the tradition of Christendom, and the beliefs of most men at most times. And it conflicts with nothing that any of the sciences has shown to be true.
It should be (but it is not) unnecessary to add that a belief in angels, whether good or evil, does not mean a belief in either as they are represented in art and literature. Devils are depicted with bats' wings and good angels with birds' wings, not because any- one holds that moral deterioration would be likely to turn feathers into membrane, but because most men like birds better than bats. They are given wings at all in order to suggest the swiftness of unimpeded intellectual energy. They are given human form be-cause man is the only rational creature we know. Creatures higher in the natural order than ourselves, either incorporeal or animating bodies of a sort we cannot experience, must be represented symbolically if they are to be represented at all.
These forms are not only symbolical but were al- ways known to be symbolical by reflective people. The Greeks did not believe that the gods were really like the beautiful human shapes their sculptors gave them. In their poetry a god who wishes to "appear" to a mortal temporarily assumes the likeness of a man. Christian theology has nearly always explained the "appearance" of an angel in the same way. It is only the ignorant, said Dionysius in the fifth century, who dream that spirits are really winged men.
In the plastic arts these symbols have steadily de- generated. Fra Angelico's angels carry in their face and gesture the peace and authority of Heaven. Later come the chubby infantile nudes of Raphael; finally the soft, slim, girlish, and consolatory angels of nineteenth century art, shapes so feminine that they avoid being voluptuous only by their total insipidity -- the frigid houris of a teatable paradise. They are a pernicious symbol. In Scripture the visitation of an angel is always alarming; it has to begin by saying "Fear not." The Victorian angel looks as if it were going to say, "There, there."
The literary symbols are more dangerous because they are not so easily recognized as symbolical. Those of Dante are the best. Before his angels we sink in awe. His devils, as Ruskin rightly remarked, in their rage, spite, and obscenity, are far more like what the reality must be than anything in Milton. Milton's devils, by their grandeur and high poetry, have done great harm, and his angels owe too much to Homer and Raphael. But the really pernicious image is Goethe's Mephistopheles. It is Faust, not he, who really exhibits the ruthless, sleepless, unsmiling concentration upon self which is the mark of Hell. The humorous, civilised, sensible, adaptable Mephistopheles has helped to strengthen the illusion that evil is liberating.
A little man may sometimes avoid some single error made by a great one, and I was determined that my own symbolism should at least not err in Goethe's way. For humor involves a sense of proportion and a power of seeing yourself from the outside. Whatever else we attribute to beings who sinned through pride, we must not attribute this. Satan, said Chesterton, fell through force of gravity. We must picture Hell as a state where everyone is perpetually concerned about his own dignity and advancement, where everyone has a grievance, and where everyone lives the deadly serious passions of envy, self-importance, and resentment. This, to begin with. For the rest, my own choice of symbols depended, I suppose, on temperament and on the age.
I like bats much better than bureaucrats. I live in the Managerial Age, in a world of "Admin." The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid "dens of crime" that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern.”
In my next post I'll look a bit at the worldview issues involved.
Christ's peace - paul
-
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