Who are we ..who am I

[uncle23]

....

Let's start all over again...

 please respond whatever comes to mind..



02/06/2023

Edited to add: The purpose of this thread is exploration of my consciousness . I am a Christian but all are welcome including atheists.Looking forward to share your thoughts.

Thanks

[billisonboard]

Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle

Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, "Why, why, why?"

Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.

[uncle23]

...Acts 9:1–19) takes place after hearing Jesus say, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” (9:4). At first Paul defends himself, as if to say: “I wasn’t persecuting you Jesus, but these people.” Ultimately, Paul comes up with this marvelous doctrine of the mystical body of Christ: there’s an inherent communion or union between Jesus and his people. What you do to one, you do to the other. Until we understand that, we don’t understand Paul at the ground level. Everything proceeds from that

[uncle23]

In Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, he spoke from the “big frame” to call for a revolution of values based on love:

This call for a worldwide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one’s tribe, race, class, and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all [humankind].… When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I’m not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is of God. And everyone that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.… If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and [God’s] love is perfected in us” [1 John 4:7–8, 12]. Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day. [2


....Richard Rohr

[Artemis Windsong]

We are saints who sin. Forgiven. This does not mean there aren't consequences for our actions.

[uncle23]

WORDS OF WISDOM
"The truth that many people never understand, until it is too late, is that the more you try to avoid suffering the more you suffer because smaller and more insignificant things begin to torture you in proportion to your fear of being hurt.”
THOMAS MERTON

[Tiny]

I like to think that this means we should strive to be better humans by being better to our fellow humans as well as the rest of creation. And that we may never achieve the change in our selves that we seek doesn't mean we should stop trying.     And that "we" means  "I"     I should strive to be a better human by being just and merciful (or compassionate).  

“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”

[Tennesseer]

Saints are just sinners who had good biography editors.

[uncle23]

....quote

Anger does its work. It prompts us to action, for better or worse. With time and practice, we can let the reflexive reactions of fight/flight/freeze, mirroring, and judging pass by like unwanted items on a conveyor belt. Also, with practice, we can make space for creative actions to be prompted by our anger … actions that are in tune with the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control (see Galatians 5:22) … actions that overcome evil with good and bring healing instead of hate.

So, yes, you bet I’m angry. It’s a source of my creativity. It’s a vaccination against apathy and complacency. It’s a gift that can be abused—or wisely used. Yes, it’s a temptation, but it’s also a resource and an opportunity, as unavoidable and necessary as pain. It’s part of the gift of being human and being alive.

[uncle23]

'They said I was a bum. A wild, untamed kid who came swinging out of the Wild West to fight in saloons, ride the rods, make a buck any way I could. What is a bum? If being badly educated, owning one ragged shirt and a pair of patched pants and having holes in my shoes makes a man a bum, I was a bum. But I went hungry for days rather than steal. I begged, humbly, for any kind of job to earn a flop and a meal. I was never a bum bum. I was a starving kid, wandering in search of food, sometimes almost like an animal, living as best I could with the weapons of survival God gave me. My fists. And I guess my chin.'

Jack Dempsey

[uncle23]

quote....



In his talk Loving the Two Halves of Life, Richard describes the questions we focus on in the first half of life:

I first read the phrase “first half of life” in the work of Swiss psychologist Carl Jung (1875−1971) years ago. It made sense to me then, but I probably was too young at that point to recognize how true it would eventually become. In short—and this is my layperson’s interpretation of Carl Jung—he would say that the first half of life is the task that we think is our primary task. The second half of life is really the task within the task that a lot of people never get to because they’re so preoccupied with the first task, which is all about making money, getting an education, raising children, and paying a mortgage. It’s about tradition, law, structure, authority, and identity. It’s about why I’m significant, why I’m important, why I matter, why I’m good.

Most of us are so invested in these first-half-of-life tasks by the age of forty that we can’t imagine there’s anything more to life. But if we stay there, it remains all about me. How can I be important? How can I be safe? How can I be significant? How can I make money? How can I look good? And how can I die a happy death and go to heaven? Religion itself becomes an evacuation plan for the next life, as my friend and colleague Brian McLaren says, because we don’t see much happening of depth or significance in this world. It largely remains a matter of survival.

I’m sad to say, after fifty-five years as a priest, I think a lot of Christians have never moved beyond survival questions, security questions, even securing their future in eternity. First-half-of-life religion is an insurance plan to ensure that future. In this stage, any sense of being a part of a cosmos, of being part of a historical sweep, that God is doing something bigger and better and larger than simply saving individual souls (and my own soul in particular) is largely of no interest to us. I don’t think I’m exaggerating. That’s all the first half of life can do.

It’s clear that if someone wants to be elected to a political office in the United States or any country, all they need to do is assure people of safety. Bill Plotkin, who’s been such a wonderful influence on so many people in recent decades, speaks of the first half of life as our survival dance, and the second half of life as our sacred dance. [1] Most people never get beyond their survival dance. It’s just identity questions, boundary questions, superiority questions, and security questions. We would call them ego questions, but they’re not questions of the soul.

The soul moves beyond questions of security and importance because it has discovered that it is absolutely important.

[uncle23]

Most of us are so invested in first-half-of-life tasks by the age of forty that we can’t imagine there’s anything more to life. But if we stay there, it remains all about me.

—Richard Rohr

[uncle23]

..



I am increasingly convinced that the word “prayer,” which has become a functional and pious thing for believers to do, was meant to be a descriptor and an invitation to inner experience. When spiritual teachers invite us to “pray,” they are in effect saying, “Go inside and know for yourself!”

—Richard Rohr

[uncle23]

.


I was born before the wind, I'm also younger than the sun.

I'm letting my soul and spirit fly into the mystic.

...Jaguar

[uncle23]

Sooner or later we realize its no longer who we are…

Its who we are becoming..