The Dichotomous Nature of Our Physical Body and Our Spiritual Presence

Many persons have endeavored to explain things non-physical, things not of this world. Some even claim to know some things about this non-physical world. However, I believe that by definition we can say that we know nothing, but because we think it is vital for our physical survival we presume much. The use of the term SPIRIT is somewhat universal for this other worldly realm, and the Bible refers to it in many different ways. Bullinger in an excellent study, Word Studies on the Holy Spirit (1979; Kregel/Grand Rapids) has identified 14 uses for the Greek term pneuma in the Bible. In this study, I am using only two definitions/characterizations of the term SPIRIT—spirit and Spirit or spiritual and Spiritual. Initial capitalization of the S indicates the other world, the Godly pneuma, sometimes delineated as Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost. The word spirit, without the capitalization represents the concept of the spiritual [s] part of the physical body. We have a physical body and a spiritual presence. Below I have tried to show this graphically using the illustration presented earlier.

In previous writings I have discussed this symbolic graphic in detail, and here I will continue the metaphorical meandering represented by this visual.

Jesus’ Use of Pronouns

I was once in a Bible study with several college professors, some being Bible teachers at a Christian college. One asked a question that, at the time, sounded peculiar. The way I remember it, it went something like this—“Have you ever wondered why Jesus referred to himself as I am?” Of course, I thought, because he was! That went to, was what? Simple questions, but in my mind these questions morphed into “What did Jesus mean when he referred to himself with the simple pronoun, I?” That simple statement began a study that resulted in many wonderful inquestioning nights. It concentrated into trying to understand who Jesus was and thence who I was in light of the Spiritual image of God.

From the beginning I saw that there was something about how Jesus spoke about himself, and therefore I centered my study on the pronouns of Jesus—I, me, and my. It may seem rather juvenile to be doing research on biblical pronouns, and their meaning might be clear in your thinking. However, for me there is a mystical message behind the words that is far from clear. I know Bible words are important, but I believe it is the meaning behind the words that has real significance to the inquestioning mind, not the actual words. Even so, we have the words; without the words, the personal message is probably lost. Therefore, I have this irresistible urge to understand the message behind the words of Jesus.

Let’s start: Run a Bible search of “I am.” The first thing that jumps out at me is that there are many meanings of I am in the Bible each with its own surreptitious message, sometimes making it difficult to understand. What did Jesus mean when He used the terms I and me? Let’s dissect some of these pronouns in verses from John to example our search. As you read, think bold, underline as spiritual/Spiritual and bold alone as physical, understanding that these are my own interpretations.

John 6:35
Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty.

We can see that the first I has to refer to something other than the physical Jesus. Even the most literal Bible student would not think of Jesus as being bread; nor would he be thought of as bread of life, whatever that might be physically. Jesus is using metaphoric words referring to his spirit self. (I call this the real person.) Neither of the me’s can refer to physical because, of course, a human being will get hungry and thirsty, and Jesus was referring to the same me with both words. Therefore, I interpret this verse as saying that our spirit should go to the Spirit to find Spiritual (Godly) responses.

John 7:8
You go to the Feast. I am not yet going up to this Feast, because for me the right time has not yet come."

Here the I and me refers to the physical Jesus. It refers to something the physical Jesus is doing in his physical life.

John 7:28
Then Jesus, still teaching in the temple courts, cried out, "Yes, you know me, and you know where I am from. I am not here on my own, but he who sent me is true. You do not know him, but I know him because I am from him and he sent me."

Interpretation is always conjecture, tenuous, and personal, and here the text becomes more complex. When Jesus used the term you, he seemed to always be referring to the physical, and when he refers to God, he often uses he and him, always Spiritual. It is when he refers to himself that he vacillates between physical and spiritual/Spiritual. The first me and the first I are obviously physical. The second I might refer to either physical or spiritual. Of course, both the he’s and him’s are Spiritual. The second me goes along with the first he so it must be spiritual too. It is clear that Jesus understood the dichotomy between physical and spiritual/Spiritual. Reading this scripture without these delineations is almost impossible to understand.

John 7:34
You will look for me, but you will not find me; and where I am, you cannot come."

Jesus considered his real self to be spiritual. So this could be interpreted as “You look for the physical me, but you being physical cannot find the spiritual me. Where I as a spirit am, you are not there yet.” Interpreting this theologically might mean that they hadn’t received the Holy Spirit yet, and that Jesus felt that his real self was already in the spirit.

John 8:23
But he continued, "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.

Here Jesus is delineating the dichotomous worlds directly, physical and spiritual, and stating that we are a part of the physical—human life.

John 14:6
Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

In this familiar verse the message is clearly Spiritual. The real Jesus, Spiritual, is the way; the only real truth is the Spiritual Jesus; and the Spiritual life is real life.

Finally, the masterly introductory message to John shows that the Spiritual Jesus has always been.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.


Matthew and the Kingdom of Heaven

Extending our interpretation beyond the pronouns but still using the spirit/Spiritual and physical delineations helps greatly in understanding scriptures.

As partial corroboration of this tenet is Matthew’s rather insistent reminder throughout his writing that we can have a little bit of the Spirit (Kingdom of Heaven) while still here on earth. Read the Parable of the Sower as an example. Here are a few lines from the parable with some of the words interpreted. Remember the code as you read by thinking bold, underline as spiritual and bold alone as physical.


18"Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 19When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is the seed sown along the path. 20The one who received the seed that fell on rocky places is the man who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. 21But since he has no root, he lasts only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, he quickly falls away. 22The one who received the seed that fell among the thorns is the man who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke it, making it unfruitful. 23But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown."

Mankind does have the power to understand (I prefer the word perceive with the perception being inquestioning) at least something about the Spirit. I interpret this to mean that anyone has the power to do this. Furthermore, I consider the spirit/Spiritual life to be real life. All the physical living we have to endure is only pretense, a life sentence of pretense if you will. And, it is only through this life, being our self, that we can perceive the spirit/Spirit, the real life, the way we will perceive eternity.

Paul’s Explanation of Life in the Spirit

I have attempted a translation of Romans using my own interpretation of life in the spirit. Most all of the book of Romans is Paul’s way of explanation of the physical and spiritual life. Here is a part of my interpretation of Chapter 8.


8:1 Therefore, God holds nothing against those of us who are saved in Christ Jesus because it is through Christ that the true life in my Spirit has set me free from this world of sin and spiritual death. The religious law and teachings are meant for our sinful nature, our physical, emotional, and mental makeup, but God sent Jesus in the form of a human to be our offering for our sin. In this way we can have the power to live through our God-filled Spirit rather than allowing our sinful nature to rule our lives.
8:5 Those who live according to his or her sinful nature permit their thinking to be ruled by their actions and emotions, but those who live in accordance with his or her new Spirit have their thinking ruled from their Spirit. Thinking controlled by the body leads to death, but thinking controlled by the Spirit leads to real life and peace. Sinful-thinking persons do things against God, never allowing Him to be involved in their thinking. There is no way for a sinful nature to please God.
8:9 Those of you who have submitted to God filling your spirit with His goodness belong to Christ. It is as if your body is dead because of sin, but your spirit has become one with the Soul of God and is now his perfect Spirit in you. The God who made your spirit a God-filled Spirit is the same God who raised Jesus from His physical death and is living in you. This same God will help your mortal body to live through your new Spirit.
8:12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have a great debt, not to our sinful bodies because that leads to death, but to the Spirit which brings to us real life. Those who accept this debt are considered to be sons and daughters of God.
8:15 Your new Spirit helps you not to fear because it is like you are a child of the Spirit which is God. It is like having an affectionate, caring Father that we can go to at any time and say, "I love you, Father." The Soul of God completely takes over our spirit and makes us a part of Him as a son or daughter is to their father or mother. Furthermore, just as children inherit from their parents, we spiritually inherit from our God as Christ inherited. We share the communion or living with God, but we also share in the suffering of Jesus as a part of the world.
8:18 The little suffering that we do while living in this world is as nothing compared to the wonderful things that we will someday inherit. We wait with some impatience to be set free from the sin of this creation and all the problems that are a part of this physical world in order to be brought into the wonderful inherited freedom set up for the children of God.
8:23 All of God's human children wait with great hope for the formal adoption as heavenly sons and daughters. It is through this hope that we are saved, but hope for something that we already have is not hope at all; it is when we hope for something of which we do not have that we must patiently wait.
8:26 As we hope and wait patiently, our Spirit works with the weakness of our body. Since we are weak we pray, but we don't even know what words to say when we pray; however, we are blessed because our God-filled Spirit guides our minds with words that we never knew we could think. God, who searches our thoughts and feelings, knows what is in His own mind and then works through our spirit interceding for those persons who are faithful. All this is done according to God's will (the determination of God as to what our future should be).
8:28 We know that whatever happens to us God is working through His goodness for persons who love Him and are allowing Him to work according to His plan of salvation.
8:29 The plan works like this:
(1) For all of us whom He knew should be saved, He gives the power to have the Spirit of God invade each of his or her spirits; just as His Son became this Spirit on His resurrection (Spirit taken back to God), it, therefore, has a prominent place in our beings.
8:30 (2) Those whom He gives the power to have the Spirit invade his or her spirit, He allows them to work for Him.
(3) Those whom He allows to work for Him, He declares them to be in right relations with Him.
(4) Those in right relations with Him He allows them to share in the wonder of His divine existence.
8:31 The result summed up is this: If God is on our side, it makes no difference who or what is against us. God even gave His own Son to the world. Since He loved each of us so much that He would have His Son suffer in this world right along with us, it only follows that He will give us all of our Spiritual desires (everything we need to complete His will in our lives).


Conclusions

There are two worlds for which we must account if we are to be Godly and satisfy our spirit—the physical and the spiritual/Spiritual. God, through the words of the scripture writers in the message of Jesus, makes it clear that we are physical beings not Spiritual; however, God as a Spirit invades our spirit helping us survive in this world.

Inquestioning Free Will in Physical and Spiritual Actions

The Parable of the Tenants

A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and went away on a journey. At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. But they seized him, beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Then he sent another servant to them; they struck this man on the head and treated him shamefully. He sent still another, and that one they killed. He sent many others; some of them they beat, others they killed.

He had one left to send, a son, whom he loved. He sent him last of all, saying, "They will respect my son."

But the tenants said to one another, "This is the heir. Come, let's kill him, and the inheritance will be ours." So they took him and killed him, and threw him out of the vineyard.

What then will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others. Haven't you read this scripture: "The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes?" --Mark 12 (NIV)


God has set up two systems of laws for His children: laws that work from our physical through our emotions to the mind and laws that work from the Spirit through our spirit to our mind. In both sets of laws we have free will. Let’s use the inquestioning method to look at free will.

It is fairly easy to see that we have free will, and it is just as easy to see that there are boundaries around that free will. We have the free will using our bodies to walk to a hundred foot cliff, and then make the free-will decision to jump off. The boundary is that we will die if we jump. God set up our entire physical being using atoms, molecules, and DNA to perfect our free will through His creation. Through these manipulations He gives us His predetermined, preordained, predestined free will with boundaries. There are two ways that God has set this up, physical and spiritual.

Physical (Body) The first is natural, physical laws or rules. We fall to our death if we jump off a hundred foot cliff? Why is that? On the surface it sounds like a ridiculous rule for God to have set up. A person’s atoms/molecules/DNA are so scrambled that the person physically dies. Why not make a rule so that the jumper flaps his/her arms and slowly glides to the ground hurting nothing, and the person lives on? What if we made an arbitrary rule like this for our children—“OK now kids, every time you step on a blade of grass, I’m going to pull out 50 hairs on your head!” We don’t make such rules, but maybe we do other things just as seemingly arbitrary. I remember a rule in our house that our children had to be quiet in church or they could get whacks (spanking) when we got home. Now, that’s a good, Christian rule isn’t it? Maybe so, but didn’t we just take a page out of God’s rule book and use it in our family life in the same way? Yes, it follows; we do it all the time as we set up our societal rules because we think it is the right way to help us all live a better life. That is the only “answer” to our inquestioning—God set up physical laws to help us live better lives; so, we set up similar rules for our children and our legislatures and judges set up rules and regulations to help us live better lives. We have no idea why our ridiculous little rules work any more than God’s apparently ridiculous rule about gravity. However, God did it and we follow. Knowing why is reserved for God; that is the “answer” to our inquestion.

We learn about these physical laws through the physical part of our being (body emotions, and mind). God set up His physical, natural laws (boundaries) like that. We are predestined to suffer certain predetermined consequences if we free-will ourselves to do certain things. However, it seems uncharacteristic that God has given us other laws that preclude His laws of consequence. For instance, when we jump off of our cliff into mid air, if we have a parachute, the law of gravity is overcome, and we don’t die. Furthermore, we never think that breaking this natural law is wrong or cheating the rule of gravity. We just accept God’s forgiveness for breaking one of His laws and go on with life. We might call this God’s compassion.

Spiritual In the same ways God has set up spiritual laws. Spiritual laws are no better fathomed than the physical ones. Here, free will is just as prevalent as in physical actions. If we use one of these laws as an example, Thou shalt not kill!, we can inquestion it to learn our personal judgments. Do we divine through the Spirit/spirit that there anything wrong with physically killing someone? Probably we say yes. But, if we set up an imaginary continuum, a conundrum ensues. We have no problem killing a bacterium. And most of us would kill a mosquito with no twinge of conscience. How about a tree? How about a spider? Or a rat? How about a rabid dog? Or a run-amuck elephant? How about an enemy in the field of battle? Or a sniper shooting our children in the school yard? Most would say yes; there is no problem killing them. However, we don’t kill our neighbor because he doesn’t cut his lawn the way we would like. We don’t even kill gossipers who hurt us by lying about us. We conscience (using the spirit and mind to make a free-will decision) that one is “right” and the other is “wrong”. In the same way, we have escape clauses to this preordination—if someone is trying to kill us, we can kill them before they kill us even though we conscience that it is wrong. God made the law, but we have a “parachute” to break the law. We sometimes give the Ten Commandments the credit for our knowing the wrongness of killing. However, we would have long ago completely forgotten this commandment, along with the other nine, if there wasn’t some predestined, inborn tendency penchant toward not killing. And when we break these penchants, God naturally forgives us for these “wrongdoings.” We usually call this God’s mercy for us.

Intent and Perception

Cowboys and Indians

This cold, dreary, winter morning was just like any other morning on the Kansas plains. God had the sun coming up in the east at precisely the right place and time, there was oxygen enough for every breathing creature, the little brook had more than enough water to quench the thirst of hundreds of dehydrated bodies, and souls still sinned and searched for answers.

This particular morning saw a band of soldiers using their supply of God-given oxygen and water quickly surrounding a small band of Indians sleeping in their tepees.

A deep, base voice suddenly sadly declared, “I intend to kill two Indians for them killing my wife, two Indians for them killing my only daughter, and two Indians for them killing my only son.”

Another wizened soldier said, “How do you know it was Indians who killed your family?”

And the quick retort, “I learned at my pappy’s knee that all Indians were bad; this only proves it!”

“What if you are wrong?” And he was cut off short as the command to attack was made. The resulting volley of shots resounded off the surrounding hills.

Indians came out of their tepees with sleep in their eyes drawing back in horror as a mob of horsemen recklessly rode into their compound shooting everyone on sight, even those breathing the same oxygen. One particular muscular Indian turned hastily picking up his rifle noting that his family was cowering across the fire in the back of his tepee. Thinking, he had to protect his family, he fired at the first man he saw. His aim was true and the soldier fell to the earth hard. The Indian family man ran up to the fallen man intending to scalp him. The man pulled a pistol from his tunic and fired at the Indian hitting him square in the chest. He fell across the soldier family man landing face to face.

“You killed my family,” the soldier said.

“I did not,” the Indian said.

“All Indians are bad,” said the soldier family man, and died.

All white men are bad,” said the Indian family man, and died.

Neither sinned nor used oxygen again . . . .

I feel I must write something at this point concerning my intention in this writing. I have received several comments, some positive and some negative, some praising but most producing inquestioning. Some negative comments had criticism of my intent. The perception was that I was trying to “bias their thinking,” that what I was writing was “not about their God,” and that I "had no business using God's word to further my own thinking." Nothing could be further from my intention. I have written what I believe, not what I think I want the reader to believe. Of course, anyone writing something wants the reader to get something out of it, and often it is, “Believe this! I’m right!” Not I. Perhaps as you read, you can get my intent by thinking, “He believes that? That can’t be right! Can it?” That can be the beginning of tapping the inquestioning spiritual well.

Personally, I have chosen the Christian Plan of Salvation in which to maneuver my intellectual/spiritual journey. Others choose other Plans. I am well aware of the Christian prejudice toward there-is-only-one-Plan-and-that-Plan-is-what-I-perceive-as-right! syndrome; however, it is obvious that God created many plans. This is shown through the many religions and even the varieties of belief within religions—Jews, Buddhists, Hindus, Christian, Muslims, Navahos, Aztecs, Tasadays, Country Music Christianity, Snake-handlers Christianity, etc. We should not be surprised that there are spiritual similarities (even though some deny them) between these varieties; they were all set up by the same God, and we all worship the same Spirit. God always has a plan in everything He does. Within these religious plans are “species” of religions as God continually used the same patterns in creating His world. For me, that Salvation Plan even extends to the individual level—we each have our own Plan, no matter what variety we choose to reside in, created personally by God. That is what He meant by having Paul write in his Philippian letter “. . . continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.”

We just must remember that God created the world for His pleasure, not for ours. (Actually, I doubt if God has pleasure, but we understand pleasure and get pleasure from our religion, so I use that term.) He uses social order, e.g., religions in what we are discussing, to help bring about whatever is best for His Plan for existence. He then uses the individuals within the social order to complete His earthly plan. We dishonor our selves when we thoughtlessly think of the earth as our Earth. God created the world for His pleasure, not ours. We use it, we enjoy or endure it for a season, and then we die and sinning is over.

ON THE SPIRIT/MENTAL INTERACTION—Spiritual Genetics[1]

I have been impressed with the research associated with Goleman’s[2] emotional intelligence studies and particularly the pilfering of mental IQ into emotional IQ. It might make an interesting study to look at spiritual IQ also, but I would not want to be too zealous in jumping on the bandwagon. However, the correlation begs inquestioning, and I will use the phrase Spiritual Genetics, although the phrase has been used for many different aspects of God’s association with mankind. It also has association with a subject of which I am much more acquainted. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject.

Genetics has generally been considered as an isolated term defining a study of the biology of heredity and variation in organisms. While studying spiritual things, I have noticed a resemblance of physical genetics to what may be called spiritual genetics. We don’t have to understand the biological process here, but it will probably help to summarize some aspects of genetics as it will help us in our study of spiritual genetics.

Biological genetics involves billions of cells in our body each one having millions of DNA bases (our genotype). (I find it remarkable that God chose to have only four kinds of DNA bases to produce all life on earth.) These thousands of genes are found as long strands making up chromosomes (the human genotype has 23 pairs). Genes through a transcriptive process produce messenger RNA which combines amino acid building blocks producing proteins. We then see the results of our DNA in the skin, muscles, organs, and bones of our body (our phenotype).

Our spirit does not have genes as we know them. However, we all have certain talents and abilities that are expressed through our individualistic biological genes. The question might be asked, “What makes the biological genes make you who you are?” I am different from you in my capabilities, and you are different from every other person (or every other living thing for that matter). The phenotypic behavior of spiritual genes is seen in these talents, aptitudes, and abilities. Theoretically, there has to be spiritual genes since we see the phenotype of them in our talents. I propose that it is spiritual genes that are imposed into our spirit by the Spirit that makes me the conscious me, and you the conscious you. Let’s see what Jesus has to say about this topic through His parable of the talents.

(The Kingdom of Heaven) will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his property to them. To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey. The man who had received the five talents went at once and put his money to work and gained five more. So also, the one with the two talents gained two more. But the man who had received the one talent went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master's money.
After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received the five talents brought the other five. “Master,” he said, “you entrusted me with five talents. See, I have gained five more.”
His master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!”
The man with the two talents also came. “Master,” he said, “you entrusted me with two talents; see, I have gained two more.”
His master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!”
Then the man who had received the one talent came. “Master,” he said, “I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your talent in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.”
His master replied, “You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest. Take the talent from him and give it to the one who has the ten talents. For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. And throw that worthless servant outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Matthew 25:14-30

Paul had his own inimitable way of saying a similar thing:

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 1 Corinthians 12:7-13

Paul seems to limit his gifts to a few categories that must have been important in Bible times; however, today we might make additional categories or even as I propose, all the talents we humans have. If these talents don’t come from God who made all things, where do talents come from?

Our spirit doesn’t have genes as we look at our physical genes. God’s genes (we might call it the imposition of His will) enters our life and the talents associated with an individual’s life through our spirit. In the physical life it is shown through the physical genes. A symbolic representation might look like this: (S)-->(s)-->(ms)<-->(em)<-->(pe)<-->(p). Life (God’s will, talents) is imprinted by the Spirit into our spirit when we are born; we then use it in our mental on through our emotional to the physical. Once the talent reaches our mental (ms), it is then controlled by our mental free will with the temptations and aggravations of this world tempering all talents to one degree or another. Therefore, we can treat these gifts in any way we want, even ignore them. They are no longer perfect as they came from God; we “regulate” them. Generally, we have no control over biological genes. (I know that there are occasions of environmental influence.) However, these talents and abilities produced through spiritual genes are manipulated by our biological genes and our God-given free will. That is why a person can have great music ability and never touch a piano or sing a song to an audience. The talent lies dormant or is expressed in oblique ways. I once heard of a mentally deficient man who could watch a train of railcars pass by and add every number on each car and give you the sum after they had passed. Where did this come from? It certainly wasn’t learned. How much more good can be done by you and me who have our biological mental capacities along with God-given talents!

The interaction between man and God is itself a gift. Some use it constantly; others pay no attention to it, unless we can call using the life-given talents just to live as giving attention to God. I choose to constantly inquestion to show myself approved through God, a workman who needs not be ashamed, rightly wisdoming the Word of Truth.

[1] See http://www.keyway.ca/htm2004/20040806.htm for another description of spiritual genetics. The phrase is hardly original with me. This discussion is purely my own use of the phrase. My apologies to reincarnationists who might prefer that this phrase be left to them.
[2] Goleman, Daniel. 1995. Emotional Intelligence. New York: Bantam Books.

On Forgiveness

Forgiveness, for all of its seeming importance to our Christian life, is not well understood, nor is it practiced much. A major problem is that most have not figured out a definition and therefore have no idea how to implement this wonderful talent that we all have in our lives. This is the forgiveness ability that we all have: if we constantly work to remove unforgiveness-learned behaviors, it leads to heaven on earth (joy). Since these behaviors have been learned, they can be “unlearned.”

Forgive is not merely a word, it is a concept with perception overtones. We generally consider it a verb just like any other verb that denotes action; verbs require action to complete the definition. So, we try and try to make ourselves forgive with little accomplishment. I consider it much more; rather than being a physical action, it is an inquestion that can only be dealt with in a spiritual manner.

A further complicating factor in exercising our ability to forgive is unconscious psychological pride. It works this way: If I forgive someone for doing something wrong, other people look at me from behind their own unconscious psychological pride as having done something stupid. Our unconscious psyche dislikes looking stupid, so we either don’t follow through with forgiveness or we forgive but make the world think we didn’t forgive. Actually, when a person thinks rationally[1] about forgiveness, unforgiveness begins to dissolve almost immediately, but most of us cannot be rational about forgiveness. Unforgiveness is such a heavy burden to carry around. In most cases it doesn’t make any difference in the large scheme of things (spiritual things) (and usually in the small scheme of things such as an activating event that “caused” the forgiveness problem) whether we forgive or not, so why go on using all that energy unforgiving a person? It is a decision that we have to make—to forgive or unforgive; it is not imposed externally on to us.

Following I have given the steps that I believe can lead to rational thinking in handling forgiveness. (The acronyms, A, B, C, etc. are to help in remembering.)

A physical AFFLICTING EVENT activates a cognitive, learned BELIEF BEHAVIOR which signals the body to initiate certain CONSEQUENCE ACTIONS.[2] The mental then cycles from afflicting event to consequence actions, over and over. Our mind is constantly checking for another afflicting event. If it perceives another afflicting event, it always responds with the “appropriate” belief behavior. If a person wants to change this affliction cycle, he/she must honestly DEBATE the issue within one’s self. Honest, rational, personal debate then leads to an EFFECTIVE CHANGE. This change comes about through FORGIVENESS. Forgiveness is a reflection of GOD as Spirit working through a person’s mental makeup to his/her body. If a person works through enough of these imprisoning cycles, he/she can attain freedom leading to HEAVEN (Kingdom Of God) on earth.

A-Afflicting Event As we grow up, we have many events that occur in our physical lives. Most of these events are quickly forgotten, but sometimes the actions surrounding the event are so emotionally traumatic that they are seared into our memory. They will never be forgotten. Often, the associated trauma is caused by a person or society who says that such an event should cause emotional trauma, but however it is input, it is very real. Let’s use a simple non-threatening example—a family is walking in a field behind their house and the child starts to reach for a snake. Mother, using her own neurotic cycle, screams to the child to leave it alone and run, and an afflicting event is born. A simple example, but life is full of extremely un-simple examples—divorce, auto accident, fire, death, etc. Virtually always, a person(s) is involved. This person’s involvement can be peripheral, but mostly it involves specific painful involvement.

B-Belief Behavior When the event first occurs, our body goes through a series of emotional/mental gyrations that results in a mental pathway that stays with us as a belief behavior until we change. Most of these belief behaviors are never changed. Our society, particularly our Christian beliefs, demands that we blame someone for everything. When we can’t find a person to blame, we blame God . . . or the devil. Furthermore, blame demands unforgiveness. Rather than accepting that we do these mental gyrations ourselves, we say that some one caused us to have these behaviors.

C-Consequence Actions Generally, the consequence action is depression, fear, or anger. Most persons think that they should be (or even must be) depressed or fearful or angry when afflicting events occur. When we think these false thoughts we are exhibiting neurotic behavior. The behaviors and resulting actions are remarkably controlled, occurring virtually the same every time. Even the length of time we are supposed to be neurotic is a part of the consequence actions. One action seems to enforce the next one until the neurotic action becomes an integral part of our PEMS. We often even forget the original afflicting event ever occurred. A major consequence of such a cycle is an unforgiving attitude toward the involved person. In our society, this unforgiveness is said to be natural, understandable; we are supposed to feel this way.

Traditional psychological therapy often stops right here. Rather than seeing a way to reform our neurosis, they work on going back to the original event and reliving it, “working” through it, rationally accepting it. This is not an inference that such therapy is useless; in fact, it often results in an understanding that gives the person a method for short-circuiting the cycle. However, it does nothing to present handles for the person toward resolving all such issues, especially unforgiveness.

D-Debate I contend that we have a body and a spirit. The spirit is perfect, always giving us positive spiritual (in)sight; it cannot give worldly “advice” as it is not a part of this world. God (Spirit) works with individuals through our spirit. True forgiveness emanates from our spirit. Debating the situation means inquestioning “in the spirit” until we achieve satisfaction. Each of us will do this differently, but it will always involve the Spirit through our spirit/mental makeup. Some might call this prayer (I do), but we can’t mix up inquestioning prayer with the verbal prayer we often hear in religious circles. They are used for two different results. Debate inquestioning prayer is personal, much more powerful and life changing. It can only be done individually with individual results. God works through each of us individually.

E-Effective Change We can expect a change in our thinking behavior when forgiveness finally occurs. An effective change means that there is no fear, depression, or anger associated with what previously was an afflicting event.

F-Forgiveness Forgiveness involves the mental/spiritual (ms) part of self where a person’s mind and spirit mixes. Forgiveness for me is mutating a worldly belief neurosis (illogical thinking) through spiritual means. The pain of the afflicting event is a part of our emotional/mental (em) makeup and is caused by the worldly-induced belief that “I am supposed to unforgive!” Forgiveness in the true sense is the spiritual acceptance that “I am to forgive as I have been forgiven.” Through forgiveness, a change is made from the worldly illogical thinking into spiritually-lead logical thinking. Change self-loathing to God’s spiritual love. Almost all unforgiveness is based on self-loathing, remembering the mental gyrations and concomitant emotional feelings of some past bygone time with the guilt of unforgiveness.

Nobody ever forgives, in my sense of what forgiveness is, outside of spiritual input. A person just has to accept the constantly-available offering of the spirit. There is a close relationship between our accepting God’s forgiveness and our ability to forgive. Acceptance is the key. God accepts us equals we accept others and our self. God made us just as we are; He accepted us as we were when we were conceived; He still accepts us just as we are today. Spirit is the real of life, the source of all good, through which we recognize beauty and truth, God in man; forgiveness, thus, is a corollary of the Spirit/spirit.

G-God (Spirit) God works through individuals individually. Such working is generally “sought” by the individual through inquestioning. (There are occasions when God works through miracles.) God has reminded us in His model prayer that God forgives as we forgive others. This is not to impose guilt, but to impose the importance of seeking the use of the ability to forgive. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could make the natural behavioral response to afflicting events inquestioning toward seeking forgiveness? I guess we would then not be human.

H-Heaven (Kingdom of God) I believe that we can have a little of heaven right here on earth. It is where we are when we are inquestioning; it is where we are when we pray in the spirit; it is where we are when we “use” our conscience to do the “right” things; it is where we are when we forgive. There are other things involved, but a major part of spiritual satisfaction is involved with forgiveness, and spiritual satisfaction is a part of the Kingdom of God.
[1] My use of the word rational might be a bit foreign. I define it as “a way of thinking as it really is.”
[2] You might notice that this is a modification of Albert Ellis’ Rational Emotive Therapy.

USING PEMS IN SPIRITUAL STUDY

Following are a discussion of two words, Love and Joy, that will help justify the use of PEMS in our life. It is always better to understand why we "do" a word, especially a verb. So, I have defined two words using an inquestioning method. However, any word or action can be broken down into these 4 categories, and after you start thinking inquestioningly, it becomes a natural part of your thinking. The two words, love and joy, here are important Christian concepts, but they are usually thought of only as words as if there was no consequence to such thinking. Perhaps this little inquestion study will help in understanding the usefulness of the discipline in knowing why and how you believe as you do.


LOVE

1 Corinthians 13 (NIV) 1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

physical love

the actions of mental thinking of treating others as you would like to be treated such as being patient and kind; sexual: holding hands, kissing, touching sexual organs, intercourse

emotional love

hormones produced as a result of body maturity and/or physical love actions with the direction of the mental

mental love

thinking: treating others as you want to be treated; understanding and tying together the interaction of emotional/physical love with spiritual love

spiritual love

“knowing”/“seeing”/“sensing” the interaction between mental love and God’s Spiritual love

Spiritual Love

interaction of God with human through our spiritual makeup


JOY

Luke 10 (NIV) 21 At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.

physical joy

sometimes smile, spring in step brought on through hormonal influence; actually, little effect as joy is spiritual oriented not physical oriented; biblical reference: Romans 14:17 For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit

emotional joy

some production of brain hormones (serotonin and others) through mental influence

mental joy

prayer communication produces joy; peace of mind; optimistic thinking; spiritually influenced inquestioning; depression-defeating thinking

spiritual joy

part of the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5 [NIV] 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control.) that is given to those who choose to accept it.

ON SELF: The Levels

I want to continue with the discussion on our self and the representation I use for it. Below I have shown the model [PEMS] we used previously and a new way of portraying it as overlapping levels that get larger from the physical to the human spirit. This enlarging aspect shows the “real-ness” of the levels. We somewhat haughtily think of our physical-ness being what is real and meaningful in our lives. We then tend to think that the real-ness diminishes as we move to our emotions on to our mental makeup with our spiritual level being the least real. However, I have found that thinking exactly the opposite makes more sense and creates a more rational way of looking at life. Both models are the same PEMS and represent the same thing; it just seems to be a better way of looking at it if we break the model into more parts.

The body is our PEMS. The Holy Spirit is ex-body, God incarnate, who invades our spirit as we permit it to, becoming our guidance throughout life as a personal part of our being. Our PEMS is human, living; the Spirit is not human, not living. When God has become a part of our spirit [s], we then become a part of the universal Soul. The Soul is made up of all beings living or dead, and we have virtually no idea what it is or what it is like. God has revealed almost nothing about it, although inquestioning the spiritual realm is a popular subject. And, John’s Revelation writing is particularly intriguing. Much of modern end times writing seems to be highly speculative, novelistic inquestioning, but for some persons this type of inquestioning is their “thing.” And, it is spiritual thinking, so who am I to question God’s call on another’s fellowship with Him.

In the previous paragraph I used the word “who” in referencing God and even hypothesized an afterlife. I do strongly believe in “life” after earthly death, but for me it is an act of futility to study eschatological “events”, afterlife God actions, through earthly, secular eyes. We humans are so finite, and when we need to refer to God, we use what we have and know—human characteristics. A major one is the use of anthropomorphizing God. We do it in many ways; even my use of “Him” tends to make us think person. I personally prefer to think that I am making God personal to me rather than personalizing Him. However, I realize that it is a matter of semantics. I do think that it is doing most of us a disservice to use such terms as “trinity” and “three-in-one” to help us understand God's personal ness. It may have been a help to early Christians, but today it sometimes creates an irrational concept that most of us cannot reconcile into our belief system. God is God; He can use any “form” He wants at any time He wants. I believe that at times, that form might even be human, even today; however, limiting Him to human-like characteristics could limit Him in our own minds, and that is a major problem in trying to learn as much about His truth as we can. God has no limit(s). Nevertheless, I’m sure there must be some for whom it helps their belief fundamentals to think in this manner; if so, so be it.

Let’s look in more detail at the levels:

[p] The actual physical part of the body is ex-living. It is what we study in biology and chemistry as the concoction of atoms and molecules that together make up our anatomy. These atoms and molecules are individually non-living, but when these molecules are combined, there is a magical change that takes place, and chemistry gives this magic the name of organic. Isn’t it remarkable that chemists refer to two “different” kinds of matter—inorganic molecules (non-living) and organic molecules (living). Of course, there is only one kind of matter, and we see it laid out in the Periodic Table showing the atomic mass of the elements. God used a recurring, serial organization to make up all matter, living and non-living. Early chemists made up the two classes of study, and I can’t help but think it was developed by a chemist inquestioning the concept. The whole idea sounds like a delicious study for an inquestion research study. Can you imagine what kind of wonderful message learning could be done if religionists would turn scientists loose to inquestion along with their physical research, rather than sectioning them off into a world they have had to create on their own.

[pe] The interaction of the physical and emotional is the part of the body where hormones and other chemicals produced in the me affect the physical body p. Here is where the actions, the results, of our emotions are exhibited—anger, depression, fear, sorrow, love, happiness, pleasure, joy, pain, etc. The pe is also the level where our organs and nervous system operate—sight, hearing, touch, taste, movement, etc. It is the main part of our body checked and changed by the medical world. When drugs are taken, their actions change the makeup of our pe. We consider our pe to be an immensely important part of our self.

[em] This is the level where hormones are produced from feedback from the pe and signals from the ms. These interactions occur in the medulla oblongata and the pituitary/hippocampus areas of the brain. Please understand that all parts of the brain and the chemicals themselves are physical in nature; however, the production of the messages, the messages themselves, are of a higher nature than the physical makeup of the body. The emotions listed under pe are controlled here. Such actions as happiness or depression, as examples, can be produced without any help from the spirit as happiness is a physical phenomenon. Signals from the physical sent to the mental generate a feeling of happiness which is completely separated from the spirit.

[ms] This is the part of the body where the spirit interacts with the mental makeup of self. It is where you recognize your self as a person. It is your consciousness and your conscience. It is where your spirit works with the body. It is where you choose between right and wrong. The spirit is always sending “right” signals, and your physical is always sending worldly signals. They meet in the ms which then sends signals, chemical and nervous, to the body to react in some way. If you permit your spirit to have input, you gain satisfaction in your life and do the “right” things. If you block your spirit, the source of inbred good in a self, you then depend on worldly signals for your ms considerations and ponderings. This leads to bad things. All inquestioning occurs in the ms. Joy, the joy that Paul talks about in his writings, comes from allowing the spirit into your ms, using that “information” in your life, and thus doing the “right” things thus sending “right” signals back to the ms.

[s] This is our spirit, a diminutive mirroring of His Spirit and uses that as a way of communication. We all "know" things we never experienced or learned; that is our spirit. We all have longings that are "felt" deep within us; that is our spirit. We all have a conscience that makes us "understand" what is right and wrong; that is our spirit. We all have an innate yearning to praise; that is our spirit. That praise is often showered on other humans. It is sometimes given to inanimate objects like mountains and the ocean and sunsets.

Spirit is the personal nature of God’s interacting with individuals. This interaction is called by Christians “being a Christian” and “being born again” and “being saved” and “having a personal relationship with God” and “following Jesus” and “being one in the spirit.” Joy results from this interaction with the Spirit, which infiltrates through the spirit into the mental creating satisfaction which then can, but not always, infiltrate our emotions creating actions that were influenced by the Spirit.

ON SELF: The Basics

There are few things in life that has more meaning than a satisfying way of being your self, and few there are who attain it. Even Christians, who have a sense of God’s forgiveness, almost never attain the level of Paul’s satisfaction (often translated using the word joy [cara, chara] [we’ll have an entry on spiritual joy in the future]). We sing about it, we thank God in our prayers for it, we tell other people how great it is being Christian, but inside, few are really satisfied with their selves. Reasons for this are numerous and will not be discussed here at this time, but suffice it to say that the major reason is that most of us do not understand who our self is. Let’s learn what I mean when I use the word self.

The Christians of the first century had a hard time explaining self and so the Greeks before them; today, we have a similar dilemma. Various ways have been tried, but Jesus in his Greatest Commandment teaching divided self into physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual and we will use that classification. Jesus “introduced” the spirit in several places with the most familiar being

Matthew 22:37, NIV. Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”

Mark 12:30, NIV. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.”

Luke 10:27, NIV. “He answered: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Without a study of the Old Testament, we might think these words and concepts to be merely an interesting hypothesis. However, a careful study shows Jesus to be proclaiming a concept taken from Deuteronomy.

Deuteronomy 6:5, NIV. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Deuteronomy 6:5, KJV. And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

Although the words, physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual are combined and/or translated somewhat differently by the different writers and translators (and that continues throughout the Bible), I take Jesus to mean here that a self has a physical makeup (strength), emotional makeup (heart), mental makeup (mind), and spiritual makeup (soul). There are several verses where heart (kardia, kardia) is used to mean the spirit. Soul (yuch, psuche, psoo-khay) is the word used by Jesus here to mean a self’s spirit, and I will translate it to mean the highest aspect of the self–spirit–with a small s. The Holy Spirit (πnεumα, pneuma, pnyoo'-mah is often used in the scriptures) will always have a capital S, usually simply the word Spirit. Seeing these interpretations and the manipulations we have to go through in understanding these few biblical words, we can start to see the glorious game that God has given to us for fellowshipping with Him. In these verses, Jesus, in one of His basic teachings, “introduces” God as Spirit for the self both in word and in deed, an awe-inspiring inquestion.

Let us start a graphic to help in our study of self:


This is a representation of who I am and who you are. Note that this representation places the physical part of self on the bottom and spiritual part at the top. This merely indicates the general interaction of the parts or levels as I call them. A self is the shared whole of these parts. We must remember that any representational scheme is just that—representational. It is not real; it only represents something that is real, something that helps us understand something else that cannot be directly represented. In this case, the quandary we face is how to represent a 3 dimensional body, with an illusional mind, and a spirit that defies explanation or description.

The self is the “box” with the body we see and the consciousness of self represented by the gradation of grayscale of the whole self. We "see" our selves most within the physical and less as we move toward the spiritual. When the New Testament writers speak of the body, they generally mean the physical, emotional, and mental levels. The person’s body is often dichotomized from the spirit. We will not do that, although I believe that it is our spirit that is real with the body housing the spirit for a time. A person, self, is physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual, a body. Additionally, the Holy Spirit (God) is available to the body and is “incorporated” as part of the body when we believe, sometimes called becoming a Christian. Otherwise, the Spirit would be missing from the presentation, although, in actuality, I believe God occasionally presents Himself through non-Christians too. Persons who are not Christian allow the body to run their lives, as there is no pilot direction from the Spirit. As a Christian, we look to the Spirit for our guidance to one extent or another. If we are completely holy, we allow the Holy Spirit to completely control our selves, vertical, top-down control.

Summarizing, we can produce the following:

1. physical (strength): We will envision that the physical level of our self means the aspect of self that we can see and perceive—skin, bones, organs, brain, etc. Granted, this seeing and perceiving is seen and perceived through our thinking, but it is the part of us that would be there whether we could think or not, living or not living. It is the interaction of the various atoms and molecules of the non-living, inorganic elements in our world.

2. emotional (heart): This is our feeling self, the presentation of our living psyche. Our brain produces constituents that “make” the physical part of the body act in a certain manner. In a healthy body the physical self has no control over these chemical aspects of the emotional self and will act blindly to whatever is “sent” to it.

3. mental (mind): This is our thinking self, the aspect of our self that makes us who we are. As with the emotional, the mental also is directed by chemicals, but amazingly, it has control over what chemicals are produced and where they are used. The mental uses the physical brain and the organic emotional chemicals, but thinking is an operation outside of the cellular makeup of the body yet an integral part of it.

4. spirit (soul): It is the spirit that causes the most trouble in explanation. The body (physical, emotional, and mental) has been studied scientifically century after century and is known quite well. But the spirit is another thing. It is “who” were really are. It is eternal as the body of God. It is recognized as the consciousness that makes us know we exist. It is the part of self that accommodates God as the Holy Spirit and allows Him to “speak” to us. Where we speak through bodily words and actions, God speaks to our illusional mind through a Spiritual extra sensory perception.

5. Spirit: This is the Holy Spirit, God incarnate who appears to inhabit our spirit if a self recognizes Him. This overlapping or infilling is God’s “personal” association with His “children.” This relationship evolves through a person’s life, and it has been evolving on the gross level over all time. We know more about the Word (God’s imparted message to the world) today than the early Christians knew, and much more than the Jews of the Old Testament days. Since that represents so much time for our very finite minds, we might think we would know the Spirit well; however, God is jealous about revealing His self to us. We know practically nothing about Him.

ON BELIEF

You have to believe before you can believe you believe.

One day God was walking down a path on Earth. He came to a man and asked him, “What do you believe?”
The man scratched his head and said, “I believe the earth is round.”
God said, “Yes, I know; I created the earth and even your thinking that it is round.”
God then came to another man, and He said, “What do you believe?”
The man said, “I believe we are what we believe we are.”
God replied, “Yes, I know; I created your mind, but belief is not what you believe.”
God then came to a man with a big smile and said, “What do you believe?”
The man grinned and said, “I believe everything!”
God said, “Yes, I created everything, but everything to you is not everything.
God went on and met a stern-looking man on the path and said to him, “What do you believe?”
The man frowned and immediately said, “I believe nothing.”
God said to him, “Yes, I also created nothing, but nothing is something.”
God wondered as He wandered and He came to another man and said to him, “What do you believe?”
The man thought for a minute and said, “I believe practically everything and virtually nothing.”
“Welcome into the Kingdom of Heaven.” said God, surprised and satisfied.

The foundation of belief is "faithing" that God is! There actually is no other word to explain it. We might use perceiving but that is too emotional or we might use understanding but that is too mental. I think we are hardwired toward spiritual faith. Although some say they don’t believe, they continue to have faith in their next breath; they still continue to have faith that the food they put in their mouth is going to keep them alive; they still continue to have faith that the earth is in a planetary system with nature laws that will let the sun come up tomorrow. There is an inborn tendency to have Godly faith that is violated when we say we have no faith.

Placing the next layer on our God is! foundation then should be a simpler proposition. However, I’ve found that many find this more difficult. Until we believe that God created!, we will find it hard to really believe and be faithfully anxious because we don’t believe. Often, we don’t admit it to ourselves and that psychological deviation throws our whole belief system in disarray. Think about how most Christians believe—they say they believe “God created the heavens and Earth.” They have heard the words from Genesis. They might say to me, “Of course I believe the words of Genesis; it is the Bible!” And, this might be stated with some finality. Saying you believe in words may be enough for some but not for many.

Even so, believing that God created! introduces a great, as I call it, at-odds-with-rationality problem. We are asked to believe that God created us just as we are with all our virtues and intrinsic worth, and since God created!, it follows that He created us with all our faults and blemishes too? If God created our faults, does this mean that He created what we are going to do and be forever? There belief hits a snag. We can’t believe that God created bad things we do or that happen to us because that is too close to God also controls everything about us including what we do. And, if this is so, where does free will fit into the picture? So, we just ignore this aspect of belief. We’ll have more to say on this in future entries.

Scientists have a way of “believing” that is lost to non-scientists—they believe nothing is a fact, at least on a mass basis. There are facts, but we can only “believe” in what works. Individual scientists have their own set of facts, but they never let these facts interfere with how they search for what really works because the next experiment might “change the facts.” They understand that personal facts are not always what really works. I have even seen extremely competent scientists run an experiment several times because they just know from their personal set of facts that the results can’t be right. Christians could take a lesson from this type of thinking; unfortunately, it generally only comes from years of scientific thinking. And yes, scientific thinking colors all of my belief.

The following summarizes my understanding of the four levels of belief:

1. The physical level. This involves the things we do as believers. To start with, we might need to make our self do these things such as read the Bible, go to church services, pray to God, etc. Christians might call such actions worship, but technically, it is not the physical action that is the worship; worship is a combination of any of these four levels.


2. The emotional level. A second level would be the things we feel as we are doing belief things. Surprisingly, these emotions are elicited easily, at least by most persons, and they are extremely enjoyable. For some, this is the level where faith actually begins and most worship lies.


3. The mental level. If we were to be technical about it, we would say that everything happens in our brain so all is controlled in the mental. For our purposes, we can say that the mental level is where we learn how to look into the spirit, where we figure out our belief, and where we inquestion spiritual contemplation.


4. The spiritual level. Our spiritual level is a vacuum that can be filled only by God’s infilling. I believe that God is always there, but we don’t always give Him complete access to the rest of our lives. If things could be completely pure in our spirit, God (Holy Spirit) through our spirit, would control our mental thinking, which controls our emotions, which controls our physical actions. We would be perfect. However, since have to live in this world and not in the spirit, no one can do this. No matter who we are, we only allow God access to a portion of our self.

This is my belief groundwork. There is little about our believing in God and Spiritual things that are clear and present on a mass basis, but each of us works out out a belief system for ourselves. This is mine.

THE MEANING OF WORDS

Words mean nothing; words with a brain attached mean everything. All writing is words made up of an alphabet of letters, which are merely squiggly lines, which are merely bits of lead or ink on a piece of paper, which is merely small bits of wood, which is even smaller molecules and atoms, and we could go even further until we come down to energy, little bits of nothingness. In essence, words are not the squiggly lines but something that happens in the reader’s mind. However, we often do not treat words as such. The squiggly lines sometimes become magic, taking on meaning of and in themselves as if they were a self. Words are the same in all the books in the world; sometimes the squiggly lines making up the letters are different, but words on paper are words and just words. It is what we think of when we are presented with the squiggly lines—the message represented—that is all important! For us in this discussion, the words of the Bible can hold a special, personal Message—how the Spirit interacts with humanity. That is the purpose of this study, to learn a little about how we experience God; how we, individually, interact with God in our lives. Even so, we study the words since they are what we have, how we interact with each other, and in which some of the inquestion answers reside.

I have been intrigued with foreign languages and especially what the speakers of these languages associate with the words they use. Do they think the same thoughts when presented with the same word in their language? I have deduced that they do not and neither do we. In fact, two different individuals seeing the same word in the same language do not think the exact same thing. This being the case today, it was also the case in biblical times. Until I learned a little biblical Greek, I could not appreciate what the early Christians were thinking and by extrapolation, the messages they were experiencing. Of course, I still can't, but perhaps we can come closer knowing something about the language in which the early writers wrote. On the whole, biblical interpreters (all translators are interpreters) of the Bible have done his or her best to faithfully translate the words as they thought they should be translated, and it follows that each interpretation is unique. Every one of these interpreters is a different person with different experiences and revealed messages; therefore, their interpretations have to be different. From reading the various translations they have produced, it is clear that the same Greek word is translated by different translators using different English words and by definition different thinking in the reader. They sometimes justify this application by stating that English has many different words for the same Greek word and then intimating that they know what words should be used in the interpretation, and for each one of them individually, they do. However, did the early Christian writers think many different things when they wrote a certain word, or did they think different thoughts when a certain word was associated with other words, or did each person think whatever he or she was predetermined to think from his or her experience? We’ll look at the last possibility at a future date in some detail. Let’s look at how we think irregardless as to what is causing us to think this way.

Ponder on what you think about when you hear a word—for instance, think these words; sky . . . light . . . love . . . work . . . book . . . see . . . . Your experiences have taught you what to think each time you see each of these particular sets of letters without them being associated with other words. But, while you thought your own thoughts about these words, did the next person reading them think the same as you? Almost certainly not. However, we can only guess at how differently different persons think? We will never know completely because we are only our self, not somebody else. However, in studying twins who have the same DNA (virtually) but not the same experiences, psychologists have learned how much they think alike, and by inference how much non-twins think differently. Complicating this process is the fact that all languages have words with two or more completely different meanings (although word scientists can often find root meanings that relate them). For instance, the word run (moving fast, hole in hose, and scoring in baseball) has at least three completely different definitions getting their meaning from the associated words.

The early Christians who wrote the Bible had this major conundrum: how to explain an inspired Godly message that offered no direct explanation?[1] Each had an inspired part of the message but didn’t know its meaning. They used such words as faith, hope, love, salvation, belief, see, etc. to portray “meaning” that they knew but had little understanding and little way to explain. Today, we have built for over 2000 years on their astonishing work. Who can not be astounded and overwhelmed at the inspired letters of Paul (actually teachings and interpretations of Jesus’ messages)? Furthermore, God has worked through many other diverse persons down through the years who have placed their inquestioning contemplations on paper so that we can learn more about our particular messages.

Therefore, just as all the interpreters established their own meaning from the words, we on the receiving end can only individualistically get a personal, not necessarily the exact, message rendered by the author. While there is an ultimate Word and Message,[2] there is no universal message that we mere mortals can discover or even envision; all messages are personal and singular, from God for me and from God for you. Even though many claim it; no individual has the Message. Each of us has his own message, personal bits of the Word from God! These messages—concealed in innuendo; camouflaged in story, parable, and metaphor; contemplated through inquestion; suggested through interpretation; revealed through revelation—are there, ready for me and ready for you to contemplate and master. These messages are a never-ending evolvement in involvement with God. I think God planned it like this to keep us interested (for some of us, fascinated). If He had just laid out the Message for us, we would not value it, and we would not continue to “study to show ourselves approved unto God a workman who needs not be ashamed;”[3] there would be no “need” to fellowship with Him.

[1] Mark 4:11 He told them, "The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables
12 so that, "'they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!'"
Isaiah 6:9 He said, "Go and tell this people: "'Be ever hearing, but never understanding; be ever seeing, but never perceiving.'
10 Make the heart of this people calloused; make their ears dull and close their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed."
[2] John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
[3] 2 Timothy 2:15 Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

BIBLICAL SCHOLARSHIP

Most Christians don’t seem to be particularly impressed with modern professional biblical scholarly research. (I don’t remember ever seeing one referring to Bible Review or other references to biblical periodicals from the pulpit.) Even though I am somewhat obsessed with the "findings," I also see much biblical research writing as being stilted and pretentious perhaps even trying to separate their research from the riffraff. Such writing, which might be said to be writing for your peers or preaching to the scientific choir, is almost ignored within the general body of the church with the perception that biblical research as an academic discipline cheapens the study of the Gospel. Most Christians would place biblical research outside the domain of spiritual or even gospel understanding. Perhaps surprising for many Christians, most biblical researchers would probably make the same assertion. On the researcher’s side, inserting spiritual aspects into the studies devalues or even invalidates the results. There is solid precedent for this thinking as that is what science has been doing for many years, and most biblical researchers want more than anything to be scientific, at least in their approach. However, that helps the plight of biblical researchers little, as much of science is under fire from religionists too

Stating the reasoning behind these philosophies is fairly simple, but taking positive action on it is difficult. It might be helpful to understand that the Gospel, the real Message, the Word that underlies all spiritual study is only understandable on an individual basis no matter how it is learned. When Paul says to "earnestly present your self acceptable to God, a worker unashamed, cutting straight the word of truth,"[1] he was talking about an individual studying and learning through his/her self. Of course, it is understood that such learning is done through the body, but the body slowly percolates “seeing” into the spiritual well over a lifetime. When a biblical researcher is performing academic research, his thinking is physical, worldly. The conundrum is this: while a scientific researcher is doing her/his best to make the research scientific, there is always that taint of spiritual “seeing” that tends to make the results appear not particularly valid or reliable, two specific attributes of scientific experimentation sought for by all scientists. Be that as it may, I will conclude that science scholarship has been formulated for the good of the physical world while spiritual scholarship is discovered by the individual and is meant for the individual.

Should we then say that formal biblical research is useless and should not be done? Far from it! I believe that such research is absolutely essential. Academic biblical research adds, perhaps peripherally, to the spiritual knowledge of God’s progressive revelation which is corporate rather than individual. Few members of the laity wish to look at this very important part of God’s plan for spirituality in our lives. I will have much to say about God’s plan of Salvation and progressive revelation in future entries.

A further observation can be made for much of the preaching we hear from our pulpits. Where does it fit in this quandary? While I thoroughly enjoy a good sermon (most would probably properly be called a lecture) on worldly viewpoints, such preaching has but little resemblance to the “preaching” (actually teaching) that Jesus exercised. Today, preaching is said to be excellent when the hearers are captivated; rather than teaching anything about the Message, a hearer often leaves physically happy rather than spiritually satisfied. Paradoxically, to make them even more palatable, modern heavenly homilies often take on a science influence, even using scientific illustrations and nuances. (I am often amused at the skewed scientific comparisons and conclusions arrived at through the clergy and by the laity.) While it may not be true science in nature, it is biblical scholarly explanation science in principle as it is presented on the physical world level. Church hearers get what their world demands they hear even though they look down their collective noses at science. In some ways, it is practically all we, collectively, know how to do.

Be that as it may, I cannot remain negative about preaching and the messages we get from our churches today. Anything we do with the end result being fellowship with God is in my assessment good and pleasing to God since it tends to lead the hearer toward the Message. We just must remember that we won’t get much added to our spiritual satisfaction reservoir if we just use the information gained through worldly means. It is up to each of us to “see” the Word, not the harried preacher to “learn” us the Word.

The same can be said for much of the media—books, music, and movies. There is spiritual learning there also; we just need to “see” it. We all love to read, listen to music, and view movies, and they are quite meaningful in our lives. However, we must remember that it is not the writing or the words of the music or the story in the movie that is important; it is the message behind the writing, the music, the story that contains eternal meaning. Appreciate them, enjoy them, use them, but don’t forget to study and listen for your little personal piece of the Message that can be found in all fellowship with our God. I think God asks—might I say requires—it of each of us.

[1]II Tim 2:15 (KJV) Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.

METHODOLOGY

A standard methodology for spiritual study has not been established as scientists have developed with science. It may not even be possible as I believe God works individually with each of our spirits, and there doesn’t seem to be exacting methodology in God’s “thinking.” God has ordained that each of us spiritually contemplate (ruminate, muse, revel, chew over, mull, ponder; use the verb that best fits you best). I believe that each of us has an inherent longing toward this contemplation. There doesn’t seem to be a precise or even an imprecise way to do this; however, we can see that hundreds of persons down through the years have worked out personal systems and approaches that work for them. I fall into that bailiwick. Moreover, my thinking leans toward the scientific method as that is a part of my training. Here are some of my views on methodology.

Spiritual: Thoughts or thinkings (verbal antics) are our only way of conversing with our self. The old adage that "We think, therefore we are!" has validity only when we are talking about God's physical reality. "We are, therefore we think!" is much more compelling for a study of spiritual realities. "We are" portends an architect; "we think" tends to make us the architect. God designed us just as we are, therefore we think.

Even though our “verbal” thinking is our only way to recognize God in our lives, God rarely, if ever communicates verbally. What a conundrum that becomes! As a child, I was constantly waiting for God to speak to me. It was a great disappointment when He never did. When we pray as many of us do, there is generally little communication, through thoughts or insight. We talk to ourselves. Does that make these prayers wrong? Of course not! Any time we are acknowledging God in any way, He hears and understands. It is all part of what I call the Supreme Game. God requires us to play the game as long as we live. Some play well; others play little. We’ll talk more about the Supreme Game in future entries.

Recognizing His "voice" comes through immersing our selves (our spirit) into His Spirit, and I call this contemplation. As Christians, we can do this always (praying unceasingly as Paul calls it). However, many don't know how and some don't care, and it is not necessarily an undemanding activity; as a result, it is exceptional when we see it. Contemplation is difficult and foreign to many. Therefore, since the basis for contemplation is thinking but thinking cannot recognize God’s voice, few want to go though this door. However, it is my strong desire to not only to go through the door but to investigate every thing I “see” inside the door and be constantly immersed in it.

True contemplation, our spirit interacting with God’s Spirit, is rare (used in the rare meat sense). Most of us are used to real life thinking where persons seek answers, answers, answers; however, God, through life experiences and the Holy Spirit, provides question after question after question. Some real life questions are important, but most are petty, tied to the mundane. Even so, we must ask questions because the answers to our questions are life itself. If you do not ask the question or a more serious dilemma, do not know the question, you probably will never get the answer. It is a sad fact that most people go through life looking for answers to questions they never ask or even know. We must seek questions diligently, and only then will the answers be resolved.

Seeking answers to life’s questions is one thing, but be prepared to find that most God questions are not interrogation questions. The English language does not have a word for such questions. The Spirit’s questions are questions that end with a period or exclamation point rather than a question mark. Please give me license to develop a new word for these Spirit questions and christen them inquestions (in-quest-ion). Inquestions are questions that are God given, individual, personal, and eternal, for study, for contemplation, for reveling.

Even though we experience inquestions constantly, we might not recognize one if we see it. I sometimes say that we can recognize inquestions as true “why” questions. Who, what, when, where, and how questions are all part of the physical world; why questions, when using why properly, are always spiritual questions—inquestions. Simple examples might help in gaining some understanding of them.

Picture a sunset. If there ever was a parody, it is a sunset. Why would air, dust and water particles, and photons of light combine to be so beautiful? While this question is a physical question, a part of this world question, a science question if you may, God has chosen to make a combination of these simple earthly building blocks an ultimate inquestion to most of us. Again, picture a sunset—one of the most beautiful sights we ever see. It just is so! There is no earthly reason to it; we just all “see” it. Contemplation for a lifetime cannot begin to answer the Why-this-is-so?! of this experience. Other physical examples could be a snow-covered mountain, a live coral reef, a perfectly formed race horse, a beautiful woman in candle light. These are individual, but we all have inquestions in our lives. For me, I can make an inquestion out of most of God’s creation.

Spiritual inquestions are abundant. Remember the parable of the sheep and goats[1] with the statement concerning our doing to others as doing to Jesus/God.[2] Could anything be more poignant, severe, suspect, and beautiful, all at the same time? An ultimate inquestion. The “why answer” is in the wonder. Most of the parables could be considered inquestions. Consider all the “Heaven is like . . . .” passages given to us by Jesus. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount has several delightful inquestions. Revelation is one big multi-inquestion.

We can even make up our own inquestions. Consider the following:

There was a certain housewife who desired to bake her husband a beautiful, delicious cake. She took out just the right ingredients measuring out just the right amount of yeast, kneading the dough until it was just right, heating the oven to the ideal temperature, and baking the cake until it was perfect. The husband came home and ate the delicious cake enjoying it without even knowing the ingredients (especially the yeast), the kneading, the heat of the oven, or the time of baking, but the wife knew and remembered.

In this way our spirits “study” inquestions.

Now, let’s look at inquesting our inquestions. While there are questions and inquestions in our life, they are only problematical because we don’t know the answer. Once we learn the answer, it is no longer a question. Moreover, while we often hear comments about ultimate questions, there really are no ultimate questions. God created all the questions and all the answers, and all the inquestions for that matter. All inquestions might be called ultimate questions while a question is temporal, transient.

Some try for earthly God answers for their inquestions; this diverts our focus from the real answer “learned” through contemplation. We seem to “see[3]” better after contemplation with the Spirit. “Answers” to inquestions result in “seeing” better. That is very different from learning. Learning involves answers through the physical, emotional, and mental makeup of the self. They are a part of this world, not a message through the Spirit. When we inquest our inquestions, the “answers” are God given, eternal, and singular.

Scientific: Science is the study of God's creation. Some would like to relegate science into a box outside the realm of the study of God. However, I believe that science is a subset of God's Spirit in the living spirits of His creation.

Scientist’s studying this creation have unintentionally created a methodology which epitomizes an ultimate inquestion—the scientific method. Here is my interpretation of that conviction.

• Observation: Perceiving ("seeing") a part of God's creation in a questioning or inquestioning manner. (Yes, researchers almost always think inquestioningly as they are performing science. Religionists have been so blatant in accusing scientists of blasphemy and sacrilege that non-scientists sometimes miss this side of their thinking.)
  
  
• Hypothesis: Guessing at the answers to that questioning based on previous scientific conclusions and theories. (Understand that hypotheses are always based on inquestions; a scientist uses his/her “intuition/sixth sense” to “divine” an answer. How else can we comprehend guessing as an integral component of the exacting process of the scientific method?)
  
  
• Experimentation: An examination of the perceived hypothesis by setting up methodic testing using procedural practices recognized by all scientists. (Experimentation is the scientist’s way of getting “answers” to one small part of God’s creation.)
  
  
• Results: The outcome of the experimentation that can be repeated by other scientists when the exact same methods are used. (Isn’t it interesting that scientists depend on experimentation that absolutely depends on God’s law of continuity—two experiments will always give the same results if all parameters in both experiments are exactly the same.)
  
  
• Conclusions: What the researcher perceives the results mean in conjunction to/with other results from previous experiments. (Might God be working some of His revelation plan through a scientist’s conclusions?)
  
  
• Theory: An accumulation of conclusions that interactively work together "explaining" one part of God's creation. (In essence, a characterization of an inquestion.)

There is a relationship between the scientific method and inquestions as science is the study of God's creation, but the spirit/Spirit intertwines at indeterminable ways throughout the whole physical realm. In summary, in tandem with the way God allows us to see and understand it, questions are a part of the physical world and inquestions are a part of the spiritual realm.

[1] Matthew 25
[2] Matthew 25:40 (KJV) Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
[3] Matthew 5:8 (NIV) Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

TENETS AND DEFINITIONS

BASIC TENETS

The building blocks of our thinking are shaped definition by definition into precept complementing precept resulting in walls of tenet after tenet. These walls tend to become malformed and weak through crooked attachments, fuzzy thinking, without occasional re-measurement and re-evaluation. This is my attempt at elucitating my building blocks of belief. Remember as you read; these are my tenets. You don’t have the same ones since you are you and I am me. However, something you read of my thinking might just help you in building your walls. For this reason, I am starting this study with a personal inventory of my basic tenets.


God is!—personal, eternal, omnipresent, omnipotent. Many proclaim but few really believe. Everything else is based on this one truth, God is!

God created! everything—natural laws, the universe, life, body, thinking, spirit—everything. Once a person really believes this, it changes everything.

The Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is not the words of God. However, the Word, Message, is offered through the words—translations and interpretations—by divine inspiration. We "learn" the Word from these words spiritually through inquestioning.

The Word of God cannot be completely understood. God intended it this way to help keep us studying, inquestioning. Individual’s insights are “learned” through the facilitation of the Holy Spirit..

The Holy Spirit is God’s way of working through individual selves into humanity.

God works through progressive revelation generation after generation. Progressive revelation is God’s will revealed through an individual’s will in a way that changes the collective will of mankind. It is up to the collective generation how much revelation is bestowed. These revelations are given through the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual elements of our collective selves.

Each self is made up of four integrated elements in one entity. We recognize these entities as the physical (body), emotional (heart), mental (mind), and spiritual (soul).

God presents Himself throughout His creation in three ways: (1) through the physical laws He has set up to occur by design; (2) through an individual’s spirit; and (3) through performing miracles.

God as the Holy Spirit is the universal Soul and is made a part of an individual’s spirit through our belief and subsequent worship. In the Christian community we use the term that a person becomes a “child of God” through the work of the Holy Spirit.

All persons can become one through the Soul. A person is complete when he/she becomes a part of the Soul, and the overlapping part is then the Holy Spirit working in that self.

We are one with each other through our spirits, which are one with the Spirit (Soul).

Every person is personally related to God through his/her spiritual self. It is not necessary to acknowledge this relationship and most don’t, but it is so satisfying to do so.

God occasionally works miracles through any part of His creation. Miracles are rarely recognized as such.

God in love disciplines a person if he/she continuously scorns and mocks the Word. If we continuously study to show ourselves approved, discipline is lessened.

Love, the "shine" of God's Spirit, is a part of all facets of our lives—the physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, and Soul. We see this differently in each element, but they are all related to the Spirit.

DEFINITIONS

The following are my personal definitions of various key words used in these exercises. Please understand that they are presented in this form to help in understanding them, not to present them as in concrete. They are my definitions; perhaps yours have different shades. I will try to use them in the exercises as they are presented here.

body: The makeup of an individual entity--the physical emotional, mental and spiritual self.

christian: A person who has accepted God’s plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. We might say that all persons in God's creation who have recognized the interaction of God working through the self's spirit by the Holy Spirit are in the same category. The word Christian is a manmade notion. I doubt if God recognizes the word as we do.

emotional self: That part of a self represented by the hormonal/neural effects on the body. It does not exist outside the body.

Holy Spirit (Spirit): What we call the interaction of God with His creation.

inquestion: (a coined word pronounced in-quest-ion): A private, personal query "given" to us by God for our study, contemplation, enjoyment, and worship and can only be "learned" through the Spirit/spirit.

love/Love: There are four types of love: 1. physical—sexual, erotic urges; 2. emotional—hormonal effects on our body and the natural effects of those hormones; 3. mental—philio love, love for another person; 4. spiritual—agape love, the love that is God incarnate.

mental self: That part of a self that is recognized through the process of thinking. The mental (mind) is a part of the body and exists only in a physical body.

Message: God's presentation of the Word, God's will, to individuals.

Miracle: God created individual selves through natural law, and these selves are God's entities on the natural law Universe. Any time He does something outside these natural laws, He is working a miracle. Such are probably rare, and we seldom know of their occurrence. It could be that God changes everything including our thinking with each miracle; therefore, we don’t know it happened.

physical self: The part of our self represented by our body parts—toes, heart, skin, brain, etc.

religion: The service, study, and worship of God. There are many of them, all as one, over the world.

Revelation: The actual reception of a fragment of perceived Word.

reveling: The process of willingly inquestioning revelation.

Soul: A conglomeration of all God's “children” within the Spirit of all time as one.

Spirit: The part of God that is involved in His creation.

spirit: That part of a self which can be imbued by the Spirit. It exists outside the physical body, but is a part of the body in this world. God as Spirit works through a human spirit of a self anytime He wants to, not just through a "Christian."

Word: "In the beginning was the Word." We usually perceive the Word through some kind of physical form (message)—Bible, preaching, praying, reveling, etc., but we sometimes "see" the Word through the spirit/Spirit. These latter may be called miracles as God does this personally and individually; however, I would rather think of them as an aspect of God’s created will for mankind.

FIRST WORDS

This writing is begun in the autumn of my life with the strategy of making it a rest-of-my-life contemplation on my personal belief system. Much of it will be what I have been ramdonly thinking about (and writing some) over many years. However, I will try to structure it into some kind of coherent whole.

These exercises are presented with no preconceptions of grandeur. They are reflections of my personal “revelations.” The things of which I write have been personally comprehended over the years and have become so integral to my self that I sometimes find it hard to believe that everybody does not share them. However, I know that God works through each person individually. I would be happy to hear your “revelations.” I like the interaction.

I would be especially pleased to hear from any persons from my past. Some names that stand out are Kenny Shirfic, Ronny Emmons, and Harold Steen, from Washington, Indiana in the 1940s; anybody from the Park Place Church of God, Anderson, Indiana youth group of the 50s; anybody who worked in the photo lab at the Lincoln Air Force Base from 1957-1960; Terry Thomas, Bill Drummond, Neil Kenny, Raul Rehrer from the University of Miami Marine Lab and Cookie Kruglinski, editor of the University of Miami Ibis in the early 60s; friends from the Kendall, Florida Church of God during the 1960s; singers from the New Way Singers during to 70s and 80s; and former students from University of Miami, Warner Southern College, and Hope International University. (Mule from LIBCI, you know who you are; I’d really like to hear from you.) If you knew me, send me an email. I will answer most emails. Positive reactions, illuminations, or elucidations are welcome; negative condemnation, censure, and attack, even though deserved, are discouraged.