God Ponderings

non-subject: a fantasy world
aww ~ 11/13/13

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What do I write today?

The non-subject prompt for the writing workshop tonight is "a fantasy world."

Gods and goddesses. I'm currently reading a book entitled Walking on the Wind - Cherokee Teachings for Harmony and Balance. The author shares regarding the beliefs of the Cherokee, part of which includes a triune god committee sometimes referred to as Chota-auhnele-eh, which means "Elder Fires Above" or "Red Thunder Beings." Uhalotega, also called Ogedoda, is the "head of all power" or "great beyond expression." This Great One has two children, Atunutitsu and Usgohula, which are the Great One's helpers. Together they are the three eternal beings which have always existed.

Like most other religious beliefs, the Cherokee belief assigns divine purpose to each event and circumstance in life.

To somehow make suffering meaningful, mankind finds or develops spiritual explanations for the suffering. If we assign divine meaning to suffering, then we naturally assign divine meaning to other aspects of life - to that which is beautiful, to serendipitous encounters and what seems like mystical patterns, to seemingly answered and unanswered prayers, to that which is "great beyond expression."

Sadly or not, I seem to believe less and less in a theist god, that is a god who intervenes on behalf of its creation. So if there is no theist god, what about a deist god, which is a god that created the natural world and then takes its hands off, so to speak, allowing nature to take its course? But why would a creator create and then let the creation spin on its own without any relationship whatsoever to that which it created?

What if the interventions that appear divine are simply natural occurrences that happen due to energy forces of which we currently have no means to scientifically measure, so we figure there must be something supernatural at play? That doesn't mean the event is not fantastic. Eye sight is not supernatural, but oh how fantastically awesome it is to behold with our eyes the beauty of that which can be seen.

What if reincarnation is something that occurs, but is a natural process...like leaves that fall in the autumn that feed the earth for new leaves to grow in following seasons? What if the new leaves are reincarnations of their former 'cellves?' Stupid analogy; yet, life is filled with seasons and cycles. But why oh why, if we are reincarnated do we not recall our previous lives?

Like other religions The Way teaches a blame-the-victim doctrine. When suffering befalls it is because an individual or group of individuals are believing negatively which results in negative consequences; or a person or group isn't living the accuracy of the Word of God and they thus reap consequences due to wrong doctrine or being out from under God's hedge of protection; or the person or group is living within God's will but the adversary, the devil, wants to thwart the greatness of the Word of God in that person's or group's "ministry" so the adversary attacks said person or group and because of lack of the person's and the community believing, tragedy falls - in other words, the mortals missed revelation somewhere because God will make a way when there is no way. God had to have informed them and they just missed hearing God's voice.

In past decades of living with chronic illness, I was a good Way believer; that is, I mainly blamed myself for my illnesses. But then I would quickly retemorize Romans 8:1, "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus," and then I'd feel bad about condemning myself. It was a vicious cycle. The Way's "law of believing" boasts the formula, "confession of belief yields receipt of confession."

These days I seldom fall into the pattern of blaming unfortunate circumstances on my lack of belief or on my negative believing or on walking outside the will of God. Sometimes I blame stuff on my stupidity or that I "should" know better by this point in my life. But blame doesn't help; accepting things as they are does help. What is is all I have to work with at any given moment...with or without divine intervention.

All that said, there are times I still long for the fantasy of Father God to be true, and there are times I petition the universe for help.

Sometimes the universe answers.

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