Understanding God

People say that the only dumb question is the one that is not asked. That is true, especially if the question is about something of vital importance. However, there are genuinely dumb questions, even though they must be asked (because unless they hit the light of day the stupid and often dangerous premises of the question aren't known and can't be addressed and refuted).

Carl over at the Ignatius Press blog ponders a truly dumb (and very narcissistic) question, put forth by the navel gazing sector of fuzzy brained and often heretical Christians. He's referring to "exercises" like gazing in a mirror to "see" that "God is within 'me'" (says the puffed up gazer) and pondering such "deep" questions as "If God didn't know he was God would he still be God?" So rather than let this one go I decided to use that as one of my "faith and reasoning" case studies here on the blog.

For example, when one is a child, asking questions, even if they are silly, is the only way a child can learn. Children can ask in all innocence questions about God that they might ask about anyone else-let’s say, for example, astronauts. So children might wonder what God eats, if God ever sleeps, does God go to the bathroom, does God really see what everyone is doing, etc. This is normal and very sweet.

When adults ask this type of question, however, there is snark, sarcasm and at the very least a wise cracking agenda based on lukewarm or no belief. These are, then, dumb questions, and they certainly are not age appropriate questions. I mean, adults really ought to have some more maturity than the average inquisitive five year old. But even if the person is being a smart alec or, worse, asking these types of questions in order to shake and sabotage the faith of others, it is important to answer them. At least it is important for me to answer them because of the cultist tendency to think that silence on my behalf is confusion. It’s usually being dog vomit tired and disgusted with the whole thing, but if my gorge isn’t rising too much I don’t mind answering even the smart ass “questions.” Carl is right that if you have to ask that kind of question, that’s not so good and it is obvious what is going on. I agree and I think Catholics in particular should never feel the need to take the bait. My approach though is to figure out what is behind the snark, the agenda or the heresy and then address that via answering the “question.”

So, to answer the question, the situation would never arise where God “doesn’t know who he is,” since God is the self aware totality of everything that ever existed, exists now and will exist. As the creator and the only one to have eternal existence, God of course knows who he is at all times. Now, we know there are two background “reasons” and agendas behind this question. To be kind, we can say there are two confusions that at are the base of even asking such a cheeky, silly and disrespectful question. So these are what I will try to correct in the minds of those who are confused. People who might think about or even ask this type of question tend to be led to wondering about this question because they have taken one of these two (or even both) paths of erroneous thinking process.

The first is that some people have come to think that God is not really a personage, but some sort of “force” or life energy in the universe. So in their mistaken thinking, they might think of God as being something akin in nature to gravity, electricity, etc, where it is a natural law or phenomenon but obviously inert as far as self awareness. So, for example, just as gravity “does not know it is gravity,” these New Age addled unbelievers think that there is a natural life cycle of some sort that is what our dumb ancestors imagined was a personage called “God.” So when someone like that asks that sort of question, like “If God doesn’t know he is God is he still God?” that is a snarky way for them to hint to you that in their superior sophistication and “enlightenment” that they are “helping you” to “contemplate” whether “God is just a natural force, an inevitable one, but one with no identity or self awareness.” This is very typical of this stage in humanity where there is pride and hubris all around, and people find “reasonable explanations” (including some of the craziest beliefs you can imagine) for everything, including encounters with God. For example, they would not recognize a genuine communication from God if they heard one and they certainly would not recognize a good smiting by God when it happens. This is because this generation is so smarty pants that they think that “aliens,” for example, would actually be a more “scientific” and “reasonable” explanation for something beside God. Despite the total silence of the supposedly life filled galaxy around them, they will make up all sorts of theories about aliens, “the force,” natural phenomenon, so called past lives and reincarnation and so forth, rather than believe that their ancestors have spoken and observed God directly over thousands of years and documented their consistent encounters with God throughout sacred monotheistic literature such as the Bible and the Qur’an. So their “question” is actually a statement of disbelief, and the “opening musical overture” to whatever crazy belief they have made up in their heads or adopted from other “visionaries” to “explain” how the universe “really works.”

So you get crackpots like Scientologists who believe in some moronic space opera with evil alien souls, all taking place millions of years ago on earth at certain volcanoes, never bothering to notice that those land masses, say nothing of the volcanoes, did not even exist then. They don’t believe clean and sober religious people who didn’t puff on peyote or eat magic mushrooms, who tilled the fields, herded animals, had honorable marriages and children and oh, by the way, had an ongoing relationship with the one God from generation to generation from the very beginning of self aware humanity through to today. So they don’t believe the Bible or the Qur’an, yet they will believe anything that an egomaniac schizophrenic drunk will tell them “really happened,” even if the most fundamental fact checking would show it to be impossible. So whether it is the new age moon calf type of loon, or the cynical and manipulative evil cult, you have the same “reasoning” behind that question, which is willful disbelief in humanity’s encounter with God and the holy scriptures that document it through all the centuries and millennia.

The second motivation behind that type of question is a little more understandable, though it still comes from an incredible lack of faith in God, coupled with inordinate faith in one’s own imaginative and scholarly powers. These are the Christians who have a very fundamental stumbling block and inability (or unwillingness) to understand the nature of God and Jesus Christ. Now, I know that the Trinity is very difficult to comprehend, and obviously God and his ways are beyond any human’s understanding. And I am sympathetic because like I said, the only way to learn is to ask questions and study scripture, and the writings of those genuinely saintly people who discerned these questions before you. However, again, there is a smart alec assumption behind the scenes of this question among many Christians, and it is very dangerous and annoying. It comes about because in this generation’s arrogance there is a feeling that God can be thought about and contemplated using human logic, human rules and human limitations.
So where these people get in trouble is trying to reconcile “maybe” believing in the divinity of Jesus Christ, but then putting the entire label of “God” onto the human nature of Jesus. In other words, these people tend to think of “God” as being like a force or spirit that can be put in a zip lock bag and inserted into Jesus. Now, this is foolish to the extreme if you challenge them on even the most basic contradiction to their assumption that God can be “stuffed” inside of Jesus (and thus they think, ah ha, Jesus as a small child “probably did not know he was God” and if he “didn’t know he was God,” then God “doesn’t know he is God,” and therefore God is, what, “asleep at the wheel,” as Aztec Two Step would say?)

Here’s the problem. If God “zipped himself” up inside a forgetful Jesus for part of his earthly existence, um, who were the rest of the world praying to? I mean, do these fine new agers and scholars think that no body was home upstairs for the entire world? So prayers of the faithful around the world, regardless of their faith and creed were unheard in heaven because God was busy forgetting he was God zipped inside of Jesus? I mean, how stupid and “intolerant” is THAT belief if you think about it. These “world view” Christians try to tell you how wonderful everyone is, with equal rights and equal “validity” of “belief,” yet they figure that God would have made himself forgetfully inaccessible to everyone in the world while he is “forgetting he is God while in the ‘unaware’ Jesus?” Um, that is stupid beyond belief. If that was true, why wasn’t Satan totally running wild on earth, instituting his realm while God “forgot who he was?” And who did the guardian angels (who everyone believes in, if for no other reason than to claim they speak to them and/or to sell angel merchandise and books) report to while God was “forgetting he was God?” Obviously a cretin would realize that God did not fold up his entire identity, insert himself into Jesus and then “forget” who he was for a while. As I pointed out before, God is the entire sum totality of the ability to exist eternally (even the angels cannot live except within God’s life sustaining will) and so God cannot be taken in sum total from one place to another because God IS everything that exists, both in the material universe and in the unseeable heavenly realm that is not comprised of matter, energy or time span.

So even if “Jesus didn’t know who he was” for part of his life (and that is not true; Jesus knew full well who he was) it is a metaphysical impossibility for God to reside within any person or object in a contained way. The Holy Spirit can and does touch a human’s soul but the Holy Spirit himself does not exist within anything or any span of time. That type of mindset is pagan throwback and idolatry, where there is the belief that any part of the divine can be captured inside of the body of the flesh or any other human made container. That is obviously not true. I try not to be discouraged, but the incredible fat egos with absolutely no cause for pride that lie behind these types of “questions” and beliefs are scarier for the future of humanity than any ancient Assyrian despot or lead pipe polluted water drinking Roman emperor and that is a fact. Something very terrible has gone wrong with the minds and sanity of many, many people today, and that kind of thinking is a symptom that is dire in its dimensions.

The Bible clearly states how Jesus at the age of twelve years old taught in the Temple, asking and answering questions, and telling his parents, Mary and Joseph, that he is doing “his Father’s” work. Jesus didn’t say, “Oooh, I woke up one morning and realized I am God!” Jesus has been in constant communication with God, who he knew to be his Father, from the earliest age. Jesus and God are separate personages, since God is the totality of the Godhead, the one God who is everything everywhere for all eternity. Jesus demonstrated clear prayer dialogue with God the Father and never once gave anyone any reason to accuse him of having “God residing within him in totality” (forgotten or aware!) And we have further attestation to this from a source that is, according to human logic, the place that is the most unlikely to find it, which is the Qur’an. The Qur’an attests that Jesus knew his identity and spoke for himself from the moment of birth. Now, why would the Qur’an have such powerful “pro Jesus” witnessing? I mean, if you are trying to “market” Islam, why would you have such graceful and beautiful attestation that Jesus spoke for himself as a newborn infant? Because it is the truth, and it was provided by one who would know, being the archangel Gabriel. Far from being hostile to Jesus the Qur’an is filled with respectful love and awe for Jesus and Mary (something certain Christians could learn from, by the way). It is even more evidence that the faith that believes that Jesus was “the one,” the Messianic prophet, but not literally the Son of God, would nonetheless attest to his prophetic self awareness from the first moment of infancy. Who would have “expected” that? So there is no cynical human reason that the Prophet (PBUH) would have engineered putting such material in that would be totally amazing and unthinkable in the context of his beliefs and societal setting in the first place!

I hate to even write blog postings like this because I have to put into words what to me is so repugnant about what humans are thinking. But I have to do it to prove to you that I read your minds and I know your thoughts and your agendas, including the chaotic, profane and defiant ones. It is the only way to refute and hopefully correct and maybe even someday heal the mess that you all have made of comprehending life outside of your scripts, agendas and video games. I mean, people who no longer know how to build a house and grow their own food (and find life so depressing they need drugs and drink) are actually sitting there theorizing about the nature of Jesus Christ and God??? You can’t even remember your own human natures; you have become so estranged from them. Yet you think you are more “enlightened” and “sophisticated” than the very priestly people who stood in the presence of God and who wrote down all that transpired each time it happened? So I hate writing what I know you think (or, hopefully, used to think in the past as you grasp your way back to the light and the sanity). Decent people shudder at the thought of heresy and hubris, and we hate putting it on our lips in even the most essential teaching circumstances of the direst nature. I am very prayerful and have recourse to the protective and cleansing power of the Holy Spirit when I write something like this post, where I have to insert dialogue from the profane in order to address and refute it. I have a healthy fear of the Lord, which you should too.

Reconciling about Mary in Qur'an, Bible tradition

Surah 19 has beautiful description of the Annunciation to Mary and the birth of Jesus. Christians are often puzzled by the passage that seems to indicate Mary had a painful childbirth, since Biblical tradition and the visions of Church approved mystics state otherwise. Here is the passage:

And the throes (of childbirth) compelled her to betake herself to the trunk of a palm tree. She said: Oh, would that I had died before this, and had been a thing quite forgotten!

Then (the child) called out to her from beneath her: Grieve not, surely your Lord has made a stream to flow beneath you.

Christians, notice that Mary and baby are in dialogue as he is being born! And remember, this is Gabriel, the angel of the Annunciation, who gave this dialogue to the Prophet (PBUH). So what is the meaning?

The Qur'an is not a repeat of the Gospels, and so details of the Gospels are not repeated here, but given in imagery by Gabriel to the Prophet. The birth pain refers to the prophecy that Mary's heart will be pierced by a sword, due to what will happen to her child, Jesus. Gabriel explained it through dialogue in the communion between Mary and Jesus during his birth, the mutual knowledge that there will be a great pain and suffering to come, but Jesus assures Mary that from her God "has made a stream to flow."

So this is another place where the Qur'an is truly supportive of the events, rather than contradicting the Gospels. The purpose was not to say that Mary had physical pains or regrets at the birth of Jesus, far from it. It shows that at the moment of his birth they were in total mutual dialogue of the enormous pain to come, but that she would lean on a palm (the sign of martyrs) and God will make the stream, the Messiah and Savior, flow from her.

I hope this is helpful. I love what the Qur'an says about Mary and remember, Gabriel would not give the Prophet misinformation. It just has to be understood in its context. As I've blogged before, the Qur'an provides detail the Gospel does not, such as the speech between Mary and Jesus at birth, since Jesus could speak at birth. The Gospel was not much for "baby Jesus details," and so the Qur'an must be prized for when such precious insight is included.

Remember, Jesus was born under conditions where Mary and Joseph had profound silence about him for many years. Even after Jesus had ascended to heaven, Mary would not have spoken of the interior dialogue that she and Jesus shared, so the Apostles would not have had this information to record, even if they were inclined to (they would not, because the Gospels were of bearing witness to Jesus public ministry, and not a 'biography'). That is why the reunion between Mary and the resurrected Jesus is never mentioned or explained in the Gospel. Their profound and lifelong shared communion through the Holy Spirit was entirely private and never shared. And that is appropriate, because only the public ministry of the adult Jesus needed to be witnessed and proclaimed. So the Church tradition and revelation of approved mystics is entirely correct that Mary had complete obedience, a pain free birth, and no regrets at all, being full of obedience and grace. The Qur'an correctly explains in dialogue form the profound awareness of the dire pain (the piercing of Mary's heart, the crucifixion of Jesus) that both would share and the anguish both would feel.

The color of Jesus' skin

I just read a few gripes by the ubiquitous commenters of online news articles, always looking to make someone feel bad or cause trouble, especially if it can be racial or religious. At least one was complaining that nativity baby Jesus' are pale white and they should not be (he or she was speculating that Jesus' skin was darker tone). And of course we all remember the "Rev Wright" Jesus is a black man comment (and who can forget Kanye West in his crown of thorns get up).

OK, here's the situation. I have no problem with ethnic groups translating art work of the Holy Family into their own skin color and dress. In fact, I love several portrayals of the Madonna and Child in Chinese garb with oriental skin color and facial features.

But it is simply wrong to infer a racial reason for the baby Jesus being pale white in color. It is in fact Biblically supported. Here is why. If you read Exodus where Moses is in the regular company of God himself, Moses' skin begins to lighten and become pale and shining as light itself. It is a feature of being near the Holy Spirit, as Jesus was born of, and near the physical presence of God, as Moses was, that the actual skin of the person starts to shine with the radiance of light. That's light, not "black versus white skin." Light is light and to portray it as Biblically described one makes the person very white. Traditional sacred artists were well read in their Bible (all of it, not the Cliff Notes Jesus Said version), and were aware that Moses was radiant "white" from his proximity near God, so much so that Moses had to veil himself because the sight of his "white" radiant skin was astonishing and disconcerting to the people. Therefore, the baby Jesus is always portrayed in the palest of glowing white, not because "the man is trying to keep the people of color down" or "because the artists were racists." Um, no, they um, you know, read their Bible.

I hope this helps.

Terrifying sign from God this afternoon

What I saw about an hour ago has scared me more than I've ever been scared in my life. Not on my behalf, because I serve God, and so I'm not worried about my demise, and never have been, but because of the terrifying message for "humanity" of the world.

I was driving in my car returning from afternoon dinner. I was observing dramatic clouds, both white and golden ones, and the dark blue ones that form lower than the light colored ones. At the base of towering white billowing clouds I saw the figure of the Infant Jesus, formed entirely of the dark blue clouds. He was unmistakable. His right hand was raised in judgment. He had neither crown nor orb, and he was not attired in robes, and so he was not the blessing figure as in the Infant of Prague. He was swaddled, as he was after he was born, but with his right arm raised in judgment. In other words, it was as described in the Apocalypse when Jesus returns on the clouds, except it was the judging Infant Jesus. There is no mistaking this message and I'm in terror that too many people have waited in their evil for too long, and that this is certainly the last message before the terrible demise of the world if it does not change immediately.

I looked for a place to pull over with a clear view (since I was driving among tree lined road with no easy place to pull over and I had a car right behind me) and take a picture, as I had my camera. But even though there was no wind, the clouds forming the Infant Jesus dissipated in what I figure to have been less than a minute. But anyone who had been looking at the sky at that moment in that place would have seen it; it was not a vision or personal miraculous event.

I urge all believers to pray and beg for God's mercy the rest of today and all through tomorrow. Though it is not the believers who bear this burden; it is the unbelievers and the two faced (pretend to believe but still do occult and anti-life activities) who desperately need to sincerely convert and pray for God's mercy for the world. This is not a political statement. I do not care about the gays who are "marrying" in California, or any other political event meant to divide people in quarrel. The fact this was the Infant Jesus, only two days after that man in California stomped a baby boy to death in the road in front of horrified people, is a direct reference to the anti-life and child hating society. I am not even talking about abortion, though abortion is what stoked the flames. I'm talking about the society wide hatred of the innocence of babies and children, both literally and figuratively. The scorn toward infants, children, and those innocent in heart and spirit, is drawing God's wrath as sure as I am typing this. I've been screaming my warnings for years now, and I can only stand horrified that even that seems like not enough, and that perhaps all of you have deliberately run out the clock on God's mercy. I'd not hold your breath expecting a "rapture" either, as I've repeatedly explained to you and warned you.

This is not a Christian issue, though it is the secular and two faced remnants of Christianity and Judaism that has caused this problem. So this is not a call to convert to Christianity; far from it, I am counting on the sincere prayers for mercy from God from those who believe the most purely in God's right and might: the Muslims. I hope that in your daily prayers your Imams and other spiritual leaders lead you in particular prayers for God's mercy on behalf of all who have profaned life and their fear of God so terribly. But I hope that the secularists, the Christians and the two faced so called Christians have a conversion that is real and sudden and fall on their knees and beg for God's mercy. I can't do it for you. You yourselves must return to God, fear him and beg for his mercy. I'm near dumbfounded at the severity of the message I have seen today, even as I have been dreading it in half expectation, it is terrible to see in reality how God's love and mercy has been squandered and abused until it seems as though the clock may well run out before people "get around to" doing the right thing.

Spiritual direction: reverence for the Infant Jesus

I spent a little time this afternoon and evening printing some holy cards on my new little Canon Selphy printer. I've not had a working printer for a quite a long while so I've had a backlog of longing to have printed visual art, especially antique holy card art. Some of my favorites are those that depict the Infant Jesus. I have one of him sitting in his bed of straw, holding out his little hands, with a prayer. Another one shows infant angels opening the door of the tabernacle from which the Infant Jesus emerges. I love that one!

There used to be many holy cards depicting reverence for the Infant Jesus. The best known shrine images of the Infant Jesus are Infant Jesus of Prague and Niño de Atocha (honoring the apparition of the Infant Jesus who miraculously fed and gave water to starving prisoners in Spain). But for the most part until recently Christians had a very prayerful attentiveness and tenderness toward not just the grown man Jesus, but also for the Infant Jesus. The holy card art work by Catholics is one way to monitor and observe this attentiveness.

I've often mentioned that one of the things I am most fond of regarding the Qur'an is that it records the fact that the Infant Jesus could and did speak for himself. And the Gospel records how Jesus spoke for himself and taught at the Temple of Jerusalem as a child around the age of twelve.

Grown men carried Infant Jesus holy cards and venerated his memory. But today we have that overall deterioration of respect for life and love for infants so that not only is it hard to recall the memory of the divine Infant Jesus, human babies themselves are aborted, abused and devalued. Instead of a treasure many pre-born and born babies are an inconvenience and a punching bag, even being sexually assaulted in their own families.

It is pointless to argue which came first, the abuse of infants or the deterioration of the veneration of the Infant Jesus, since they are a coupling of part of the overall pattern of the coarsening and anti-life depressive and angry stance of the world as a whole. But I need to point this out since fewer and fewer people are old enough to remember the times I speak about in this blog and my postings.

People who are not overcome with wonder at the Infant Jesus are certainly not likely to be full with the rapt love that their own human infants deserve. I think Lent is an appropriate time to ponder this in addition to pondering the sacrifice of the grown Lord, Jesus Christ.

I wish to make another point. In apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is known that the most rarefied and delicate honor given by Mary to the holy person to whom she appeared was visions of the Infant Jesus, by himself, held by her or sometimes actually given to the holy person to hold. St. Anthony of Padua was so honored with actually being given the vision of the Infant Jesus to hold. The best gift that Mary can give a human is to share the love and veneration that she felt herself for the Holy Infant Jesus. Mary does not appear to be an oracle to future wealth and power, or to show off the wonder of heaven for those who merit eternal life in the presence of God. She always points to Jesus and always teaches how to see Jesus through her eyes, and perceive even a portion of the love she has through her God given fullness of grace. Mary was infused with the Holy Spirit, and that did not leave her upon the baby Jesus being birthed. Mary continued to be the human ark that had held the Infant Jesus. She continues to have perfect love, knowledge and understanding of how to love the Savior, and her perspective is so full and perfect that humans can only hope for a fraction of what she feels. But it is there for anyone with the open heart and comprehension to claim.

This is another way you can easily depict phony prophets who claim Marian apparitions. Mary never appears or speaks without an infusion of her fullness of pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. Words that fakes pen to supposedly represent "messages" that they have receive from Mary fall like the rusty bits of metal that they are, since they are not infused with love of the Infant Jesus, which is Mary's true hallmark.

I'd like to see people include in their homes a depiction of the Infant Jesus year around, and not only during the Christmas holiday when the Nativity scene is displayed. It is for humans' own good since they cannot recover love for their own innocent children without recalling that it was as an Infant that Jesus entered and lived day to day within the physical world of earth. This is also a great help for those who suffer from spiritual aridity and/or a darkness of the soul. Many of the great saints pondered and loved the memory of the Infant Jesus and gained great refreshment. People are so power and message oriented nowadays and that is like choking on dirty dust. Reconnecting with the love of the Infant Jesus is like rediscovering the goodness of life and regaining refreshment and restoration of the soul (along with one's own humanity).

I hope this helps.