posted November 16, 2009 06:06 PM         

Does this mean we should not value, celebrate, and aspire to what is great; to noble things, like passion, courage, wisdom, honesty, depth, humor, heroism, persistence, and so on? Of course not. But we should be mindful of the limitations of the flesh, and endeavor to locate these noble things within what is small. For those who have eyes to see it, there is courage in a smile, and wisdom in a word. An apology can be an instance of heroism; not for everyone, and not all the time; but for some people, sometimes. Most importantly, we need to remember that love is paramount. All rules, laws, standards, and principles are secondary; they are provided only for the sake of love; and when permitted to take presidence over love, have already lost their only good.

All judgement which begins and ends in God, and is worthy of the name "judgement", begins and ends in a loving acceptance. Before the activities of men are regarded, regard is kept for the One who moves and directs the courses of all men's paths. We all "live and move and have our being" within a taut and perfectly woven web of causation, as it emanates from God. We are not without a subtle kind of freedom, but the extent to which we may stretch the web is negligible; no man rises very far above the station of his birth and blood but by the grace of God. Hence, it is not difficult to see how a task, which may be performed without difficulty by one person, may be a veritable triumph for another. Only slightly less clear, is how a behavior which may be a temptation, the performance of which would result in postive harm, for one man, may be a mitzvah when performed by another. Yet, notwithstanding distinctions like these, which are considerable, it should be understood that, before God, neither action expresses more than the subtlest twitch of freedom. The web is tightly woven, and we move as though by inches, though every inch is auspicious. The great is manifested in the small.

posted November 16, 2009 07:11 PM         

quote:

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God loves what is small, embraces what is fragile, and shelters what is weak

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posted November 16, 2009 09:48 PM         

Thanks, Dervish. I don't know if I can explain it to you, but the way I've tended to think about it is that the reality and nature of God has more to do with Truth, than with Fact, and I think the distinction between Truth and Fact is an important, if subtle, one. To a large extent, God is as we envision "Him". Whether we like it or not, we will form ideas, consciously or unconsciously, concerning the nature of ultimate reality, the universe, life, and/or "God". I believe we have a responsibility to work with this concept consciously, and to recognize that our ideas about ultimate reality, or God, are going to inform our attitudes and behaviors in the world. We may as well develop our relationship to "God" consciously, because its going to influence us either way; what we do not envision, we will project. I've chosen, or been persuaded, to envision God as a spirit of mercy. Mercy may be no more and no less an aspect of God than anything else under the sun, but I think envisioning a merciful God familiarizes me with the merciful aspect of God, so to speak, and also promotes a consciousness of mercy in the world. And I think that's a good thing.

posted November 18, 2009 12:18 PM         

quote:

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All judgment which begins and ends in God, and is worthy of the name "judgment", begins and ends in a loving acceptance.

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You touched my heart with this. Truly.

posted November 18, 2009 04:06 PM         

~ Will Shakespeare

If All Is True...

Then FOCUS is Everything;

It's not what we believe,
which distinguishes us,

but, what we regard.

posted November 19, 2009 12:13 PM         

_________________________________

Divine Heresy:
shattering concepts of God that limit the awareness of God

Heretical Faith:
shattering the awareness of God that limits the concepts of God

Renowned Kabbalist, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook(yes, "kook"), saw the challenge which free-thinkers posed to various conceptions of God as a positive phase in the development of religion. The following words are translated from the rabbi's writings. The essential thrust is that any conception of God is, in some sense, heretical, and ideas concerning God easily calcify into rigid forms of idol worship. He believed that the athiests were, by attempting to tear down these concepts, accomplishing something which the faithful had lost the ability to do for themselves; which is, to see the lack of fluidity in their conceptions about God, and how these concepts actually hinder the connection to the true source of God's wisdom, which is intuitive. The Rabbi wrote: "As the Messiah approaches, insolence will increase." The word translated here as "insolence" is hutspa, which may also be translated as "nerve" or "audacity".

The following appears in "The Essential Kabbalah",
under the heading of "Heretical Faith":

“The essence of faith is an awareness of the vastness of Infinity. Whatever conception of it enters the mind is an absolutely negligible speck in comparison to what should be conceived, adn what should be conceived is no less negligible compared to what it really is... Every definition of God leads to heresy; definition is spiritual idolatry. Even attributing mind and will to God, even attributing divinity itself, and the name "God" -- these, too, are definitions. Were it not for the subtle awareness that all these are just sparkling flashes of that which transcends definition -- these, too, would engender heresy... The greatest impediment to the human spirit results from the fact that the conception of God is fixed in a particular form, due to childish habit and imagination. This is a spark of the defect of idolatry, of which we must beware.

All the troubles of the world, especially spiritual troubles such as impatience, hopelessness, and despair, derive from the failure to see the grandeur of God clearly. It is natural for each individual creature to be humble in the presence of God, to nullify itself in the presence of the the whole -- all the more so in the presence of the source of all being, which one senses as infinitely beyond the whole. There is no sadness or depression in this act, but rather delight and a feeling of being uplifted, a sense of inner power. But when is it natural? When the grandeur of God is well portrayed in the soul, with clear awareness, beyond any notion of divine essence.

We avoid studying the true nature of the divine, and as a result, the concept of God has dimmed. The innermost point of the awareness of God has become so faint that the essence of God is conceived only as a stern power from whom you cannot escape, to whom you must subjugate yourself. If you submit to the service of God on this empty basis, you gradually lose your radiance by constricting your consciousness. The divine splendour is plucked from your soul.

"Every sensitive spirit feels compelled to discard such a conception of God. This denial is the heresy that paves the way for the Messiah, when the knowledge of God runs dry throughout the world. The crude complacency of imagining God in words and letters alone puts humanity to shame. Heresy arises as a pained outcry to liberate us from this strange, narrow pit, to raise us from the darkness of letters and platitudes to the light of thought and feeling. Such heresy eventually takes its stand in the center of morality. It has a temporary legitimacy, for it must consume the filthy froth clingling to mindless faith. The real purpose of heresy is to remove the particular forms from the thought of the essence of all life, the root of every single thought... removing the dross that separates us from genuine divine light. On the desolate ruins wrought by heresy, the sublime knowledge of God will build her temple. Utter heresy arrises to purify the air of the wicked, insolent filth of thinking about the essence of divinity -- an act of peeping that leads to idolatry. In itself this heresy is no better than what it attacks, but it is absolutely opposed to it, and out of the clash of these two opposites, humanity is aided immensely in approaching an enlightened awareness of God, which draws it toward temporal and eternal bliss...

"Pure belief in the oneness of God has been blurred by corporeality. From time to time, this confusion is exposed. Whenever a corporeal aspect falls away, it seems as if faith itself has fallen, but afterward it turns out that, in fact, faith has been clarified. As the human spirit verges on complete clarity of faith, the final subtle shell of corporeality falls away -- attributing existence to God. For truly, existence, however we define it, is immeasurably remote from God. The silhouette of this denial resembes heresy but when clarified is actually the highest level of faith. Then the human spirit becomes aware that the divine emanates existence and is itself beyond existence. What appeared to be heresy, now purified, is restored to purest faith. But this denial of existence in God -- this return to the source of all being, to the essential vibrancy of all existence -- requires exquisite insight. Each day one must trace it back to its authentic purity.

The Infinite transcends every particular content of faith."

~ Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook