COI5

COI 4

COI 3

COI 2

COI

Draft

Amended: The two kinds of people to consider most are a) those who have nothing to lose and b) those who have everything to lose. 

A person can do almost anything once they've  given up, because the have release from the binds of fear and consequence.
Feeling that they have nothing to lose may in fact be the greatest asset in obtaining their initial objective.
However if the focus on the objective is too intense we find a person that swings the other way...
A person will do almost anything when they feel everything is on the line because typically to them the end justifies the means and that's when people start making sense of the senseless.
It is a dangerous place to be.
That said however, the liberation that results from the freedom of certain fears is a distant second to the freedom that comes from the love which casts out all fear.

 d (-_-) b

It's OK to Give Up

You can do almost anything once you give up, because you release the binds of fear.

It may in fact be the greatest asset one acquired in obtaining that initial objective.

That said however, the liberation that results from the freedom of certain fears is a very distant second to the freedom that comes from the love which casts out all fear.

d (-_-) b

A distant memory 2

I also recall a person who seemed to care less about more, and more about less.

Oft is the occasion when I get a strange recollection that I used to care about some certain thing or another or about the thoughts and feelings of others in regard to my transparency.

Try as I might I can't recall, if ever I did, why I did.

Mostly though, I really just don't care about a lot of things. I've realized my mortality  along with my ever decreasing energy and resources and have come to see that most things don't really mean all that much to me in my existence, nor do I seem to mean that much to them and theirs.

The few things that matter, matter infinitely, but those things are very few.

Ironically, anyone who can't relate might judge me as cold and cynical...  perhaps but I don't think so since it is less about disregard as much as it is about a certain kind of giving up that in the end is quite liberating.

Then of course those of you that can relate all too well are probably thinking something like,"Who gives shit what you think?" and won't, for lack of time or energy, comment or contribute.

Honestly, I don't blame you.
I almost don't care either.

A distant memory 1

I have a hazey dream like remembrance of a person I think I used to be.

A more pleasant, carefree and blissfully ignorant me.

Turn the Page

It is an unfortunate and sad thing but we drift apart as we get older. One day we stop to consider that we barely know our friends anymore.
If we're honest we would have to admit that amymore, many of them we really only know as our memories of who they once were, which is probably not at all how currently they are.
It is a tragedy of the worst kind however if over the course of this time we come to find that we also barely know the people we sacrificed those relationships for, the very people living under the same roof.

The Limited Unlimited God

I do not believe that God is a God without limits. This is a cornerstone of my faith.

His limits are two-fold:
He has self imposed limits or those things which he has committed not to do by his own will, and the limit of being true to his own nature. Although he can and does do as he pleases, we must understand that his very nature dictates those things which he pleases to do.

If God could violate his own nature he would not then be an unchanging God. This is what I believe is meant when he claims to be so, he cannot and will not violate his own pure and righteous nature.

This does not however mean that he is unable or unwilling to redirect his actions provided that in doing so he is still true to his character. For example when prior to creating Adam, God exemplifying his triunal state, debates with himself about man's fate following his fall.

I also do not believe that God is subject to his own creation(s), perhaps more accurately he is not limited by them. They are his to with as he pleases except in those instances when he has willingly committed to being so for the benefit of them. For example again bestowing man with freewill in the choice to or not to pursue God. Though God does pursue man, man is free to reject God.

As I always say:
What can man actually give to God that God did not afford him in the first place. What is it that he would not, could not take from him in spite of his great desire for it?
Love.
That and that alone is man's to give.
.

I digress...

That said, another creation of God's to  which he is not limited is time. To be subject to time disallows the notion of an eternal nature since time inherently marks a beginning and an end.

If we believe that God is subject to time as being within it, rather than outside of it, we must then believe in things such as a literal 7 day creation story, or that he is not all knowing since he, just as we, have not yet experienced the future. He would therefore be limited in his ability to maintain order in his own creation for in so being he may change the course of events but to what end he could not know. We would have made God in our own image to believe it so.

All of this to ask the following: At what point did prayer become a means of petitioning God to not simply intervene but to heed our desires and undo what has already been done? And why would he?

There are many examples in the Bible where he, as many fathers do, has chosen to do indulge the requests of his children. There are many reasons why I as a father do so, but I am finite and limited just as my children are.  I simply have the benefit of experience which really only allows me to make more informed guesses about what may be best, nevertheless they are still guesses.

I don't believe that God guesses. I also believe that being outside of time and thus all knowing, God is able to undo that which has been done and so with certainty rather than informed guesses entertain the requests of his children.

The father is not subject to the will of his child except in those instances which he allows it to be so. That's just logical parenting. But God calls himself Father and we his children.

So why does God actually change his previously determined courses of action? 
It is an overwhelming concept to me. Especially when I consider the examples of prayer given to us by Jesus, setting forth a pattern which really only allows us to pray for God's will rather than the fulfillment of our desires, though we are allowed to express our desires... like not wanting to be crucified.

I must admit that a fair amount of this curiosity came from my reading of the Jew that felt so free to haggle with God about his conditions for saving Sodom and Gomorrah. Down and down he brought the price, from a seemingly certain destruction. But we know how that story ended as well I suppose.

I've really gotten off track but this in part my questioning about the relationship between God and man. The finite grasping to comprehend the infinite.

Good thing I'm using my phone,  this could have been much longer.

Solo Cristo Salva
db

Unsolicited Advice 1

Better to de-bait than to debate.
Better to be insightful than inciteful.
d (-_-) b

Bake for them two cakes

We don't know much about Jesus' life pre ministry and it seems to me that only the most significant  points of His life and lessons during His three year public ministry must be recorded.

So my question is this why, at his mother's request,  did Jesus turn water into wine for a wedding party that had been drinking for days and thus consumed all the wine provided by the party host?

There was clearly no physical need being met, and yet he produced wine of note able excellence so the party might continue.

Is there actually a lesson in this?