Thursday, March 7, 2024

GUEST post from Tent of Nations, a Palestinian family's seeking, despite Israeli attacks, to live Jesus' moral Truth

FROM TENT OF NATIONS WEBSITE--
https://tentofnations.com/about-us/
The picture this morning shows "5 illegal Israeli Jewish settlements” who have confiscated more Palestinian land:-( that immorally and unjustly surround
a Christian Palestinian family’s land that has been in their family for over 100 years, since Ottoman times!

Here's part of an accounting of how the Israeli government’s oppression, persecution, confiscation, destruction of Palestinian orchards, etc. make it so difficult for Palestinians such as this Palestinian family near Bethlehem:-(

YET this Palestinian family seeks to love all people including their Jewish enemies with Jesus’ love.

FROM "History of the ToN"
“More than 100 years ago, many family members have worked at the ToN during the day and slept in caves at night. Olives, grapes, almonds, fruit trees, wheat and other crops are grown on the land.

"The farm (Daher’s Vineyard) was purchased more than one 100 years ago...At that time, the country was still under the Ottoman rule. During the British Mandate in Palestine from 1918 to 1948, the property was registered with the British in 1924 and 1925 under Bishara Daher Nassar’s name.

"The Arab Israeli war in 1948-49 (Arabic: Nakba = catastrophe), left more than 750,000 Arab Palestinians without a home. Daher’s son Bishara Nassar began a ministry in the Bethlehem area among the Palestinian Christian refugees by offering Bible Study and prayer sessions to empower them and to encourage them...

More Palestinian land "was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, and in the 1970s Israel started building Settlements... Bishara's "ToN is surrounded by 5 illegal Israeli Jewish settlements (Gush Etzion settlement bloc) that are growing to become cities. In 2018, a Torah school, also expanding rapidly, was built right next to the ToN.

--
"In 1991, Israeli authorities declared the Nassar family farm and surrounding area as" Israeli state land. Despite the facts that the " Nassar family owns all the original land registrations under the name of Bishara Nassar from 1924 and 1925 and has farmed the land throughout Ottoman, British, Jordanian and Israeli rule, which clearly proves that the Israeli government has no right to declare it as state land.

"Since then, the Nassar family has defended their land from demolition of farm buildings, water cisterns, tents, and outright expropriation in front of the Israeli Military Court and Supreme Courts.
--
More than 0.7 million Jewish settlers already have stolen and occupied Palestinian lands!
--
"Since then, the process has been repeatedly delayed by Israel, forcing the Nassars to restart the process several times. In 2019, the Nassars finally received confirmation that their application was complete...

"Despite repeated requests, the Nassars continue to wait to hear the results of this meeting. Between February and August 2021, nothing was heard from the Civil Administration, despite several requests from their attorney.
--
"As in many other cases in the past, the hearing was postponed and rescheduled for January 16, 2022.
--
"This date was again postponed to October 27, 2022, postponed to November 21, 2022 and then postponed again to January 16, 2023. "..the ToN continued to be the target of numerous attacks. On May 21, 2021, unknown persons set fire on the Nassar’s land and destroyed over 1000 trees, including hundreds of olive trees. On June 9, 2021, Israeli military vehicles and bulldozers entered their private property and cut down approximately 50 olive trees.

"On January 28, 2022, two of the Nassar’s brothers were attacked and seriously injured on the ToN by masked men. The pace of settlement expansion, the constant concern for the family’s physical safety, the construction of settler-only roads, and roadblocks and checkpoints have added to the isolation of the ToN and the sense of imminent threat.

"Countless times so far, the ToN has been attacked, thousands of trees have been destroyed, and damages of over €150,000 have been caused. The Nassar family has been threatened with their lives several times.

Yet this Christian Palestinian family despite "the continuous destructions and the attacks on their lives" attempts to live peaceful nonviolent way based on their Christian values and trusting in God’s justice."

Please relay this story to your Congress leaders and all others that you know so that the Palestinian side of the current horrific tragedy in Palestine-Israel gets heard!

In the LIGHT,
Daniel Wilcox

Sunday, March 3, 2024

To us an Infant is GIFTED--No to "abortion on demand"

What is a baby?

Don't ask many modern thinkers. According to them there are "abortion rights"! And the new human life in its mother's womb is a "parasite" only unwanted "tissue"!

Nothing could be further from the moral truth.

That doesn't mean that state governments or the federal government should make intolerant, oppressive rules like some rightwing politicians have been doing lately, ones that require a woman or girl who has been raped or molested to bring the rapist's infant to birth, etc.

There are also tragic biological accidents where preborn infants in the womb are missing their brain or so severely malformed that they will die shortly after birth or never be able to function.

I'm not speaking to any of those severe pregnancy tragedies.

And, in all cases of pregnancy, the mother (in consultation with her husband and doctor) IS the ONLY one who decides!
NOT strangers or the government.

The key point of this article is that generally conception, growth in the mother's womb, and birth are the wondrous creation of new human life!

Also, don't ask theologians or become entangled in illusions and delusions, long-winded metaphysical splits/spit;-) of religious thinking.

What if we didn't focus on abstract philosophical doctrine, but viewed each baby as a true gift.

Instead, most traditional churches claim the doctrine of Original Sin-- that all babies are born inherently guilty sinners. In contrast, New Thought religion declares all babies are born divine. What a philosophical split!

What does either doctrinal extreme have to do with the real living being who is birthed from her mother?
the creation of her and her husband's love-making?

Human beings at birth are neither divine nor depraved. A baby is a natural offspring of a primate species. But uniquely (probably unlike any other species of life, even dolphins and chimps) a human being has the potential to grow spiritually--to relate to her Creator, and to create, bring newness and improvements into existence since she has been created in the image of God.

What a wonder a baby is! I recently held my first grandchild. Experientially, the moment was blessed. How perfect her tiny living body. What a true gift from the Divine.

But a little later, when she got hungry, wow, what lungs and what a puckered face she suddenly developed!

I must admit, I don't think something called a "soul" enters a baby at conception, or for that matter anytime later.
At conception a new life begins with amazing characteristics from the genes of her/his ancestors. At conception, the life appears to have no awareness. But brain wave activity begins early in the womb.

Even after birth, however, a baby is sort of an eating and pooping blob;-) She has awareness, but probably not much except she wants to be fed, and fed now!

Then gradually her awareness grows month after month. Finally she becomes self-conscious. Then later her sense of conscience develops--what is morally good, true, and just.

Finally, an awareness of her finiteness and the mystery of existence comes into her consciousness.

No, a baby doesn’t come into the world a walking, talking, mentally active philosopher/theologian/moralist/saint.

On the contrary she is a living breathing consciousness at the most simple level.

As she grows in the next 6 to 7 years in her consciousness, self-awareness, and her moral conscience develops with a sense of ought, then she will become a moral and spiritual individual who acts. Sometimes she will fail, sometimes "miss the mark."

But even then she is still an innocent child struggling to function and to understand and to fulfill needs and desires and hopes, and the demands of the big people in her life.

Is not this the stage that Jesus referred to when he said those who enter the Kingdom of God must do so as a little child? And where he said to people to let little children come to him for of such is the Kingdom?

And this was my own personal experience—when so young. I don’t remember being a sinful-driven child that fundamentalist Christians claim all babies and small children are.

Instead, as far back as I can remember, I had very deep desires to do good, to be good, to know God and to love the Light. And I had a lot of childlike wonder questions about God, life, other...always asking why about everything:-)
Of course the slither of wrong thought, wrong action, wrong living does come to us all, but not at conception or birth!

A child's awareness will grow if she is introduced to God and is shown her responsibility to share, to think of others and their needs, even though she still doesn’t voluntarily give outwardly if it is to her own privation.

Finally, the her moral consciousness kicks in mid-childhood. At each given moment, there will be a tussle between her babyhood past (all spontaneous need and desire) and her adulthood future (potentially all share, give, and bliss).

At that moment by moment juncture—that possibility moment--she must make continual moral, spiritual decisions. She is finite and so will make mistakes and fail. She is learning in her emotions, her mind, her conscience, and her body as she moves through time. Her choices are a much more complicated version of the way she learned to walk and to talk three years earlier--by trial and error.

But now a new possibility rears its ugly or saintly head. If she doesn’t continue to develop holistically, widening outwardly her care, her helpfulness, her compassion, then she slows, stalls, or even regresses backward to a total need/want level.
However, since she isn’t an infant but has the outer body and will and growing mental ability of a 6 or 7 year old, her regression hurts herself and other persons.

To try and fulfill life as a growing child, by returning to the barely conscious self-focused life of an infant actually distorts life and will bring harm to others to varying degrees.

Continued growing, in contrast, takes her through new stages of human development and new challenges. Each developmental advance brings new ethical and spiritual choices—either good or bad, advancing or regressing or a combination of both.

As anyone knows, when climbing a mountain, the higher one goes the more dangerous the climb becomes—not because the action of climbing mountains is evil, or because individuals who climb mountains are depraved sinful beings, but because the very nature of going "higher" also offers more options of choosing. Some of the ways are wrong, even could cause one to plummet to the bottom. Some of the ways are right, and lead toward the peak.

If a baby cries when she hungry that doesn’t show she is sinning.

On the contrary that is how an infant acts to get the attention she needs to survive. If a 4-year-old child throws a tantrum and takes her little brother’s bottle because she thinks she isn’t getting enough attention from her parents, while her action is wrong and needs to be corrected, she shouldn't be told she is a sinner. She hasn’t developed enough in her conscious awareness and ethical conscience to make altruistic decisions.

However, if at 8, she hides her little brother’s medicine, because she wants all the attention instead, this is morally wrong because by then her mental, moral conscience has developed enough to know that her action isn't the right way to get attention. And, besides, by this point she should be widening her compassion and care for others out beyond her own needs and desires.

If at 18, she steals her younger sister’s boyfriend to build up her own ego, deep wrong has occurred. By 22 if she joins with many of her countrymen and demonizes others and distant people in another country and lies, steals, and joins in the slaughter of those enemies, we do have actions of evil,
just as if in contrast,
she joins an outreach organization such as Habitat for Humanity or World Vision and sacrifices her time, talent, and money and inspires her younger sister to do so as well, we have actions of goodness.

Then the two sisters think of a way to get other people in their neighborhood, school, and city to get involved. One such inspired girl, about 13 years of age, raised thousands of dollars for starving, hurting people in a far off country.

See how the moral growth of human beings happens. A human being is in process from simple surviving to becoming the acting being of moral truth.

Reminds me of several of Jesus’ moral parables...

Go and do thou likewise...please stop talking about babies being unwanted "parasites" or "depraved sinners..."

“Holy infant so tender and mild*,” except when she cries at 3 a.m. and the parents haven’t slept through the night for weeks;-)

In the LIGHT,

Dan Wilcox


Tuesday, February 20, 2024

when hopes and goals and...fail, how to LIVE

I have never been satisfied with the usual, the superficial, even the partial good, not even brief moments of the best, but have always yearned for the unseen deep, the transcendent--
have been an idealist, an individual who always seeks beyond this current tragic mess to the wondrous,
the sublime,
the essential--
to God,
True Ultimate Reality.

And as I share below, only a few wondrous times, I have been overwhelmed me with its Presence far beyond my wildest hopes, ideals and dreams.

HOWEVER,
as already said,
so much of my life has been lived and continually needs to be lived in
(and I suppose most other people's lives) the humdrum,
the routine,
the repetitious,
the mediocre,
the dull,
the boring --yes, the drudgery and sludge of the average day.

And now after a severe stroke of bad luck in the spine, I am mostly confined to the lonely rooms of our house, often not even capable of walker-hobbling out to the mail box.
Even on a day or so a week, when I am doing a bit better, and walker-out, seldom are there any neighbors out and
about.
Not since COVID does anyone hang out talking, while their kids bike and play around the cul-de-sac, etc.
Yet I long for, like the Jewish Psalmist says, deeply thirst for the wondrous and the true and the good and the
caring.

Recently, I came across an insight that helped me in my daily quandary; changed my thoughts of communion with the Transcendent, since so often I am disappointed with how shallow, even dry, my experiences seem on any given day or night, especially on days taken up with the hectic or the tragic.

When the spiritual insight reached me in the deepest place, the vital truth came anew--
friendship with the Light is MORAL ACTION!
not primarily feeling
or experience.
(And not 'creedal' beliefs
like most humans think).

WHAT COUNTS ISN'T memory, desire, hope--BUT DOING in each moment the morally right act.

Since I am an artist though through and through (one huge nerve ending;-),
this focus is difficult.
I want to feel, feel, feel...
Even a speculative-sci-fi novel by me was titled, The Feeling of the Earth.

And I do hope to experience God again and again, but for now I know more deeply what most counts is TO ACT
for the ideal,
for the true,
for the transcendent.

That's Truth come down.


HOPEFULLY, we will sometimes also experience the Infinite-Transcendent to an overwhelming degree--

one incredible time I did--

Outside the Limit

Working the thursday graveyard shift
At 7-11, I stock cold shelves of 'cours'
Then write a college essay on dreiser
Of how all is thin surface, all negation;

But alert in the night, I muse in the stillness
While beyond the glass, the parking lot lies
Vacant, lit by the neon signs and street lights--
When so unexpected my mind transports.

I rise outside of self, see far beyondness,
Perceive myself sitting between the rows,
Observe the little ego in the skin and skull
My bodied self sitting with the staid cans and jars.

But now awash drowned in awe, in the Personal
Luminousness aware beyond words vivid bliss
Blessed all encompassing exalting surpassing
Transcendent Deep Presence.



First pub. in Flutter Poetry Journal


May you find the LIGHT in your daily giving actions and at least once in an overwhelming Sublime experience.

In the Light,

Dan


Thursday, February 15, 2024

Unusual Place where Millions of Characters from Literature Exist and Interact

Somewhere, characters from countless selections of literature and media exist and interact.

Making educated guesses based upon your chosen individuals from novels, movies, etc., take us on a mystery tour of their conversations, actions, and views.

To write your adventure, assume your main character's 1st-person point-of-view, though any other point-of-view would also be fine. (Mention each title in brackets or parentheses).

Place the interacting characters in a particular novel or real-life setting.

Another fascinating possibility is to have them talk and interact with actual famous individuals of human history or the present.

For instance, Huck Finn (Mark Twain's novel) and Wolf Larsen (Jack London's The Sea Wolf) meet John Proctor (the real individual of history or the fictional character in Arthur Miller's The Crucible) one of the falsely accused at the Salem Witchcraft Trials.

Playing around with time and space is a possible option, too.

What if Europeans didn't discover the Americas?!

Or what happens if a current American political leader shows up in 1859 and meets Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara (Margaret Mitchel's Gone with the Wind)?

The possibilities in this imaginative literary lounge are limitless:-)


In the Light,

-Dan Wilcox


Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Friend Brinton’s insightful study of the Quaker Movement in the last 300 years, how the Society has 4 different emphases

Currently, in the U.S. and many other nations (and in various ideological or religious movements in history), most humans seem given to extremes and fragmentation.
This leaves us often divisive, unbalanced, and distorted in our quest for truth.

As Howard H. Brinton insightfully explains in Friends for 300 Years this divisiveness and fragmentation even happens to good renewal movements such as the Friends, who came into being for the very purpose of regaining wholistic truth and avoiding all destructive tendencies of human history.

"Through the three centuries of Quaker history the four primary elements present in all religion have at different times exerted their influence in varying degrees."
-Brinton

Mystic Inner Life
Evangel Outreach
Social Justice
Rationalism

From 1650 to about 1750, mysticism and evangel outreach were in balance in the group as a whole though some individuals tended to stress one or the other.

But then mysticism and evangelicalism became a major conflict, each pressing the other to bad extremes among Quakers as a whole.

By the 1800’s, Quietism, (an excessive focus on mysticism—the inner life) became dominant, and the early expressive evangel preaching and sharing of truth with those outside of the society greatly receded.

Instead, the Friends became “a peculiar society” which besides their “inner life” focused on exclusive boundaries and rigid rules.
Exactly the Opposite of the Early Friends who emphasized the CENTER, not exclusion and conformity to outward rules and dress.

During the latter half of the 20th century and the 1st 23 years of the 21st, rationalism and social justice took over and have assumed greater prominence,
(except for a few fundamentalist Friends who have abandoned the key points of the Society and, instead, inserted-asserted Reformed theology, the exact opposite of ALL that Quakerism means)!

Brinton:
"The best type of religion is one in which the mystical, the evangelical, the rational and the social are so related that each exercises a restraint on the others. Too exclusive an emphasis on mysticism results in a religion which is individualistic, subjective and vague."

Too dominant an evangelicalism results in religion which is authoritarian, creedal and external; too great an emphasis on rationalism results in a cold, intellectual religion which appeals only to the few.

Too engrossing a devotion to the social justice results in a religion which, in improving the outer environment, ignores serious defects of the inner life which cause the outer disorders.

Brinton also goes on to warn against "vitalism which worships the life-force in its biological sense" which has very little in common with the central message of the Early Friends.

My response to Brinton's excellent analysis: About the only point where I disagree with Brinton is when he says the 4 qualities "each exercise a restraint on the others."

No--and that sounds too negative--it is rather that when Most bathed in the Light, the 4 parts of true transcendental reality relate/commune, giving a redeeming uplifting of each other and are the Seed of true moral and spiritual becoming.

Read Friends for 300 Years (or the updated version, Friends for 350 Years) and be not only intellectually enlightened, but raised up in the LIGHT!
Friend on the edge, Daniel


Tuesday, January 30, 2024

AWAKE to SEEK

Awake to Seek


Wake
Up and suit yourself,

Into the floundering pattern-mudded
Consciousness of this our finite skin---

Into a being 'berthed' bemused, beseemed morning
So like the proverbial hog, boar or sow of the round ring

Who as life's suitors get caught by our snouted 'knows;'
Beshrewed, besotted, bemired so we instinctively grunt,

Tempted by our sensual, careening awareness
Or our dutiful grindstoned routine,

We press our life's suit 'til evening
Or wallow down

To our suited Wake.


1st pub. in Moria Poetry



--

in the time of Darkness

to commune with the Transcendently Real
in the midst of our utter loss

in the darkened night of alone
to contemplate despite a soon demise,

to live in the Infinite's silence
deafens our wayward heart and leaves

our confused mind bereft;
the Divine answers no pleas

our anguished request left--
Selah

to hope against midnight's despair
to trust in all that is blessedly Fair,

so Beautiful, Right, Good and Just
despite our world history of horror

for naught, and absurd;
we seek

a slight glimmer
of the billion-lighted

meaning shimmering briefly
in our finite reason and creative awareness,

before the cosmos spun into place,
eternally ever always

Ultimate
Becoming.

Selah



In the Light,

Dan Wilcox