A loving but familiar term for “Pastor” in German is “Seelenklempner” which translated means Soul Mechanic or Soul Plumber. It is even more commonly used for a Psychiatrist.

Thank you for your engagement.

I have read many of your “shares” or small essays and you are not bad.

The main beef I have with the established church is that they haven’t had a Nicene Council since 425 AD. I don’t believe God dictated the Bible to a bunch of scribes who were sitting on their air hose and then had a stroke. God’s spirit (the Christ – for us Christians) is still moving across the waters. The church is dying because it won’t open up the windows and let the Zeitgeist (Spirit of the Times) blow through the pews. Fear not!! God loves us. He has given us discernment and we will choose His good when it is clear to us we must make a choice sometimes every second when we are under attack. He has removed the sting of death. Let us join the modern day warriors who are defining the strongholds and pricipalities in the heavenlies and engage them confident that victory will be ours through JC.

What is the difference between revealed truth and truth revealed by the scientific method?

Could it be that Rush Limbaugh is a modern day prophet? Like those of old he is much maligned.

I suspect that the Brethren Church motto “Continuing the work of Christ” is a bit of hubris by a sect that withdrew from physical existence to the extent possible because of the devastation of the 30 years war. Certainly God is capable of finishing what he starts. One of the charges Christ left us is, “Feed my sheep”! On the physical plane capitalism is the most successful system for doing this but it is much maligned because it is, like Rush, counterintuitive and the demagogues don’t have enough power.

I am living quite close to Schlierbach, Germany where I understand Alex Mack was born. He then became a Pietistic charismatic leader and founded the Neutäufer Bewegung the New Baptizers Movement in Schwarzenau.

In the paradigm of Buddhism I am escaping the dimension expostulated by the first Noble Truth i.e. “humans suffer” = Biblical “veil of tears” = M. Scott Peck: Life is difficult.
The second Noble Truth asserts the cause of our suffering: Human desire!
The third N.T. is a message of hope: there is a solution. Here Christians have a ‘leg up’ e.g. “For God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish. All my desires can be fulfilled by Christ – God is enough – not too much or too little. We do not have to get bogged down with the Eight Fold Path but having received grace we try to live graciously by letting Jesus/Christ guide us.

I’m under the influence of Rick Warren now and he makes a good case that our purpose is to prepare for eternal life.

As you can read I have been busy …more questions than answers. Please do not take offense – none was meant.

I pray for you and yours. I pray for your health and prosperity in all dimensions. I pray that I be released from the bondage of self and place this prayer in His hands.

Sincerely,

Sylvan R. Ruark

I am intrigued by the way Zen names the problems inherent in naming God or Good or Evil. Yet, as a Christian, I live and work in a world where that language is commonplace, and commonly abused. So I struggle to find ways to think and help others think in new ways about them, without requiring an entirely new vocabulary.

Fortunately, Zen’s cool with the mystery of our arrival at this point on our journey. I guess that lets us pay more attention to just where we are. Would you care to share how you understand God’s purpose for your life?

When I think about the way things were then and then about the existential Here and Now I ask myself, „How did I get here?”

This question starts a chain of memories going but no solid answer.

Questions often lead to unanswerable puzzles. Unanswerable puzzles are called “Koans” in Zen Buddhism. They are used to teach a novitiate monk to achieve “Satori” or enlightenment. The classic example of a Koan is: “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” After the student sweats over his Koan long enough the Teacher helps him realize that rational thought will not solve it; only by making a leap of faith and accepting it for what it is does he achieve enlightenment and peace of mind or serenity. The sound of one hand clapping is the sound of one had clapping.

Einstein couldn’t solve the problems he was faced with by staying in the confines of Euclidean geometry. He had to develop the Theory of Relativity.

I cannot answer questions about Jesus but it gives me serenity to say, “God has a purpose for my life which the physical knowledge that I have can’t explain.” Armed with this mindset I face life with convinced belief. Have I escaped the bounds of one dimension and entered another?