109 is a big number today

I was wearing my woven yucca wide-rim hat just to make a quick dash out to the thermometer that is nailed to the honey mesquite, and it read 109 in the shade of that tree. That was enough outdoors for me. Then back inside to the drone of the swamp cooler and the fictional world of Yann Martel's "Life of Pi." I would guess the most popular reading material in the world is fiction, for the novel fascinates most of us, with the better ones creating imaginary worlds that for hours on end we are pulled into, yet this or that distraction can bring us back to the reality of the moment and the magic is gone. For me it was replaced with another magical moment, for Bro. Simon came to show me a copy of Marc Chagall's "White Crucifixion" which I must admit had me mesmerized, for it has been awhile since I have really studied and felt a painting by Chagall. And what a master of fantasy he is, his images evoke wonders beyond what words can describe. We decided to hang the reproduction in the dining room beside a reproduction of van Gogh's "Olive Trees." I suppose saying they are reproductions means that you may have thought they the originals? Today the only original is atop my head, an original Bro. Clarence woven yucca fiber hat.

Let it be

Just a bit ago I took a lantern outside and headed for the unfinished labyrinth. Still hot in the desert darkness, yet the canopy of stars lit my every glance upwards, and being alone I found myself humming, then singing that old Beatle tune, "Let it Be.” And isn't it interesting that a piano was playing inside my head. Soon I found myself laying in the center of the labyrinth, that area somewhat complete, complete enough that I had a rather flat stone for a pillow, and above I took in the universe. Instead of rhapsodizing about the stars, I simply chewed on some beef jerky that Bro. Simon made last week. Very spicy. Then I thought of everything that seems to be, yet is completely different. Bro. Juniper brought back some newspapers from his trip to Barstow and the Los Angeles Times had a story on memory that I found interesting. A scientist attempting to figure out exactly how memory works. And then to zoom in and watch memory working on slices of rat's brain. And it comes down to very tiny bits of this and that inside the brain. Of course I want them to find a grand ballroom, with huge movie screen, sound system, something for smells, and in the middle MY reclining chair. But no, all the senses send their various signals and before entering the brain, they are converted to electrochemical codes that make their way to the part of the brain that knows how to decode the codes. And then what? Here I was, looking straight up, the photons of countless stars that have been traveling for countless years, finally reach Earth and finally reach my opened eyes and are focused and hit the retina and ... and in the grand ballroom that I imagine, I see the Milky Way. See? Not only is my brain decoding the codes send to it, but is creating this image of the Milky Way, not in my head, but countless light years above my head! I think what I see is actually up there! When I know it is actually inside here! Inside my brain. My whole life is inside my head! But that brain is busy projecting, tossing out before my nose, the whole recreated world that was made from bits and pieces of codes inside my noggin. I think Bro. Simon used too much cayenne, for my tongue was burning ... or was it? I thought it was, but really I know that the burning is taking place deep inside my brain, along with images of countless stars, and a piano with Paul McCartney playing “Let It Be” just for me.

We foregathered and captured star light

Late last evening a few of us were gathered around the dining table discussing some recent celestial observations, last week found some of us watching 'shooting stars' in the wee hours, and last night Bro. Clarence set up his telescope and we had a grand time viewing that which is beyond even our imagination. Can you imagine eyes bombarded with photons that have been traveling through space for countless light-years from distant stars? Can you imagine being touched by a star? Yet we were, really touched, by real photons -- light -- star light captured by our open eyes! The following is what I remember of our post-stargazing dining table discussion.

I think the times are a changing. The religions or belief systems that refuse to awaken to how science works and the 'truths' discovered by the scientific method will go the way of the Dodo (I believe). Truth trumps all. I personally believe in a Creator of ALL, and for me to dismiss the scientific method in its discovery of truths, would be for me to misunderstand and deny the grand Truth. Yet I do not confuse science with scientist, or the practitioners of science, for the irony is that truths revealed care not who reveal them, be they someone moral, amoral, or immoral. Today computers are discovering truths. Truth cares not that a machine reveals a bit more to change some of the unknown into the known. Now we all can have a knapsack filled with truths, truths that our ancestors never imagined, so here we are, the load upon our backs, will we find happiness easier to come by, or kindness towards others easier, or empathy for those hurting around us, an empathy that translates into actions, actions to make wrongs right? Science gives us this knapsack filled with tools, but can we be wise using them when it becomes so easy to exploit the entire earth for the sake of our short-lived comfort? Science can't answer these ultimate questions of human motives, for science doesn't care. Gratefully many scientist do care, but if as some wish for the future a world without religion, then I wonder, will any then be left that remember what caring actually means?

Rambling on a hot night in the Mojave

Exploiting potentiality with imagination to nurture empathy.

I view all life infused, if you will, with potential, much of the inorganic too is infused with potential, potential in that elements can and will combine to create compounds, in physics we postulate that fundamental matter particles (quarks) combine to create protons, neutrons and hadrons. This 'potential' seems to be the given in the cosmos, we don't see a Big Bang exploding with a bunch of 'somethings' that forever remain separate 'somethings', but we do see a bunch of 'somethings' interacting, combining, mutating, structuring, building upon one another to create new 'somethings' that never existed before (or so we think). Darwinian Evolution is all about potential. When you awake in the morning, once you open your eyes the world bursts forth into potential. We even speak of 'latent potential' to refer to that which does not presently exist. So, 'exploiting potentiality' means mindfully being aware of your own state of potential. And what about imagination? Is it really so uniquely human? I think so. To imagine what does not exist as if it did exist and further to exploit your potential to make that imagination a reality. Who else can claim that? Yes, chimps and dogs can be clever, but don't mistake cleverness for imagination -- big imagination. And finally empathy. We can read, if you will, another's feelings and emotional state and physical situation, and somehow transferring their state of being to oneself, it becomes the proverbial walking two moons in your neighbor's moccasins before passing judgment.

The formula

Exploiting potentiality with imagination to nurture empathy. That puts us at the intersection of the cross. From there all things are possible.

Do something about it

Bro. Clarence filled me in on a bit of the mystery of Cargo Pants Man. After meeting up with him today, Bro. Clarence showed him to the petroglyphs, and during their stroll to the site Bro. Clarence asked if he could turn on his tiny recorder, and for the remainder of the hike they discussed the early Mojave Indians and how these ancient people considered the dream world as real and perhaps even more important than the physical world. Dreams gave them power and knowledge. It was then that our visitor told of his early betrayal by the church. I won't go into details, for I respect the special relationship between the two men as they both sought to understand through reason an ancient world of dreams and visions as well as the messiness of their own worlds. I transcribed the following (after getting an okay), here our visiting friend speaks of betrayal.

"The worst disapointment in life is when one discovers that someone that one holds special or in high esteem proves to be far less than honorable. And when that person also holds a position of family or community trust, then disappointment is too mild a reaction, normally one is disgusted and further, wants to make things right and hold that person accountable for their breaking of the trust. Trust is fragile yet necessary for we as humans to maintain community, be it a community of two or two million, as well trust granted and received maintains our sanity. Without trust one finds oneself in a very scary world, and then the only option is retreat, which is often the state of being for those homeless. Yes, the human condition is far too often messy, and we all find ways to deal with this messiness, often it is to ignore it, much harder is to attempt to understand it, and much much harder is to do something about it."

Uncommon wisdom

Last night I told Bro. Clarence about my encounter with Cargo Pants Man (for some reason he didn't want to give his name, so as a bit of jest I called him Cargo Pants Man, and he quickly replied he liked his new nickname). Because of Bro. Clarence's science background, he said he will seek out the anthropologist today in hopes of sharing a discovery, some petroglyphs that he believes were made by the early Mojave Indians. I shared from my notebook with Bro. Clarence and he was particularly intrigued with this quote from Cargo Pants Man:

"I do think humanity lost its sense of community when we left tribalism, then each felt very personally the decisions of each and every other member of the tribe, so I find it no mystery that today war can be 'played out' in far away places, yet 'we' go about our own business in our own microcosm, when we should, as a society/community, all feel personally the decisions of those we elect to lord over us. Iraq War? We should have the military draft, and not just draft the youth, but draft across the board, everyone gets an equal chance to go to war. You have issues about 'fighting', well I would allow you to serve your time as a prison guard in any one of the many prisons. Or pull neighborhood watch in the inner cities. All kinds of honest work that would transform us all, for the better, to be citizens of a society/community that would take care in making decisions, for each decision would have realtime and personal consequences."

Cargo pants man

Dawn split heaven from earth this morning as a long-shadowed figure walked toward me silhouetted by the rising sun -- cargo pants man greeted me with a smile -- he with knapsack filled with tools to record the mysteries of the prehistoric desert peoples he told me of -- a laptop notebook to capture thoughts, a Nikon to record burnt fire rings left by Paleo Indians and maybe a Clovis Point would be the jackpot for cargo pants man -- in his quest to imagine rituals and ceremonies that excited his speech in a mysterious sort of way -- his excitement suddenly turned to sobriety when I told of my quest to imagine this fellow called Jesus, he too from a desert clime -- seated atop large boulders he shared tales of Anasazi and Hohokam and Mogollon and I shared my tuna sandwich when he unexpectedly cracked a smile when I imagined Jesus wearing a pair of cargo pants just like those of cargo pants man.

Treasures

Like pirates,
farmers bury
treasures in the earth
seed,
sprout,
flower,
fruit,
tomato
sauce
over
spaghetti

100, a really hot number

It has cooled a bit, the mercury hovering around 100 Fahrenheit. I like Fahrenheit, the scale of measurement of temperature that is, for I don't know much about Gabriel Fahrenheit, except for what Bro. Clarence told me this evening. It was Fahrenheit who came up with the glass tube filled with mercury, for the predictable expansion of mercury made for an accurate thermometer. It was 1714 when Fahrenheit came up with the scale for his mercury thermometer, with 32 as the freezing point of water and 212 at the boiling point. And when someone says the mercury is hovering around 100, I know exactly what that means. 100 is a nice, big, and hot number. I mean, 37.7C just isn't a very telling number, no impact, no hotness to it at all.

And later I took some notes after a discussion around the dining table. With Bro. Clarence back, it seems science is the topic of the day, or how science relates to the human condition, or put another way, as a person of faith, how do I react to the modern world where science, or I should say the byproducts of science, have consumed those who find themselves in the middle of modernity. So forgive me if you've heard much of this before.

Science is amoral, the scientist can be moral, amoral, immoral. Science itself does not question the morals of the scientist. Of course society attempts to hold the scientist to whatever ethics and morals that they deem right. The question becomes, what is "right"? Science gives an answer that is relative to each and ever entity, what is "right" for the gazelle is "wrong" for the lion. "Rightness" for the gazelle is survival, "rightness" for the lion is eating the gazelle, for survival.

" I'm uncertain whether or not science embraces any particular economic or political system. I'd be curious for you to elaborate."

Obviously the R&D of any company is where you will find scientist doing scientific things, so no question about science and business working hand in hand, that's what modern economics is all about, invention for fun and profit and a more comfortable life for all. Right? Without this economic system that embraces science, scientist would be out chopping wood and milking cows, and so would everyone else, for without scientist getting paid to discover and invent and make things that others can use, then the scientist is not a working member of the tribe, somewhat like the shaman, or priest. Now what about the university, that world apart from the messiness of the business world, how about the sanctity of the research lab? Surprise, surprise, research labs are funded, for the most part, by government and business. The "military-industrial complex" that Ike warned about is what helps fund many university research labs today.

"In the 20th century, a variety of sources, from government organizations to military funding to patent profits to corporate sponsorship to private philanthropies, have shaped scientific research."

So I would say that amoral science "embraces" anyone that does it. The religious (scientist and nonscientist) can attempt to add morality to the mix. The non-religious scientist can attempt to add his or her own personal morality to the mix. But sometimes morality is left by the wayside. Thomas Edison attempted to demonstrate the safety of DC electricity (and corner the market) by electrocuting animals using Tesla's AC electricity as promoted by his rival George Westinghouse. In NYC he electrocuted "Topsy" the elephant to prove his point that his competitor's brand of electricity was dangerous. But in the end, "science" doesn't care, for science is merely a tool for discovering truths -- one truth is AC electricity can kill an elephant. Science, an amoral tool in an amoral universe.

Was he sad too?

Sometimes I wonder ... when the unholy are the holy and the holy are the unholy ... and all the others that are the neither nor ... and this morning I saw a rattlesnake with a lump in its throat.

And a bit more ...

Sometimes (often?) appearance fools me, especially when folks camouflage their true appearance with the dress or guise of what they want to be, or think they be, or what they think others think them to be, yet hidden within is often something quite differen, perhaps undiscovered to the very person that confuses others with their persona. Especially disturbing are those that we think are spiritually in a right place, yet we discover they are not. As for the Mojave rattlesnake, a lump in our throat may indicate deep feelings and mind halting our speech for the moment (wise mind!), but for the rattlesnake that I stumbled upon, and by the size of the lump in the throat, I would guess a rabbit. A whole rabbit swallowed! Sometimes the dangerous do dangerous things, especially to the meek and timid -- the rabbits.

The purity paradox

The taste of water, of pure water, I recall years ago when in a remote area of Asia some do good folks found the perfect village to bless with a new water system, and after drilling a well and installing an electric pump, a great ceremony was set for the official handing over to the villagers of the modern pump and of course, pure water. As the folks gathered around and were handed overflowing glasses filled with sparkling water, they sipped cautiously while other drank, but an elder of the village sniffed at his water-filled glass, then finally took a gulp and gulped again and again, and each time seemingly more puzzled than before, then finally he set the empty glass down, spoke a few words, shook his head, then walked away. The do good folks asked what did the old man say, and the translator said, "No taste! No taste! No taste!"

First Things First

Things have been slow at the monastery, slow as in trying to conserve energy when the blazing sun tries its hardest to steal any and all water above, below, outside, and inside our body and soul. Bro. Sedwick has banned all plastic water bottles, so I use my old Western canteen, its striped blanket covering now faded, and the water now always with an aluminum tang to it. All progress on the labyrinth has halted, for most of us have traded day for night, now I awake at midnight to begin my day, reading by lantern light until bugs and moths drive me away. So far none of the swamp coolers have broken down. Bro. Juniper returned from Barstow with a store of vegetables, and in the bed of the pickup was a mound of black lava rocks. He said he collected the volcanic rocks near the Amboy Crater and plans to use them to line the outer circle of the labyrinth. After some quick calculations in the sand, Bro. Clarence estimates we will need eleven more loads to complete the circumference. With the price of gasoline, Bro. Sedwick advised Bro. Juniper to rethink his plan.
Right now by lantern light I'm pondering the first and greatest commandment.

Deuteronomy 6:4 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might."

Deuteronomy 10:12 "And now, Israel, what doth the LORD thy God require of thee, but to fear the LORD thy God, to walk in all his ways, and to love him, and to serve the LORD thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul, To keep the commandments of the LORD, and his statutes, which I command thee this day for thy good?"

Matthew22:35-40: "Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Mark 12:28-31: "And one of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together, and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? And Jesus answered him, The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these."

Luke 10:25-28 "And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live."

So how does one "love" God? The New Testament Greek word for "love" in Matthew22:35-40, Mark 12:28-31, and Luke 10:25-28 is a translation of the Greek verb "agapao." Now agapao is an action in that the subject has genuine affection towards an object. So now it all comes down to, what is it that we have genuine affection toward, first and foremost? That something that we put first in our lives, that we agapao? In English "love" can be anything from "I love my cat" "I love mocha almond fudge ice cream" "I love Bugs Bunny cartoons" to "I love God." Without modifiers, love is certainly nebulous. So sticking with the demanding Greek agapao, can we answer what is first and foremost in our lives? Is it ourselves? Others? Material things? Pleasure? Power? Or a thousand other things? And all these somethings can be important in different ways, in fact a bit of all of them is what makes us human. I find mocha almond fudge ice cream isn't bad at all! But that isn't the question. The question is what comes first. What is it that we direct our genuine feelings and emotions and fondness towards? First and foremost? And Jesus adds, what should come second.

On second thought ...

I find contentment in science, yet have reservations when it comes to the scientist. I suppose some have the opposite feelings, or sort of, warm or luke warm feelings toward a theologian, yet coldness toward their theology.

My reservations are with the myth that science is purely objective, and therefore when a scientist speaks, the assumption (or myth) too is communicated to the unscientific audience. And as William James wrote, "I have to forge every sentence in the teeth of irreducible and stubborn facts." Too often stubborn facts are all that separates science from the scientist. In the end we are all human, exchanging our facts and our myths with one another in an attempt to tease out truths. But without facts together with myths, then I fear that life would lose much of it's spice.

“Myth is the hidden part of every story, the buried part, the region that is still unexplored because there are as yet no words to enable us to get there. Myth is nourished by silence as well as by words.”
-- Italo Calvino

Thanking the scientist

If "science is the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding" (as E.O. Wilson says), then what does that make the scientist? A seeker of truth(s)? And of course that is right, or at least it should be. And when truths are discovered by the scientist, then one would think that the scientist would feel compelled to broadcast the "rightness" of the discovery, or to spread the good news of another discovered truth, another truth to be added to the text of truths, the book of science. For truth and the revealing of truth should be in the interest of all intelligent beings. Perhaps the only difference between the scientist that believes not in a Creator and myself is that I see a Creator behind all that scientist can verify as truths, whereas they see nothing behind, or are unwilling to commit themselves until verifiable evidence is found of a Creator. They continue to search and I continue to watch, so I thank the scientist whenever they discover another truth of nature, another truth that for me makes life such a wonderous gift from God. But I wonder, who do they give thanks to?

The Shema

Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:

And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.

And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart:

And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.

And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.

And thou shalt write them upon the posts of thy house, and on thy gates.

Deuteronomy 6:4-9

Addendum:

The Shema is recited in the morning and evening, on rising to the new day one recites, or pledges, standing, vertically, and in the evening, upon placing oneself on the horizontal, at the end of day, before departing the wakeful world, one’s last words are again “… LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might …”

The vertical and the horizontal, the cross of life, and I suddenly find it is I?

with all your mind

After fitting a few mores stones atop the desert floor last evening, I found myself alone, for the others had already retreated to the dining room, so I found what I believe will be the exact center of what will be the completed labyrinth and laid down and gazed up as the night sky quickly chased the final bits of twilight away, then the stars came out. Then I pulled out a tiny Sony Memory Stick Voice Recorder, Bro. Clarence used it on his recent trip to New Mexico and assured me that it will hold 3 hours of dictation. So here I am, blinking as the Milky Way slowly makes its appearance, and I holding this device and attempting to disregard it and just talk to the stars, talk to the night, and talk to God with the hope that my tongue will be stilled if my thoughts are unworthy.

Darkness fills in the spaces between the stars.

And darkness is the rule, and not the exception in the universe that we find ourselves, more so when we can only come up with the word "dark matter" and "dark energy" to describe the over 90% of the unknown in the universe (some physicist estimate that dark energy makes up 75 percent of the universe and dark matter accounts for another 23 percent, leaving ordinary matter and energy with 2 percent) ... so the unknown is what I gaze at in this night sky, I see the unknown, because it nicely fills in the spaces around the twinkling stars, I see the unknown by inference, or in other words, inside the darkness of my skull, inside the darkness of the tissues of my brain, I know darkness not by sensing, but by thought. This same brain creates light or the appearance of light within its dark clustering of brain tissue, and it is this reconstructed appearance that shapes the outer world with the help of my eyes. Of course the eyes only provide data for the brain to use in reconstructing this outer world.

I just saw a shooting star.

Mind, soul, religion, are all concepts that our brains have constructed, and with well over 90% of everything still in the category of unknown, I live within these concepts, and as a child and youth lived within the concepts as defined by others, but as I collect more time in my being, I slowly exchange the definitions of others for what my own brain now seems to be figuring out.

What about the heart?

In Deuteronomy 6:5 is the commandment "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might." Yet Jesus adds "with all your mind." In ancient Hebrew thought the heart was not merely a pump, but a center of mind and will. But Jesus added the Greek context in which the mind inside your brain, rather than inside your heart, defines personal being. Yet heart is not dropped from the commandment, perhaps the mind knows full well that without the heart, it doesn't exist.

What about the unknown?

Are the electrochemical processes within my skull the totality of my thinking (along with "hard" input from the senses), or does some of that 90-plus percentage of unknown, that something outside matter, does it figure in the mix? What about quantum entanglement or the scores of other ideas that physicists ponder over. Nobody knows in a scientific sense if some of the unknowns interact with my brain. As I look to the stars I can imagine the Creator's hands in this unknown mix. Could the unknowns be part of a kind of blueprint, a blueprint that guides all matter to exploit its potential, a potential built into every particle? Such thoughts are just that, thoughts. So for now I have to make do with what I have and that means that I must live life without the grand blueprint, and neither the theologian nor the scientist can claim to have it, yet everyone things they do. And those scientists who study evolution yet believe not in a Creator, they work to construct a blueprint that never was, for evolution by happenstance could not have a blueprint, so they attempt to reconstruct the past events and thereby construct a history, and this history provides for them evidence that everything can simply be simply by happenstance. But what about the unknown? For me total happenstance just doesn't make sense. All of everything that I've been a part of, the entire universe, makes my mind point like the needle in a compass toward a Creator, a Creator I can imagine outside the universe, outside in respect to not being governed by the laws of the universe, a Creator outside time, outside space and matter, a Creator that created this that we find ourselves within, and created by ways and means beyond our thinking. And that is how I read Genesis, humankind created in the image of God, the image being my being able to think such thoughts.

The messiness of Original Sin

Messiness won the evening, for the labyrinth stays as is, atop the desert floor. Last evening we continued to place stones atop the ground, that is after Bro. Juniper heard my plea, and even Bro. Clarence thought the drifting sands would add to the visual appeal, and then pointed out the fatal flaw in the test course of stones that are even with the surface -- drifting sand would soon cover and obliterate the entire labyrinth. Bro. Juniper smacked himself on the forehead, something so obvious had escaped his (and our) thinking. With that resolved, we went to work placing the stones, and in the twilight I found myself considering the Garden of Eden story again. Of course everyone seems to latch onto the idea of Original Sin and won't let go, the believers spin and weave in attempts to make sense of the idea, while nonbelievers point to the unreasonable idea that a god would take the misdeed of an innocent and make the innocent guilty, and further, punish the guilty, and atop that, punish all humankind forever more. I think both sides fail to grasp the symbolism of this story. First of all, without humans, not only does the concept of good and evil not make sense, but in all of nature it is absent. In all of nature (apart from humans) only "good" and "nothingness" exists. Bad doesn't exist, for everything in nature seeks to exploit it's own potential to live and replicate. That either happens or doesn't happen. You might think of all nature as one big organism that exists, and exists only because each part that makes up the "all nature" live and die to provide another part of "all nature" with food to do the same. Nothing is "bad" because in "all nature" adaptation to prevent extinction is the only goal, and total extinction would be the only "bad" possible. Yet again, even extinction couldn't be "bad" in a humanless and Godless "all nature," for in such a universe, everything just is. Or just isn't. No matter. For to matter requires intelligence to create the idea of mattering and not mattering. Now back to the Garden of Eden, this metaphor explains the need for intelligence, for awareness, for self awareness, before the ideas (and concepts) of good and bad/evil to exist. Adam before gaining knowledge of self awareness (or if you prefer, evolution before the brain/mind developed self awareness) was as innocent as a Tiger pouncing upon a lamb and ripping it to shreds for a meal. Without self-awareness "pre-humans" did whatever was required in order to live another day and replicate. After self-awareness (Original Sin) humans became aware of their every action and the consequences of these actions and further became aware that life and replication at whatever cost was no longer possible, for the new brain/mind was not only aware of each action, the consequences of the action, but also if the action was good or bad. And for the first time "bad" had a meaning other than failure to survive, the human brain/mind continued to develop this concept of "bad" until it became a powerful force that identifies all that which would or could harm the individual, the family, the group, the environment around the group, and today the entire earth. These are things that no other life/creature can think, humans not only think, but can act upon these abstract thoughts. And so Adam and Eve with full self awareness watched as their sons fought and one became a murderer and the other a victim of murder. Good and evil sprang to life as if it were an entity, a concept so powerful that not one human can return to that Garden of Eden, that blissful and ignorant state of innocence. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder and it was Bro. Simon, "Are you practicing mindlessness again?"

Neat vs Messy

The labyrinth project has slowed much since the thermometer has caught our full attention the past week, but today with some thunderstorms, the mercury has peaked at 99F, so Bro. Juniper has called for volunteers for this evening, so far only Bro. Simon, myself, and Bro. Clarence (but he conditioned his service if Bro. Sedwick will also pitch in). We shall see. I would say the labyrinth is perhaps 60% complete, but I'm not holding my breath, for Bro. Juniper has been doing some experiments, instead of placing the stones atop the desert floor, I saw him digging a shallow test trench and placing stones so that they are flush with the desert floor. As the stones are placed now, he thinks the blowing sand will build up on one side or the other, but with the stones set into the ground, this would not be a problem. I must admit, I never considered it a problem, for I think that the drifting sand only adds interest to the labyrinth, and further, that the constantly shifting winds will keep the labyrinth a perpetual work in progress, just as sand dunes are constantly in motion and never appear the same. Well, maybe this evening I can present my feelings on this matter, for I think Bro. Simon will agree with me, but I fear Bro. Sedwick will side with "neatness" as I fear Bro. Clarence will too. Perhaps I could talk Bro. Charles into joining us, normally he keeps to the library, but neatness isn't one of his strong suits, so a sandy and "messy" labyrinth may be to his liking, and also one more vote against the neat camp.

You may have a point

Bro. Clarence was relating one of the discussion he had with a fellow who gave him a ride across parts of Arizona, the discussion centered around the fellow leaving the church as a teenager when he came to the conclusion that many of the Biblical stories were simply unbelievable. He said it was almost laughable to think of the garden of Eden with a tree of knowledge and the forbidden apple of good and evil and that by eating it Adam brought evil into the world and all of humanity has suffered since. After a bit of discussion, Bro. Clarence thinks that he caused the fellow to rethink some of his early teenage thoughts after he explained the Genesis story something like this.

For a moment consider the Garden of Eden story as metaphor for the great consequences of knowledge, for with knowledge one's innocence is lost, forever. We all delight in watching the innocence of toddlers, and protecting that innocence, for that is the want of most parents. Of course we don't want to protect children from the real world forever, for we know the consequences of trying to do that, so we measure our protection and little by little the child is exposed to the world outside the protection of home. So perhaps you can read the Eden story as mythology, a myth with great value, for it tells us much about ourselves, and helps us to make sense of the world around us, a world that can be a world without innocence. Bro. Clarence said the fellow's first reaction was, "Myth?!" And related how his childhood Sunday school teacher said everything in the Bible was fact, so Adam was a real person, Eve too, the garden, and all the rest. To which Bro. Clarence replied that in the synoptic gospels Jesus nearly always spoke in parables, so is it so hard to believe that God spoke to Moses with metaphors, making a simple plot with a cast of characters into a story that could be immediately understood by everyone? And the beauty of symbolism is that children read a simply story that they can remember, teenagers read a story that fills their head with questions, adults read the story and suddenly find deeper meaning, and wise old men read the story and find answers to the previous unanswerable? To this the fellow replied, "You may have a point."