Faith

This is a response to a comment I made about Priests on Gandre's page.

                           Faith

 

          The factual existence of a person who millions look to faithfully can always be questioned.  There is no physical evidence of Moses, Abraham, Jesus, Joseph, Paul or any of those guys and gals (Mary) today’s religions teach about.  The book of Hebrews (1:11) says that “faith is the evidence of things unseen,” and dictionary definitions and organized religions add statements like belief in supernatural beings called gods and places like Heaven and Hell.  As a follower in the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, to distinguish Him from all of the other people named Jesus, the concept of supernatural beings is not a part of my belief system.  Nor are Arks, pillars of fire, gardens of Eden with Adam and Eve, etc.

 

          When 40 years ago I was given a Bible by two Mormon young men who knocked at my door, exercising their faith as missionaries, I began to read the Book of Matthew at the beginning of the New Testament.  All of my life up to that point I had considered myself an Atheist, just as I was raised.  In fact my military dog tags from the 1960’s say NRP (No religious Preference) in the appropriate religion area.   But as I read the stories in the book of Matthew about Jesus and His supposed teachings about women’s equality and value, doing good works anonymously, forgiveness of wrong decisions, judging others, sharing the wealth of the church, cleansing the ‘Temple’ as Gandre’s piece this writing responds to talks about.  The list goes on and on as Peter is forgiven, Judas is still loved and Mary of Magdalla becomes the best friend of and loved Jesus more than any other.

 

          I began to believe, as I still do to this day, that this human person, who was most likely called Yeshua by the people who knew Him face to face, must have existed.  Others began to add the divine “Ha-Mashiach” to His name thinking that He must be the Messiah who was foretold.  But He said to them that he was just a “Son of man” as they were.  There is no doubt in my mind that men and women with their frailty and shortcomings perverted the stories and felt that they had to make and mold the image of Jesus to make Him more appealing to the masses just as Rock Stars are created today.  They made up stories that God was going to kill them and that they needed this Super Jesus who began to wear a borrowed halo in paintings and could walk on the water and fly back to Heaven after a quick stop in Hell.

 

          Much of what I write here at the Café talks about the Jesus I know.  The man, whose spirit will come again, perhaps as a young girl not yet born on the other side of the world from where He was born.  There probably won’t be a star shining down from Heaven, because if God is what people think He was, He wouldn’t need to kill His only kid to save us, He’d just forgive and forget like the kid did.  My Jesus loved Mary and most likely fell head over heels in love with her just as she probably did for Him.  I believe that He did think that we didn’t know what we were doing when we killed him as He forgave us.  I believe that He didn’t have to die and could have just walked away, but I am glad that He didn’t.

 

          I don’t need to die before I get to go and see him in some place in the clouds with streets made out of gold.  All He ever taught us was that gold was not the least bit important; it was the love we had for one another that was the only thing of value.

 

          I have already seen Him several times right here on Earth, always disguised as one of us, by the way, and never ever in satin robes or on a pulpit.  I saw Him just last weekend in the horribly deformed face of a girl in a park in New Haven who was celebrating her twenty first birthday at the table next to ours where we were celebrating our grandsons first birthday.  Her loud verbal outbursts as she was unable to control her emotions seemed to be bothering everyone at both parties and when I went over and talked to her mother and grandfather they apologized for having a very noisy special needs child, saying that they didn’t know that the City would rent two tables so close together. 

 

          If I had the faith of a mustard seed that Jesus spoke of in one of the stories told about Him, I would have placed my hands on that precious girls deformed face and healed her, just like Jesus would have done.  Jesus may have had that much faith, but I certainly do not!  I did, however, ask her mother if it would be ok to give her some balloons wondering if they would upset her too much and cause more outbursts.  Her mom said it was ok and that her daughter loved balloons, but theirs hadn’t showed up.  She never cried out again or made any loud roaring sound as she had been doing and as we were leaving I looked back and she was standing calmly on the grass still holding onto Her balloons.

Reviews

[Gandré]

I am pleased that somebody is grounded in their own banality, there are 7 Billion opinions in the world. And they are all equally valid. I post a piece - as answer to this on my site. If everybody but me has to justify their existence - I don't care. Because I shall not justify my existence. I shall not measure myself against the archetypes. The Bible is a sequence of archetypes.

[hyancynthstofeedthysoul]

A sane voice crying out in an insane world. Each must find and follow their own path. I found mine after 70 years. The eternal is patient with us is he not?

[Chloe..Across the Unive..]

Sean I truly enjoyed this. To me God is love and doing for others is also doing the same for God.. I don't know about Mary Magdeline..or if Adam had a wife before Eve called Lilth..cast out to roam as a troubled spirit .. All i know is i believe..
And have blind faith.

Chloe

[Cheryl J. Turner]

There is no harm in faith, only those that exploit it.