JenellYB

"By calling ourselves progressive, we mean that we are Christians who.... Recognize that being followers of Jesus is costly, and entails selfless love, conscientious resistance to evil, and renunciation of privilege. or more recently re-stated and renumbered as Point 7 as who... Commit to a path of life-long learning, compassion, and selfless love" re this change: To me this eliminates the call to "take up your cross and follow me..." Jenell

Well, I THINK I've got everything pretty much up and running to start working again by the end of the week, possibly as early as tomorrow evening, at least for a couple of short blocks to make sure my system is all functioning as it needs to be. Got the new dedicated phone line in service today, been updating my work computer, reinstalling and updating required software, still have to go through making some changes to settings on my computer they've made since I last worked. This is remote 'home agent' call center work, companies outsource their calls to us, instead of to India or somewhere foreign. literally hundreds of kinds of calls possible, so trying to review as many product info and scripts that could pop up on the computer screen when the phone rings, as I can, gotta be able to just grab it a go with it....sometimes, if its a new one, trying to establish conversation with the caller at the same time scanning the script like crazy trying to figure out what they are even calling about...exercise dvds, some celebrity endorsed wrinkle cream, a 'vacuum therapy device' for erectile dysfunction, or for tapes/books or to make a donation to one of those TBN tv 'ministries', lol! I think my being ADHD is actually a plus for that work! But I'm about to get pretty busy, I hope anyway, so will likely be slowing down here a good bit. Jenell

If you are, they make sense to me, too. It had become harder and harder to think of myself as a Christian. Honestly, deeply, I don't think i do at all anymore. I think that all that still holds any connection for me to that name, Christian, is I don't have any other term for how I still feel Jesus my treacher, Christ as the unifying consciousness within which I find my meaning in existence, and in any conversation with others, relating to any of those things, Christian seems to be the only term through which i can connect and engage those still caught within the confusion of that tradition. It is a strange experience for me among them, even in ordinary matters of Christian tradition, history of the church and Christian religion, doctrines, major theologies, because at the same time in that other sense I feel 'not one of them', I am at once also acutely aware that I actually know so much more about their religion than they do! And feel I have to keep that tucked away from their view, for they feel threatened by that, or, I touch 'sore points' where they beleive something actually quite foriegn or inaccurate about what they think they know about their religion or some doctrines as they've been taught. Most the practicing Christians I've around are very ignorant not only of church history, but Christian theology and doctrine, as well as actual scripture,other than snippets often quoted out of context so meaning is lost or perverted, casually expresing beleifs that are actually neither Christian nor biblical, even things set forth clearly and repeatedly in the bible as being 'false doctines.' But they believe they are quite strongly. Which raises an interesting dilema, am I the one "less Christian", or they? Jenell

Sounds to me like the Spirit responded and answered the need you didn't even know to ask for! Jenell

It can be amazing how much can happen, can change, in just 48 hrs. In contrast to the rather lukewarm response I've gotten from that company I have worked for several times I've communicated with them the past couple years, the last time about 3 months ago, that was along the line of, yeah, you can come back, but because all your performance stats have expired, you'll have to start at the bottom and work your way back up again, of course..." the past 48 hours has begun to feel like I've just hopped onto a rocket ride! I went ahead and reactivated my contract when they offerred me one of my previous program lines I had lost, back to start...within an hour of e-signing the contract, they had given me two more of my previous lines back, AND a new one set to launch this weekend! This afternoon, ANOTHER new program just launching in on my dashboard! Now all my program line applications are LIVE, and I've been sent all the passwords to login on them, without my having even begin the 'refreshers' supposedly required before they go live for me...and post boxes PLEADING with me to jump onto the schedule asap!! But all now holds until I can get the dedicated land-line phone installed....I only have a cell phone for personal use, and can't work on a cell phone. Soon as that's in, I'm good to go! Meanwhile, wating for the phone, will be hitting the refreshers and updates since I last worked pretty heavy. Ok, LiveOps, we danced pretty well together for almost 5 yrs, let's see how we do a few more rounds! Thank you, Lord! Jenell

Yeah, I've found free software works fine for me...however, for this work I'm hoping to get back into, they have their own requirements for how my computer has to be set up, including what anti-virus and ani-malware software, must be installed on it, The work involves handling security sensitive personal information on clients, including credit card and bank account access in processing payments. The system I would be logging into to work actually performs a remote scan of my computer as part of the process of logging in to work, to make sure my system is secure and operating properly as per their requirements, so there's no 'faking' it, telling them you have what they require if you really don't. Because do recognize the need for the security with the kinds of information I'd be handling, I accept that.

Mix of excitement and trepidation....the work-at-home job that served me well getting through most my recent college years as well as ther years caring for my ailing sister here, for its flexibility of scheduling, choosing my own work schedule in 30 minute time blocks avaialable 24/7, that fell out from under me several years ago due to a combination of problems of unreliablitiy of my dsl internet service here related to overloaded old local phone lines, and with some of that company's unreasonable and for me, unworkable policy changes, as well as some disorientation I suffered losing my sister, MAY be about to open back up for me. The local internest service problems have been resolved with laying new lines, and the company has contacted me, is 'courting' me with some attractive negotiations on the problems I had that led me to give it up. My health, lack of strength and energy, doesn't give me many options for employment opportunities. Until the problems arose tha led to my leaving it, it was perfect for me and my situation. Will require me make some modest investment in a few things, getting paid anti-virus software back onto my desktop work computer, having a dedicated land-line phone reinstalled, getting my dsl service upgraded back to high speed professional from my present basic cheaper level, some serious refresher/update time on training resources, but....Lord, if this works out, it answers some serious needs and prayers...I should have either made the decision to go for it and have it up an running within a week, or not.

People sometimes experience the cross in ways we may not think of in that way, of something positive and good coming out of something terrible, of a death from which one is ressurected in a glorified state. People can be brought to suffer a painful, often humiliating and even shameful death of something of themselves, within themselves, through circumstances and events in life, sometimes resulting wholly or in part due to their own choices and actions and ways of thinking and being. That is what the "breaking" is that is so often mentioned in spiritual literature, that must come before we can be restored to something better, healthier, take us a bit further on the journey. When that happens, we don't 'just get over it' after something bad and terrible happens to us, we are transformed into something fuller, better, stronger, even an ugliness replaced with something beautiful. Jenell

Btw, lest anyone get the idea such people are some kind of "super special gifted advantaged" individuals it might be nice to be, many aspects of the very "counter-culture" orientation and psychologically introspective nature not much concerned with pursuit of material gains common to this phenomenon often tends to make them somewhat dysfunctional and less that successful in ordinary daily life and business. They can find it as difficult to understand and relate to the world, society, and people around them as much of those around them do in return. Thus they commonly end up in circumstances like wandering around without much a job or wealth or prestige, maybe as wandering minstrels, poets or preachers, even getting crucified by the mainstream and prevailing power holders. Of many, the 'value' of their ideas and work are not usually appreciated in their own times and place. Jesus knew that: Matt 23: 29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the PROPHETS, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, 30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the PROPHETS. 31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the PROPHETS. 34 Wherefore, behold, I send unto you PROPHETS, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city: 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the PROPHETS, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Jenell

I think if Jesus was really a man that lived and dies on a cross, whose story we at least have some glimpse of through NT writings, you may be right. While I embrace the metaphorical message of transformation, the new creature, new being, I also consider that on and of itself resulted in his having felt so strongly and purely about what He believed was right, so as to stand up for it against his peers and the practices and common attitudes of his day, as to die for it, may have been the outward manifestation of that in how he lived out his life, after it had taken place for him. Although the accounts tell little of his life before he walked onto the scene where John was baptizing that day, I think he must have been a seeker, moving toward that moment, in which He experienced a powerful initiation stage, an awakening, toward the serious work of transformation, into the new being, the new creature. From his baptism, he proceeded to go alone into the wilderness, we are told, for 40 days and nights...throughout many different cultures, there is recognized some powerful transforming moment or experience in the lives of the occasional person, followed by a retreat into solitude, from which they emerge dramatically changed, as people recognized as 'different', in ways of spirituality, wisdom, principle, courage, and often healing powers. From the mystics of many cultures and religious traditions, to the shamans and medicine men and women in the legends and tradtions of many primitive peoples, this is something that emerges with a stricking similarity between them. It has been noted, studied, written about, by even the most secular observers, and those within some branches of the field of psychology. Some of the most influential thinkers, artists, musicians, poets, and writers, not to mention those that articulated what would become the sacred stories and texts within religious tradtions of entire cultures, have experienced such a dramatic life changing event, and did their greatest work, often their only work of note that would survive as important long after their deaths, after that event. Jenell

To me, it seems a crucial flaw in the "fall" story....Adam ad Eve didn't know good and evil, right and wrong. That was the whole 'temptation' of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. If they ate it, they'd then know good and evil, right and wrong. When they decided to eat it, took hold of it and brought to their mouths to bite it, they didn't yet know good and evil, right and wrong. So how could they have known it was a wrong thing to do? And if they didn't know it was wrong until after they did it, how should they be punished for choosing to do wrong, when they didn't know it was wrong to do before they did it? So we have a God that created them as He did, made them as they are, but didn't give them ability to choose right from wrong, then punish them with death for 'choosing wrong?' And punish every generation of their children forever for it, before they are even born or conceived or a twinkle in their parent's eye, to boot? And then have to pick out one of those future children to lay all the blame on so he could die as the scapegoat to save all those he decided to punish before they were even born? Pretty crazy mixed up sadistic schizoid god, if you ask me. Jenell

Christ is the way....the wording we are no familiar with now because of how translators made it into "Jesus Chrsit', as if His first name was Jesus and his last name or surname "Christ", is significantly different in meaning and implication from the original form, "Jesus, the Christ (annointed) One." "Jesus", a man, was not "the Christ." Of/to whom/what does the author of this passage refer to that Moses and the people encountered, long before a baby boy child would be born in Bethlehem, to be named "Jesus?" 1 Cor ch 10:1 Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant, how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; 2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3 And did all eat the same spiritual meat; 4 And did all drink the same spiritual drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that Rock was CHRIST. Jenell

Actually, more like we're saying the story of Jesus' literal physical death may have been either an attempt to put a metaphorical 'death-ressurection' He, and we might experience, toward the transformation into a 'new breation, a 'new being, or even a later perversion, again, by literal material minded men that really couldn't understand it as that, and interpreted it into a literal material physical event of a bodily death/ressurection that may never have actually actually happened. Just as many today beleive the myths of the gods of the Greeks were something those people then actually themselves believed as literally physically true, when those were actually even then mythic stories conveying metaphysical ideas and meanings, and not generally accepted as the actual adventures of real living godly beings with magical physical bodies.

Therein is the problem, I think. first, reason re religious beliefs...that as has been interpreted, sych as in the bible "God's raeasoning is not Man's reasoning" and that Man cannot comprehend God's reasoning, means God is unreasonable from any perspective of Mans' reasoning, is imo, error. That leaves us in the position of having to accept and beleive things some may interpret from scripture that totally defies sound reasoning. I do believe about that, we (human, Man) cannot apply fully functional reasoning where we do not and may be unable to have access to and understanding of all the facts and information needed to be able to do so. Thus can i accept on faith beleif in something I can't proove by reason or can't be "proven true." I also accept that in many things we may be unable to reason our way TO something, arrive at some some conclusion ourselves, something declared by inspiration to be true, again because we don't always have enough information. However, I don't think God's reason is ever unreasonable, in the sense of being able to accept on faith as true something that ordinary material observation and sound reasoning prooves FALSE, to be not true. Second, by what standard was or is any source, scripture, determined "authoritative" and therefore must be accepted as true to begin with? If it contains errors of fact and sound reason, then I have to reject it as having that authroity to begin with. And the bible does contain errors of fact and sound reason. Dutch, as you describe your understanding, is pretty much exactly my own view and understanding. I think literal, material, concrete minded men that couldn't grasp the metaphorical meanings and understandings, as they translated anyhting about Jesus, His life, death, purpose, message, into literal, material, concrete forms that made sense to them. As i read somewhere John Wesley stated, the miraculous, the evidence of the living working presence of the Holy Spirit, ceased early in the history of the church simply because the church was taken over by men that didn't beleive in it. I also think, re George's observation about Judism's blood sacrifice rituals being that out of which the idea of atoneing sacrfice by Jesus arose, that the Israelites, in Judism, had done exactly the same thing with the metaphorical meanings within what Moses and the prophets tried to present. Jenell

It doesn't make sense to me either. never did. Or even the 'explanations' I remember hearing, they didn't make sense either, I could never figure how they made sense to anybody, even those I've heard try to explain it. But then it never made sense to me, either, why all humankind was supposedly be 'guilty' and punished for something Adam and Eve did...which seems to me you have to swallow first before there's even a starting point for why Jesus had to die for our sins....good grief, it doesn't even make sense my trying to say that it doesn't make sense to me! Jenell

Some times it si just our time of life, our age, and that of those we are connected to. In my family, too, many recently, and several more can be expected pretty much anytime, probably soon. Those that really throw us, most of us I think, are those that seem 'out of turn', unexpected, for younger ages, aparant vibrant good health. But to does get old, doesn't it?

Yeah....rabbit trail, lol! One more thing about the Oxford NRSV sutdy bible here, I don't know what I haven't areadly mentioned this as a reason I like and prefer it, becasue for me it has been a HUGE reason....and that is the "ecumenical" element, maybe what could be called an "academic" approach? That the notations, commentaries, essays, references, is as free as any I've seen of what is really doctrinal interpretations, 'apologetics' of existing doctrines and beliefs, particular sectarian positions. The material is more straight facts, information, less interpretation from a particular denominational pov. That's probably my most favorite thing about it, now that I think about it. Jenell

Ooookaaayyy......hmmm. Not sure how that about Jesus' suffering is applied to women or others should be made to suffer, but I'll think on that... On the 'take up your cross and follow...." maybe they got it from there? Some years ago,when I discovered the word 'cross' was translated from a word meaning 'upright'or an upright 'stake', and then that for 'crucified' actually translates something like "impaled on upright" or "upright stake", I had to wonder about the whole cross/crucifixion scenario and images associated with it. This particular reference Jesus made to 'taking up a cross" also hit a snag for me inthat He said it BEFORE He was crucified...at that point, a reference to a cross couldn't have had any meaning or relevance to those he said it to, connected to the supposed as yet not occured crucifixion. While he had hinted to them that he would be suffering something, even dying, He didn't say how it would happen, and they wouldn't have ever imagined it to be on a cross. now I may be wrong, but this is kinda what I get out of that...taking up our cross and follow me...to take up, impale oneself, upon uprighteousness. To use "impaled upon upright" as a metaphor. If you are metaphorically 'impaled upon up righteousness', just as would be literal physically impaled upon an upright stake, that 'upright' would always hold you up, supported, in weakness,through times of weakness, temptation to 'sin', failure to do right.

I'm not familiar with that so don't know. But you mentioned maps, it has very good maps, quite a good section of maps. The full title is "The New Oxford annotated Bible, NRSV-with Apocrypha (en Ecumenical study bible). I gotmine when yaking Religious Studies courses at U of Houston, it was the one reccomended there. I really like it. annotations on each page include a lot of historical notes and language clarifications and cultural explanations. Also excellent section of scholarly essays on different things about the bible, canon, jewish vs interpretations,histroy of various signficant translations. more. Charts like chronological tables, parallel passages... My only 'complaint'...it IS quite a chunk! Even with very small print, which is a bit hard for me sometimes too,must have good glasses. My hands aren't large, and are arthritic, so i'd never carry it to try to keep up with a preacher's sermon or bs class at church,lol! I still carry my cheap old large print KJV for that! Dutch said he got a copy of thisone for Christmass.....Dutch, what do you think about it? Jenell

How does it relate this text to that? I don't see it myself...what am i missing? Jenell

.."really quite worthless...New Living Translation..." Lol. Yeah, Guess I'd have to agree that one is at the top of my 'worthless' list as well..... As noted above, I really like my Oxford NRSV annotated w/aprocypha study bible, college edition.

Way to fundamentalist evanglical oriented for me. But that's just me. And I'm not fond of the ASV version. Since I went to NRSV, I guess I'm really stuck to it. I do still refer to KJV to find familiar text, all main concordiances and Hebrew/Greeklexicons are keyed to KJV text, too. And I still find some of the language poetic and beautiful.

That did rather gallop off on a side trail, didn't it? Jenell

And following that, at a later point, after Jesus's ascention, according to the accepted "authoritative scriptures" of the Christian religion, Jesus personally instructed the "after-the-fact" chosen discple/apostle, Saul aka Paul, to do just that, take the message of salvation to the gentiles. Some have interpreted Saul/Paul's call and commision as the Divine appointing of the "replacement 12th disciple", to replace Judas, who betrayed and fell from among the orginal 12. There seemed some reason at the time why it was important there be 12, as the remaining 11 after Jesus' death thought there neded to be 12, and so undertook to elect among themselves the man Mathias to fill the vacancy left by Judas. However, there's really nothing convincing I can find related to that appointment of Mathias that held any 'divine sanction or authority' or even any authrority on part of the 11 to make that choice and appointment themselves....each of them had been personally chosen by Jesus himself. Beyond the appointment of Mathias by the 11, there is nothing much more about him in scripture, he seems not to have then done anything of note or importance. And, if we accept the call/conversion/commission experience of Saul/Paul, he too was personally chosen, called, and commissioned by Jesus (risen) himself. Jenell

PaulS...I'd suspect so. Expect so? Keep 'em pregnant and barefoot. Honestly, a big part of what eventually destroyed both my first marriages was that attitude...I am of the 'older' generation that was just beginning to break free of it, both myself and my husbands from families with tradtional atttudes and beliefs, that being one of them. In my 2nd marriage especially, that lasted over 20 yrs, it was probably the greatest and most heartbreaking chalenge I was unable to overcome in the relationship. His being unable to accept I was there because I wanted to be, was in it freely, of my own desire to be there, but he couldn't turn loose of the deep belief that his only 'security' in "keeping" me was in keeping me hobbled and hogtied, unable to run, and that included pregnant even if he had use intentional subterfuge and manipulation to try to accomplish it as often as he was able. Sadly, in both those early marriages, it was both at top and forefront, and underlying everything else, that led to my eventually having to run. Once, even while quite pregnant and barefoot. it is also entirely possible that if either of them had actually performed their "role" in that old "system'" even marginally with any consistency, as "provider and protector", I might have, as generations of women, and even some of my own generation, never be driven to that point of having to break and run....a painful and bitter irony in those situations in many ways. So it is a tactic, a ploy, of the really powerless, the really incompetent, to force dependency upon another, to keep control over them. Jenell