MOW

I see your point , Flow, that the book is more realistic than pessimistic . I also think that is why Ecclesiastes is not a very popular book with Christians , particularly American Christians. Besides the passage that des mentioned , its hardly ever read in church. Ecclesiates seems to offer a counterpoint and rebuts much of the popular culture and philosophy of today . The ideas of which "name it and claim it" ," power of positive thinking " "self -help " are examples . In some corners it is believed " the rich are rich because they are good : the poor are poor because they are bad". The current administration's belief that all you have to do is be "optimistic "and every thing will turn out ok . Many churches have absorbed some or all of the above ideas into contemporary Christianity. I hope I'm not being depressing, but I think Ecclesiates reminds us that sometimes solutions and meaning in life are just unknowable in our present state as finite beings . MOW

I would like to discuss the Old Testament book of Ecclesiates and see what people on this board think of it. I know that it is seemingly pessamistic and contains what I consider Cynic points of view. The constant refrain that "all is vanity (meaningless ) " gets depressing after awhile , but there is much practical wisdom in the book. Some of my favorites: "He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver, nor he who loves abundance with increase. This also is vanity 5:10 Do not be overly righteous, nor overly wise: Why destroy yourself. 7 :16 A living dog is better than a dead lion 9 : 4 Wisdom is better than weapons of war: but one sinner destroys much good 9:18 He who observes the wind will not sow , and he who regards the clouds will not reap. ( i.e. if you wait for perfect conditions you will do nothing ). 11: 4 The last has special meaning to me because it is a particular flaw of mine. Is all than vanity and striving after wind ? MOW

Johann Sebastian Bach married his 2nd cousin (Maria Barbara). His second wife ( Anna Magdelena ) was 19 years his junior. He was 36 and she was 19. MOW

"Shame, because Jesus was most certainly a Feminist, as is God" Good point, OA, in fact I think that Jesus' admonishment against divorce was not so much an advocacy of "Strict Father " morality, but a recognition that a divorce would hve been catastrophic for a woman in those days . In his tirade against the Pharisees, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says how they(the Pharisees ) devoured Widow's houses. If it were not for women , I believe, the church would have died out years ago. MOW

"Christians don't gossip.... they just have prayer requests" that's a good one. I'll have to share that with my choir. What is HIPPA by the way? MOW

This is an issue that I've been concerned about for awhile, and is addressed primarily to those who attend church regularly, both liberal and conservative. Over the last couple of decades a practice has emerged in Protestant churches, where the service stops , and members of the congregation can stand up and share their joys and concerns. This usually occurs right before the Pastoral prayer. I have to admit that this part of the service makes me uncomfortable and I've never really liked it. People get up and sometimes share things that ,I feel , are quite personal , IMO and would be more appropriate in a private meeting with the pastor. I'm also concerned that this practice could perhaps put a church in legal jeopardy. I'm speaking of people getting up and asking intercessory prayers for, relatives co-workers and so on. For example " I'd like to lift up , in prayer, my co-worker who is going through a divorce " . It might be that the co-worker doesn't want that information known , and if they find out it was spoken out loud in a public setting there could be issues of invasion of privacy. I'm also interested in the opinions of any clergy on the board in regard to this issue MOW

In addition to the date of Jesus' birth , the number of magi is interesting too. Last year,the pastor at our church asked the children "how many wise men were there" ?. They all chimed in "three". He asked them " how do you know". They said " the Bible says so" . He said " no it doesn't". In fact the Bible doesn't say there were three magi or a hundred. Three wise men are assumed because there were three gifts(pretty useless gifts except for the gold} I believe the wise men are only mentioned in Matthew, and the shepherds only mentioned in Luke. MOW

I think the person who did "Green" Christmas was Stan Freeberg or something like that. I'm not sure though. MOW

I just saw on the local news here in Chicago, that Willow Creek Community Church will be closed on Christmas day this year. For those of you outside the Chicago area Willow Creek is the one of the largest megachurches in Illinois with an attendance of 20,000 . According to their communications director, they will hold a series of sevices prior to Christmas , which will be available on DVD. I'm not judging them, and they can do whatever they want . I'm an organist and choir director , so I'll have to be in church . Two services on Saturday and then Sunday morning . I was just wondering how many of you ,who still attend church, will be going this year, since Christmas falls on Sunday. MOW

Perhaps the minister is/was a Monty Python fan? I didn't mean to laugh at your anecdote MOW, but it was just so dang funny! It's one of my favorite scenes from the movie (along with the guord, the juniper bushes and "Yes, we're all individuals." <{POST_SNAPBACK}> No problem Aletheia, I think that's what threads are for. I never saw "The Life of Brian", if I ever get around to getting a DVD player perhaps I will. It's just that it had been suggested that the miracles were for the purpose of getting people to glorify God. I 'm just not so sure about that. It would have been interesting to check up on these people a week or a month later. None of these people who were healed , fed , had their sight restored, or raised from the dead showed up when Jesus was alone in the Garden of Gethsemene. Comfort zones are strange things. A Non-denominational church meets in a community center where I work. Over several weeks they had collected a large sum of money to give to a homeless man who lived in the park next to the building. They even managed to get an apartment for him in Indiana. Well lo and behold a few weeks later, he was back in the park again. He didn't like Indiana and besides all his friends were here . I'm not making light of homelessness but sometimes there's more to it than meets the eye. MOW

This thread, about Jesus pushing people out of their comfort zones, brings to mind an unusual sermon that I heard. The minister was preaching on the healing of the 10 lepers. As you may recall only one returned to thank Jesus for healing him. The sermon did not deal with the leper who returned , but was rather a meditation and speculation on why each of the other nine did not return to thank Jesus. The pastor gave his ideas but one has stuck with me all these years. Perhaps, one of the lepers did not return because he was angry at Jesus for healing him. As crazy as that might sound, being a leper was his identity. Being in a community of lepers was his life and Jesus took that away from him by healing him. I had never thought about that story in that manner before. MOW

As I think more about it , maybe the image of floating on a cloud is an accurate depiction of " heaven " . Many years ago a Lutheran pastor came to our Methodist church for an ecumenical pulpit exchange. He preached on the Transfiguration where Jesus is on a mountain and floats above the earth and glows with light and transcends time and space ( talking to Elijah and Moses). The pastor's point was that even though the disciples wanted to stay in that state, they couldn't. They had to come back down the mountain and live in the real world. When my mother(GRHS)at the age of 82 , was coming to the end of her life , she never talked about going to heaven . Her only desire was to sleep by my father . She would say" I'm going to sleep by Daddy" . There was no mention of golden streets or crystal fountains and such, just being at ease. MOW

As we go into the holiday season , I was wondering if anyone has ever received a fruitcake as a gift ? Does anybody really like fruitcake? MOW

I've always liked Jesus statement " In my Father's house there are many mansions: the distortion of spatial relationships. In God's house we don't get a studio apartment , we get a mansion inside a house. When we read Dante in high school, my classmates were always more interested in the Inferno section than in the Purgatory or Paradise sections . Maybe we're like the people in C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce. Even when they had an opputunity to go to heaven , in the final analysis they prefered hell . As far as the multiple virgins I guess that is an attempt to give a corresponding image of heaven in relation to hell i.e. If hell is unending pain then heaven is an unending sex orgy. I have to admit even that would get tiring after awhile. I wonder if Solomon having 300 wives and 700 concubines was heaven or hell. MOW

I've recently been reading "Lost Christianities" by Bart Ehrman. In one chapter he writes about "The Apocalypse of Peter" , a book that didn't make it into the official canon of the New Testament. In this book Peter is taken on a guided tour of heaven and hell by Jesus after he asks Jesus about the meaning of the parable of the fig tree. As Mr Ehrman says Dante's Divine Comedy was not the first of this genre of writing. The decriptions of hell are lurid and graphic . People are hung over fires by there tongues and genitals, cast in razor like fire, eaten by savage birds etc. The descriptions of heaven are less graphic. In the book "The Zen Teachings of Jesus" , K Leong talks about the Fu and Po mansions in Hong Kong where there are drawings of the 18 levels of hell . The pictures show people being skinned alive and placed in boiling oil and so forth . He wondered why there are no corresponding images of the glories of heaven. They're usually just dull pictures of people sitting around on clouds with a demure look on there face . I 'm not saying I believe that heaven and hell are physical locations, but I find it interesting that we find it easier to describe hell than heaven. MOW

Hi Mystictrek I thought I would make some observations. On some websites this phenomenon is called Neo-Christianity, in which the Beatitutes are essentially reversed i.e. blessed are the rich, the powerful shall inherit the earth, blessed are the warmakers etc. In this view being poor is a sign of sin and wealth is an indication of virtue. Some people have wondered how these people can consider themselves "christian". They don't believe "the meek shall inherit the earth " anymore than they believe in the tooth fairy. IMO their interest is not so much in Jesus' words, but in the image he provides of power, inevitable triumph , and world domination. I've mentioned in other posts that I am a choir director. This year I decided to do a Christmas cantata . I looked at two that I thought my small choir could perform and do well. One by a mainstream music publisher ,and the other by a more conservative one. The interesting thing was that both publications had a musical setting of the Magnificat ( my soul magnifies the Lord) of Mary. In the cantata from the more conservative publisher, the part where Mary says" He's has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly , He's filled the hungry with good things and the rich he's sent empty away " (Luke 1: 52-54 NRSV) was simply left out. The composer just kept looping back to beginning of the speech " My soul magnifies the Lord ". Needless to say I chose the other one. MOW

For what it's worth I've been thinking of a different interpretation of the parable itself. Jesus often seems to offer contrarian views of how to solve life's problems. Turning the other cheek if struck, giving your coat if someone steals your shirt , going the extra mile etc. I'm intriqued by the notion that the casting out of the demon resulted in the man's condition actually getting worse, i.e. 8 demons instead of one. Sometimes our attempts to fight evil using "common sense" result in multiplication rather than elimination. This theme is explored in many ancient myths. The Sorcerer's Apprentice tries to destroy the enchanted broom by cutting it in half with an axe and it becomes two. Hercules tries to kill the Hydra by cutting off its head but two heads grow in its place . In the current war on terror it seems the more terrorists you kill the more there are MOW

I'm kind of leaning toward your way of thinking on this des. A couple of months ago I witnessed a man having a grand mal seizure in a restaurant . I had never seen that before( although I have a relative who used to have petite mal seizures). He shook violently and foamed at the mouth as he was on the floor. We knew enough to move tables and chairs out of the way, time the attack , and call paramedics, who finally came and took to a nearby hospital. Despite our being 21st century Americans this was a frightening experience. Mothers grabbed children and left the restaurant , and others were literally paralyzed. As Bishop Spong has suggested, if this happened 2000 years ago the results for that man would have been decidedly different. MOW

Thank you Fred, Altheia, and Flow for your comments. I think I agree with Fred that, the "demon" is a suppressed , split off part of the personality. I also agree with Flow that there are other realities that we are unaware of. Dr Scott Peck (GRHS ) in his book" People of the Lie "and a more recent book that I can't remember the title of, decribes his participation in exorcisms. I don't know if you are old enough to remember the movie "Forbidden Planet" starring Walter Pigeon, and Leslie Nielson. The Krell, an incredibly "advanced" civilization on another planet goes so far in their technology that they make a great machine which allows them to create by mere thought. They all are than destroyed by invisable "monsters frome the Id" , their unclean spirits, which the Krell probably thought they had advanced beyond ,but were still present. One of the most memorable lines from the movie for me is when Dr Morbius(Walter Pigeon) says " My poor Krell , they could have no idea what was destroying them" I thought about that movie as I read this parable again , and also when I read the exorcism of the Geresene demoniac in the book of Mark . MOW

A couple of months ago we discussed the Assassin Parable in the Gospel of Thomas. I'd like to discuss another parable ,this one from the canonized scriptures . I'm nearly 55 and I've seldom heard the " The return of the unclean spirit" read from the pulpit or discussed in sunday schools. I think its because this parable of Jesus doesn't seem to have a resolution , or a "happy ending" . "When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest: and finding none , he says" I will return to my house from which I came ". And when he comes , he finds it swept and in order. Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more wicked than himself and they enter and dwell there ; and the last state of that man is worse than the first" ( Luke 11: 24-26 NRSV ) I think it has something to do with "Resist not evil" concept but I'm not sure . Any thoughts on this ? MOW

" I've been surprised that many on this board probably feel more aligned with a liberal Buddhist , Pagan , New Ager or other than a conservative Evangelical like myself " Some random thoughts from a very liberal African-American Christian on this subject. I've had a very unusual musical career due to my dual interests in African Drums ( for over 25 years I've played for African dance companies and dance classes) , and a love for classical music and church music both organ and piano. I've been a church musician for over 30 years . This has allowed me to form long term friendships with people who run the gamut from initiated Yoruba priests, and black nationalists , to conservative white suburbanites with "support our troops " decals on their cars. I try to see Christ in all of them to the best of my ability. One of the influences in my life was a young woman I read about in the book "Choosing Simplicity " by Linda Breen Pearce. She had been a Evangelical Christian but left after some negative experieces she had there. She embaced Buddhism and became more global and less patriotic in her world view. She said something in the book that stuck with me." After all, I could have been born anywhere, China , Russia ,India, what would I believe in then" It's for this reason that I consider myself multi-cultural . Sure I'm a Christian and I wouldn't change that for the world , but if I had been born a Yak herder on the side of a mountain in Tibet who knows what I'd be doing today ? How one sees Jesus seems to depend on the person observing him rather than Jesus himself. Conservatives might see him as a defender of traditional values. Liberals might see him as fighter for social justice. New agers might see him as a New Age Guru. Anarchists might see him as an anachist. Philosophers might see him as a philosopher and so on . Its like the nine blind men and the elephant story. Each one of the men grabs a part and thinks he's describing the whole . MOW

Des, I hadn't thought about the influence of the automobile in the development of the nuclear family. That would be a fascinating study. You're right about our parents generation. When I was growing up there was not only my 3 siblings and my mother and father, but my great aunt, my two aunts , and my grandmother all in one house. Darby, many of the negative images and ideas that come to children are coming from corporate America, not public libraries and public schools. WWF Smackdown, Fear Factor where people eat worms and jump into human excrement etc. isn't coming "the government". I'm an independent piano teacher and I can see the difference in my students from those who go to the library and read , and those who look at a lot of TV. Liberals are just as angry when their tax dollars are used to bomb people ,especially women and children, to torture p.o.w.s and to engage in activities in South America that are to terrilble to mention. Anyway I don't think this African proverb has anything to do with "the government" taking care of you, but that for a child to grow requires elders, contemporaries, and even "the ancestors". MOW

It could be because Hillary Clinton wrote the book and also because the title comes from African folk wisdom. Some conservatives find the idea of wisdom from a non-European , non-Christian perspective highly offensive . In this view African peoples, Aboriginal peoples etc. are supposed to be "rescued", changed and assimilated into Western culture , not learned from. In addition many on the Right believe that the salvation of humanity lies in adopting the nuclear family model , not "the village". However from some of my readings it appears that the nuclear family model is really a rather recent developement in human history. I remember watching a show on PBS about a tribe ( I'm sorry I don't recall the name of the tribe) that was totally matriarchal in structure. The male who was closest to a woman's children was not her mate, but her brother: because he came out of the same mother. When Christian missionaries came to them and said that God was the father and Jesus was the son the people of the tribe had no idea what they were talking about. Trying to emulate the nuclear family model can be a joy, but can also can be difficult in many situations. One of my guilty pleasures is the reality show Cheaters on TV. In one episode a working class man was working 70 hours a week to make enough money provide for his wife and child , trying to fulfill the role of breadwinner His wife left him because he was never at home. MOW

Although George W Bush is a United Methodist, I heard that he would not even meet with UMC bishops when they requested to meet with him concerning the War in Iraq. I don't think liberals should be envious of megachuches. Building , running ,and maintaining a megachuch is more than a notion as they say. Some of them even fail. Does anybody remember what ever happened to Rex Humbard or Enrnest Angsley, or Jimmy Swaggert ? I prefer E. F. Schmacher's "Small Is Beautiful" in this matter. MOW

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH !!!!!!!!! World Champs!!!!!! MOW