another Sunday morning when it is yet dark

Four o'clock, four-thirty-nine, to be more precise. Early morning and I probably should be looking over my Sunday school lesson plan for five chapters of the Gospel according to Mark. But I went outside on 7H porch this morning: if I stay in the tiny strip of a shadow behind the upright post that shades me from the blinding brightness of the Bay side streetlamp in Oaks by the Bay Park next door, the heavens are velvety black with a few bright stars. It looks like a nice Lord's Day, eh? 

It looks like a good Time to think about life itself, nomesane?, which is what I've been doing, shehecheyanu, blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who gives us life, and sustains us, and has brought us to this Time, baruch ata, blessed are you. Contemplating the unanswerable: Why me? Why me to live this life, to have lived as one of The Privileged at this Time of human life on this little planet in a solar system on a middling to outer ring of an ordinary galaxy in a Universe of some two trillion other galaxies? 

Scripturally and species-wise I know the answer: be fruitful and multiply, but it doesn't address the question of specifically me, Why me to have been so fortunate? To have been born as the result of other people's decisions and actions over the course of human history, and to have been brought to this Time largely as a result of my own choices, again, of roads diverging in a yellow wood. 

Poetic, it's not that I'm poetic, I'm not; but I think, therefore I am, and I contemplate. 

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Religion: religion is a characteristic of humans wondering about what we see and experience, including fearing death, and feeling pressed to have answers for our wondering. For primitive man it included not only the cycles of nature from the ground up, but also looking up at the sun, moon, and stars - - the greater light, the lesser light, and the tiny specks of light, and we tell campfire stories. Of numerous religions on Earth, we are either born into one or we choose one, even None. We know what we see and experience: here we are: the main feature in the center of it all, with it all circling around us once a day.

So, knowing how it developed, and looking out to see and know far more than anyone ever knew and saw before, what do I believe? And what will any descendant of mine who may be living a thousand, or ten thousand years from now, believe? I don't know about them, I only think for myself - - "Faith" is choosing to Believe what we cannot Know. 

Contemplating the Universe as we "know" it today, and understanding the Scripture (of the religion and culture that I was blessedly/thankfully born into) about what we cannot Know, I believe what it seems to me Jesus believed: the kingdom of the Father is spread upon the Earth and men do not see it (GThos113). When I expressed this to a professor in theological seminary, he said, "You have a "realized eschatology" then.

The kingdom of God is here and now to be lived into during our Time on Earth as our solar system continues to circle the black hole at the center of our one of two trillion galaxies that appear to be speeding away from each other (at least, new discoveries and theories hold, in this, our little part of the Universe). Our role is to love our neighbor and respect the dignity of every human being.

Our religion: I thoroughly enjoy it, love the hymns, say the prayers and creeds, appreciate the company of saints.

RSF&PTL

T90