it's not about me
Maybe like last evening, another blogpost for myself only, available to anyone interested but not linked on my Facebook page for regular public viewing. Why? Because it's about my search, my Seek The Truth, Come Whence It May, Cost What it Will.
Where the cost seems immense, robbing me of security in life and death. Security, comfort, the assurance that is Faith (Hebrews 11:1), where Faith that is believing (Mark Twain?) what you know damn well ain't so, jumping off into disillusionment but where I don't want to live with illusions that are (Steve Jobs) trapped in dogma, the result of other people's thinking - - people of ancient Time whose worldview was irresolvably different from my own.
So, of God and of Religion where they are not the same thing. Religion is organized institutional, may be creedal, doctrinal, traditional, dogmatic; God is whoever or whatever is out there
and loves me, as Bryan Green said, loves me, even me, just as I am, the way I am, speck on a speck. Bryan Green had a view of the Universe. The Rev Canon Bryan Green, greatest evangelist to come out of the Church of England, whom I met and who spoke at our cathedral and local parish in Harrisburg in 1980.
My experience with God is of God speaking to me assuring and challenging, "I AM speaking to you, Tom Weller," then disappearing into the absence of God, just as I fully expected, leaving me to drift off into now more than forty years of wondering whether the experience was real or my mind invented it in a Time of need.
Looking back on life, my experience is that at every road diverging in the yellow wood (Robert Frost), I made, or was led into, the better choice. Even though if I were to start over I would take the other road in many cases. But I'm glad I can't do that, go back and start over, because those other choices would have led me off into some totally different life that would not have me finishing up where I am now, safely here in 7H looking out a window across St Andrews Bay over Shell Island, into the Gulf of X. Starting over, or going back to one or the other or several of the diverging roads, would not have put me where I am this morning, happy and 89&c.
At more than one set of diverging road choices, I wanted and expected to end up as a Navy admiral. Where, looking back I remember an admiral's son telling us that his father lamented that he had chosen a Navy route that limited him to two stars; which sounds heavenly to a young ensign, but looking back and realizing that two-stars reports to stars above him, and three stars reports to stars above him, and four stars reports to officials above him, and I detest authority over me. In this religious vocation I've had basically no authority exercised over me. Bishops and institution, yes, but who all left me alone to live and work my way, knowing and okay with the acceptable rules, no sense of supervision whatsoever. I've had life as good as it gets.
But this matter of Seek the Truth. It's not at all a burden, it's a luxury. A lucky chance to have looked up and read the proverb in the first place, and good fortune and blessing to have reached a point in my life when I can waste Time worrying with it. An issue (not THE issue, but AN issue) at this point is that, seeing (Mk 9:1) ὁράω I see, realize, discern, perceive, understand, that the answer to my question, which continues to be "Who or What is God?" is beyond human knowing. God is Whoever or Whatever said "yeh-hi" (God speaks only Hebrew, God's choice) and did not command but allowed all that is to become. And it's not about me, it's about all that is, seen and unseen, whether I'm here or not.
So the result of my Seeking is awe without specifics, dogma, creeds, doctrine, or certainty.
As for Bryan Green, I am left sitting here with a Baptismal Covenant that asks (only asks, invites, does not demand) a statement of belief and, based on the belief statement, lays out a life commitment meant to help me become more and more like Whoever or Whatever said "yeh-hi."
So, this morning I'm contemplating calling off my Seeking and using (not spend and not invest, just use) the Time that may be left to me, quietly reading, watching, studying; and maybe someTimes jotting down here on my +Time blog, whatever's in mind.
And becoming more intrigued with Christian Wiman actually, who is himself indecipherable.
+++++++++
Tom likes red. Red Red Red. Us having coffee.
And me now, breakfast: they offer good sushi at Fresh Market, PCB!
I wouldn't change a thing about my life, all the way!
RSF&PTL
T89&c
maybe I'll post this later, maybe not