sirguessalot

yes. God is keeping score of every thing but this is so radically unpartial...cuz i am merely speaking of divine memory ...that which was, is and will be and this is a 'book' that never ends causes and effects without end there is comfort in the nature of Mystery for then we can finally rest as Abraham did

reading along taking a lunch break and i thought this was worth repeating and i think it bears repeating how not only deeply jewish christianity is at its roots (such as Genesis) but how deeply feminine it also is...especially in the capacity to handle suffering, in general though i think pain and suffering may be one of the most difficult subjects of all to approach these days especially in the context of things like sexuality and spiritual love ... i also wish i knew how to share what i understand about all this without it becoming a monologue cuz i think this thread is an amazing tapestry of a more open dialogue and i would hate to derail it so here is that thread on eros and agape peace

well, peeking in from between a pile of other urgent things.... somewhat speechless for having too much to say somewhat amused and relieved somewhat sad and still a bit peeved and a tad embarrassed for my part in all this ...but mostly deeply grateful to the bone for a lot of people around here (i can't tell you how many changes i have been through since first coming here) and so...here i am, wishing i was a better writer and hoping for a spot of time and space to sit down and contribute and participate again some day soon Todd

well, crud...i think ive finally decided im just not gonna keep trying to post around all this any more there is simply too much personally directed at me to read and write around which has made posting here more like trying to cleaning the toilet of a seedy tavern rather than having engaging discussions with friends at a cafe and the pneuma that walks is not showing any sign of letting up on his obsessive crusade to cast all our evil spirits out of the gsc...particularly mine...ite been going on for 2 months now the more i post, the more he responds and i simply dont want to spend any more time or energy (or interest) to respond to his holiness right now and no, i am not just going to put him on ignore, either because i still want to keep somewhat of an eye on what he writes especially due to the way he makes his personal attacks on un-related threads i dunno...maybe someone could start a thread especially for his very special kind of ministry let him get it all out of his system somehow and, as ever...as much as i appreciate paw and the mods for what they try to do with this place...this really just plain ole sucks and i really dont know why nothing can be done about this ongoing harrassment and graffiti no thanks so...waiter..check please maybe some day when someone at the gsc finally finds a reason (or a way) to keep this guy from continuiing to vomit on all the furniture (and in the faces of the patrons)...i'll come back and order another cup of coffee (and i hope that happens sooner than later)... til then...i've got better things to do with my typing fingers cuz i think this has been quite beyond the usual gsc forum conflicts though i might try and hang around a bit to respond to responses to this but not much...that's fer sure i can only imagine what kind of divine revelations this post might draw out of him sigh peace, friends +ODD p.s....Tom, or whomever...PM me if you like. maybe we can swap phone numbers and chat some day soon btw...im 'this close' to spending a few days in the Cleveland area this fall...and i'd love to meet f2f over a cup of java with some of you i've met here...if it works out

wow. hi all. interesting developments here....much thanks to you guys i just wanted to say hi real quick and let you know that i am absorbed into quite a pile of many other things at the moment...and i wouldn't want anyone to think i am somehow shaken i do hope to respond soon when i can give my (more) full attention to what's been added to this and the other related "inward paths" thread i'm aiming for this weekend grace and space, +ODD

ha...very nice, Tom thanks for adding your thoughts i really like this part... yes...i have come to think of our spiritual brokenness as more of a state of amnesia and our life's work can be summarized as a remembering of our original nature because, in essence...we already always are what we have always already been ...from the very beginning of time if we truly are a stream in a fountain, we are always already spiritually soaking wet, and our seperation from God is a deep forgetting and misunderstanding of how inseperable from the fountain that we always already are ultimately, even the boundaries between that which is within and that which is without will vanish ...we are that wet

fine, you had your say...very different Jesus's, yada yada etc... now be done with it because you know little to nothing about me, or that project, or what is really being promoted yet you have had so much to say about it all and so yeah...i am naturally quite interested in what you have to say about it and will be reading your posts when you stop posting comments about people and their personal life i will pull that nasty bee out of your butt i promise btw..if you cant restrain yourself...please try and comment on the thread i actually started about the project. i will gladly engage you there, and try to provide all the information you need. if you need help finding it, let me know.

for the record....no one has said Clay and I were "soulmates" but allan. he is taking some comments about friendship way too far. and as usual...fails to provide quotes to back up his false accusations also, i have no idea what is going on between everyone on this thread. I have nothing to do with it, whatsoever. and also...the city of Bend has nothing to do with this thread, whatsoever. and allan, if you continue to post things about me on other threads i am not even involved with...i reserve the right to get in your face about that, too.

happy birthday, sista e

very nice primer, Oaks as i have suggested many times around here before (i can dig up the links if anyone is interested) i dont think the speaking in tongues of acts and the epistles was anything like we learned in pfal nor was it a 'supernatural event,' per se but rather, a description of a movement that was exercising a higher level of ordinary human dialogue in a way that allows people to speak interfaith based on the law of agape love as Christ lived and showed them it was both more complex, and more free, and simply said more with less utilizing the universal "angelic structures" common to many traditions around the world (which is perhaps why the logic and wisdom was recognizable to so many on pentecost and why those gentiles already knew how to speak in tongues, etc...) it allowed a quickening of co-intelligence and deep mutual understanding where we can more openly share and compare our interior perspectives in love and more-or-less "show each other our naked Christ within...unashamed" if the "Return of Christ Within" thread is about the opening of individual interior space "speaking in tongues" is open the facilitation of shared interior space of course, this would cause a huge shift in collective awareness as well as threaten the existing thought-order, which was largely kept in place by using and controlling language itself (as it is today) in fact, if i ever get to spend a few months in a cabin doing research and writing a serious book that would most likely be a large part of the subject of it ...although none of this discounts the value of what twi taught us as speaking in tongues i still do that everyday, too, and still highly recommend it it is a very strong vehicle for prayer, meditation, contemplation, relaxation, mindfullness, play, creativity, etc... i just dont think it is as powerfully transformative as what acts and the epistles are describing but more of something wonderful that was learned during the aboriginal stages of human evolution and is utilized in the creation of new music and new words

hm...very nice, cuz yeah, so just where is that original firmament, anyway? that penultimate line between heaven and earth, and between the subject and object of the universe waters above the line... waters below the line... are we not each filled with everything from minerals and bugs and swamps and bushes and winds and rain and salt? are we not each filled with everything from thunder and lightning and tides and streams and stardust? is not just about every element and principle in the entire universe also somehow within each of us as well? are we not each filled with a lot of lot of lot of lot of wide open and empty space? if so...my oh my, that sure is a lot going on and its beyond amazing what it takes to be an ordinary living and breathing human being i am simply in awe how we came to be this way even my so-called enemies are sparkling and radiant and ultimately made of nothing but light without having to change a single gosh darn thing

my opinion on healing of body, healing of soul, healing of mind, healing of spirit, healing of relationships.... yes, seek healing wherever, whenever, however you choose choose to live choose to heal choose to be well choose to find answers and solutions to what ails you it is your right...biblically, spiritually, rationally...whatever and dont let anyone talk you out of it and there are a gazillion ways to tend to the wounds of simply being human just as there are a gazillion ways to be wounded good food good relationships good activity good information good friends good habits good science good religion good self-exploration good meditative life good prayerful life good thoughts good emotions good justice good feelings good humor good journal writing good communication etc... these are all modes of medicine for something valid in our life and they work best when they work together as one and yes...they can and do and often-times will pay off but also, the effects of genuine and authentic healing events can be reversed like when we believe the words of folks who have lost most all hope in healing and this is true regardless of what actually caused the healing i mean, should the sick and dying really always have to know exactly why something worked or not for them to except the fact that they are better? i hope not btw..sorry for not providing any specific stories right now, chas i love how you started this thread and will come back to it when i get a chance

thanks for the thoughtful response, chas and yeah...i believe and have seen that there is a level of peer-to-peer dialogue that we can experience and exercise and its not merely new, and its not merely old, but a timeless wisdom that has showed up from time to time in one form or another in just about every culture in history a natural, normal human capacity to fellowship on a level that is beyond like-mindedness based on mutual belief-systems, because it is a like-mindedness that is based on a mutual intention to enlighten each other and to be enlightened by each other regardless of the shape of the vessel in which we hold our faith but the simple fact is, that some people simply cannot and will not do it for a wide variety of reasons, even to the point of trying to stop such a level dialogue from happening it may be deemed morally wrong it may be deemed weak for being so compromising it may be that folks simply do not know you can do such a thing...or even how to do it it may even present an actual threat to the powers of the system at large for the new synergy of information that begins to flow freely but it requires that the participants are capable of making another certain leap of faith beyond the ones they have already made it is the art (and risk) of a wide open heart and shameless transparency that invites us into an authentic and functioning shared interior space oh, that more of the world knew how to do this again... sigh if anyone is interested here is one resource-filled website for one of the most amazing movements, which i have been tracking for the past few years now there are others, but this is one that is very effectively using peer-to-peer dialogue to all over the globe, in politics, religion, business, ecology, cultural issues, education, conflict resolution, etc...

i believe that regardless of what book or map or model or language we prefer, the truth of the nature of Christ is beyond the limits of what books or languages can describe though completely includes them, as well but whatever inward discipline or path that someone finds to simply deepen their own self awareness, whatever is found that truly opens, unfolds, cultivates, unpacks, unwraps all the layers of what is already there (as well as to build new structures of faith that grow up around the previous)... ...it is literally the narrowest path you or i could possibly find simply for being within, as opposed to being without the math seems obvious because within you, is the closest thing you could possibly find to your self, and is the most direct route to your "audience chamber of God" as the scriptures seem to say...there are countless paths to outer darkness and destruction but there is only one direction IN...for each and every one and without a doubt...God and Christ are also already always there or they are simply not as universal and timeless as we or scriptures claim "turn and see" is the same old invitation and i dont think it means to turn your physical body, or your physical head ... but in the end, the result of cultivating the "arrival" of Christ within is NOT about being self-absorbed, and merely self-aware ...but about being of increasingly greater service to all others from finally having your self exposed for what it is...beyond theory and from finally having removed the ego from the throne and in a way that is beyond lip-service or other outward claims i would even go as far to say that if our inward journey does not result in a realization that we are on this earth to be in service to others we are simply not done yet (and, of course, we are never really done, anyway) but can you imagine what the world would look like if everyone you met lived in service to you? and you to them? and that this attitude came from a genuine, authentic place of love from deep within? (rather than fear, or hate, or ignorance as to the actual texture of one's own deepest drives and motivations) of course, looking around at the world, and all the new ways of being crazy that have arisen as well as the long and savage histories we all come from... ...its no wonder so many of us want someone very powerful to come from the sky and save the world someone to literally come down and force universal goodness and justice upon us i dont blame anyone for wanting that...i do, too especially when that is the only form of hope we can find and hold onto in the surrounding madness in one sense, we all need some sense of hope, or we are hopeless but what if hope is also something that unfolds and expands and deepens? and in a way that includes all previous hopes, but takes them even further? (much like what Roy is pointing at with this: The Many Hopes ... if Christ aint "coming back" til he comes back in us, then it puts the burden directly on our shoulders no, not to change the world but to change yourself and make him appear in doing so, the world will never be the same but if and when we resist shining light on the darkness within the whole world suffers a little bit more for we simply know not what or why we do what we do ...which, of course, is as forgiveable as ever

bump just because

another one: Fowler's Stages of Faith Development again, by no means complete, but worth comparing spiritual with spiritual

thanks, Tom i will have to read and reread your musings a few times but i think it will be well worth it something that some more heady readers might be interested in as it pertains to stages of ego development which i think is directly related to this topic of an "inner arrival" of our "divine inheritance" amd something worthy of comparing (loosely) to the "first seven messages" of the Book of Revelation Loevinger's stages of ego development (highlighted in blue to point to thread relevance) Infancy Presocial No ego Not Differentiated from the World Symbiotic Self-Nonself Differentiation Stability of Objects Impulsive Curbed by Restraints, Rewards & Punishments Others are Seen as What They Can Give "Nice to Me" or "Mean to Me" Present-Centred Physical but not Psychological Causation Self-Protective Anticipates Rewards & Punishments First Self-Control "Don’t Get Caught" Externalize Blame Opportunistic Hedonism Conformist Take in Rules of the Group No Self Apart from Others Other’s Disapproval is Sanction Not Only Fear of Punishment Rules and Norms not Distinguished Rejects Out-Group Stereotypes Roles Security = Belonging Behaviours Judged Externally not by Intentions Self-Aware Self Distinct from Norms & Expectations First Inner Life Banal Feelings Always in Reference to Others Pseudo-Trait Conceptions Modal Stage of Adults Conscientious Goals and Ideals Sense of Responsibility Rules are Internalized Guilt is From Hurting Another, not Breaking Rules Having Self Apart from Group Standards are Self-Chosen Traits are Part of Rich Interior World Standards Distinguished from Manners Motives and not Just Actions Sees Self from Other Point of View Individualistic Distancing from Role Identities Subjective Experience as Opposed to Objective Reality Greater Tolerance of Self & Others Relationships Cause Dependency Awareness of Inner Conflict Inner Reality Vs. Outward Appearance Psychological Causality and Development Autonomous Inner Conflicts of Needs Vs Duties Polarity, Complexity, Multiple Facets Integrate Ideas Tolerate Ambiguity Freeing from Conscience Concern for Emotional Interdependence Integrates Different Identities Self-Fulfillment How They Function in Different Roles Integrated Transcendence of Conflicts Self-Actualizing Fully Worked Out Identity ... note: this is just one summation of one map among many and there have been stages identified that are even beyond this in both religious and scientific thought for further comparisons, check out the 3 "See alsos" at the bottom of the wiki article

well, i still think it can still happen here and gsc would be the perfect place for it many people coming out of twi need to consider the topic in fact, i bet many of them would be refreshed and renewed by reading about it that is a large part of what this place is about, no? i mean, what is a "good fight," anyway?

yeah, Bramble all it takes is one voice against an open circle of dialogue to effectively shut down that circle of dialogue and not from mere disagreement with what is being discussed (that is a large of part of the joy and benefit of it) but from a voice that is against the open nature of the discussion itself and/or personally against those having the discussion this is when intelligent and loving discourse comes screeching to halt and those who do want to continue the dialogue, must either leave and try it elsewhere or somehow find a way to "stop the mouths of the naysayers" or simply stop having the conversation it really sucks if those who disrupt the open dialogue do so because they think they are casting out evil spirits because they will indeed most likeley shut down the dialogue (and easily) which will only reinforce their beliefs that they have somehow done a good thing for God of course, written online message board discourse present a few different elements to the mix, where things like lingering disinformation and disintegrating social dynamics seem more problematic than the live verbal noise pollution

For starters, Allan does not merely disagree with doctrine he vilifies and irritates and pokes and pokes and pokes at what he does not understand and he does it without even thinking much about it first in fact, i dont even think he reads or comprehends everything he criticizes so there is no comparison there, whatsoever but most plainly...the answer to his "question/suggestion" is a loud NO everyone i work with are mature adults and competant professionals who know how to more-or-less disagree constructively and explore the reasons for their disagreements and are able to believe a wide variety of different things without hating and fearing each other and if they were on a forum like this they could easily do so without resorting to forum vandalism and hypertextual territorial pi$$ing and the obnoxious drive-by graffiti postings there would be no need to demand that someone shuts up and stops speaking falsely heck, there are arts and sciences to interfaith dialogue that millions and millions of people use on this planet ...which reminds me...i even recently tried to start another thread about it once but i recall that it went down in flames pretty darn quick hm :blink:

some interesting word searches for the topic at hand within inward inner

for the record as long as Allan continues to harrass and insinuate cult-like behavior on a public ex-cult message board where there is no cult-like behavior (except inside allan's uninformed heart and mind) i will continue to demand that he shut his mouth and i will do so without apology he has freely admitted that he is an foot, and has openly admitted that he thinks most people on this forum are as well now, i am sure he is ultimately driven by something good, as we all are but the good is obviously presently buried under a lot of other nastiness and sure, i could simply stop "feeding the troll," as they say but i really dont think he would go away he just shows up whever i post now like a dog humping my leg he attacks my character attacks the character of my friend and has moved on to include the work i am involved in and is now including my wife in his remarks even the city i live in not that any of it is true but not everyone who reads these message boards are aware of his patterns he knows little to nothing about cult behaviour yet professes to know a cult when he sees one and he does not accept new information when given it yet continues to post the same misinformation and due to the content of his posts i find it almost impossible to post around his constant off-topic interruptions and personal attacks and the only way i can think of to personally avoid his disruptive behaviour is to stop posting here altogether which is what i think he wants which really sucks though he will most likely just find someone else to leech onto and harrass he is on a mission, remember? i think he has and continues to blatantly break the forum rules i as much as it might suck, i think the gsc mods should ban him from posting and i have requested that they do especially if he starts including my wife in his remarks and our relationship and her work place and for the record just because Allen can't find Christ somewhere does not mean it is not there remember what he said: to Allan: "Must be nice not to have to think about what one believes" from Allan: "Yeah it is actually...kind of peaceful in an undisturbed believing sort of a way."

harrasment refers to a wide spectrum of offensive behavior. When the term is used in a legal sense it refers to behaviours that are found threatening or disturbing, and beyond those that are sanctioned by society. In societies which support free speech, only the more repetitive, persistent and untruthful types of speech qualify legally as harassment. cyber-bullying is the use of electronic information and communication devices such as e-mail, instant messaging, text messages, Blogs, mobile phones, pagers, Instant messages and defamatory websites to bully or otherwise harass an individual or group through personal attacks or other means, and it may constitute a computer crime. Cyberbullying is willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text. Like bullying, cyberbullying involves recurring harm and can be distinguished from peer harassment as a subset of aggressive behavior because bullying represents a pattern of behavior committed over a period of time. Jerk is sarcastic, mean, unforgiving and never misses an opportunity to make a cutting remark. Jerk's repulsive personality quickly alienates other Warriors, and after some initial skirmishing he is usually ostracized. Still, Jerk is very happy to participate in electronic forums because in cyberspace he is free to be himself...without the risk of getting a real-time punch in the mouth A profanity (or "swear word", or "curse word", or "foul language") is a word, expression, or other usage which is generally considered insulting, rude or vulgar. The extent to which a profanity is considered to be in some way disagreeable or objectionable depends on context, timing and various other factors. However, the use of certain profanities at certain times, especially in a public setting or during a solemn occasion, will always be considered inappropriate or in bad taste, if not clearly abusive, obscene or offensive. At other times the use of certain profanities will be considered mild or acceptable, and may take less recognizable forms, such as a minced oath. The original meaning of the term was restricted to blasphemy, sacrilege or speaking God's name in vain. However, the term has been extended to include expressions with scatological, sexist, derogatory, racist, or sexual themes.

who is this mysterious they, allan? and how do you know i am not using angry words without being angry? did saint Paul use angry words at times? did Jesus the Christ use angry words at times? Mark 3:5 And when he had looked round about on them with anger, being grieved for the hardness of their hearts... Eph 4:26 Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath Tit 1:7 For a bishop must be blameless, as the steward of God; not selfwilled, not soon angry, not given to wine, no striker, not given to filthy lucre;

well, actually...i gave him quite an earful in private after one of his recent attacks, Tom nothing R-rated, mind you...but an earful, nonetheless but thanks for your support