Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do

We all, at least those with any exposure to Christianity at all, know those words by heart. We know who said them, and under what circumstances. And we believe we know what He meant, when he said them.

I've come to think we have really missed it on this one, over all the centuries of this religion. Recurring as a central theme in so many of my meditations, thoughts, and studies for a good long while now, has been a core concept related to His words, the words themselves, and when He spoke them. And I've struggled with how to ever try to convey to others just what has seemed to emerge for me, as a central truth very different from what I, and the rest of us, have ever been taught about that.

Some years ago, I had read, and adopted as one on my little guides to wisdom nuggets, that "pride never recognizes itself; if it did, it would immediately commit suicide by common sense." And I had come to see how that had been true in me and others, both through life experiences, as well as through studies in Psychology and theology. 

Then, I began to experience, in one context after another, in how many ways we commonly really do not recognize something in what we do, what we way, how we are. Our view of ourselves is rarely clear, and seriously skewed with reality when we really start breaking it down and looking at it.

In the matter of hypocrisy, it is easy, it seems, to see and point out the hypocrisy in others, ourselves, not so much so. As I studied hypocrisy in various contexts, religion, the bible, philosophy, and psychology, that central theme emerged, again and again. We know not what we (really) do.

In philosophy and logic, the examination of the various forms of what are called "fallacies of logic," and then on into psychology, and what are called such as "Ego Defenses" there is was, again and again. We don't even recognize our most blatant hypocrisies, because we don't even really know what hypocrisy IS! We not only know not what we do, we don't even know what it is we THINK we don't do!

In the matter of idolatry, I owe a great debt to Paul Ramsey, in his Basic Christian Ethics, for his carefully thought out description of just what idolatry actually, but more importantly, the mental "process" humans go through in creating and holding an idolatry. Again, we not only know not what we do, we don't even know what it is we THINK we don't do!

In everyday life around us, i am not alone in wondering at times how it can be most everybody agrees bullying is 'wrong', and yet there is so much bullying. And that it doesn't take much observation to see that many of those that insist most strongly that they hate bullying, believe bullying is wrong, are actually bullying others, even often, in the course of their daily interactions with others! And once again, when I delve into why that is, why such hypocrisy about bullying, I find at the core of it, they don't recognize what they do as being bullies, and yes, again, because they really don't even know what bullying IS! Again, we not just know not what we do, we don't even know what it is we THINK we don't do IS!

At the core of all this, and so much more, this central theme, central truth, as it seems to keep making its way into my considerations on any matter.

When Jesus uttered those words as He hung on the cross, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do," it wasn't just about, as our common Christian beliefs have taught us, His just forgiving those that were murdering Him, for not recognizing they were killing the Son of God, even though they didn't know what they did, never repented or asked forgiveness. No, that was not what he meant at all.

If He came here to die on the cross for the Sin of the world, then those words meant something much more, far greater, than forgiveness of those few that were participating in his murder,

In those words, His mission was accomplished. NONE of us really know what we do! 

"It is finished."

On Internet Media Ad Watching - Seeking What's Really Going on

I know most people would prefer all those ads on every page they pull up on the Internet, and such ads  presented as 'suggested posts' on their social networking sites would just go away, and many use ad-blockers to avoid them. But for me, I've learned to use noticing them, and even clicking on to take a closer look, at some of those ads, as a way of keeping a finger on the pulse of what is really going on out in the world. Some relates to politics, some to social justice issues, some to just the general direction public interests are trending, and many are readily recognizable as scams luring in naive victims. 

Those that intrigue me most, draw me into looking closer, to see what they are really about, what is really going on, are both those I recognize as high scam potential, and then, those that are clearly not what they seem, are presenting as, but are actually something very different. Sometimes I suspect the two types are working together, the scam ads seeking what technique work best to draw people in, what are people most often vulnerable to, what they will readily "buy into," and those I will call political-social agenda propaganda intended to subtly influence 'public perception and opinion' under the guise of advertising some product or service. Knowing what many people will "buy into" is a tremendously useful tool in determining how to effectively present political, social, or religious propaganda.

As demonstration of what I'm talking about here, consider the political/social propaganda presented in the appearance of such ads with lead-in banners stating as if an assumed 'fact,' that "due to changes Obama has made in "policies" related to "qualifying" for some form of "benefit" under some government program or government regulated industry, YOU TOO may now qualify for something for nothing, at government (TAX PAYER) expense!  
The "service" offered is usually along the line of helping you apply and qualify for some actual "government program," but the ease of qualifying and/or the huge financial benefit you might gain is extremely exaggerated, supporting the popular propaganda toward convincing people Obama is taking more and more of YOUR tax dollars to GIVE them to unworthy and undeserving others.

Common themes among such ads:
"Changes" Obama has made so as to make it 'easier than ever to qualify' for even greater than ever dollar amounts in disability benefits, welfare benefits of many kinds, student grants of  'free money' for college even if your income is as high as $80,000, as one such ad claims, and absurdly misrepresented and outright false assertions of how much a home buyer "underwater" on their mortgage can get knocked off the capital amount of their mortgage loan under a refinance, topped with an alluring dollop of sweet frosting of extremely low interest rates and monthly payments. 

Key is that most such "changes" attributed the Obama, that "assume" it is easier than ever before to cash in on generous government benefits, something for nothing at tax payer expense,  are either entirely false, there have been no changes in that program under the present administration, or, any changes or new regulations and policies enacted are far from being the easy gravy train the ad presents as an "assumed fact" before jumping into how YOU can take advantage of the new opportunity for "free booty from the government," that isn't actually there. 

In closer examination, with application of careful reasoning and actual sound facts, discrediting the claims in these ads, and seeing them as often nothing more than a venue for advancing a childishly simplistic propaganda, doesn't take much real cognitive effort or mental challenge. Sometimes it doesn't even take that to see through them if you are open, not already closed in your own opinion on the matter, for the claims are so obviously absurd. And certainly, anyone thinking to actually follow up on their offers are sure to find they've fallen for a scam, followed a false lead, a phony 'come-on.'  

But when what they are advancing seems to support things their target audiences already believe, WANT to believe, those people will simply accept the headline banner as if a true fact, that further reinforces their perception of the validity of their own already held opinion. 

Since it is unlikely, it seems to me, for average individuals, not matter how strongly they hold any political of social position, the question arises, then, just "who" IS creating these "pseudo-businesses" and running ads for them? 

The answer to that seems pretty evident to me. But I'll leave you to arrive at your own conclusions.

Walking the Between, Ever Seeking Center

It has come to seem to me how much it is that finding balance, in my own life, in dealing with others around me and that I encounter in daily life, and in so many of our political and social justice issues, can feel so much like walking a thin high-wire, a narrow and shaky walk-bridge, sometimes a fragile string across a deep chasm that falls away into spans of jagged rocks far below.

Some years ago, the accumulated residual effects of events and experiences over the course of my life broke free from the closed doors behind which I had carefully, and to standards of expectations in our society, dutifully, kept them hidden away, some even from my own awareness, in a crisis triggered by a number to tragic, traumatic, and unexpected event my own and lives of others close to me, for which I had at the time absolutely no point of reference for understanding what was happening to me. It would take some years to work through not only that crisis event itself, my fears at times I was sinking into some strange kind of madness, but learn as well about what it actually was I had experienced. 

I learned such a life crisis event has been called by different names at different times and in different cultures and religions and different disciplines...Spiritual Emergency (as that word applies in both meanings), coming into Cosmic Consciousness, Shamanic call, the Ascent to Carmel, the venture into the inner depths of the Interior Castle, Spiritual call to Quest, positive psychological dis-integration/re-integration, individuation crisis, the transforming crisis of the new birth, into a new creation. Christian and non-Christian, civilized and pagan, religious and secular, such a thing has been called by so many names, attributed to so many sources and causes, yet all describe, for any that have passed through it, something that is essentially the same.the place into which I found myself thrown, abruptly, unexpectedly, even traumatically, was a place and state I came to call "walking the between." 

 To be walking the between, between what is real and what is not, what is true and what is false, what is right and what is wrong, the seen and the unseen, what is my own point of view and that of another, was at first disorienting, at times  frightening, but I came to realize that was for that I had reached the point in my life when for the first time, that I was really walking, going anywhere, at all! It was as the point at which the child has peddled along merrily on the bicycle under the trust that the grown-up holding onto the bike, and the training wheels that lent a sense of more security that in fact they ever did, suddenly realizes the training wheel came of and the adult had quietly let go and stepped back, actually quite some distance back along the road. At which point of course, the sudden realization he/she is really on their own, without some outside other force to keep them upright, protect them from falling, usually results in the child's becoming distracted and afraid, promptly loosing control and crashing the bike. Like the child on the bike eventually learns to get the bike up and going again, to keep it balanced, and peddle away on his/her own, I eventually regained balance and was able to move forward confident that I really could move on without the illusions of outside supports and guidance I had once relied upon. I learned that while that event had seemed strange and unknown, it was of a nature of event many have experienced across the spans of time and distance and cultures, but that does seem to be occurring much more frequently to a great many more people than has been typical in past eras. 

As I sought to orient myself, my new and strange experience, I learned that I had entered a circle in which I stood in some pretty good company. Names of "great" men and women that are now famous, that in relating their own life stories, spoke and wrote of such a point, a time in their lives, at which "everything changed." Inside our became outside in, and upside down became right side up. Tolstoy's transition at that point was from a common hack writer of pulp fiction, to such a work as War and Peace. Jung found himself rejecting the promising future as Freud's star and primary pupil and heir apparent, to pursue a course of understanding human nature, thought, and behavior, that included, to his old mentor's dismay and very deep and bitter disappointment, a Spiritual aspect as well as Freud's purely atheistic 3 part model, of Superego, Ego, and Id, that was over-arching even those 3 element of the human psyche. 

But also, those that may have lived more quietly, never doing anything that brought them into the notice of history, for whom this at first disorienting and disturbing process transformed their lives toward way they made difference in place, in whatever circumstances of life they were. That, as Paul wrote of it, served in whatever position they were when called, to affect their own little place in the world, and greater scheme of things. 

In this present world, as there seems coming upon us a time of new awakening, has the opening up of access, through various communications channels, to all manner of information, knowledge of events throughout the world, it may be that greatest effect has been that of communication with one another, other people, and their thoughts, and ideas, with barriers of time and place removed. Those awakening in place have for centuries found themselves most often alone, walking quietly among those with which they lived their daily lives, being in their world, but not of their world. Walking the between. Being seen, yet unseen, for in so many places and times of the past, and yes, in some even today, those recognized as being 'different' in such ways, were, by that recognition, perceived as threats, placed into real danger of their lives. Only now, can we span time and distance, to find one another, these that walk the between. 

And I have come to wonder, is it the whole of our society, no, the whole of humanity, that is coming to this point of crisis, this place of walking the between, of ever seeking center, the balance points, in so many issues we face in our reality in this new and changing world? Could this be, even, that prophesied, on more than one culture and era of time, the coming of the Light? The 'second coming of Christ' that would be as the lightening cometh from the east and spreadeth to the west?