rbchaddy2000
More About Me
My Tagline:
A reasonable faith that appreciates mystery, open society and open religion shine as a candle shines.
My Interests:
Prayer, Meditation, Worship, God, Interfaith issues, Origin of life debates, Biblical archaeology, History, Movies, TV, Music, Books, Education, Current events, Politics, Environment, Depression, Family, Marriage, Parenting, Pets, I am strongly interested in all kinds of history, anthropology, paleontology, politics, religion, early church history, biblical studies including those books not in the canon, and philosophy. Recently, I am seeking spiritual books such as those by Harold Kushner.
My Favorite Books, Authors, Musicians, Movies, Preachers, TV shows, etc:
Movies: Independence Day, ET, On Golden Pond; TV: Science, National Geographic, History and PBS channels; Authors: Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, Ernst Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck; Actresses: Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Diane Lane, Dakota Blue Richards, Abigail Breslin, Brooke Shields, and Kate Winslet; Royalty: Lady Diana
Who Inspires Me:
M.L.King, Jefferson, Tutu, Lincoln, Weisel, Joseph Campbell, Gandhi, F.D.R., Truman, JFK, Reagan, Eisenhower, Churchill, Thatcher, Buckley, Will, Darwin, Stephen J. Gould, Hawking, Eisley, Priestley, Wieman, Hartshorne, Whitehead, Teilhard de Chardin, Sojourner Truth, Rosa Parks, Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Brooke Shields, Lady Diana, the Huxleys, Carl Sagan, Einstein and Jesus
My organizations and affiliations:
ELCA; TEC; UC; UUA; TCPC. I am a TEA member. I am a registered Republican. I appreciated some New Deal Democratic ideas. I am a pragmatic realist/neo-conservative with an antiterrorist stand in world and national affairs. Terrorists come in all flavors homegrown and otherwise. I support John McCain, a great and true patriot.
My favorite spiritual activities:
Thoughtful reading and reflection on religion and its classics such as the Hebrew canon; reflection and wonder about nature and a deep appreciation for it. The night sky free of light pollution is like a cathedral as is virgin nature.
Who I'm praying for:
.Justice for everyone. Our troops.
What is your current spiritual mood?:
Awe-struck
What's your spiritual type?:
Confident Believer - I have found the right path and am fully committed to it.
About Me
I am a spiritual freethinker, who is deeply religious, with a great reverence for nature and its processes and my awareness of them which makes me in awe of reality. I am an advocate of liberal/progressive Christianity with a belief in nature as process. In my thought, there is a combination of a God-intoxicated religious naturalism and a process philosophy which professes God such as that represented by Charles Hartshorne and Alfred North Whitehead. I am uncertain about what "God" really is as I reject classical theism, but I do believe in the reality of God who I see as not a tyrant but as a mystery who is very real in my life. People are matter that is aware of itself, so we sense and reflect God and need God. Even most traditional Christians would agree that "God" is a mystery known through life experiences with people. I am quite negatively critical of the Pauline/Augustinian strain of thought that has been so pervasive particularly in Western Catholicism and its Protestant antitheses with its dogma of original sin, but I am painfully aware that people are capable of great good and great evil. The good in people can be contrasted with the travesties of the Holocaust and with American chattel slavery. I reject this classical theism that pervades much theological thought and belief for a panentheism that does not make a distinction between creator and creation, but sees God as part of nature, but more than nature. My need for meaning in life and the connections that I share with many people, are met in kind deeds, ethical awareness, and in tolerant respect for others. A euphemistic understanding of "God" as the growth of meaning and value in life seen and reflected in people affords another sense of connection. I respect the Hebrew canon and the New Testament canon, and other noncanodical writings, but not as finally authoritative, but as great spiritual literature and treasure as I do other religious classics of other faiths. My most significant points of departure from traditional Christian theism include my rejection of traditional trinitarian and christological formulas. I see Jesus as a profound personality in contact with the sublimity of the experience of God whom I can metaphorically celebrate in liturgy as the Christian way to see God in our humanity. I reject an exclusive interpretation of way. I interpret the miraculous in the entire Bible as metaphorical truth. I love the Psalms of David the most. I am a liberal pietist. Also, I read Borg, Spong, Holloway, Pagels, Hick, K.Armstrong, Crossan, Kushner. Buber, Herschel, Ehrman, Forrest Church, K.Gibran, J. Campbell, P.Teilhard de Chardin, C. Hartshorne, Alfred North Whitehead, James Luther Adams, Stephen J Gould, and others. I maintain membership with my old Episcopalian and Lutheran roots. I go almost weekly to an ELCA Lutheran Church, where my 91 year old Mom goes and where I am a member. I have deep sentiment and appreciation for a liberal Lutheranism and I like The King's Chapel modification of The Book Of Common Prayer. I have probable Ashkenazi roots on one of my maternal family lines.
My Basics
Location: Chattanooga, TN, USA
Gender: Male
Occupation: Educator
Relationship Status: Married
Faiths:
Christian,
Faith Description: A vision of life most aware of the ultimate reality of God which is reverent, empirical, experimental, moral, ethical, open, Protestant, deely religious and spiritual while remaining scientific, secular, seeking, and skeptical with a sense of mystery that is insired by sacred texts, community, and the power of love, reflection, and service in the reality of statistical probability with its random chance, and natural evolution.
The Golden Rule is paramount. I share high common interests with Reform and Conservative Judaism, the Quakers, the liberal/progressive side of the mainline Protestant traditions, Jewish/Christian humanism, and liberal/progessive religious thought in general.
rbchaddy2000's Journal
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Then said a rich man, "Speak to us of Giving."
And he answered:
You give but little when you give of your possessions.
It is when you give of yourself that you truly give.
For what are your possessions but things you keep and guard for fear you may need them tomorrow?
And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow bring to the overprudent dog burying bones in the trackless sand as he follows the pilgrims to the holy city?
And what is fear of need but need itself?
Is not dread of thirst when your well is full, thirst that is unquenchable?
There are those who give little of the much which they have - and they give it for recognition and their hidden desire makes their gifts unwholesome.
And there are those who have little and give it all.
These are the believers in life and the bounty of life, and their coffer is never empty.
There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
And there are those who give with pain, and that pain is their baptism.
And there are those who give and know not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy, nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle breathes its fragrance into space.
Though the hands of such as these God speaks, and from behind their eyes He smiles upon the earth.
It is well to give when asked, but it is better to give unasked, through understanding;
And to the open-handed the search for one who shall receive is joy greater than giving
And is there aught you would withhold?
All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.
You often say, "I would give, but only to the deserving."
The trees in your orchard say not so, nor the flocks in your pasture.
They give that they may live, for to withhold is to perish.
Surely he who is worthy to receive his days and his nights is worthy of all else from you.
And he who has deserved to drink from the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup from your little stream.
And what desert greater shall there be than that which lies in the courage and the confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?
And who are you that men should rend their bosom and unveil their pride, that you may see their worth naked and their pride unabashed?
See first that you yourself deserve to be a giver, and an instrument of giving.
For in truth it is life that gives unto life - while you, who deem yourself a giver, are but a witness.
And you receivers - and you are all receivers - assume no weight of gratitude, lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon him who gives.
Rather rise together with the giver on his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is to doubt his generosity who has the free-hearted earth for mother, and God for father.
http://leb.net/~mira/
June 18, 2008 - 10:40 PM
I hope you read my post in the Spirituality group-Thread REST FOR THE WEARY!GOOD DAY, URK.
Christian Glitter by www.christianglitter.com
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