Finding our way to The Way one situation at a time. I don't know how great it will be, but I expect it will be interesting, and I look forward to it going on past all reason because wonder is just that way. Are you coming or not?
Swamp Scene 11 — Lake Chico State Park, Ville Platte, Louisiana, Photoshop Generative Fill AI Enhanced, 2009
"God doesn't help us, God doesn't hurt us. We live our own lives." -- Rebecca Dollar, 3rd grade.
"A little child shall lead them," Jesus telling it like it is.
The children know. And, we know. But we dismiss what we know because of what we have been taught.
"That we are sinful to the core and going to hell for sure if we don't believe that Jesus died to appease God's need for Justice."
We know that is stupid from the start. #1 We did not sin. There was no Garden of Eden. No Adam or Eve (Where did the dinosaurs fit in to the Eden story?). All of that was embellished and placed in the Bible by the Church of Rome before 397 CE, and the lie took hold and everyone believes what they know is not so. It's time to stop the nonsense. And #2 there is no pay off for being good, because how good is the good that is good with a payoff in mind? That is not good! That is a bribe!
What possible stake could God have in any outcome? "God wants this, God hates that (Gays and Abortion, for instance, always what those saying what God hates hate). God doesn't love, God doesn't hate. God is the background, eternal, AAAUUUMMMM of the Cosmos. Circumstances beget circumstances. Planets collide. "Time and chance happen to us all," according to the Bible. And it is all the same to God. God doesn't have preferences. God doesn't issue decrees or judgments, and couldn't tell you who won the 1928 World Series.
We are here for the joy and wonder of being here. We are here to be who we are, doing what is ours to do. If we are forsaking ourselves to do what Mamma says do, that is our bane, shame and burden to bear always. We have from now to our last breath to get it right by being who we are and doing what is ours to do. In the time left for living. Why waste a second?
I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing.
I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters, five granddaughters, one great granddaughter, and a great grandson on the way, within about ten minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything.
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Jim Dollar's Photography and Philosophy 