Blog 2493 – 08.22.2022

Find Yourself Holy and Whole

The teens and twenties for many of us are a time of trying to find ourselves. For some of us slower learners or those of us who married young thinking someone else might complete us the process can be delayed till later in life. I am convinced that some of us may have already spent several lifetimes without ever coming to a definite understanding of our true identity.

The story goes that when Moses who had been raised as Pharaoh’s sister’s son came to understand that he was really the child of slaves that he got so angry at those he long thought his clan for mistreating his true family that he lashed out and killed an Egyptian who was beating a Hebrew slave. Knowing that his act when discovered would bring Pharaoh’s justice down on his head, Moses fled into the desert. For years he herded sheep until he came upon a burning bush that refused to burn completely up. When he came near to examine this phenomenon a voice came out of the bush saying, “Take off your shoes for you are standing on holy ground.”

The concept of holiness is at the core of the great guilt religions who portray divinity mostly an angry judge seeking an eye for an eye, ever ready to punish any deviation from his rules. The voice from the burning bush had a specific message for Moses to deliver to the one he had grown up believing was his cousin, the son of the Pharaoh whose justice he had fled. The message was, “Tell Pharaoh to let my people go.”

When Moses asked the voice, “Whom shall I say is sending me” the cryptic reply that sounds strangely like something Popeye the Sailor might says, “Tell him “I am” sent you.” Many years later when being tried by the Jewish Sanhedrin for heresy and blasphemy Jesus enraged the Jewish leaders when they asked him if he was God by saying, “I am.” The council, being under Roman rule, no longer had the authority to condemn anyone to death, since they wanted Jesus dead, they sent him to the Roman Governor and when Pilate said that he could find no fault in him, the Jewish leaders influenced the mob to shout, “He claims to be god and we have no god but Caesar and your are not Caesar’s friend if you let him live. Crucify him, crucify him.” Jesus more often throughout his three year ministry had referred to himself as the Son of Man. And he was quoted as saying to his followers, “As I am so are you in this world.” There is that phrase “I am” again.

One of God’s top ten rules or commandments carved in stone is, “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.” Many Christian’s and other’s who do not like curse or swear words think that means it is a sin to say “God damn.” Wrong! Guess again. Some think calling yourself a Christian and not always trying to do what Jesus would do is what the commandment means. Sorry, wrong again. God’s name is not Christ nor was it Jesus’ name. Christ is merely a title meaning “anointed” which is like baptism lite with olive oil instead of holy water. A side question if I might: If water is holy and our bodies are for the most part water why would we need to be submerged in water to prove our worthiness or holiness?” Just asking.

But back to my main consideration: Just who do you think you are? No one is born knowing Who and Whose they are. Probably Jesus had to figure that out the same as we all do, hence delaying his public ministry till he was thirty. That temptation business by Satan for forty days in the desert might have been about coming to grips with who and whose he was and what he intended to make his mission.

Being Savior of the whole world was a definite Impossible Mission scenario if there ever was one. It is possible that the guys who wrote the Gospels might have exaggerated or at the very least taken a little poetic license with his story. The oldest version was probably not recorded till ninety years after the fact with no living eye witnesses around to keep the story straight.

It takes more than a grain of faith to believe there ever was a truly non-fiction book written let alone sixty-six of them, thirty-nine, twenty-seven, or even four. There is more than a grain of truth probably in any book of fiction. Only an open and inquiring mind can sift it out. In a desert full of sand Moses found a burning bush and a few clues to his life long search for his own identity.

Here’s a thought what if discovering who god is, is really one and the same as discovering who and whose we are. Descartes the French philosopher famous quote is: “I think therefore I am.” Maybe the burning bush, and Pop-eye got it right: “I am what I am.”

That being true there is no reason at all to boast nor any place for self deprecation. Also how silly it sounds to swear by yourself like one of the Rugrats, “So help me, Bob.” Condemning anyone or anything in any name is just so much damned nonsense.

A wise lady, who I think finally found herself, once sang, “I’ve been all around the world, but I haven’t been to me.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David White

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uIBN6KC4u0Ocj3IW1HqxvStytcMo90D4/view?usp=drivesdk

I’m Not Who I Was