5th Anniversary

Five years ago today I began my blog 'ofseriousthoughts' with this poem.  I repeat it today on this anniversary.  It speaks to my main concerns.
I have maintained the goal of two entrys a month.  Because of other writing projects I will reduce that to once a month.  I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy this project, just less frequently.  I only wish I had more comments from my readers.

Un-named God

You are the un-named God

      the soul-giver

Who or what you are

      is a mystery requiring humble acceptance,

      not a problem demanding arrogant solutions.

You gifted man with consciousness--

      the invitation to participate in the mystery!

We responded with arrogance--

      imposing solutions upon a perceived problem.

We’ve misinterpreted what and who you are.

We’ve misconcluded who and what we are!

---

How wise the admonition 

      to not utter God’s name!

We ignored it to our peril--

      we named you and contained you;

We locked you within dogmas,

      confined you to denominations;

We borrowed your power to levy control,

      stole from you your glory to praise our creations;

We molded and made you into our image,

      chose and selected what pleased our design.

---

Foolishly, men of power became God-namers

      and for a time...

The God-namers ruled

      presuming to control both God and men

The God-namers ruled

      luxuriating in glamour and arrogance

The God-namers ruled

      dividing humanity into controllers and controlled

The God-namers ruled

      losing the quest for the Holy Grail.

---

And so history unfolded...

Till finally the controlled awakened,

      forever beyond blind obedience.

They looked and saw the illusion--

     God wasn’t as they’d been told!

They saw empty dogma and warring denominations,

They saw corrupted power and tainted glory,

They saw false idols and self-serving gestures.

Ordinary men turned, first on the God-namers,

                          --then on God!

Yet foolishly they accepted the divisions of 

                          controllers and controlled

And everyone raced to be in charge

          while denying responsibility for control.

The 20th Century ‘common man’

     accepted the proclamation 

               of God’s death

And in so doing, brought about

                ...his own

               Emptiness

               Soullessness

               Meaninglessness...

---

The structure of civilization

     has been built upon domination and control.

The hope for its continuation

     hangs upon humankind embracing true Wisdom

               The formula is there for us to discover

                     Beyond dogmas

                     Beyond controllers:

               “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”

                     “Love one another”

                        “Go and sin no more”

                     “Forgive your enemies”

---

Is it that God IS NOT?

     or

Is it that God is beyond our containing?

                     --our naming?

God is Unity, Totality, Infinity

God is Love, Justice, Truth

God is Benevolent Transcendent Power

---

Without God upon whom to center

                     my life,

My Life becomes the center of 

                     my universe.

     Alienation!

          Exit warmth and compassion

               honor and integrity:

          “Take care of #1”

          “If it feels good, do it”

          “The one who dies with the most toys wins”

---

But we’re made to seek God

It’s programmed into our being

     so imitations fill the vacuum:

          sex replaces Love

          legalisms replace Justice

          data replaces Truth

     and the almighty dollar replaces Benevolent

                                         Transcendent

                                            Power

          Soul-less

     We’ve become the hollow men!

---

Louder, Faster!

Louder, Faster!!  Hide the hollowness!

But no matter how loud and how fast

          there are moments of 

          self alone with self

     and the hollow places echo

     the absence of the soul

                          ...another suicide

                             one more senseless killing.

Here and there, a tear is shed, a cry is heard

     another tear, another cry

          and another and another

     till the Louder and Faster 

          aren’t loud enough or fast enough

               and we finally realize...

There’s a cry echoing across the land

The cry of a hollow generation

          wailing for its lost soul!

---

With our own hand, we fashioned hell!

We refused to see we did it to ourselves--

We not only named God, but dictated the spelling!

---

But You are the unnamed God

     The soul-giver

I know you by your absence.

When we turn from You

     we dispossess our soul--

          soon to discover

               we are the hollow men.

Without You we cannot save ourselves

                       from ourselves.

Only in Your presence do we partake of the mystery--

Only in Your presence do we reach beyond ourselves--

Only in Your presence do we find fulfillment.

God Search

Within the human species there is an insatiable desire to know, understand and draw conclusions—some call that a ‘God Search’.  It requires quiet time, but in this crazy fast-paced world of information overload, who has that quiet time?  And that search has been relegated to ‘unimportant’ in our secular world . . . but is it?

We all know that life is a limited experience.  We each come into being by way of an unfathomable chain of events; then, unknown circumstances will play upon us until the inevitable extinguishing of our mortal self.  We know this, but do we actually realize it?  Fact:  with few exceptions, the allotted time for each of us averages some 75-85 years and only rarely exceeds 100.  Such a tiny piece of time!  Individually we enter and exit the flow of life that stretches beyond our vision in both directions, backward and forward.   Why are we here so briefly? Why do we have consciousness to ask the question ‘Why’?

The majority of people are unconcerned about deep questions of existence, they are engaged in the survival struggle and ask only questions about immediate concerns . . . but for those who do ask the deep questions there seems to be two conflicting answers.  The first answer that came long ago, was to consider that some guiding spirit or spirits ‘made things happen’, controlling and watching the human struggle.  The spirits were identified differently by different groups of people, but the unifying idea was of ‘something more’.  The second answer came later, it was to consider that there are no spirit guides, humanity is alone in a meaningless universe without pattern or purpose—life appeared on this planet through random happenstance.  Our coming and going is just that brief experience without value, purpose or hope.

We seem to be caught between those two answers even if we personally aren’t engaged in the search.  The first answer seemed to offer hope and promise in the ‘something more’, but it became tangled in the definitions and rules of the institutions that grew around the idea.  The second answer came supported by science and seemed lofty, intelligent and, Oh so rational!—but dark and unsatisfying . . . Nothing more?  Meaninglessness?

Currently, among progressive thinkers a new question is being raised:  Are we experiencing another Axial Age?  A pivotal time when there is a fundamental shift in thinking about the universe and our part in it?  So, to address the question below that question, what IS an Axial Age?

The German philosopher Karl Jasper coined the term Axial Age in reference to the period of time roughly between 800-200 B.C.  He wrote: “The spiritual foundations of humanity were laid simultaneously and independently throughout most of the inhabited world” . . . in that time the great intellectual, philosophical and religious systems emerged [i.e. Greek philosophers, Hebrew prophets, Confucius and Lao-Tzu in China, the Buddha in India, Zoroaster in Persia . . .] that shaped subsequent human society and culture.  Each chose different patterns of behavior yet held similar attitudes of respectful relationships and ultimate concerns beyond mere survival.  There was a shift or turn away from the violence of mere self-preservation characteristic of tribalism, shifting to living cooperatively with those who were different and speculating about the fate of humanity.  There emerged a new concern for the individual person evidenced by some form of the ‘Golden Rule’ expressed in each of the cultures. (“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”.) 

The New World Encyclopedia defines this era as: “the time in which all foundations that underlie current civilization came into being.  The Axial Age plays a central, foundational, or crucial role in human history.”

What is the significance of the Axial Age with regards to the God search?  It is a piece of evidence that supports the hopeful position that life is unfolding in accordance to a discernible pattern or plan.  From the study of science we see and understand life has evolved from simple to complex forms; when we observe long-term human behavior we can see a pattern of advancement from lower to higher states of consciousness.  The 1^st Axial Age shows that without direct communication, these diverse groups of people, although isolated from each other, chose advancement from barbarism to civilization—it implies a knowing directive force behind the flow of history, and bespeaks intentionality that affirms a God leading humanity to a higher purpose.   

Hewing Crosses

A line from my previous post 'The Cross Unseen' states: "countless unknown, crucified with questions hang upon crosses of meaninglessness and alienation".  The theme of alienation is prominent in my writing for I regard it as contemporary society's greatest challenge.  Although the cross is a Christian symbol, it represents human suffering--and often the suffering it represents is not acknowledged by those not directly effected buy it.

As we advanced from horse and buggy villages to the jet-powered intercontinental world, we  unwittingly left God behind; so busy were we with out 'advancing'.  Historically different cultures have given what each considers to be God, different names--be it Yahweh, Christ, Allah, The Tao, The Great Spirit, The Buddha, Benevolent Universe . . . but by whatever name, the 'god concept' embodies purpose and the way people are to live.

In our society's progress we have championed individualism, competition and technology.  Each of these have played a legitimate role in the nation's development but they have been overstressed; without balancing elements that include a moral code and common goals they have led to a kind of tyranny--emphasis on individualism makes us forget that although we are individuals we are also a part of a society whose proper functioning requires respect and compromise.  The emphasis upon competition blinds us to all else but 'winning' while craving trophies that display our success.  The advancement of technology has relentlessly taken us away from the human element; we've become narcissistic, myopically intent upon taking care of #1, remote and removed from heartfelt human interaction.

With these developments we have allowed God's prominence to fade from guiding our thoughts and actions so, as our knowledge advances and our horizons expand, we find ourselves alone in an ever more confounding universe without map or compass. . . . thus are we surrounded by a sea of lost and alienated individuals who have heard of, and come to believe in, life's meaninglessness.  Without an anchor in moral principles or any meaningful purpose beyond their small selves, life seems absurd . . . so we are plagued with a spectrum of irrational behaviors from senseless mass shootings, to youthful suicides, to self-destructive life choices, to wild rave partying and event riots . . .
                                                 each age hews its crosses . . .