A reflection (Main Forum)

by Oh Yet We Trust, Brisbane, Tuesday, February 02, 2010, 14:08 (1209 days ago) @ Oh Yet We Trust
edited by Oh Yet We Trust, Tuesday, February 02, 2010, 17:53

'Salvation history' must be personal salvation history which influences our everyday existence, our decisions and choices, our self image and that of those with whom we meet day by day, or it is nothing.

If then we gather with like-minded people, well and good and probably humanly necessary but if not, also well and good. Did Christ call us as a 'people' or as individuals who then communicate with each other in the process of our individuation in Christ to God? When we come to our end are we a member of a group, a people or a church or are we on our own albeit belonging to the Body of Christ because of our personal choice and commitment to be so? Did God intend the descendants of Abraham to be forever a collective? Did not, out of that collective come a Man who would show us the way the truth and the life/light - Himself - someone who calls us to a radical and absurd marriage with Him, to be united with Him in our journey to God who is Him?

Even though there are deep truths within almost every spiritual writing, are the scriptures and the history of a people, the volumes of theology, are all these and others written by enlightened individuals or by a people, a group, a church or a person trapped in the ethical stage of existence and, therefore, not quite there yet or not quite grasping the whole truth, the whole complete picture which can only come beyond but not without reason, that goes beyond the need for a flawless history, that goes beyond the need of a go-between church or priesthood or philosophy or constructed personal system of certainty?

If God and Christ are real and communicate to us, do we need to be tied to a history? Yes we are products of our own personal and communal histories but can God not take us beyond these - do we need them, if God/Christ is real? Is God personal, living, real or a product only of historical writing and national and even religious history? That history with its writings, scriptures thinkers and prophets are never the whole story: The only place we can find the whole story is within and within the context of God. Yes, we rely on those who have gone before, just like we rely on them for our language, our learning and our survival but until we take the leap of faith which takes us out of our comfort zone of controlled rationality and controlled, systemetised spirituality, out of our controlled ethical structures and our incessant search for distraction, and from these, onwards into our personal journey of which there are no real signposts into the future, no real control except, as with Abraham, in our choice to go ahead, all our controlled life means little and can never satisfy, or save or redeem.

And Jesus says to all individually as he said to the 'rich' man, "can you do this"? But he went away sad because he was a very 'wealthy' and controlled man.

Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of ill