‎"Once you label me you negate me."
Søren Kierkegaard

Exactly. I just become a semiotic device in your thinking. All that I am becomes merely a sign within your thinking. In your interaction with me actually you will not be interacting with me, you will be interacting not with the full me but the symbol that I now am for you. 

This is exactly why Peter Rollins, the author of How (Not) to Speak of God,  talks about adopting atheism for lent. To allow for the sign that God may have become in my mind to be replaced by the living and active presence of God. 

Signs certainly have many purposes but you can never have a dynamic relationship with a sign. It merely points to something.

Anytime a human or a being becomes a sign for me, at that point the life is drained out of them and they have become a marker for what they represent in my mind. 

Which needless to say minimizes or shuts down any the beauty of the interaction with a human being because the interaction is with a semiotic device in my brain. 

What signs might you become in my mind? Old human, young human, smart human, crazy human, black human, white human, male human, female, intellectual, uneducated, pretty, engineer, day laborer,... you get the point. 

Love means I care enough to notice when I am assigning (good word here ;~) a place holder or sign in place of the living and dynamic reality that is you. 

We all do it, it's the way the brain functions. Our brains always seem to want to assign meaning to what we see and conceptualize "what it is." 

Signs and labels kills the person and closes the latches on a small box with a rounded top and gilded hinges. 

Love creates an opening of an unknown size where the other person can become fully alive in the relationship and actually according to Carl Rodgers the aliveness enabled can show up in every part of the person's life.

"The mark of Christianity is the paradox, the absolute paradox. As soon as a so called speculative cancels the paradox and makes this qualification into an element, all the spheres are confused."
~Søren Kierkegaard

Personally have come from a background of dependence on knowing and being secure in that knowledge, I now much more appreciate not knowing.

And truly when exploring what it is to be in relationship with the creator of the Cosmos would mystery and a freedom to explore that mystery be the best and more rich place to find even more of an expression of who God is?

And if God's primary purpose is to be relational what is more mysterious than a relationship?  I could try to be funny and talk about understanding the mind of a woman but truly we each are mysterious within us and thus we are mysterious in how we show up in life.  

That is why NOTHING is gained by holding a person in a box, thus much less holding God in a box.

Love is not love unless it is an openness within the mind for the other; God or my wife, or my friend or the Democrat or the Republican or whomever.

Fear creates fences, love sees no fences.  

"For the first few centuries after Christ the church tended towards believing everyone would be united with God in the end. Then the doctrine of Hell gained prominence.

So, let's see if I read this correctly - closer to Jesus we were more loving and inclusive, once man had time to make his own influence felt things started going to Hell."
David Mclaughlan

I wonder if this switch David is speaking of, had anything to do with the church becoming a political/cultural institution under Constantinople. Certainly force and power and control entered the picture then.
It seems obvious that to force someone to become a Christian completely and effectively bypasses the inner spirituality of a relationship with God.
Hell replacing God's love is pure and simple what happened. Makes you want to cozy right up!!

I am so bold as to think that the fox took over the henhouse a few hundred years ago and corrupted what a relationship with God was meant to be. The same human propensity still affects the church today, using force, control and manipulation through proper thinking and proper action to not enjoy a deep seated inner peace with God but to avoid punishment.

No wonder the church has not affected and deeply transformed the culture. It's not just a perversion to lead people to God through fear and intimidation, it doesn't work well!!

Abstract Vs. Relational

"It is, I grant you, a crass analogy; but crass analogies are the safest. Everybody knows that God is not three old men throwing olives at each other. Not everyone, I'm afraid, is equally clear that God is not a cosmic force or a principle of being or any other dish of celestial blancmange we might choose to call him. Accordingly, I give you the central truth that creation is the result of a trinitarian bash, and leave the details of the analogy to sort themselves out as best they can."

~Robert Farrar Capon

Source: The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair With Theology : Three Books : An Offering of Uncles/the Third Peacock/Hunting the Divine Fox, Pages: 176


"Abstract principles and philosophies are much cleaner and more sterile and manageable than a personal God with personality, will and relational being. When we can reduce our theology to these abstract principles we can create a nice tidy little theology that leaves us feeling safe and in control of things. 

God becomes the giant vending machine in the sky into which we input the right currency, (our prayers, our efforts and our tithes for example) and then we can predictably wait on God to give us what we've paid for according to the divine system and transactional rules we've established.

Living in relationship with a Trinitarian God who embodies love and relationship and moving beyond the systems of what seems to me to be essentially just a form of Christianized Deism, is a very messy thing as opposed to the "safety" and "security" that we would rather find in an impersonal system that leaves us with predictable outcomes and overall control of everything in our lives."

Bart Breen https://www.facebook.com/pages/Trinitarianism/274624109277834?fref=ts

Some of us go through a very severe shift in who we are in life. Usually that shift has to do with all areas of life but sometimes it starts in a particular area, such as relationships not working at all, or breakdowns in the relationship repeating, and sometimes this shift has to do with our spirituality. 

Regarding how our friends can be with us in this often very painful and deep shift;

~ some people don't get it and they resist it for whatever reason.
~Some people don't get it but they stick with you and are with you in it even in their not understanding.
~And then there are people who understand it because they are there or have been through it.

It's interesting that all of life really is and has to be a certain fluidity to it to live it well.

That fluidity is what some people fear. Ironically especially if they are Christians and believe in the powerful goodness of God. They don't seem to trust the human spirit to take care of its self, and they don't seen to trust the hand of God in their life.

That may not be too surprising because many times people's personal dysfunction has become intermingled with the dysfunctions of religious systems and beliefs. So when they start the healing process of the spirit that process may understandable shift how they relate to religion.

What often happens is that the person shifts to a deeper and more intimate relationship with God thus emphasizing spirituality. 

The beauty and mystery of gardens.  

 I believe this photo was taken by a friend who is an amazing gardener and photographer, Kent Burgess.

 The Beauty Bush and some of the wonderful Iris I have in my garden.

What is this thing called "death?"

Tony used to work on my cars for me and apologize for what he had to charge me.  He was full of helpful advice regarding taking care of my automobiles.   He had clear and uninhibited opinions about many things including my son's cars and how he took care of them and drove them.   

 He was ribald and loved to laugh at his own jokes.  He was constantly aware of who was driving by and would know who they were and if they had been good to him or not.  And if they were out to get him.

He recently told me that when he was a young teenager because his step-dad and mother were disabled he would often be kept home from school to drive them to medical appointments or whatever.  And that his step-dad was abusive and he would take measures to avoid being hit even while he was driving.

Anyway, whatever, now he is no more.  At least here.  He was working on clearing land near his house and his backhoe wouldn't start and then I suppose unexpectedly it did and ran over him.   At something like 36 years of age his life here is done.  Complete.   Over.

Now his wife is without a husband and his son and daughter have no dad.  Now for them I imagine there will struggle and memories and faded pictures.

And I am in this surreal world where I drive by his house or drop off some flowers for his wife and I avoid the torn up patch of ground where I suppose the accident happened.  The backhoe thankfully is gone.

Something has ruptured.  The world feels different.  I look out my window towards the direction of his house and tears well up.  I'm not entirely sure why but I think it has to do with unfinished business and what seems like the futility of life.   One cantankerous backhoe and death shows up eager and vengeful.

Anyway,  there will be a memorial service and a burial and life will go on.

For some reason I don't even consider "where" Tony is now.  I choose to have a certain belief regarding God and so I don't worry about Tony.  His life with in some ways was always a struggle is over and he is in love.  I don't know where, I don't know how, well actually I do have a clue, but I'm sure he is well taken care of.

So here I sit with no answers really.  The sun is shining, the rest of the household will get up and life on the surface will go on.  But I tell you something was ruptured and will never be the same.  For me at least there is a golden remedy that fills the cracks but the cracks of life are always there even though the event of the breaking may fade.

Rest in peace, Anthony Clark.