“The humbling journey I’ve been on is to recognize as a doctor, and perhaps as a human, is we are barely human. When it comes down to the sheer number of non-human cells we carry within us–that we are completely dependent on–we are just a fraction human. To give you a sense of the numbers we have somewhere around 50 trillion human cells. That sounds like a massive number, it’s one of the few numbers you’ll hear that are larger than our national debt. It turns out that we have somewhere around one and a half quadrillion bacteria, and probably ten times that in fungi. And so we have fourteen quadrillion microbiome elements within our body.” -Zach Bush, MD

https://youtu.be/xqNDaL4eqC0

“I’m sure the timing is not a mistake, that [she had a debilitating migraine episode] when I showed up here, because I think a lot of times when we find ourselves in those intractable patterns, one of the things that I’ve seen as a physician now for the last seventeen years is that we can never heal ourselves, no matter how much we know, no matter how much we research, we can’t heal ourselves, we’re called into community through our ailments.” Zach Bush, MD

https://youtu.be/jWgnkgYtqnw

Someone shared this with me about a year ago.

Your Savior will manifest in physical form after he has risen from the grave within you unto life in your consciousness. You will see him as he is because you will be [like] him. You’ll see his countenance in your image. You’ll be so much like him you’ll be staring at yourself.

Go within and resurrect your innocence from your condemnation of judgment. Partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil was part of the plan but caused our innocence to die, to go to sleep, and is awaiting the day when we’ll spit out that fruit and awaken to our innocence and partake of the tree of life- God’s love. We’ll awaken to the realization that we were always innocent and worthy of God’s love.

And when your Christ within you has resurrected to your awareness you will see Christ in everyone. You won’t see problems anymore, you’ll see love and cries for love.

-SAMUEL FOX

Might make an interesting gender study.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=more+male+babies+born+after+war

“Stretching ourselves out as it were against nature we measured it.” –Alan Watts, “Just So”

One person we are aquatinted with was describing hornets nests and how their proximity to ground was a predictor to how cold the coming winter would be. Predictably several people sent her private messages telling her variously how ridiculous or unscientific or pagan her ideas were.

If you’ve ever had a chance to really observe group dynamics, the group has a set of beliefs to which they demand compliance. Not overtly, such that they would even admit this to themselves, but it is more subtle and persistent. These beliefs could be about the benefits of natural foods, the best way to car-seat your children, vaccines, public/private schooling, Democracy or religious ideas. Groups also reach out and compare themselves to other groups which are judged and condemned. Individuals wind up adopting the tenets of the group without critical examination of each one.

If the term “satan” (Hebraically defined as “the accuser”) is used to mean the part or propensity in each of us to judge and condemn the world, people and works we observe, then the end result of this satanism is to accuse and condemn until there is perfect uniformity and sameness according to our definition of what is “good.” This need we have for everything to be “good,” or the same, or uniform, are the seeds arguments, anger, wars and destruction. Satan may get a small portion of what it desires for a time, but eventually nature will win out. Breastfeeding advocates, for example, can say “breasts aren’t sexual,” but declaring it, legislating it, or using other means of force will never change nature. The French Revolutionist’s requirement of uniformity to their cause resulted in massive bloodletting until the Paris drains were clogged with it, and disgust and revulsion took its place.

According to one religious tradition the archetype of satan voiced “I will save all, not one will be lost” of course according to its version of good, evil, salvation and damnation.

If God is the opposite of Satan, then one of its aspects is about eternal unending variety which cannot be all comprehended by an individual, and as such it cannot all be effectively controlled.

Love this. The wilderness is not about having a hard time in a bleak place. It’s about stripping away false systems, cultured norms, and getting to know God in all of his many facets. It forges in you the ability to take and steward your personal promised land. – Seneca Schurbon

When they heard you were summoned to the wilderness

They laughed and mocked you

They were happy when your

life came to a screeching halt

They thought you would

die in the wilderness

That the hard processes

would get the better of you

They didn’t know your God

The distance He would go

for those He loves

He will leave the ninety-nine

to look for the one

hurting soul

You were standing there

all eyes on you

Wishing the earth would

swallow you

Your heart torn to pieces

Many questions on your lips

Still you made your way

to the wilderness

Whispered yes, when

you wanted to hide

You could have ignored

Papa’s whisper to come

away with Him

Be like Orpah and never

pursue your destiny

This was just a detour

Leading you to where

He always knew you

would reign

You fought your way

through your pain and scattered emotions

While holding on to Papa

with all your might

You could live without

many things, but not for

a second without Him

Worship became your

greatest weapon

Silencing the voice of your

critics and the voice of satan

Something irrevocable was

birthed inside of you during

these trying times

Where deep would follow

Deep blindly

You found your reason for living

Your purpose for existence

You love Him more than life

You didn’t know that those

Papa greatly uses

He calls aside

He invades their lives

He trains them intensely

Till He can make them His

dwelling place

We didn’t disappear like

they wished we would

Pain could not stop us

Religion could no longer

cage us

We did not die in the wilderness

The wilderness matured us

in ways we never imagined

All over the earth the wilderness daughters are arising

Everything about them are different

They carry the sound of

heaven in their mouths

Its a weighty sound that

was obtained through persecution, rejection and fiery trials

It cannot be imitated by the

ones who never visited the wilderness

They wear their scars, boldly

and unapologetically

Their scars prepared them

for their destinies

Lionesses are arising from

the wilderness dust

Shining with His glory

Ready to take their places

No longer intimidated by

fake giants

They know their worth

They know who they are

They are ready to invade

the earth with the heart of the Father beating through them!

~ Ebigale Wilson

Wilderness Daughters

The Journey

Restored Ministries

I’m disappointed though not surprised in this rebuff from the administrator. I understand that you had a creative idea, organized it, and had certain hopes and expectations, unwittingly it seems that from the start your hopes have been thwarted. I’m thinking though that it is you, and not Elder Chantdown who seems to have missed the point of the stated purpose of this website. You set intended parameters that you judged to have gone far afield. Yet I’m convinced that this statement from you shows your ignorance of the field you’ve chosen and the spirit of the comments of EC. Let me show how I believe the comments of EC do indeed reflect the ideas of Tolkien’s Legendarium and the works of DS Faithful and Slumbered.

First annotation- I, Nephi. I honestly have no idea with what points you take issue, but I’ll pull out a few points that I personally feel are connected to the other works. This comment was made by EC in response to another, previously held, conversation that began with the annotation at “and I know that the record I make is true. And I make it with mine own hand and I make it according to my knowledge.” That conversation discusses creation, though not easy to discover or comprehend on a cursory read over. It talked about mythos (God) creating space that through the word becomes a place/thing. [The first book in the Silmarillion is the “Ainulindale,” the “Music of the Ainur.” The Silmarillion 25 (Christopher Tolkien ed., Houghton Mifflin 2d ed. 2001) (1977).  It opens with “Eru, the One,” the creator, who wills into being “the Ainur, the Holy Ones, that were the offspring of his thought.” In an image illustrating Tolkien’s take on interplay between divine sovereignty and free will, Iluvatar declares the theme, but does not dictate its details, rather, he says “ye shall show forth your powers in adorning this theme, each with his own thoughts and devices, if he will.” – by JKC from the blog Common Consent]

God, mythos, made a record of what He knew to be true and he made it using his own knowledge. What he made, in Tolkien’s work, were the “offsprings of his thought.” What Nephi made were his engraved writings. EC goes on to share his thought that it is creation when a person takes a space created by mythos and “the Spirit continues to flow through linguistics channels”. When the spirit is stopped and the recursion interrupted, then we get vain imaginings not reimagining. Melkor is a great example of this vain imagining when he disrupts the flow of spirit and throws down the two giant lamps lit by the Valar. This is the opposite of creation, not to build up but to tear down.

The conversation comes back to I, Nephi when EC uses it to show archetypes and prototypes in the BoM. It’s true. He didn’t pull out any ideas from Tolkien or DS, but they are able to be independently picked up by the reader. EC mentions earthly emissaries, the archetypes of “gods/ainur” angels, “elves” prophets, ect. And that’s a theory I’m suggesting, not something I know. I, Nephi is an archetype. EC says there is a Qabbalistic teaching, a hidden secret, and the first word is I – the first letter in the name of the Existing One. How does I, Nephi relate to that Existing One? And is he stating that he is an elf? Or an Anuir? I don’t know. But these seemed like ideas worth pursuing.

*EC stands for an online name (handle) Elder Chantdown. This is a response from being kicked off of the Reimagining the Book of Mormon annotation group.

Psalms 85:

Show us thy steadfast love, O Lord,

and grant us thy salvation.

8 Let me hear what God the Lord will speak,

for he will speak peace to his people,

to his saints, to those who turn to him in their hearts.[a]

9 Surely his salvation is at hand for those who fear him,

that glory may dwell in our land.

10 Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet;

righteousness and peace will kiss each other.

11 Faithfulness will spring up from the ground,

and righteousness will look down from the sky.

12 Yea, the Lord will give what is good,

and our land will yield its increase.

13 Righteousness will go before him,

and make his footsteps a way

Steadfast Love: a key phrase denoting the covenant God makes with us. He has performed a work that is steadfast, that cannot be broken or undone, a work of Love, his love to us.

Righteousness is a term that denotes God, creator.

Faithfulness: our opportunity to accept and reciprocate that steadfast love.

Covenant is the title of the Christian Scriptures: Old Testament and New Testament is the more familiar translation. We should expect ‘covenant’ to be the central theme of the Bible. Covenant was the central theme of the Last Supper, and so passed into the central Christian liturgy.

The question I shall explore this evening is which covenant are we talking about? Not, I shall argue, the Moses covenant, with all the problems this brings of the new covenant superseding the older one; but rather the everlasting covenant that encompasses all the historic Old Testament covenants and forms the basis of the New Testament. This is the covenant that Jesus renewed at the Last Supper. He restored a covenant that had in his time been neglected, and in our current theological scene is almost completely unknown.

Matthew attributes to Jesus at the Last Supper more words than appear in Luke and Mark. Matthew’s Jesus defines the covenant as ‘for the putting away of sins, aphesis’ (Matt.26.28). Blood poured out for the putting away of sins. Which Old Testament covenant was this? We usually assume that Matthew’s gospel was written for a community with Hebrew roots, and so he needed to define which of the many possible covenants Jesus meant.

The covenant with Abram was a promise of land and had nothing to do with sin (Gen.15.18-21).

The covenant that Moses mediated at Sinai was an agreement to observe the ten commandments and did not deal with putting away sin (Exod.24.

The covenant with David was a promise that his heirs would be the rulers in Jerusalem and did not deal with putting away sin (2 Sam.7.12).

The covenant with Noah was a promise that God would never again destroy the earth. It was the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth (Gen.9.16).

1 Corinthians 15:58

58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

http://ecocongregationireland.com/wp-content/uploads/The-Everlasting-Covenant-Margaret-Barker-DD.pdf

In previous posts I talked about “spreading our wings” and briefly how it had become a symbol of our transitions over the last seven years. I also posted about being baptized to the infinite expanse of heaven. I searched for a representation of these until I found this magnificent bird. It appears to be landing, its head down with its own commanding authority, its wings float upon the breath of the earth and are outstretched from one end of heaven to the other in a beautiful display.

The site’s picture could change in the future, and I wanted to put my thoughts down about this against that time.

Sunday (July 14) my wife and I went and hiked up to a waterfall. We had been there the week before with the kids and wanted to go by ourselves this time. On the way up We ran into a snake, but it was harmless and scurried off. The hike was enjoyable, the falls were beautiful. I took off my shoes and enjoyed the water. As the water flowed around me, I remembered that I had a desire to be rebaptized to the infinite expanse of heaven, and so I did, going under three times.

After we enjoyed the beauty there a while longer I put my shoes back on and we headed back down the trail. Shortly we ran into a group on their way to the falls. A boy and a young girl lead the way. They volunteered that they were from Jackson Missouri and asked us about the falls. We said they were close. I told them about it, that it was nice and cold, refreshing, and there was a place to swim and enjoy themselves. They seemed to anticipate arriving and moved on.

On the way home we stopped at an outdoor shop to view some knives sandals, etc. Then we tried an new coffee shop in the area and then made our way home, listening to an interesting talk by Caroline Myss. We had a great time.