Preparing for the New Year:
JUDGE: [Justly Utilizing Discretion Generating Everything]
Is judgment really as harsh and final as we often make it out to be or is it more like an assessment? When we consult the basic meaning in the dictionary we find a much broader concept:
judgement - "the act of judging or assessing a person or situation or event." Another dictionary says, "the ability to judge, make a decision, or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, especially in matters affecting action; good sense; discretion."
In the first story of creation in the Hebrew scriptures we have the metaphor of "the days" and, after each "day" we hear that the "assessment" or "judgement" of God was good! At the end of all the "days" God makes the assessment that everything was good and very good!
The beginning of harsh judgement:
When you research the origin and history of the "doctrine of original sin" you can witness the variety of human thought from which it comes. St. Augustine of Hippo (11/13/354-8/28/430CE) was the apparent originator that became a doctrine in the Holy Roman Catholic Church. [ http://www.gospeltruth.net/menbornsinners/mbs03.htm ] According to the Orthodox Churches their Christian understanding is that, while humanity does bear the consequences of the original or first sin, humanity does not bear or inherit the personal guilt associated with this sin. Adam and Eve are guilty of their willful action; we bear the consequences, chief of which is death. [ https://oca.org/questions/teaching/st.-augustine-original-sin ] Eastern Orthodox Catholics and Roman Catholics resulted in what is known as the East-West Schism (or Great Schism) of 1054, when medieval Christianity split into two separate branches. [ http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-split-that-created-roman-catholics-and-eastern.html ]
Within the Hebrew scripture, "Jews DO NOT believe in original sin. Jews believe that one is born into the world with original purity, not with original sin. We know human beings can choose to do evil, but Judaism does not dwell on that fact. Rather, we rejoice, as we believe Gd rejoices, when human beings choose to do good." [ http://www.whatjewsbelieve.org/explanation5.html ]
The Value of Assessment:
Today most cultures and communities have an annual traditional time on their calendars for moving from one year to the next, a judgement of the passing year to the new year.
[ http://www.newyearfestival.com/new-year-by-religions.html ]
This assessment, an annual custom in almost all cultures and communities continues today with preparation and celebration for another year in this 21st century. As this annual tradition continues perhaps the minority Christian doctrinal view of "original sin" will also mature toward a more progressive understanding from a harsh judgement to a compassionate assessment of God's love. May we learn to say amen to words in Genesis expressed after each day - "it was good, it was very good". Our custom of transition to a New Year in the Christian Faith also happens in other religious traditions; our Christian tradition begins with Advent, then Christmas and ends with New Year's Day.
Advent is a time of expectant waiting and preparation. Change is continuous but we experience it one day at a time and need to prepare for the diversity it brings along with the equality all of life. Advent gives us four weeks of imagination, inspiration and revelations from prophets and stories of history to nourish our present needs. It reviews the changes and diversity of our past histories with wisdom and encouragement to help us equalize and balance our faith for today.
Christmas is the annual festival of the birth of Jesus the Christ. It signals to us the joy of our own birth into this world and the gift of being "born from above" as God continue to recreate us with the on-going "breath" of life we received in the story of creation. The traditional 12 days of Christmas continues from December 25th until January 5th, the day before the Feast of the Epiphany beginning January 6th. As we move through this annual transitional time we are preparing for the beginning of another New Year.
The New Year is a time when the yearly calendar begins and opens an opportunity for a chance to start over as the new calendar begins. This day begins the venue for change, bring diversity in new ways that will equalize new opportunities. Having made our assessments (personal judgements) to move forward and advance, a resolution, "the quality of being determined or resolute," to change, diversify and equalize - renewing balance in our manner of living well.
I wish you well in using your Constitutional privilege to exercise your right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," - Happy and Healthy New Year!
Gerard A. Pisani, Jr
Saturday, December 26, 2015
Saturday, December 19, 2015
Are You Fully Alive?
Are you fully alive?
A helpful acronym:
ALIVE – Always Learning Inspired Vitally Engaged
Alive: "a person, animal or plant - living, not dead, alert, active and animated, interested in, responsive to."
Definitions are always helpful but they may not fully help us to comprehend the total picture of what, for instance, it means to be alive. This is why I tend to combine a definition into an acronym to help develop a more complete picture with words.
Always. Being alive is not intermittent but a continuum, daily and moment by moment. Even when we are asleep all of our bodily, mental and spiritual activities continue in a rejuvenation process. We may look like we are "dead to the world" but, in the special process of sleep, we are not dead but very alert, active and animated, interested and responsive to a valuable process of life called sleep.
Learning. Whether awake or sleep we continue to acquire knowledge and skills, experiencing unique ways of being taught. Without learning you would not continue to grow and develop into the person we are meant to be. A primary part of living is growing in knowledge and understanding. Like breathing we need to inhale the air before we can let it out in order to share the interdependence of being fully human.
Inspired. Inspiration fills one with the urge and ability to become creative. Creativity inspires our imagination enabling us to be productive and even artistic. It is that part of our human trinity that we call soul; that part of us that comes from the depth of who we are as conscious beings.
Vitality. Is the state of being strong and active, filled with the energy that gives continuance to life itself. Without this aspect we would lack the power necessary to maintain the energy for being consistently alive.
Engaged. Without engagement; being involved, attentive with plans for moving forward, life would dwindle and stop. To be engaged is to be alive without slowing down or giving up.
Being alive is like a good sentence; it must have a noun and a verb along with all the modifiers that amplify and express the full statement of our being a person. In fact, each day may be likened to the many sentences needed within each year over all our years that comprise the totality of our lives. As the 12 Step Program of AA says, "one day at a time." When each day is lived honestly as an "open book," we provide the best opportunity for self development and advancement for living well.
Gerard A. Pisani, Jr.
A helpful acronym:
ALIVE – Always Learning Inspired Vitally Engaged
Alive: "a person, animal or plant - living, not dead, alert, active and animated, interested in, responsive to."
Definitions are always helpful but they may not fully help us to comprehend the total picture of what, for instance, it means to be alive. This is why I tend to combine a definition into an acronym to help develop a more complete picture with words.
Always. Being alive is not intermittent but a continuum, daily and moment by moment. Even when we are asleep all of our bodily, mental and spiritual activities continue in a rejuvenation process. We may look like we are "dead to the world" but, in the special process of sleep, we are not dead but very alert, active and animated, interested and responsive to a valuable process of life called sleep.
Learning. Whether awake or sleep we continue to acquire knowledge and skills, experiencing unique ways of being taught. Without learning you would not continue to grow and develop into the person we are meant to be. A primary part of living is growing in knowledge and understanding. Like breathing we need to inhale the air before we can let it out in order to share the interdependence of being fully human.
Inspired. Inspiration fills one with the urge and ability to become creative. Creativity inspires our imagination enabling us to be productive and even artistic. It is that part of our human trinity that we call soul; that part of us that comes from the depth of who we are as conscious beings.
Vitality. Is the state of being strong and active, filled with the energy that gives continuance to life itself. Without this aspect we would lack the power necessary to maintain the energy for being consistently alive.
Engaged. Without engagement; being involved, attentive with plans for moving forward, life would dwindle and stop. To be engaged is to be alive without slowing down or giving up.
Being alive is like a good sentence; it must have a noun and a verb along with all the modifiers that amplify and express the full statement of our being a person. In fact, each day may be likened to the many sentences needed within each year over all our years that comprise the totality of our lives. As the 12 Step Program of AA says, "one day at a time." When each day is lived honestly as an "open book," we provide the best opportunity for self development and advancement for living well.
Gerard A. Pisani, Jr.
Saturday, December 5, 2015
LOVE - is how we LIVE love....
An acronym may help:
LOVE [Limitless Offerings Veraciously Expended]
The word love may mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. The word love is used often in many circumstances but my wish here is to speak about it comprehensively and primarily as a driving force that is essential for living well.
Recent popular songs speak about love. "All You Need is Love," was made famous by the Beatles as an important resource in living. "What's Love Got To Do With It," sung by Tina Turner was a hit recording that we still hear today and is described as an emotion. However, I don't think that we learned much about what love may mean.
Dictionaries share a variety of explanations with regard to the meaning of a the word love. I have chosen this one to begin with as a focus for this blog: "love, a strong positive emotion of regard and affection." It seems to speak to a popular notion using the word emotion, "any strong feeling," that may be most common.
In a very popular chapter in Christian scripture, 1 Corinthians 13, love is highlighted as one of the three Christian virtues - Faith, Hope, and Love - but love is called the greatest of the three. While emotion is a part in all three of these virtues, emotion is surely not the primary part of the complete meaning in all three. Indeed, passion, "the trait of being intensely emotional," may be basic to all three, and perhaps more so in the word love, there is certainly much more than passion in the virtues of faith, hope, and love.
In Greek there are six words used for love - 1. Eros, or sexual passion, 2. Philia, or deep friendship, 3. Ludus, or playful love, 4. Agape, or love for everyone, 5. Pragma, or longstanding love, 6. Philautia, or love of the self. The word used in 1 Corinthians 13 is Agape, and in Classical and Modern Greek, is translated as "love: the highest form of love, especially brotherly love, charity; the love of God for man and of man for God."
Therefore this acronym - LOVE: [Limitless Offerings Veraciously Expended] - suggests an eternalness in giving and receiving, in a truthful and trustworthy manner, in a continuous and mutual sharing. It is the charity that stems from the relationship between Divinity and Humanity that enables communities of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In this acronym it is seen as an action, as way of expressing life, that goes much further than emotion. True love is limitless, freely offered, truthful from the core of one's being, and actively expended without end. It is definitively an outward and visible sign of inward and invisible GRACE [God's Recreative Activity Causing Excellence] in one's life.
Love therefore is clearly the highest of virtues and bespeaks the highest of character we expect in people we can admire. In John's Gospel Jesus said several times, "Love each other as I have loved you. This is what I'm commanding you to do." For Jesus' love was not just "a strong positive emotion," it also included strong passionate action! Agape, "love for everyone," was focused on the disenfranchised, widows, orphans, sick, those in prison; all who were being oppressed by the rulers and the affluent members of society. Jesus gave his life defending and trying to change the unfairness that existed in his day and urged his disciples to do the same if they were to be his followers, especially today.
How sad it is for me to note, that three centuries after the time of Jesus, the church that claimed his name became the official religious authority for Rome and joined with the Imperial armies to rule. This was nothing like the Kingdom of God that Jesus envisioned for the world and not at all like his great commission to those who would follow him. The love of God that Jesus lived and preached was to bring life, liberty and the freedom to pursue happiness for all people, in all times and in all places. The church that continues has already lost its faulty claim to rule and will continue to weaken until it awakens to serve others in the name of Jesus by truly following his talk and walk!
Gerard A. Pisani, Jr.
LOVE [Limitless Offerings Veraciously Expended]
The word love may mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. The word love is used often in many circumstances but my wish here is to speak about it comprehensively and primarily as a driving force that is essential for living well.
Recent popular songs speak about love. "All You Need is Love," was made famous by the Beatles as an important resource in living. "What's Love Got To Do With It," sung by Tina Turner was a hit recording that we still hear today and is described as an emotion. However, I don't think that we learned much about what love may mean.
Dictionaries share a variety of explanations with regard to the meaning of a the word love. I have chosen this one to begin with as a focus for this blog: "love, a strong positive emotion of regard and affection." It seems to speak to a popular notion using the word emotion, "any strong feeling," that may be most common.
In a very popular chapter in Christian scripture, 1 Corinthians 13, love is highlighted as one of the three Christian virtues - Faith, Hope, and Love - but love is called the greatest of the three. While emotion is a part in all three of these virtues, emotion is surely not the primary part of the complete meaning in all three. Indeed, passion, "the trait of being intensely emotional," may be basic to all three, and perhaps more so in the word love, there is certainly much more than passion in the virtues of faith, hope, and love.
In Greek there are six words used for love - 1. Eros, or sexual passion, 2. Philia, or deep friendship, 3. Ludus, or playful love, 4. Agape, or love for everyone, 5. Pragma, or longstanding love, 6. Philautia, or love of the self. The word used in 1 Corinthians 13 is Agape, and in Classical and Modern Greek, is translated as "love: the highest form of love, especially brotherly love, charity; the love of God for man and of man for God."
Therefore this acronym - LOVE: [Limitless Offerings Veraciously Expended] - suggests an eternalness in giving and receiving, in a truthful and trustworthy manner, in a continuous and mutual sharing. It is the charity that stems from the relationship between Divinity and Humanity that enables communities of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In this acronym it is seen as an action, as way of expressing life, that goes much further than emotion. True love is limitless, freely offered, truthful from the core of one's being, and actively expended without end. It is definitively an outward and visible sign of inward and invisible GRACE [God's Recreative Activity Causing Excellence] in one's life.
Love therefore is clearly the highest of virtues and bespeaks the highest of character we expect in people we can admire. In John's Gospel Jesus said several times, "Love each other as I have loved you. This is what I'm commanding you to do." For Jesus' love was not just "a strong positive emotion," it also included strong passionate action! Agape, "love for everyone," was focused on the disenfranchised, widows, orphans, sick, those in prison; all who were being oppressed by the rulers and the affluent members of society. Jesus gave his life defending and trying to change the unfairness that existed in his day and urged his disciples to do the same if they were to be his followers, especially today.
How sad it is for me to note, that three centuries after the time of Jesus, the church that claimed his name became the official religious authority for Rome and joined with the Imperial armies to rule. This was nothing like the Kingdom of God that Jesus envisioned for the world and not at all like his great commission to those who would follow him. The love of God that Jesus lived and preached was to bring life, liberty and the freedom to pursue happiness for all people, in all times and in all places. The church that continues has already lost its faulty claim to rule and will continue to weaken until it awakens to serve others in the name of Jesus by truly following his talk and walk!
Gerard A. Pisani, Jr.
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