Theology/Christianity/Spirituality

A Man After God’s Own Heart March 6, 2014

Filed under: Christianity/Theology/Spirituality — milesprowers @ 6:23 pm
Tags: childlikeness, David, God, heart, love, spirituality, Theology/Christianity/Spirituality

I think of a child running through the meadows, wide-eyed with wonder, a radiant smile, hands outstretched to Heaven, spinning around, throwing up flowers to the sky, to God. Taking in the mountains and fields, loving life, rejoicing in it. Loving God who he can feel there with him, who he knows intimately, talks to and praises openly, with all his heart, thanks God for the beauty of nature, which he knows are God’s gifts to His children, fruit of His love.

And God responds to this innocent boy, perfect in heart, by coming alive around him. As the boy runs, the flowers around him open up, the clouds part to reveal a beautiful sunset, a breeze blows his hair, light shines down on him, birds fly by, deer appear. It’s the manifestation of God smiling and hugging the boy, telling him how much He loves him. And likewise, as if trying to hug back just as hard, the boy shouts at the top of his lungs, “LORD! I love you with all my heart!!!”

And being overwhelmed with this euphoric experience he falls backward into a soft bed of flowers, eyes closed, no longer focusing on the manifestation of God, but rather God Himself, there beyond the senses. He doesn’t know what else to do except whisper over and over, “I love You. Thank You. I praise You.” Then his joy reaches the next level where his smile turns into a frown and tears of supernatural joy freely flow from his face. The boy doesn’t care who sees or about anything else going on, because all he cares about is loving and worshiping God as much as he can.

[written with my left hand, while my right was sprained, on 1/16/14]

Mortal Ghost April 1, 2013

Filed under: Terremoto — milesprowers @ 1:12 pm
Tags: "mind body problem", abstinence, ascetism, Celibacy, chastity, Christianity, Materialism, metaphor, monk, parable, poetry, Poverty, Prophecy, sacrifice, soul, Terremoto, The American Dream, Theology/Christianity/Spirituality

I am a ghost. Floating above the world, looking down, looking through.

I have been unplugged from the Matrix. Freed from Plato’s cave. Broken from the earthen chains of gravity.

You think you see me, but you don’t really see Me. For you see but an apparition, a physical manifestation of the spiritual within.

I am no longer able to stop and smell the roses, for I cannot see the roses. Whereas the world stops and sniffs the roses because it cannot see the suffering around them.

I am a prophet, a mortal ghost, living on another plane of existence.

Sometimes it is lonely being a ghost, but I know it is lonelier not being one.
Sometimes it is lonely drifting through this carnal world, but lonely freedom is better than communal slavery.

I wander the earth looking for others who have died to this world, yet live within it.

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Cave of Lusts/Entrance to Paradise December 9, 2012

Filed under: Christianity/Theology/Spirituality,The American Dream — milesprowers @ 12:10 am
Tags: c.s. lewis, depravity, heaven, hell, lust, metaphor, parable, Salvation, story, The Gospel, the great divorce, Theology/Christianity/Spirituality

[written on 112812, with additions on 12812, Jeremiah 9:23-24, Revelation 7: 14b-17]

There is a cave that leads to Paradise. 7 men went in, hoping to come out on the other side.

One man, a coward, left the cave soon after entering, too paralyzed by his worries of the unknown to continue.

In the cave, the 6 found an abundance of the rarest mushroom delicacies in the world, and one man couldn’t help but start eating them. Upon gorging himself, he grew an unnatural smile and sank to the floor, as the mushrooms had intoxicated him. As the 5 moved through the cave they came to a wall with a small opening at the bottom. If they were to continue they would be forced to crawl under it to get to the other side. Unfortunately, the fat man was too dazed at that point to continue with them. The group tried pulling him under the wall with them, but he just couldn’t fit and had to be left behind, though they doubted how much further he would have made it even if he could have fit. But he told them he’d meet up with them in Paradise (though he acted like he was in paradise right now) after he slimmed down in size (as he popped another mushroom in).

Once the 5 all made it under the wall, they found themselves in a tunnel, with what sounded like flirtatious giggling echoing in the distance. They followed the tunnel towards the noises and turned around a corner to find a band of extremely attractive, nude women. The 5 moved awkwardly through their midst, trying to ignore eye contact. But one man couldn’t help at least looking. He caught eyes with one of them, and soon after was in conversation with her. The tunnel opened up into a large cavern, but the lecher stayed behind, already being caressed by the women, saying that he would follow them shortly.

The 4 saw the flickering of light bouncing off the cave ceilings up ahead and entered into an elaborate treasure room. After being amazed by the vast treasure, the group continued, coming to a small ledge that they had to climb over. But one man shouted “Paradise indeed!” and, finding a treasure chest, filled it with as much gold as he could and planned to follow them out the other side. However, the rich man could barely drag his heavy chest, and certainly couldn’t lift it over the wall. They figured he’d figure out the futility of his plight and soon follow them. He never did.

It looked like whoever had owned the treasure room also had an armor room. The 3 stepped into a room lined with great, metal armor and powerful weapons. They thought this would prepare them for whatever lay ahead in the other rooms, so they suited up and grabbed one big weapon each. However, the only exit they could find was a small, dimly-lit hole towards the top of the far wall. As they tried climbing the wall, they soon realized how difficult it was to climb with all of their heavy accessories. 2 men, giving up on trying to juggle the weapons in their hand while climbing, threw them to the ground and were able to climb much easier after that. However, once they reached the hole, they couldn’t fit through with their armor and were forced to jettison it. Meanwhile the strong man below was still struggling to even climb on the wall, not willing to give up his means of power.

The 2 fell with a crash down into another room, much lower than the previous one had been, and were bruised. After a few minutes of recovering, they noticed a hole in the ground. While light made their current room at least dimly visible, this hole below was pitch black. As the one man sat on the edge preparing to climb down, the other man blasted him. “What! Are you crazy? You saw how far that last drop was, and that was through a dimly-lit hole. This hole has no light at all!” “Well, it’s our only shot of reaching Paradise.” “Well, who really said this cave leads to Paradise in the first place? I’m starting to think it was all made up.” “Believe what you want; I’m going for it.” “You fool!” said the smart man. “It’s common science that if there’s no light then there’s no other exit down there! You’ll fall to your death or get stuck with no one to save you! This was fun and all, but it’s time to go back. Was the life we had so bad anyways? Not even paradise is worth this.”
“Say what you will. I’d rather die trying to get to Paradise than be stuck in the Hell we were in before.”

With that, the last man slipped into the black, bracing himself for whatever lay below. In the darkness he hit a rock which rolled him into another rock which rolled him into another rock and there he lay, in the darkness, in the silence. After coming to, and somewhat in pain from the fall, he balanced himself to his feet. There was darkness all around him as he felt around the cavern room for anything. He thought that maybe the 2nd man had been right. Then his eye caught a tiny beam of light coming out of a small hole in the wall, only the size of a needle’s eye. The light danced around with wild colors, and as he pressed his eye up to the hole he could see glimpses of Paradise on the other side — green pastures and still waters — accompanied by cheerful voices and laughter. Prying himself away from the hole and its bliss, he began frantically feeling the wall for a door or some kind of exit, as if his separation from Paradise had set him on fire. He felt nothing. The room around the hole was completely bare, with no ledge or anything to climb on. With fury did he pound his fists at the hole, trying to break it open to the other side. Futile. Finally, he dropped back into the darkness to his knees, helpless. There in the dark silence he could hear weeping and gnashing of teeth from his former companions in the previous chambers above, held in bondage by their lusts.

Yet here was this righteous man, who forsook all those temptations in pursuit of God and still couldn’t make it. He was no better off than they. In his depravity, the self-righteous man cried out, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!”

Suddenly there was a crash, and the needle-sized hole broke open, filling the room with phantasmagoric light. Another crash against the wall and the hole opened more. Then, with a 3rd crash, a sheep from the pasture burst through the rock, bruised and bloody from the struggle, and collapsed, dead at his feet.

It would be the easiest door he’d gone through of the hole experience. But it was even easier than that. He didn’t even get the chance to step forward before he was escorted out by a shepherd from the other side. He had seen the sheep rush over, hearing the man’s crying from within the cave. But the shepherd was content to have this new man take its place in his flock, saying to him, “I will guide you to springs of the water of life: and God will wipe every tear from your eyes.”

Which part of the cave are you stuck in?

These Elaborate Machines November 6, 2012

Filed under: Christianity/Theology/Spirituality,Science/Atheism/Evolution/Creationism,Terremoto — milesprowers @ 5:14 pm
Tags: "mind body problem", Apocalypse, God, heaven, Jesus, Music, science, soul, Terremoto, Theology/Christianity/Spirituality

[as written 81311 – 31712, with additions on 11612]

On 81011 during our Bible Study prayer time, when it came time for my prayer requests, my small group leader prayed over me and lifted up my requests from the night, and I just started praying for the requests myself as if I wasn’t me. As if from my universal, eternal soul that is not confined to a body or circumstances or personality, but the universal spirit that we all have before being shaped by our lives. As I (the spirit, of God Himself perhaps, which is universally the same but individually molded depending on each person’s nature and nurture) was praying for Miles Prowers, who he is and has become, all that makes Miles Prowers Miles Prowers, that particular character in God’s story of Earth History.

And it produced in me a bizarre sympathy for me, as if I was praying for a dear friend who I knew more intimately than anyone else. I prayed for his job, knowing just how stressful it was and how it conflicted with his extreme desires to be an artist. I prayed for his brother, whom he’d always known and loved since youth. It was a surreal experience that had no reason for happening, it just happened. Since then I’ve never attempted to recreate that perspective, because it was kind of weird, and I’m not sure it was God-honoring, though I have no reason to believe it isn’t either; it’s just that I’d never thought or heard about something like that, so I don’t know what to think.

Hebrews 4:12: “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

But what are we really? I can’t figure out how to distinguish between soul and spirit and mind and heart and body. All I know is that in the beginning God created Adam from the dust and then breathed life into him, as if breathing in His own Spirit into him. As if he constructed all these little organic machines and then turned them on by breathing His electricity into them. So then do animals have spirits? Do they have the spirit of God in them, keeping them alive? Or was it just His Spirit that sparked them into motion and got fate in motion to carry itself out? Obviously there is a stark contrast between the most sophisticated animal and the dumbest human, in that the dumbest human is still a human being. Is the contrast because man has a spirit and animal does not? As if when you took away the spirit in man he became an animal? Or do they both have the breath of God’s Spirit in them both keeping them alive and man’s body is just that much more elaborate than the animal’s to allow for consciousness? The electricity through these elaborate machines of ours.

Or do man and animal still have spirit at all after the initial God breathe? If man is cloned will it be an animal version of man, with no consciousness? I used to think so, but I doubt it now. He’ll still have all the functions for consciousness that the physical brain allows. He may be mentally retarded, as a copy is never as good as the original, but that doesn’t make him unconscious. We are truly unique, self-conscious beings, but are we only machines made to resemble the one true Being?

[11612- An interesting note, made by an old, pot-smoking hippie I randomly met in The Parthenon while writing “Fade To White”: The Bible doesn’t say God breathed animals into being, only humans. So there is a spiritual difference between us and animals, whatever that may be exactly.]

Humans are in a class of their own, caught between the animals and the angels, but the choice is ours as to which end of the spectrum we fall on.

And yet there is something supernatural in us that allows us to transcend nature and have intuition, feelings and other supernatural capabilities. So do we each have individual spirits of our personalities, and that’s who we are? Or are we anything at all? Isn’t our individuality just the unique combination of our two parents’ previously-existing traits, mixed together and shaped through our surroundings in life? If we do have individual spirits, where do these spirits and personalities come from? The only logical conclusion is that they must have been directly assigned to us by God Himself who put certain spirits in certain bodies to have certain outcomes to make History go according to His great plan. So it all comes around to the fact that we have nothing God has not given to us and we are nothing that God has not made us.

But there is no evidence of individual spirits that give us our personality aside from our nature/nurture make up. I think perhaps more logical is that there is only one Spirit, that is, God Himself, who, according to His will, moves in us individually to give us those supernatural capabilities in certain times. He periodically manifests His spirit in our hearts and minds and the natural realm to intervene and guide us away from the natural path of fate so that by divine inspiration we change our natural course, that we would naturally go down aside from His intervention. Of course if there is only one Spirit, then what are we when our bodies die physically (the breath of life leaves) and yet we live on separately?

Ecclesiastes 12:7: “then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.“

In Heaven what are our souls if we no longer have the body that created our personality? Without our bodies what’s left? If we do each have souls are they all the same generic soul/spirit that manifests differently given a different body to come out of, a different-shaped outlet? It’s a mystery no mortal can solve. So then, when those bodies die, wouldn’t the Spirit of God return to its source (God)? This is the equivalent of Nirvana, where we exist in the afterlife, conscious, but not as our individual personality. Rather we all exist as The Personality of God Himself. And yet, there’s no mention of that concept in the Bible (our only sure-fire source of truth on the subject).

Isn’t it interesting that the Apocalyptic Bible passages all refer to us having bodies in Heaven. Almost implying at times that we have no consciousness until our bodies are resurrected/glorified. So, “we” are nothing without our bodies, but in Heaven our bodies are there, therefore our bodily-induced personalities live on through the bodies that make them. Still, it’s entirely possible that at some point in the future of eternity even our glorified bodies will fade away, leaving behind the One Spirit in all of us, and “we” return to experience the euphoria of existence in oneness with The Spirit.

John 17:22: “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me.”

Our bodies are simply our parents’ bodies combined. God breathes spirit into us, giving us life, but it’s just the natural mysterious energy as it naturally flows through that machine of our parent-combination bodies. However, when we’re born again, God’s Holy Spirit indwells us, which is not just the spirit of life, but actually God’s own personal Spirit living in us, actually Christ Himself. So it’s not just our natural bodies at work, but Christ living and working with that physical body.

Which is why you actually witness people change to become different people after they’re Christians. Non-believers can try to change and do self-help formulas and show signs of change, but they’re still the same people they’ve always been with the same tendencies they give into. Only when another being comes into your body, living through you and changing you (not of your own energy and will-power), then can a person actually change into a real different person. Because it really isn’t them anymore. It’s the perfect spirit of someone else, His mind living in our bodies, making choices and offering an alternative to our natural bent. I am now partially Miles Prowers and partially Jesus Christ, but gradually becoming more of Jesus Christ and less of Miles Prowers, to the point where Jesus Christ is me, just with the looks, personality and memories of Miles Prowers.

Who am I? What am I? What even is “I”? I don’t know. Something between a random combination of atoms and God Himself.

[The mysteries expressed in this essay were condensed into a song entitled “Fade To White”. You can hear it at soundcloud.com/terremotoothers. Enjoy!]