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I have intended for some time to continue on my trek from Damascus to Emmaus, but I have been sidelined for about six months now for various reasons and am not entirely sure when or if I will have the time to continue blogging. I did however get in 285 posts over a little less than two years. It was a lot of fun and I was able to experience a good deal of theological catharsis along the way. Met some mighty fine people as well.

So far as mileage goes, I estimate that I have made it about a twentieth (or less) of the way to Emmaus. That would probably place me somewhere in Northern Israel around the ruins of the city of Dan.

I may be here for a while.

The situations that have prevented me from blogging are still holding me back and I’m not sure when I’ll have the available time to get back to the keyboard on a regular basis. I am doing well, however, and my relationship with God is continually growing. I just don’t have the time to blog.

Therefore, I am calling it quits for now. Perhaps in a few months I may try and resurrect this blog. Or then again, maybe I’ll launch an entirely new project. Who knows…I’m just going to go where the Spirit leads me.

Until then.

Hasta la vista, baby!

I’ll get it all tweaked in in a day or two and get back to blogging. It actually feels good to be writing again. Three months off was too long. And I really need to finish that series on Hell so that I can get into my next series. I may start looking at some of the issues surrounding the various preterist hermeneutics, full and partial.

Those who have read through my still unfinished series on Hell have no doubt picked up on the fact that I am highly doubtful of the existence of an eternal type of Hell where those who ultimately reject God will end up being eternally punished for a lifetime of sinful living. While I am not a Universalist and I do believe that salvation is through Christ alone, I am leaning toward more of an inclusivist theology. I would like to believe that my God is big enough to make a way to whatever afterlife there is, still through Christ, for those who may call upon Him in whatever context that they have been raised in, whether that be Allah or even the Great Spirit. With that said, I am still not excused from spreading the words of Christ whenever and wherever I can.

I am beginning to wonder if we as Christians are asking all of the wrong questions when it comes to Heaven and Hell. Many people claim that Jesus spoke more about Hell than anyone else in the Bible, and although I will admit that He did speak much about Judgment, I am beginning to realize that many of those “Hell passages” were more than likely speaking about “Hell on earth” than they were about Hell in the afterlife. I think that at least half of those passages where directly pointed at the judgment that was to befall Jerusalem in 70 CE. And even those passages where He was definitely speaking about the Final Judgment, I believe that from an epistemological standpoint it is impossible to determine what the fate of those who receive a “negative judgment” might end up being. I lean towards annihilationism but I have not ruled out rehabilitation for those who are willing…perhaps a purgatorial type of Hell much like Origen wrote about.

The overwhelming message that I find in the Gospels is that of love and grace, not one of judgment. A couple of passages come to mind here. The first is John 3:17 where Jesus states that “”God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him”. This is echoed later on in John 12:47 where Jesus states that ” If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world.” When I read the Gospels, what I see is love, love, love, and grace, grace, grace.

“Okay”, you might say, “but what does that have to do with the Torah?”

I have read quite a few books and essays that essentially say that Jesus came into the world as Torah, hence His words, “I came not to destroy the law (Torah), but to fulfill the law.” If you read through the the first eighteen verses of John and substitute “Torah” for “Word” you can make some startling conclusions.

With “Jesus as Torah” in mind we might read the beginning of John as ; “In the beginning was the Torah, and the Torah was with God, and the Torah was God.” or “In the beginning was the Law, and the Law as with God, and the Law was God.” Again, of course, we need to read the entire chapter, especially those all-important verses: “And the Torah became flesh, and dwelt among us,” and the equivalency of Jesus as this Word, this Law; the equivalency of Jesus and God.

An interesting thing that I have discovered during my study on Hell was how ancient Israel related to the afterlife. It appears that they were not all that concerned about what happened after they died. Not that it was never thought about the afterlife, it’s just that by and large Israel focused on Torah. Later in their history, during and after the exile, there was more focus on the afterlife, but Torah was still primarily about the here and now. Torah was not so much just a bunch of rules, but a means by which one lived a life dedicated to God. Torah also created a means by which an observant Jew could be in relationship with Yahweh, and a right relationship with God meant that God’s Shekinah glory would dwell (or tabernacle) in the temple and be accessible for remission of sins much like Jesus now tabernacles among us and is available to all who call upon His name. Torah was primarily meant for this life, not the next one. The blessings that one received by being a Torah-observant Jew were to be received in this life, not the next one. “Love the Lord your God with all of your heart and your neighbor as yourself” was a way of bringing immediate blessings to you and all of those around you.

So, if Torah was primarily meant for this life, and Jesus is Torah, then perhaps living a life for Jesus should not be so focused on the next life, but more so for right now. Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever, and if Torah was meant primarily for this life, then what changed after Christ fulfilled Torah and essentially became Torah? If God really intended us to focus on loving Him and doing as much for His Son as possible in this life, then why are we so concerned about the next one? The next one will come soon enough…perhaps too soon for many of us.

Maybe we are spending too much time worrying about “who’s in” and who’s out” and missing out on spreading the Gospel that Jesus preached. It was a Gospel that essentially meant that “Love Wins” as the title of Bell’s book suggests. And instead of waiting for Heaven or worrying about Hell, maybe we should be spending that time getting to know Jesus a little better and asking ourselves what He was really saying about His Kingdom , one that I believe was inaugurated on Easter morning when he overcame the world, ripped the temple veil and made God’s Shekinah glory available to every man and woman who would ever live.

While I do believe that we will all stand at the Judgment Seat of Christ one day, perhaps all of the focus on Heaven, Hell (and when Christ is returning) takes our eyes off of what Jesus wants for us to be doing in the here and now, which is spreading His love and His message wherever and whenever possible. Sure, I look forward to Heaven, and there are scores of New Testament verses that repeatedly underscore the hope that we have for resurrection bodies living forever with God in a New Heaven and a New Earth. However, the only time or place that we have any control over is here and now.

With the recent devastation in Japan following the earthquake and tsunami, I am reminded of just how fragile our lives are. Any one of us can be gone in an instant. Perhaps a more concentrated focus on what I can be doing right now for Jesus is much more important that anything else. And I think that sharing the love of Jesus is much more appealing and Biblically correct than warning everyone about burning in Hell. A Hell that we can’t even prove exists (at least not in the traditional Jonathan Edwards sense) to begin with.

I don’t know what I will find in Rob Bell’s book, but I doubt that it will be anything that I will strongly disagree with. I doubt that he is a universalist (although he might have some inclusivist leanings) and I doubt that he is going to chunk Hell out of the Bible altogether. I kind of suspect that he is going to be saying something of the sort of what I’m thinking here in this post. “Stop worrying so much about Heaven and Hell and get busy for Christ, for the Kingdom of God is among us right now.” Whatever he has to say, I will be writing a review on his book in a couple of weeks (fingers crossed).

Note: I will be resuming my series on Hell in a few weeks. Right now I am tied up with other projects and simply don’t have the time.

Ash Wednesday by T.S. Eliot

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the aged eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is
nothing again

Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessed face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgment not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

II
Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to satiety
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been
contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying

Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each
other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapor in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitful face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jagged, like an old man’s mouth drivelling, beyond
repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an aged shark.

At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.

Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy

but speak the word only.

IV
Who walked between the violet and the violet
Who walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary’s color,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary’s color,
Sovegna vos

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jeweled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke
no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

V
If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny
the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season,
time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

O my people.

VI
Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessed sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit
of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

Most of those issues are somewhat resolved, although I am preparing for a Tres Dias retreat in a month that will consume a good bit of my time. Nonetheless, I hope to get back to blogging on at least a semi-regular basis later this week. My Hell series is nearly done, and I wish to complete it, and there are a good many other things to blog about, not the least Rob Bell’s new book that will soon be out.

First is THE MOVE. We had plans for making a move into a smaller abode sometime after the first of the year, but circumstances dictated differently. I have spent the last two weeks packing and the movers show up on Saturday. So between packing, moving and unpacking, my plate is pretty full right now.

Secondly is the Tres Dias Website that I am am responsible for. I was building a website using Joomla for our new Tres Dias community for which our first retreat is scheduled this coming April. Unfortunately, Joomla turned out to be a few levels above my paygrade, and two weeks ago I scrapped the entire thing and have begun rebuilding the website using the WordPress Genesis Framework. I will have MUCH more to say about Genesis in later posts…it is WONDERFUL! Consequently, I am now using Genesis for my blog as well (although I have  great deal of tweaking left to to here on the blog).

I need to have our Tres Dias website up and running and under the approval of the rest of our Tres Dias Secretariat by Jan. 1, so I am spending nearly all of my spare time on it right now. I have a report due on my progress on Dec. 11 and hope to be 90% complete by then.

With Advent upon us and Christmas right around the corner plus all of the other factors that I just lined out, finding the time to blog is going to be all but impossible for the next couple of weeks, and very difficult after that, at least until the first of the year.

So….hopefully I will be able to through a post up here or there sometime after the middle of December and then resume my normal blogging after January 1st. I miss my blog. My blog misses me. But we will be reunited soon enough. And, oh yea…I miss all of the wonderful people who stop by and share their thoughts and comments.