Defeat, pain, and tragedy are never the end, unless we let them be. Faith enables us to survive, rebound, and yes, even overcome.

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God told Joshua: Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

In Hebrew, that passage begins 'Chazak v'Amatz' [Be strong and of good courage]

חזק ואמץ

What we can easily see is only a small percentage of what is possible. Imagination is having the vision
to see what is just below the surface; to picture that which is essential, but invisible to the eye.

Written by Svet Lana Friday, 22 February 2008 22:37 ~ positivepeople.today.org

Seek and Ye Shall Find

A Reason for Living

A Message of Hope for Survivors of Abuse, Trauma, Tragedy

by Bob Shepherd
Cottonwood CA

Purging our churches of hypocrisy, repression, and `inebriated virtue`
Shouldn't we who profess the stabilizing anchor of an ancient faith take heed that the forms of our creeds do not slide into what Algernon Swinburne called inebriated virtue -- which he saw as arising from "the sexless orgies of morality" and "reeling from the delirious riot of religion." It's a warning we oughtn't ignore.

by Robt Shepherd

Blessed be the Name
baruch ha-Shem

OVERCOMERS BY FAITH-

And this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith. -- 1 John 5:4

Abuse and tragedy happen to us all, some more than others. At times surviving looks difficult, almost impossible. And there are many, very many, far worse than my own. But we can be survivors. We can overcome. We each seek out sources to enable us to survive, to cope, even at times just to muddle through, to somehow just face each new challenge. In my case, being Christian by background and by faith, many of my earlier "religious" preconceptions have matured through time and experience, or been shaken by circumstance -- such as the death of our daughter Debbie through childhood cancer. Nevertheless faith offers a psalm of hope. We can be survivors -- and more than that, we can, through Christ, be overcomers in a world that is filled with pain and tribulation. By joining together we reach out, we share, we light a candle and thereby, by God's grace, we even change the world.

OVERCOMING DAY BY DAY-

In all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. -- Romans 8:37

No matter what horrible abuse I feel I have had to suffer, I am not alone. Escapism offers a false crutch, but hope lies elsewhere. "Blind unbelief is sure to err," William Cowper wrote. Faith is a great capacity which is ours to nourish, or neglect. It may also be a gift, a grace, which some poor souls are fated to have in meager quantity - a great loss to themselves.

OVERCOMERS IN THE REAL WORLD-

Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. --Romans 12:21

Just as science has learned that right-brain activities and left-brain activities are not in competition with each other but are each indispensable to our full potential as human beings, even so faith, imagination, creativity, beauty, and the worshipping dimension are all important to us -- not less than are reason, logic and intellect.

This is not to say science and logic are not important. "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use," said Galileo. I agree with him. Our creator made us to ask, to seek, to inquire, to wonder. What are our brains for, if not to use them? Are not unused capacities like buried talents, a theft of our divine inheritance?

Albert Einstein wrote:

"The most beautiful and the most profound emotion we can experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand in rapt awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms -- this knowledge, this feeling, is at the center of true religiousness."

CREED FOR A WORLD COME OF AGE-

Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children. -- Ephesians 4:13

One of the best discussions of the emotional factors underlying the appeal of religion is to be found in the books of Eric Hoffer. I especially recommend The True Believer, and The Ordeal of Change. As an impetus to progress and material advancement, Hoffer has high praise for the Western (i.e. Biblical) concept of a transcendent God. Hoffer also provides fine insight into what attracts many people to cults and mass movements. I find his discussion along these lines very elucidating.

On a personal note, there are probably as many facets of my own religious heritage that turn me off as that inspire me. I am often offended by narrowness and rigidity, by exclusiveness and intolerance (of wayward ones). I am turned off by a doctrinaire obsession with ideology at the expense of compassion and ethics. I dislike "litmus tests" of political correctness (or religious "acceptability"). I am also bothered by hard-sell and aggressive proselytizing. Hoffer makes the interesting point that often, the less firmly we are convinced of something ourselves, the harder we try to convince others of it (thereby compensating for our own lack of certainty).

PAY IT FORWARD -

what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God? -- Micah 6:8

Religion inevitably preoccupies itself with theology and doctrine. Yeah, at some unquestioning level I could probably assent to the creed of my white (Euro) forefathers, or the "standard" first six councils of the early church. But that's not REALLY what lifts my soul. I hope you will think about it, too, in your own case. We all have a tribal subconscious, regardless of genetic heritage. We all have a heart and soul rooted in some spiritual awareness little different from native wisdom, or the basic humanity of the Patriarchal Age. Consider: How much was the meek St. Francis concerned with dogma? How much was Gandhi, or Tolstoy, or Mother Teresa? There was more of the good Samaritan in them than the religious ideologue.

Indeed,Jesus himself seemed singularly unconcerned with abstruse theology. John Chapter 15, for example, is all about bearing fruit. Jesus the Jew was all about the practical. It reminds me of a phrase by Rabbi A.J. Heschel, that the essence of Judaism was actions. "The deed redeems." It is not the hearing of the word that saves us, it is the doing, the obedience. Die Tat, the Germans say. Like the Jewish idea that Jews themselves (by living their Judaism) become the living Torah.

The mystic in me says: "There's not a friend like the lowly Jesus, no not one. No not one." But I am blessed to see how closely some of these others, like Gandhi, St. Francis, and such, have trod in the same path of service and practical blessing to mankind. They in some sense embodied The Sermon on the Mount. Hebrew characters following denote the Shekinah presence or glory, the feminine aspect of the divine.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer makes the point that "God" has been evicted from one realm after another (science, economics, government, medicine) till in modern life there is just one domain left for Christ -- the worldly realm of living and loving, or ethics and justice and responsibility. In other words, instead of the glib and frequent repetition of "God-talk", we testify of the presence of Christ who joins in bearing our burdens and cares in this world. Our faith is not a promise of an easy escape FROM this life, but an aid to fully join with us IN it. Perhaps that realm after all, is the one area that was legitimately his all along. Perhaps THAT is the one area he asked for, appealed for, and insisted on. Not an opium to deaden our pain, or a magic carpet to take us out of the world, but a deep and integrated gospel realism that enables us to live right here in THIS world, lives of blessing and help for others, staunch witnesses for justice and ethics. Overcomers.

James Carroll has not given up on Christianity. He has not given up on the Catholic Church. The hope for us all is that we, in coming days, can somehow "retrieve for the Church the deep-seated human intuition that mystery is at the core of existence, that truth is elusive, that God is greater than religion." And he adds a hopeful outcome that such implies: "If mystery is at the core of religion, then ambiguity, paradox, and even doubt are not enemies of faith, but aspects of it." [Sword of Constantive. p593]

Presidential Prayer Team

John 5 : 39

To dream the impossible dream
to fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow
to run where the brave dare not go.
To right the unrightable wrong,
to love pure and chaste from afar
To try when your arms are too weary,
to reach the unreachable star!

This is my quest,
to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless,
no matter how far;
To fight for the right without question or pause
To be willing to march into hell for a heavenly cause!

And I know, if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
that my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this
That one man scorned and covered with scars,
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable stars.

Sadness Rips the Heart

Yes, Tragedy Happens to Us All.

But After the 'Night of Anguish'
There is Hope for the Morning

|
Naomi Campbell (Alexander McQueen's passing)

Robert Shepherd

delicta quis intellegit
ab occultis meis munda me

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Built into the fabric of every
love story is the DNA of God.
~ Gary Chiles ~
Christian Quarterly

You Can Make a Difference

FDR: kindness

In pride, in reas'ning pride, our error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies!
Selected by robtshepherd

Imani - or FAITH

Blaise Pascal:
Man is neither angel nor brute. And the misfortune is that he who would act the angel, acts the brute.

[ see Ecclesiastes 7:16 ]

Herman Wouk:
Even in Godlessness, the Hebrew spirit remains moralistic.
[The Will To Live On: This is Our Heritage, p 284]

Emma Goldman noted that man is much more a sex-creature than a moral creature.
Sex is inherent;
Morality is grafted on.

Dag Hammarskjöld:
When you have nothing left but God,
you will become aware for the first time
that God is enough.

Robert Shepherd - 2011 Webster: Robert Shepherd, offers this view in August 2011:

I happen to think that Democrats like Barack Obama as well as Oprah, and a substantial number of others, particularly with a black church heritage, are right to try to lead us back to the gospel roots in this country. Why should the Republicans be the only once to invoke biblical authority for themselves. It was a moral message that Dr. King used when he called on his followers, for one brief shining moment, to be BETTER than America, and thereby he ultimately recalled America to her own highest ideals, without in any way disparaging the great principle of religious freedom. We each must look inside for the deeper wellsprings of our spirituality, and seek again within the ethics of the ancient paths.
[See the importance of a faith to live by]

Awe precedes faith; it is at the root of faith. We must grow in awe in order to reach faith. We must be guided by awe to be worthy of faith. Awe rather than faith is the cardinal attitude of the religious Jew. It is "the beginning and gateway of faith, the first precept of all, and upon it the whole world is established." [Zohar, vol I, p 11b.] In Judaism, yirat hashem, the awe of God, or yirat shamayim, the "awe of heaven," is almost equivalent to the word "religion." In Biblical language the religious man is not called "believer," as he is for example in Islam (mu'min), but yare hashem.

[Rabbi Abraham Heschel. Page 77]

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