Search Results

< Back The Sacred Pause of Autumn Deborah Rutherford "In our spiritual rest, we draw near to God and bask in His presence in prayer, our Bibles, and His beautiful creation." Then He arose and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, "Peace, be still!" And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. Mark 4:39 NKJV My husband and I were captivated by the first fall leaves that descended gracefully as the wind picked up. Like all storms, this one came and went, shaking the globe, and the leaves fell like snow in autumn. At that precise moment, I sensed a profound invitation from the Lord and all His creation to step out of the glass globe—our windowed house—and into the open. This invitation was not just to feel the cool air on our faces or pick up a leaf, but to experience a "sacred pause." This is where we can step back from the storms of life, whether brooding, gales, or on the horizon, with complete confidence that just as Jesus rebuked the wind and calmed the sea, He can do the same for us. This sacred pause is a moment where we take a break from the busyness and demands of life and instead relish quiet communion, drawing near to our Creator. It is a time to reflect, feel the Creator's touch and caress, and partake in the beauty of autumn. This intentional pause for deep connection and meditation with God strengthens and refreshes us. Autumn is the perfect season to pursue wonder. Did you know that God has been pausing since He first created the world? In Genesis 1:31, we read: "Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day" (NKJV). Yes, during God's six days of creation, He paused daily to look at His creation and delighted in it: • God paused. • God looked at His creation. • God delighted in His creation. God invites us to delight with Him in this sacred pause. Unsurprisingly, God's creations, including us, bring Him immense joy. This is how much God loves us. Isn't autumn a unique and perfect opportunity to slow down and partake in the sacred pause with God? To share in His delight and seek His wonder? God created us to have a relationship and fellowship with Him and to enjoy His creations. Our participation is welcomed and vital for revitalizing and refreshing our weary, storm-ridden souls. There will be times soon enough when we must step back into our daily routines, but in this interlude, we will be refreshed and strengthened for the ebbs and tides of life. In autumn, the Lord beckons us to draw near to Him and all of creation in a celebration. Are we not awestruck when we wake to vibrant hues painted on the sunrise? Every day, as we walk outside, a new leaf glimmers gold, followed by reds and oranges. The air is fragrant with fresh pine and foliage, while our kitchens simmer with spices and warming stews. The beauty of this lovely season is a testament to God's majesty and creation. We must pause with our Creator in autumn's celebration—how can we not! Here, we recognize that we are more than to-do lists, jobs, troubles, and schedules; we are, in fact, a part of creation itself. By pausing, we find we are in step with creation. I do not know about you, but I would rather be a part of the creation dance than apart from it. Our porch party lights are the stars twinkling in the sky. The feast is laid out in the fields, and the orchestra is the flocks of migrating birds going home. Oh, we belong too, and I find this so comforting and reassuring, don't you? We are part of our Creator's beautiful symphony. Autumn is the time of year when the Lord invites us to pause with Himself and creation. In this pause, we reconnect with our Creator and all of creation. As the warmth of summer fades and cooler temperatures arrive, all creation begins a transformation. This collaboration between the Creator and the created has been ongoing since the beginning of time, and we are an integral part of it. At this time of year, nature transforms to prepare to rest for winter; shouldn't we do the same? In Psalm 46:10, the psalmist writes, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!” (NKJV). Here again, God is inviting us to pause with Him. In this sacred pause, we experience God's presence and sovereignty in creation. When we draw near to God, He draws near to us. "Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded" (James 4:8 NKJV). A pause may seem counterproductive with all the delights of the fall season or our day-to-day demands, but that is precisely why God asks us to be still, to draw near to Him—to pause. Here in this sacred pause, we savor God's goodness and delight in what He has prepared for us. There is a place for us at His bountiful table. In all this, God prepares and strengthens us for approaching situations, transformation, and new blooms. But just as nature needs a rest, so do we. In our spiritual rest, we draw near to God and bask in His presence in prayer, our Bibles, and His beautiful creation. But how do we pause with the Creator and embrace autumn's beauty? Here are some ways to pause, reflect, and connect with God and nature this autumn: • Pray and reflect as you read your Bible. Ask God questions like: Do I need to let go of anything? What is my growth and transformation in this season? Am I depleted from life's tempests, and how can I be strengthened and refreshed, Lord? • Step out into creation by going on a nearby hike, visiting a pumpkin patch, or attending a fair (I love seeing all the farm animals at our fair). • Rejoice in the fields' harvest and reflect on your own harvest. Taste the harvest foods, such as apples, pumpkins, and blackberries. • Listen to the music of the wind, the rustling leaves, bird songs, and the crackling of campfires. • Observe the stars at night and feel the universe singing a beautiful song. Immerse yourself in the beauty of autumn, and let it resonate within you. • Gather to celebrate and give thanks to the Lord. Open your home for long, lingering conversations, dinners, and candlelight. • Look for the unexpected blessings, and you will find them. Since the beginning of time, this sacred pause has coaxed the temperatures down and caused the trees to transform. The harvest is ready in the fields. All these blessings, abundance, goodness, and beauty bring joy to our hearts. In our sacred pause, let us rejoice in the Lord and dare ourselves to gather and prepare candlelit dinners and have those long conversations. Let us pursue God’s wonder! This sacred pause leads to the Holy Feasts, Advent hymns, and Holy Days. As we pause to celebrate the harvest, we also plant the seeds in anticipation of the coming Christmas season. The ebb and flow of creation's seasonal pause is God's masterpiece, the beauty of life. We were created to live in creation, not apart from it. There will always be storms on the horizon—some seen, some waited for, some just dumped—but with intentional drawing near in the presence of God, we will be strengthened for the days ahead. A Sacred Pause Prayer Dear Heavenly Father, Thank you for creating me and all Your creations. How loving of You to pause, look at, and delight in me. I accept Your invitation to draw near as I read, pray, and linger in my Bible. I delight in Your creation this autumn and will pursue wonder. I yearn to be in Your Presence! Help me to slow down this season so I can rejoice in You. Help me to be still. Do not let a day pass where I do not step out into creation and delight in Your beauty and love. In this sacred pause, strengthen me, Lord, for the coming storms of life. I know You will always be with me. I rejoice in You, Lord, who brings hope in the breeze, transformation, and harvest as I gather to dwell, celebrate, and prepare my heart for You. In Jesus' name, Amen. Deborah Rutherford is a Christian wife who loves to write stories, devotionals, and poetry. She is also an award-winning makeup artist. Deborah shares her journey of faith, joy, and beauty on her blog at www.deborahrutherford.com and social media. She is a contributing writer for Aletheia Today Magazine , Kingdom Edge Magazine and Gracefully Truthful Ministries and has a devotional in the book “Shepherd on Duty: Promises of God you Can Trust ” (Arabelle Publishing) and the Calla Press, Literary Journal Spring 2023. Return to Harvest 2024 Previous Next

< Back Eucharist David Cowles “…The spacetime world of matter and energy, 14 billion years old and almost 100 billion light years across, is not the final word.” The sacrament known as Eucharist is the cornerstone of Roman Catholic (RC) spirituality. The accompanying theology maintains that in Eucharist Jesus Christ is substantially ‘present’ under the accidental appearance of bread and wine. Further, RC Eucharistic Theology holds that the consecration of bread and wine (the specie ) during a proper liturgy actually changes that substance of that species into the Body and Blood of Christ. Appropriately, Catholics refer to this process as transubstantiation . Much of RC Theology can be (and has been?) dumbed-down and/or sugar-coated to be more appealing to our modern intellectual tastes…but not Eucharist! Here, there is no wiggle room. Believe me, we’ve tried everything over the past 2,000 years – but to no avail. Eucharist does not symbolize or signify Jesus’ body and blood; it is Jesus’ body and blood. Nor are we saying that Jesus’ body and blood co-exists with the bread and wine; it doesn’t! Substantially speaking, after consecration, there is no more bread or wine. There is the appearance of bread and wine but not the substance. Nor are we saying that Jesus is only ‘provisionally present’ in Eucharist. His presence is not dependent on the moral virtue of the celebrant nor on the faith of the congregation or of the individual communicant…nor on the grape or vintage of the wine. Hints of leather and tobacco are strictly optional! Nor are we saying that Jesus is only ‘partially present’. On the contrary, RC Theology states clearly that Jesus Christ, body and soul, humanity and divinity, is present in the consecrated species. See what I mean? No wiggle room! I’m holding a baseball in my hands. It’s a baseball! It doesn’t matter who made it or what that person’s state of mind was at the time; it doesn’t matter whether I enjoy baseball or even understand its rules. Being a baseball does not depend on context; it’s a matter of substance. Of course, there is one difference: the baseball not only is a baseball, it appears to be a baseball as well. Not so Eucharist! It is the body and blood of Christ, but it appears to be bread and wine. Needless to say, few non-Christians share this belief. In fact, most non-Catholic Christians hold a different view of the Sacrament. It is only slightly more surprising (Pew, 2019) that a majority of self-identified ‘Roman Catholics’, and even some practicing Roman Catholics, do not accept the Church’s teaching on this matter. No real surprise here. Frankly, the wonder is that anyone accepts such a bizarre doctrine as this. Today, we share an understanding of physics, chemistry and biology that would seem to rule out anything even remotely resembling transubstantiation. But that is precisely the point! Transubstantiation is incompatible, superficially at least, with ‘the hard sciences’. Modern science has given us a compelling model of the physical world, and we have no quarrel with that. However, what science has modeled is, obviously, the world of appearances, attributes, qualities, accidents – Kant’s phenomena - not the world of substance, his noumena . In the Beatles’ iconic movie (1967), Yellow Submarine , Jeremey Hillary Boob famously instructs the Fab Four, “Be empirical, look!” Exactly! And when we do, we see the accidents, bread and wine; we don’t see anything that we would recognize as body or blood, thank God! In this respect, Eucharist is a symbol, not of Jesus, but of Universe. To be clear, Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ, but it is also symbolic of Universe. How so? Eucharistic Theology suggests that the spacetime world of matter and energy, 14 billion years old and almost 100 billion light years across, is not the final word. There is something more fundamental. Christians believe that ‘something more fundamental’ is God. The world we live in appears to be continuous, flat and inert. We do not need complicated mathematics to plot a trip from Boston to Cleveland; a simple road map, unfolded on the passenger seat, will do just fine. We can ignore contributions to our trajectory from relativity, quantum mechanics and the earth’s curvature. Likewise, modern science has given us a map of Universe that allows us to accomplish just about anything we want…except to understand that universe. Hasidic Rebbe Schneerson spoke of “…t he concept of oneness within the microcosm of the human being—which serves as an analogy and example of the true oneness of the macro-cosmos.” He concluded, “All that exists is spiritual. Yet further, everything is divine.” According to modern cosmology, the foundation of the material world is a ‘void’; according to Rebbe Schneerson, it is a ‘person’, aka God. We see the personhood of Universe reflected in the ‘souls’ of things that exist in that universe. According to the Rebbe Yitzchak Luria, even a rock has a soul as evidenced by its self-identification, by its cohesion, and by its discontinuity with the environment. Rabbi Schneur Zalman, founder of the Chabad school, wrote that a rock must have a soul ( persona ) because it exists. Being is an activity. “I seem to be a verb” (R. Buckminster Fuller). Using Eucharistic terminology, Universe is accidentally space and time, matter and energy, but it exists; so substantially, it is the mind (or will) of God. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to our Beach Read 2023 Table of Contents Previous Next

Dive into Aletheia Today's 2024 Beach Read, where philosophy, theology, and culture collide. Explore thought-provoking articles on the nature of God, the authenticity of the Gospel of Mark, and the tension between destiny and fate. Rediscover imagination, resilience, and purpose through reflections on Ruth and Esther. Perfect for thoughtful readers seeking to blend deep contemplation with the relaxed vibe of a beach read. Inside Our 2024 Beach Read Philosophy God Is a Bother! “The reason most people don’t believe in God is that they haven’t fully considered the alternative.” Moses, Machiavelli, and Morality “The moral value of an event lies in the act itself, not in its conformity to a set of norms and not in its consequentiality…every event is its own end!” Is the Universe Real? “The most important thing we’ve learned is that we know so much less than we thought we knew.” Destiny Versus Fate “Your Destiny is the Fate of others; the Destiny of others is your Fate.” Theology Mark’s Marks of Authenticity “There is no single work more important than the Gospel of Mark…the Intellectual History of the West hangs on it, so its authenticity is of paramount importance.” Jeremiah “God places his words in Jeremiah’s mouth. How can this be consistent with Jeremiah’s status as a free and independent entity?” Culture & The Arts The Owl and the Pussycat “The entire story makes no sense…unless there’s something special about that ring, something you can’t get at Harrod’s at any price.” Imagination, Please! "One way helpful in recovering the wonder of childhood and a simpler life, is to become more creative, imaginative, wonder-filled people again." Spirituality Ruth Embraced Resilience and Found Redemption "Ruth demonstrates how resilience can reward us, showing that even in the darkest of times, there is always hope to be found for those who refuse to yield to despair." You Really Were Born for This "Esther’s journey from obscurity to influence exemplifies the profound truth that individuals are often placed in specific circumstances to fulfill significant purposes, even amid uncertainty and peril." Readers React What's the buzz about? Our readers' reactions to Aletheia Today... Additional Reading Can't get enough of Aletheia Today's content? Check out the books that inspire our magazine.

< Back Rabbi Shlomo David Cowles Sep 20, 2021 According to Hasidic Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (1925 – 1994), “original sin” is rooted in gender inequality. According to Rabbi Shlomo, in the Garden of Eden, God spoke directly to Adam and through Adam, the ‘Rebbe of Eden’, to Eve. Eve’s innate sense of justice (we all have such a sense) told her that something about this arrangement was not right: “I wonder why he wouldn’t talk to me straight.” According to Hasidic Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach (1925 – 1994), “original sin” is rooted in gender inequality. According to Rabbi Shlomo, in the Garden of Eden, God spoke directly to Adam and through Adam, the ‘Rebbe of Eden’, to Eve. Eve’s innate sense of justice (we all have such a sense) told her that something about this arrangement was not right: “I wonder why he wouldn’t talk to me straight.” This created opportunity for the snake (injustice feeds on injustice): “If you eat the apple, (God) talks to you straight.” Understandably, this made sense to Eve. She ate the apple and the rest, as they say, is ‘history’…or in this case, ‘proto-history’. One single injustice (gender inequality) became the mother of all injustice. From a single act of gender bias it is too short a heap to the Holocaust. So, there is no such thing as a ‘small injustice’. Every injustice is the seed of all injustice. Therefore, it is our task and, indeed, the task of all creation, to remove all injustice, root and branch, from the world. Today, many people mistakenly regard Genesis as dated…and scientifically wrong; but what could possibly be more 21st century than Rabbi Shlomo’s interpretation? Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Mark A. Villano Contributor Mark A. Villano has an MDiv from Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He has ministered at parishes and campus ministry centers across the country, including at the University of Texas, UCLS, Ohio State University, and Yale. He has an MFA from the School of Cinematic Arts at USC and served as Director of Creative Development at Paulist Productions. Currently, he is Director of Mission and Ministry at Marymount California University, south of Los Angeles. Burn the Candle

< Back Genesis and Quantum Computing “Quantum Mechanics is the secret code that unlocks Genesis and when it does, we are surprised to discover that Genesis may be ‘literally true’ after all.” David Cowles “In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth – and the earth was without form or shape with darkness over the abyss…” ( Genesis ) According to Parmenides (c. 450 BCE), this is Aletheia – Truth: without form, without distinctions, without qualities. This is the state of ‘pure potentiality’ (Aristotle). It is the primal manifestation of God, ‘maker of all things visible and invisible’ ( Nicene Creed ), ‘without whom nothing that comes to be comes to be’ ( Gospel of John ) But it also describes the state of quantum superposition. (Schoedinger) Aristotle gave us a model of potentiality ( Physics ) and Plato gave us a model of forms ( Phaedo ), but the idea of potentiality per se is woven throughout the Judeo-Christian tradition, especially in Torah and in the Johannine - Pauline corpus . There is a fine distinction here. God is ‘potentiality’ per se with Trinity as its paradigm. What is potentially is the World…not just the specific world we all know and sometimes love, but all possible worlds (‘cosmic epochs’ – Whitehead) and every possible state-of-affairs within each such world. God is not the World…but God is the potentiality for worlds to be and the potentiality for worlds to be as they are , however that may be. This is Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (1957)…on steroids! The known universe consists of at least 10^80 bits of information. Extending Everett’s theory, each bit is in a state of quantum superposition: not 1 or 0, but 1 and 0. 10^160 universes! Everett assumed that each unique combination of 1’s and 0’s had to constitute a unique universe, but quantum mechanics allows us to achieve the same result within a single universe, as long as that universe and everything in it is in a state of quantum superposition. Such a Universe functions as a quantum computer where all possible values of every variable co-exist. But why? We inherited a system of logic from Aristotle in which every bit is 1 or 0 – not 1/2, not 1 and 0. It’s called the Law of the Excluded Middle . It’s worked well for us in a wide variety of applications, so why should the Universe behave any differently? It's a matter of topology. For the purposes of this article at least, all topologies are either ‘orientable’ or ‘non-orientable’. You’re familiar with the orientable. You have a sheet of paper. It has two sides: an obverse side and a reverse side. Make a mark on the obverse side; you won’t find any mark on the reverse side. Now run your finger along the surface; oops, you’ve fallen off the edge! Sorry about that but that’s orientability for you. You can keep it! In non-orientable topology a sheet of paper has only one side so any mark is always there, regardless – no hiding; and your finger will never run off the edge. Cool beans! But we don’t live in that sort of universe, do we? Do we? Fortunately, an orientable universe with at least three spatial dimensions allows us to build a physical model of what a non-orientable world would look like. It’s called a Mobius Strip, and you can create one yourself in about 10 seconds. First, find a cash register receipt, preferably from CVS or Target (longer is better). Grab onto the two ends. Now twist one end and scotch tape it to the other end. Hello, ‘God’; welcome to my humble universe, you creator of worlds, you! So now let’s play. If you’ve never played before, prepare to be dazzled. Run your finger along the paper as you did earlier (above). Go on and on and on. You can go on forever. You’ll never fall off. Your two sided strip of paper has become a one sided loop. Amazing! Now imagine making a virtual mark (like an arrow) anywhere along the strip. Imagine sliding that arrow 360° along the strip until you return to your starting point. What’s happened? Your arrow is still there, but now it’s upside down. So go around another 360° et voila , your arrow has resumed its original orientation. Your loop displays symmetry, but it’s 720° symmetry, not the 360° symmetry you’re used to. Stange world this! Now let’s go back to your arrow. Place it anywhere on the loop. If it starts out pointing up, then when you’ve gone 360° around the loop it will be pointed down, so over time every spot on the loop is in superposition everywhere: ↑ and ↓ (0 and 1). A Mobius Strip is a quantum computer! Ok, great fun, but what does this have to do with us. We don’t live in Mobius’ non-orientable space; our universe is orientable, ‘from event horizon to shining event horizon’. Except it isn’t! The observable universe may be orientable, but not the entire universe is observable. The event horizon is the limit of the universe we can observe. But as Lewis Carroll realized, there is no reason to believe that the universe ends at its observable limit, especially as bits of the observed universe are slipping across the event horizon every day. Go back to your Mobius Strip. Take any finite segment of that loop. It’s orientable, even though the loop itself is not. You could say that the non-orientable loop is the overlay of an infinite number of orientable loop-segments. So we may live in a non-orientable universe after all! The observable universe is finite, bounded and orientable, but the Universe per se is likely finite, unbounded (Hawking) and non-orientable. But back to Genesis : “God said, let there be light, and there was light (1 and 0)…and God separated the light from the darkness (1 or 0)…Then God said, let there be a dome…to separate…the water below the dome from the water above dome (1 or 0).” Separating and gathering, in 6 days God built a quantum computer. On the 7th day he rested. Of course he did. Everything was done! All possible values for all possible bits were in place. There was nothing more to do but let it run! But we’re still left with a problem. We seem to live in an orientable universe. If the entire Universe is in non-orientable superposition, how is it that regions of Universe (“loop segments”) appear to be orientable? To understand this we need to look at how local systems in superposition acquire classical values. Schoedinger’s cat, basking in a sort of suspended animation, acquires its fate only when some outside agency interacts with the experimental apparatus. Universe, however, by definition, has no outside agent – unless you wish to invoke God (a la Berkeley). But that is not necessary, at least not at this point. A feature of Universe, indeed a feature of all systems, is that it interacts with itself. Contrary to Bertrand Russell, IRL every ‘real’ set is a subset of itself. I know, “Paradox!” Deal with it (you dealt with Zeno). That ‘self-assessment’ generates classical values and an orientable topology. In Mobius terms, it creates a ‘loop segment’. How does this process manifest in ‘our’ world? We call it ‘choice’ or ‘action’. Every time an agent makes a choice, exercises free will, the multiplicity of potential values collapses down to a single actual value. As Robert Frost noted, every path ‘diverges’ (1 vs. 0). Both paths lead to the same destination (‘Omega Point’) but once a choice is made, that choice becomes irrevocable, effectively annihilating the other option…for that traveler. As Universe observes and interacts with itself, we experience consciousness and agency (free will). The phenomenon you know as ‘you’ is actually the Universe being aware of itself and acting on itself. Every action, every choice, however automatic, routine or constrained, is motivated by Value (e.g. Beauty, Truth, Justice). As Nietzsche argued, Value is not part of Universe; it transcends it. So now may be the time to bring God into the picture! God is Good. God is Value and it is Value that underlies choice, that motivates action, that is realized as values . Absent God, no Value; absent Value, no conscious perception; absent consciousness, no free will; absent free will, no true agency; absent agency, no action; absent action, no events; absent events, no Universe. So Quantum Mechanics is the secret code that unlocks Genesis and when it does, we are surprised to discover that Genesis may be ‘literally true’ after all. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at dtc@gc3incorporated.com Return to Table of Contents Share Previous Next

< Back Happy New Year! David Cowles Jan 3, 2023 “You share 99.9% of my DNA! How scary is that?” 2022! I mean ‘23’. I’ve just started to get used to writing ‘2022’ on everything, and now I have to start all over again. Will this ever end? Actually, yes, it will and sooner than we let ourselves think; but in spite of that, all of us at ATM/TWS wish you and your loved ones a joyful and meaningful new year. New Year is also a time to look back… six months… or 1.5 billion years. On 6/1/2022, Issue #1 of Aletheia Today Magazine (ATM) ‘hit the streets’ (metaphorically speaking), supplemented of course by twice weekly issues of Thoughts While Shaving (TWS). In June 2022, we welcomed 450 people to our new site. Thank you for getting us off to a good start. Now fast forward to December 2022, six months later: 2,000 of you did us the honor of spending time on our site. That’s a month-over-month (MoM) growth rate of 30% per month. Better than Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet combined! That makes Aletheia the 4th ‘A’. You exceeded our expectations. (We were only looking for 20% MoM, but you came through for us.) Now we’re already halfway to our first anniversary goal of 4,000 engagements per month. Again, thank you, and thanks as well to the 20 or so independent authors who contributed material in 2022. We couldn’t have done this without you! Now let’s look longer term, 1.5 billion years ago to be exact. Meet our common ancestor, Cell Zero , the greatest grandparent ever. So what! 1.5 billion years is a long time and Cell Zero doesn’t even send me a card for my birthday anymore; I’m done with Cell Zero thank you very much. Done, not done. I might be done with Cell Zero per se , but Cell Zero isn’t done with me – not by a long shot! Are you alive and living on Planet Earth? Then you too are descended from Cell Zero ; Howdy, cousin! Yup, that’s right, we’re cousins ‘several times removed’. Scripture suggests that we are all neighbors, and it isn’t much of a leap to focus the concept of ‘neighbor’ down to ‘cousin’. Are you reading this from a hut in the Amazon Rainforest, or are you our one subscriber from Tibet who lives alone on a mountainside but faithfully reads every issue? No matter, we’re cousins. We are all ‘cousins’; we all share a common ancestor and I’m not just talking about Uncle Adam and Aunt Eve. I’m talking about one solitary single celled organism that ‘sprang to life’ about 1.5 billion years ago? “That’s what I’m talkin’ about, Willis.” But that raises an issue. All life on earth is descended from this one cell. All life! Crocodiles, cockroaches, coral and crackheads (I don’t mean drug users, I mean methane breathing organisms that hang out ominously at the mouths of hot water cracks in the ocean floor, plotting the overthrow of our oxygen-based ecosystem.) So if all terrestrial life forms are descended from this one cell, then I must be cousins with every member of every species on the planet. Biogenesis: it’s a great thing but as far as we can tell, it happened once and only once on Earth. Every living thing is a product of this one event. Of course, something similar may have occurred elsewhere in the universe, but as far as Planet Earth is concerned, it’s one and done. So let’s meet our cousins; we don’t need to go far. What you call ‘your body’ is made up of about three billion ‘cousins’ – i.e., cells - nature’s version of ‘cousins by the dozens’. Once you’ve properly greeted all three billion of them, we’ll take this body for a walk, across the grass , under the shade trees lining the roadway. We’ll enjoy the fragrance wafting from Mrs. Bellamy’s wildflowers and listen to the parliament of birds : owls, crows, songsters. But steer clear of the black cat crossing the road in front of you and give the neighbors’ barking dog a wide berth. They are all your cousins; cherish them. We are all cousins because we’re all descended from a single organism. As a result, like cousins everywhere, we share DNA. No surprise there…but we share more DNA than you might think. Take a look at the chart below. It tells how much DNA we have in common with various other lifeforms, excuse me, I mean with our various cousins: For years people have told you that you were going bananas . You sloughed it off, but it turns out they were half right. In fact, you’re a lot like a lot of things you don’t seem to be like at all. A virus, a blade of grass, a dandelion, come on…and a pig! What, me bacon? You have 98.5% of your DNA in common with other ‘higher’ primates. Heck, you share 99.9% of your DNA with me, or to put it less comfortably, you share 99.9% of my DNA! How scary is that ? This discussion puts a whole new spin on the lawyer’s question to Jesus: “And who is my neighbor?” Jesus gave what he thought was a scandalous answer: A lousy, filthy, stinking Samaritan. He could have said, “A fruit fly,” but that might have led to ‘premature crucifixion’. Like all of us, Jesus had to pick his spots. Thanks for reading, thanks for writing; I look forward to spending 2023 with all of you and, once again, Happy New Year! Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back You have Nothing to Lose but Your Clouds...What if you could vote to change the weather? David Cowles May 3, 2022 Suppose every day we could vote what weather we were to have tomorrow. What fighting there would be, what killing of one neighbor by another…most things that we vote for do not really matter, you are a little more or a little less uncomfortable as the government does one thing or another but the weather oh dear…that would be a disaster.” “Suppose every day we could vote what weather we were to have tomorrow. What fighting there would be, what killing of one neighbor by another…most things that we vote for do not really matter, you are a little more or a little less uncomfortable as the government does one thing or another but the weather oh dear…that would be a disaster.” ( Everybody’s Autobiography by Gertrude Stein) The year is 2075. Scientists have finally figured out how to control the weather. For centuries everybody has talked about it, but nobody has ever done anything about it, until now! Scientists now control the weather, but we still control the scientists. Each evening, we citizens decide by majority vote what the next day’s weather will be. We logon to our computers or smart phones and pick: high temp, low temp, sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, windy, etc. Our present political parties would quickly disappear (irrelevant now), and they would be replaced by competing lobbies: beach goers, ice skaters, sunbathers, farmers, skiers, sailors, etc. But this state-of-affairs would likely prove unstable. As Ms. Stein suggests, it could quickly degenerate into social chaos with violent conflicts breaking out among opposing ‘parties’, i.e., gangs. On the other hand, I do like all the new political slogans that are cropping up. My favorite so far: ‘Sunbathers of the world, unite; you have nothing to lose but your clouds!’ Of course, it is also possible that the reverse would happen. It just might occur to us that compromise was the only viable course: seasonal variation in temperatures, a mix of sun and rain, and a certain number of days set aside each year to meet the needs of ‘special interests’: swimmers, skaters, skiers, sailors, etc. In other words, we could decide to keep things exactly as they are now! Well, not exactly as they are. Nature has provided something for everyone, but the body politic might be willing to ride roughshod over the interests of a few folks on the edges: storm chasers, snow ploughers, rescue workers, i.e., and of course, meteorologists. Of course, there would be unintended, and at least initially unwelcome consequences: what would we talk about during those awkward pauses in a conversation? Could local TV news programs survive without a weather segment? But this fable raises many more serious issues, for example: How balanced are the forces of order and chaos in society? When they clash, what is it that determines the outcome? Are there limits to the justice or utility of majority rule? And if so, what lies beyond? If you enjoyed this ‘Thought while Shaving’ and would like to take a deeper dive into this topic, check out the feature length article, Meteorological Democracy , in Issue #1 of AT Magazine , to be published on 6/1/22. Anytime from 6/1 on, just click on aletheiatoday.com . Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.

< Back Jesus Christ Revolutionary “He cured the sick and fed the hungry…because it was the right thing to do, here and now, and because it demonstrated what might be possible, universally, in a time to come.” David Cowles There is scant scriptural evidence to suggest that Jesus thought violence was an acceptable mechanism for social change; he intended his Kingdom to be a Reign of Peace. But violence is not a prerequisite for guerilla war, as we shall soon see. Jesus’ ministry began on a sour note. After fasting for 40 days in the desert, wrestling with his own ego and with The Opponent ’ s (Satan’s) clever temptations, Jesus returned to his hometown, prepared to save the world. Imagine his enthusiasm as he strode into the local synagogue! Jesus’ years of study and prayer had led him to one simple conclusion: Now was the time to inaugurate God’s Kingdom on Earth! He even had tee shirts made: “If not now, when?” Ok, now…but how? Fortunately, Jesus had a revolutionary platform already laid out for him (3,000 years before the Communist Manifesto ); it’s called the Book of Leviticus . Jesus trusted Leviticus; and why not? It was a tightly choreographed reenactment of Leviticus that caused the proletariat of Jericho to rise up…and walls of that great city to tumble down. (Joshua 6: 24) The name ‘Jesus’ is a Hellenized form of ‘Joshua’. Perhaps Jesus saw himself doing in Jerusalem, and who knows, even in Rome, what his namesake had accomplished at Jericho. “You shall count seven weeks of years – seven times seven years – such that the seven weeks of years amounts to forty-nine years…You shall treat this fiftieth year as sacred. You shall proclaim liberty in the land for all its inhabitants. It shall be a Jubilee for you…In this year of Jubilee, then, each of you shall return to your own property…The land shall not be sold irrevocably; for the land is mine and you are but resident aliens and under my authority.” (Leviticus 25: 10) Every 50 years all productive property (e.g. agricultural land, Marx’s means of production ) is to be redistributed equally among all the ‘citizens’ of Israel. Jubilee is the sign, the pre-condition, and the first stage of the inbreaking of God’s Kingdom. So, Jesus entered his local synagogue and, in front of friends and family, began reading from Isaiah: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free and to proclaim, ‘a year acceptable to the Lord’ ( aka a Jubilee).” So far so good, but Jesus couldn’t let it sit there. He had to add, cheekily, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.” (Luke 4: 18 - 21) In other words, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me , and I am proclaiming a Jubilee, to begin right here, right now ! Jesus withstood the temptations of Satan, but he could not resist the lure of a short cut . Yup, he was human alright! Why spend 3 years in the wilderness running from the authorities only to end up hanging on a cross? Why not just cut to the chase? What could possibly go wrong? Jesus was among friends, after all. Well, those so-called ‘friends’, neighbors, and fellow worshipers, chased him out of town and nearly threw him off a cliff; that’s what could go wrong! Clearly, the 1st century Galilean Bourgeoisie were no more eager to share their wealth than 21st century One Percenters . Time for Plan B! For the next 3 years, Jesus wandered the highways and byways of Palestine, still calling for Jubilee – the reign of justice and peace – but less directly . The essence of Jubilee is the reversal of the hour glass. Those who have accumulated wealth and enjoyed its fruits must now return their original capital to its original owners. This message can be effectively conveyed via pithy aphorisms (e.g. the Beatitudes) and encrypted parables. Jubilee is a unique concept in the history of social science. It benefits the dispossessed. But not entirely at the expense of the possessors. It’s not a Zero Sum Game! A sparsely regulated economy has allowed the generation and preservation of wealth – all of which its owners are entitled to keep; it’s just necessary to rebalance the game board, going forward. Moses got the idea for Jubilee from a Mutual Funds prospectus: “Past results are no guarantee of future performance.” This is not the Chinese Cultural Revolution, it is not Stalin’s gulags, it is not Pol Pot’s policy of de-urbanization, it is not even the Babylonian Captivity; in short, it is not the persecution of the bourgeoisie that many radicals so eagerly await. It’s not even class war; it’s simply the restoration of primal balance. Jesus never got over his rude treatment at the hands of his neighbors. He realized in an instant that wealth is thicker than water, friendship, or even blood. For the next three years he agitated for social reform, but he no longer overtly called for Jubilee. Instead, he tried to demonstrate to folks what it would be like to live in a re-balanced world: He cured the sick and fed the hungry…because it was the right thing to do, here and now, and because it demonstrated what might be possible, universally, in a time to come. Teaching by doing! According to Torah, the Levitical Program was forged in the Wilderness of Sinai; it served as a sort of Constitution for Israel’s fledgling theocracy. The New Testament recapitulates the Levitical program. We read that Jesus fed 5000 people on 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish (5 + 2 = 7). We need some understanding of Hebrew numerology to appreciate this fully. 7 is a sacred number: 7th day = Sabbath, 7th year = Sabbatical, 7th Sabbatical → Jubilee. In Hebrew numerology, 3 represents the spiritual whole (proto-Trinity), 4 represents the material whole (proto-Earth). Therefore, 3 + 4 (7) or 3 x 4 (12) = the entirety . Jesus seated the 5000 in groups of 50 (the Jubilee number) and when they had finished eating, the “scraps” filled 12 baskets (the 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 signs of the Zodiac, the 12 apostles, 3 x 4). Here’s the math: (5 + 2) = 7 /5,000 = 12. So at one level at least, the Gospels are telling us that a return to the Levitical program could feed the whole world indefinitely…and still produce a surplus. But that doesn’t work for us! We prefer state socialism…or laissez-faire capitalism. Scarcity is the humus of authority after all! But back to Jesus. He’s officially on the run now. He’s effectively banished from his home town. That means he’s cut-off from family and any friends he might have once had. He’s ‘unhoused’ and has no visible means of support. He’s a vagrant and, apparently, a revolutionary. Not a good combo! Just ask any Hippie from the ‘60s. What’s an able bodied, socially outcast, homeless man in his early 30’s to do? Network, of course! Tricky without social media, but Jesus finds this is something he’s good at. In no time, he has recruited 12 men and boys (along with many of their spouses, siblings, and parents). Together they formed a sort of ‘guerilla gang’. They travelled from town to town, offering wisdom, performing good deeds, confronting the elite, challenging norms…and dodging the law. To what can I compare this lot: Robin Hood’s Mary-men , Kerouac’s Dharma Bums , Abbie Hoffman’s Yippies ? According to the Gospel of Mark, Jesus’ band roamed the hills of Galilee, Syria, Southern Lebanon and the East Bank for the better part of 3 years, his retinue alternately swelling to thousands and shrinking down to just the High Command (Peter, James, John & Jesus). Typical of a guerilla leader, or of a 21st century marketer, Jesus ‘popped-up’ suddenly and briefly at spots all over Northern Palestine. Jesus ‘sightings’ abound. First, he is on one side of a lake; next morning, he pops up on the opposite shore. He crisscrosses the Sea of Galilee like Washington crossed the Delaware. One minute he is in a village, next he’s on a mountain. He is alternately running from his supporters…and his opponents. And everywhere he goes, he keeps a low profile and commands those he helps to keep silent; but clearly, we can all feel it, the forces of ‘reaction’ are closing in, the noose is tightening, something will have to give and soon. So Jesus decides it’s time to make his move. Call it his Tet. An offhand remark from, who else, Peter, sets events in motion, “We here have left everything to become your followers.” The troops are growing restless. The enormity of their sacrifice is beginning to sink in. Move now or risk defections. Now! So Jesus channels Shakespeare’s Henry V…and the Book of Job ( Epilogue ): “I tell you this: there is no one who has given up home, brothers or sisters, mother, father, or children, or land, for my sake and for the Gospel, who will not receive in this age 100 times as much – houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and land - and persecutions besides; and in the age to come eternal life.” (Mark 10: 28 – 30) The next line in Mark is among my favorite in all Scripture: “There they were, on the road going up to Jerusalem, Jesus leading the way; the disciples were filled with awe, while those who followed behind were afraid.” (Mark: 10: 32) What a sight this would have been! Ken Kesey’s Merry Pranksters , out to save the world. Jesus is no fool; he knows what’s what and he makes sure his followers know as well: “We are now going to Jerusalem…the Son of Man will be given up to the chief priests and the doctors of the law; they will condemn him to death and hand him over to the foreign power (Rome). He will be mocked and spat upon, flogged, and killed…” (Mark 10: 33 – 34) Jesus may have been a guerilla warrior, but he was not without resources. Although his message appealed to the dispossessed, he had a cadre of well healed donors and friends among the apparatchiks. His arrival in Jerusalem was well planned – down to secret rooms, spies carrying water jugs, and the 1st century version of a ticker tape parade. Palms & Psalms! Jesus’ 3 year guerrilla campaign in the North had paid off. What happens next is well known. It constitutes Part Two of The Jesus Story ; I will not retell it here. David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com . Return to Summer 2024 Previous Next

< Back Bible Read Backwards David Cowles What would happen if we read the Old Testament in reverse order? From back to front. What if we began with Malachi and ended with Genesis? We are accustomed to reading the Old Testament (OT) ‘in order,’ i.e., from Genesis through Malachi, from the Torah (Pentateuch, the first five books of the Bible, traditionally ascribed to Moses) through the Prophets. The modern Bible groups the 46 books of OT into four categories: five books of Law (Torah), 16 books of History, seven books of Wisdom, and 18 books of Prophecy. Read this way, the Old Testament tells a coherent story. First (Torah): Creation (Genesis), Liberation (Exodus), Theocracy (Leviticus). Second (History): The transition from Covenant (Exodus) to Theocracy (Leviticus) to Anarchy (Judges) to Monarchy (Samuel) to Tyranny (Kings, Chronicles, et al.), and ultimately to Captivity (Daniel, Ezekiel) in Babylon (c. 600 – 500 B.C.). Third (Prophecy): Even before the exile, social discontent was cresting in Israel and Judea. Power and wealth were concentrated in the hands of a few, and the authority of the state was frequently abused for personal gain. Prophets emerged. They condemned the immorality, the corruption, and the tyranny that had taken over Israel and Judea. They were the revolutionaries of their time. Today, we recognize the same prophetic spirit in St. Paul, Mohammed, Martin Luther, Karl Marx, Martin Luther King…and even Barry Goldwater (“Moderation in pursuit of justice is no virtue”). Fourth (Wisdom): The prophets’ specific condemnation of the historical situation in which they found themselves is paralleled by the Wisdom Writers’ general condemnation of secular ideology. Both offer a critique of the status quo; both offer a vision of a better future. The period between the repatriation of the Judeans and the birth of Jesus was rich in ‘Wisdom Literature.’ Wisdom material stretches back to Job, David, and Solomon and forward to the time of Jesus, perhaps even including some books of the New Testament (e.g., John, Ephesians, Hebrews, Revelation). Repatriation following the Babylonian Exile gave the Hebrews a chance to start over – a revolutionary’s dream. Just as the first Israelites had formed a social structure ex nihilo in the Wilderness of Sanai, so their descendants would now have an opportunity to do the same. But how? Pick up where they’d left off c. 600 B.C? No way! Return to the values, practices, and social structures characteristic of Israel’s glory days? Way! Since 1776, we have learned a great deal about revolutionary theory and praxis. This period (250 years) will be characterized by future historians not only as the Age of Science, Reason and Technology, but also as the Age of Revolution. We have learned, for example, that all revolutions require three things: (A) A searing indictment of things as they are (status quo). (B) A clear vision of a better world to come (utopia). (C) A practical program to get from point A to point B. Sidebar : Indictment and vision are not just prerequisites for revolution; they are prerequisites for everything, i.e., for all ‘actual entities,’ all events. After all, revolution is an event! All novelty is a reaction against what is, coupled with a vision of what might be. An event builds toward that vision by incorporating other actual entities along the way according to its ‘road map.’ That road map is Torah. In the words of Bobby Kennedy, prophets “see things as they are and ask why ?” (Their answer: idolatry, immorality, injustice, and exploitation.) Wisdom writers “dream of things that never were and ask why not ?” (Same answer: idolatry, immorality, injustice, and exploitation.) The Prophets and the Wisdom writers tell the same story but from different perspectives…and we need them both: the Prophets focus on the specific historical and political situation; the Wisdom writers focus on the futility of a life without God as its guiding principle. The struggle for freedom is ongoing, and it is always waged on two fronts: freedom from the prisons others build for us (prophesy) and freedom from the prisons we build for ourselves (wisdom). But what of revolutionary praxis? How do we get from A to B? This is where most revolutionary programs fail. They get the critique and the vision parts right, but they fall short when it comes to praxis. (Dictatorship of the proletariat? You’ve got to be kidding!) For us, praxis turns out to be the easy part! Long before there were critics and visionaries (prophets and wise guys), there was already a detailed political program to redeem an alienated world – it’s called Torah: 613 rules of conduct designed to promote the general welfare - health, prosperity, justice, and peace. 613 rules? What am I, eight? You call that easy? Are you kidding? 613 rules, yes; eight-years-old old, I wish; easy, you bet; kidding, not one bit! Because there’s a secret, shh! Lean in, and I’ll whisper it to you: “Torah comes with its own Cliffs Notes built in.” (If only Tolstoy, Dickens, and Thackery had been as thoughtful.) The Torah consists of 613 laws (above), 611 of them are specific laws applicable to specific things or in specific situations; 2 of them are general laws, applicable to all things and all situations. Therefore, these two general laws, collectively known as the Great Commandment (Mt. 22: 37-40), summarize the other 611 (tactics) and situate them in the context of a broader strategy: ⮚ “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” (Deut. 6: 5) ⮚ “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Lev. 19: 18b) The genius of the New Testament contribution to this discussion lies in Jesus’ insertion of six keywords between ‘Deuteronomy’ and ‘Leviticus’ (above): “And a second is like it.” There are not two general laws; there is only one, and its two ‘halves’ are mirror images of one another. “On these two commandments, hang all the law and the prophets.” (Mt. 22:40) E pluribus unum ! We have distilled the 613 commandments of the Torah down to just one: the Great Commandment. Bottom line: There is no love of God without love of neighbor, and there is no love of neighbor without love of God. To paraphrase poet John Keats, “That is all ye know on earth and all ye need to know!” The Wisdom writers and the Prophets both call on Israel to return to the ‘glory days’ of Moses, Joshua, the Judges, and King David, but they base their appeals on two very different arguments. The Wisdom writers point out the absurdity inherent in living a totally secular life. Not until the 20th century do we encounter as lucid a presentation of L’absurde as we do in Ecclesiastes (3rd century B.C.). For example: “Vanity of vanities! All things are vanity…I have seen all things that are done under the sun, and behold all is vanity and a chase after wind.” (1:2 – 2:26) It is important to note that the Hebrew word hebel , translated as ‘vanity,’ also means emptiness, futility, and absurdity. Welcome to the 20th century! We don’t need the Written Torah to tell us what’s right or wrong. It is written clearly in the patterns of nature (Oral Torah) and in our hearts. Today, we would say that the Wisdom writers based their argument on Natural Law. The Roman Catholic Church (and many other Christian denominations) embraces the Wisdom thesis: we can learn the will of God by studying nature and by listening to the ‘still small voice’ within us. The Law is written in the Pentateuch… and in the cosmos... and in our hearts. Have you seen the TV series, Young Sheldon ? Sheldon, a pre-teen boy, is growing up in an evangelical Christian family in rural Texas in the 1970s. The only problem: Sheldon does not believe in God; he believes in science. What could possibly go wrong? The Wisdom writers confronted an early version of this mindset 2,500 years before the first televisions began appearing in American living rooms. The key to Young Sheldon is the idea that religion and science are mutually exclusive. They are not! In fact, as the Wisdom writers make clear, they are two sides of one coin. The Prophets, on the other hand, based their appeal, not on nature but on revelation. God may have written his law into the fabric of the cosmos and study of the cosmos may give us some insights into the law, but there’s no need for telescopes or Bunsen burners. God revealed his law to Moses and the people in the Torah. Isaiah, Jeremiah, et al. call on the Israelites to return to the ways of their ancestors, to rediscover, acknowledge, and observe God’s law as it is revealed in Torah. Natural Law and Revelation go hand in hand. God’s Law is written macroscopically in the cosmos, microscopically in Torah, and nanoscopically in every human heart. But suppose today is a backwards day… What would happen if we read the Old Testament in reverse order? From back to front. What if we began with Malachi and ended with Genesis? The Prophets painstakingly dissect the evils of contemporary society. The Wisdom writers point out the absurdity of living one’s life according to the prevailing, secular ideology. Both the Prophets and the Wisdom writers intersperse visions of a post-revolutionary utopia, best summarized by Isaiah 11: 6 - 9: “The wolf will live with the lamb and the leopard will lie down with the kid...the nursing child shall play over the hole of the asp and the weaned child shall put its hand on the adder’s den. They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain…” So, between the Prophets and the Wisdom writers, we have two of the elements we need for a successful revolution. We have a searing critique of things as they are and a clear and compelling vision of things as they could be. As we have learned repeatedly over the past four centuries, a purely negative critique is unlikely to succeed unless it is accompanied by an appealing vision of an alternative future. Successful revolutions are rarely based on despair; they are almost always based on hope. (That’s why we call them ‘Revolutions of Rising Expectations.’) During the periods of Prophesy and Wisdom, Israel was an absolute monarchy, but its rulers, its kings, were not cut from the same cloth as King David. To overgeneralize, they were incompetent, ineffective, greedy, and corrupt. Reading OT backwards, we move from dictatorship and tyranny to a constitutional monarchy (Solomon, David and Saul), from monarchy to what might best be called ‘benevolent anarchism’ (Judges), and finally from anarchism to Theocracy (Joshua and the Torah). The goal of every revolutionary program is the same (though often expressed in very different terms): “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” What else is there? What else could there be? Here is where praxis comes into play for individuals, as well as for nations: learn the will of God and conform to it! The contemporary revolutionary may elect to follow the 611 specific commandments of Torah or just the two general commandments (i.e., the Great Commandment). Both strategies lead to the same result: the Kingdom of God on Earth. And what is that Kingdom? Reading the Bible backwards, i.e., from Malachi 3:34 through Genesis 1:1, the Kingdom of God is the Garden of Eden! In this reading, Paradise is not a primordial state from which we fell; it is the eschaton for which we strive. So, the Old Testament is the ultimate palindrome. It is the same, whether you read it backwards or forwards. And what of the New Testament? Well, reading the New Testament (NT) in order, i.e., from Matthew through Revelation, is the same as reading the Old Testament from Malachi through Genesis. NT begins with a searing critique of Israel under Roman rule (the synoptic Gospels), and it offers its own foretaste of the Kingdom of Heaven (Revelation). And its revolutionary praxis? “Love one another as I have loved you.” (John 13: 34) David Cowles is the founder and editor-in-chief of Aletheia Today Magazine. He lives with his family in Massachusetts where he studies and writes about philosophy, science, theology, and scripture. He can be reached at david@aletheiatoday.com. Previous Next

< Back Re-Imagining the Magnificat Tawnie Olson "In our zeal to project our conceptions of The Ideal Woman onto this enigmatic first-century figure, we’ve strayed a bit from the little we do know." Considering how important she is to Christianity, it is surprising how little information the New Testament provides about the Blessed Virgin Mary. This is despite the fact that, even during Jesus’s lifetime, people held strong opinions about her. According to St. Luke, Christ’s preaching was once interrupted by a follower who shouted: “Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!” To which Jesus gave the quelling reply, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!” (Luke 11:27,28 NRSV). Over the centuries, Jesus’s suggestion that Christians focus on our relationship with God, rather than speculate about Christ’s earthly family, has been widely ignored. Theologically, artistically, poetically, and musically, we have not been able to resist filling in the enormous gaps in the Gospels’ accounts of Mary with our own ideas about what a woman worthy of bearing the Son of God must have been like. Sometimes, in our zeal to project our conceptions of The Ideal Woman onto this enigmatic first-century figure, we’ve strayed a bit from the little we do know. Sandro Botticelli’s Madonna of the Magnificat, for example, portrays Mary as a stylish blonde Florentine aristocrat, surrounded by refined angel/courtiers as she coolly pens the Magnificat with one hand and dandles the infant Jesus in the other. It is a beautiful painting, far beyond my ability to praise adequately, but somehow, I just can’t imagine the woman it depicts giving birth in a barn. To finish the Re-Imagining the Magnificat, click here . Image: Madonna of the Magnificat, Sandro Botticelli. (Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons ) **This is a republication without modifications from blog.oup. Canadian composer Tawnie Olson is inspired by politics, spirituality, the natural world, and the musicians for whom she composes. She is the winner of the 2018 Barlow Prize, a consortium commission for The Crossing, Seraphic Fire, and the BYU Singers, and the 2021-2023 National Opera Association Dominick Argento Chamber Opera Composition Competition (for Sanctuary and Storm, libretto by Roberta Barker). She is currently working on a new piece for Grammy-nominated Sandbox Percussion, funded by a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Return to Yuletide 2023 Previous Next

< Back Is 70 the New 14? David Cowles Feb 7, 2023 “For 70 years you’ve practiced the ways of others; you have been a loyal member of team Homo, but now it’s back to reality, to yourself alone.” At age 14, your whole world view abruptly changes. (Ok, for you it might be 13 or 15.) Anatomically, you’re now an adult; sociologically, you’re still treated very much as a child. For the first time, the world that seemed so comfortable and safe seems, well, absurd . This is the time when you question everything…and rightly so. Is there really a God? Who made your Neanderthal parents the boss of you? Why do I have to study all this stuff I’ll never use? And then, of course, the cherry on top: are all these ‘people’ around me really real? Are they just like me? Or are they Zombies? Aliens? Robots? Lizards? Figments of my imagination? Computer simulations? Could I be all alone in my own universe? Am I in a Truman Show sequel? Sound familiar? Usually, this crisis of faith does not last long. A year tops, more likely a few months, possibly just a long weekend. Then life sucks you back in! Some crisis, some temptation, some opportunity and suddenly the world is real again and all your ‘nonsense’ is forgotten (or at least filed under “U” for useless). The poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge tells a story of himself at 12 or 13, proudly declaring that he no longer believed in God and earning himself the cane in the process. According to Coleridge, he never questioned the existence of God again. He’d been sucked back in, and he didn’t even get a long weekend out of it. Like Coleridge, we all get sucked back in, possibly minus the cane, and we stay that way until we hit age 70! (Ok, for you it might be as early as 68 or as late as 72.) Of course, if your college studies had you reading the existentialists or attending plays by Beckett, you might have suffered a brief relapse in your early 20s, but for the rest of us, after 14 it’s “70 or Bust!” The ‘loneliness of the long-distance swimmer’ – you pick your head up once at 14 to get your bearings, and you needn’t do so again until it’s time to look for land at age 70: is there really a God? Who made my Cherubic children the boss of me? And then, are all these ‘people’ around me really real? Are they just like me? Or are they Zombies? Aliens? Robots? Lizards? Figments of my imagination? Computer simulations? Could I be all alone in my own universe? Nihilism, skepticism, solipsism – the three-headed Cerberus propping open the gates of Hell, welcoming the weary traveler: “There is nothing, I know nothing, there is no one.” But what if there is something, I know something, and there are others? But what if every such ‘other’ is ontologically distinct from me? Come again! Ok… totemism is, among other things, the belief that we can meaningfully map individuals or small groups of individuals onto other species. The Clan of the Cave Bear becomes the Chicago Bears . Not Smokey - the Chicago Bear, but the Chicago Bears! An entire species has been mapped onto a 50-person roster. Totemism at its core is the belief that I am no more like you than bears are like lions (Detroit Lions). Beyond the sports analogy, we laugh at Totemism…but we follow its practices every day of our lives. Our company names, Apple, our logos, Meta, even our national symbols, the Eagle, are all expressions of Totemism. So, let’s flip the matter on its head: what if Totemism is right after all? What if other people are not just other members of Homo sapiens – what if each one is ontologically unique? Crazy, right? Or is it? God says, “My ways are not your ways.” What if that’s not only true for God but for each of us as well? For 70 years you’ve practiced the ways of others; you’ve been a loyal member of team Homo, and you’ve used that membership to accumulate assets, acculturate progeny, and leave a legacy. But now it’s back to reality, to yourself alone. It’s time again to heed the caterpillar’s question (“Who R U?”); now, for the first time since birth, it’s, once again, safe to ask the question: who are all these people around me? For almost all of my 70 years, I’ve assumed that everyone I meet is just like me. They are my neighbors, and it is a core tenet of Judeo-Christian culture that I am to love these neighbors as myself. Well and good. Of course, we should treat others with charity and respect…but we could apply the same standard to a pet dog or a loyal ox. What if my so-called ‘neighbor’ is no more like me than the robin on my windowsill? We are entertaining a corollary of Hugh Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. Not only does the universe bifurcate with each ‘event’ but our species bifurcates at every birth. To me, the world appears more and more as ‘me and you’, not as ‘I and thou’, and perhaps you’re having the exact same experience. To me, you are a member of the genus other . To me, that genus is homogeneous: ‘you’re just like all the others!’ Except you’re not! From your perspective, I am in the genus other , and it is you who is unique. Following that logic, of course, every one of us is unique, everyone a universe unto herself. Hmm, something to think about… Previous Share Next Do you like what you just read and want to read more Thoughts? Subscribe today for free! Thoughts While Shaving - the official blog of Aletheia Today Magazine. Click here.