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Re: imagining the future

aloha :)

ryan said:

> I don't think that world peace will actually happen
> until after the second 
> coming but that doesn't mean we aren't supposed to
> work toward it now.

i agree with that in a general sense.  working towards
world peace, though, could have different applications
for different people :)  how i might go about that
could be vastly different than another christian. 
which is why i don't buy the kingdom of god being
manifest and connected now, before he comes back and
gets rid of the sin/junk.  we're still dealing with
too many filters and misaprehensions.

> think that if the church is expecting one man to
> come along and magically 
> transform the world into to paradise

he's just a man?  

> Yes, but this is where atonement and reconciliation
> enter.

they enter but i don't see how it makes a clear and
unadulterated way for the kingdom of god to be
manifest and present in all of its truth _now_.

i said:
> >this is where you and i might be different.  i'm
> tired
> >of trying to save myself and have us all "survive."
>    i
> >think survival is the mentality that keeps us from
> >having hope.  or saving anything :)

and ryan said:
> O contrare.  I think the need to survive is why we
> need hope in the first 
> place.  Maybe all of your basic needs are
> perpetually taken care of, but my 
> existence tends to lean toward the precarious end.

our general "neediness" is what makes us ripe and
desperate for hope...but "survival" is not what we
ultimately find.  quite the opposite.  it's a big glob
of paradoxes that ultimately results in _life_ (not
necessarily a human-centered ideal of survival), but
survival and the instinct to preserve my life is just
the thing that usually damns me.

with regard to your comments on needs/suffering, we
all need and suffer in good and bad ways (which are
hopefully changed for good), however varied the
levels.  i don't have a silver-platter christian walk,
and i've rolled with more punches than i care to
remember.  still, the more i went after survival, the
more i found myself going against the way god's
universe works...to escape misery, i ended up just
wallowing in it.  but as a general rule, when i take
my goals and focus off myself and survival, my life is
much richer, much deeper and much stronger.  much more
peaceful.

> I think of it as stronger nations not trying
> dominate weaker nations and 
> also as the ability of the individual to allow both
> peace and judgement to 
> reign in their own soul.  In other words, to discern
> when someone needs to 
> have their ass kicked because they are about to do
> evil and when someone 
> deserves mercy as a victim of circumstance, for
> instance.

you're telling me that the kingdom of god is just as
accessible as it will ever be for the redeemed and you
really see the above as being true/possible/happening
now with believers?  there are plenty of the redeemed
scattered thoughout time and space, and on the whole,
this redeemed church isn't famous for its discernment
out in the vast world dealing in and with it.  
so i'm not seeing the fruit.  

and we (christians) were all around before people
started escapist mentalities and the various problems
of thinking etc. rampant...it's always some problem
rampant :)  in all the ages and stages of
christianity, i still don't see the appropriateness
which stems from discernment manifest...the kind of
discernment that would be linked to the kingdom of
god.

take care,
j. marie

=====
All human nature vigorously resists grace because grace changes us and the change is painful. -Flannery O'Connor

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