Just got a phone call from Captain Butterfly - he is once again in the thick of it, having found a Clouded Yellow to photograph. Apparently they sometimes used to be seen in clouds coming across the Channel. I am looking out for them now, but all I can see is a calm blue Channel with a lot of shipping on the far horizon.
If I were to write up the script for yesterday it would not make a blockbusting Hollywood movie. Although me and the kitchen did look a like a scene from one after I had finished stoning the cherries to make the crumble. We - the kitchen and I - were both covered in red juice. "Why didn't you put an apron on?!" asked Captain B. Not surprisingly really, as I must have looked like a survivor from The Texas Cherrystone Massacre.
He was back early on account of their being a violent rainstorm, so we had lunch together. And I made us a chicken curry from the leftover chicken. Much more successful than last time, as I used a basic curry recipe given me by an Indian friend many years ago.
Izzy - my internet friend - and I are continuing our discussion by blog and PM. He has some some very interesting questions.
The hospital rang to say they were changing the date of my pre-op tests and thingummies to this week! Apparently on account of my medicine. They have realised I will need to stop taking it fairly soon, if I am to have the op.
I feel too old and frail to be in hospital. You need to be young and sturdy to stand up to it all... (whinge, whinge).
what if god were created in men's and women's and children's images?
ReplyDeletewhat if god was a wish made by someone who wants to know everything, an impossible wish held by many people who cannot tolerate chaos?
what if tolerating chaos was a genetically determined trait, like the right or left headedness of us all?
may i use your statement about copyright law by quoting your blog?
ReplyDeleteYes, sure, Izzy, if it will help. My husband (Captain Butterfly the Great) put that there for me.
ReplyDeleteHello Izzy, well you are keeping my brain cells at full stretch here, and I am more than grateful that I have the Inspired Scriptures so that I can find answers for you.
ReplyDeleteYour first and second questions sort of tie together, at least in my mind. You asked:
what if god were created in men's and women's and children's images?
what if god was a wish made by someone who wants to know everything, an impossible wish held by many people who cannot tolerate chaos?
Once I started to question things, one of the things I wondered is what if God was really something we had invented, made in our image, as it were? What if we invented him because we can't tolerate the meaningless nature of our lives otherwise? I hope by the way that I am understanding your questions right.
So, yes, I did wonder about these things too. Yet how do we know that there is a Creator? Isn't it because of the creation itself, the things He made? We are surrounded by miracles. There is the immense universe, of which we so far only have a glimpse. But we already know how orderly it is, how it obeys the laws of physics?
Who set those laws?
Or go to a pond in summer and watch the Dragonflies. Captain Butterfly has taken many photos of them - and they are more exquisitely crafted then the finest Tiffany jewel, and with more complex engineering than the latest fighter plane (whatever that may be, I haven't got much beyond the Spitfire myself).
We don't see chaos. We see a beautiful and exquisite order.
What stopped me from hearing what it was trying to tell me for quite a long time is the cruelty and injustice - the fact that nature is "red in tooth and claw with ravine". But then, one day, the JWs knocked at my door and began to show me what the Bible on my shelf says about that.
I hope I have answered your last question in a way, because as I said, I don't think we do see chaos. We see the most beautiful and perfect order. But here on the earth we also see the damage done when our first parents made that fatal decision to cut themselves off from their Creator, their Source of life. That perfect order has been disrupted.
So here is the promise, here is the wonderful information we are trying to get to every door in the world. It is a promise to us from our Creator - a promise of restoration to the perfection and joy that our first parent lost for us:
"With that I heard a loud voice from the throne say: “Look! The tent of God is with mankind, and he will reside with them, and they will be his peoples. And God himself will be with them. And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.”
And the One seated on the throne said: “Look! I am making all things new.” Also, he says: “Write, because these words are faithful and true.” "
(Revelation 21:3-5)
Faithful and true. God will take away every cause for suffering and the earth will become the Paradise it was always meant to be.
And don't we see glimpses of that Paradise everywhere?