Wednesday, December 1, 2010

"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Nine.


"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Nine


“Meaning is not in things but in between them.”


"In Both Worlds (Firmly Planted)" 2007
Sam M. Walton School of Business, Fayetteville, AR


Today's Editorial: "On Conversations and Empathy"

A cursory investigation found several resources defining empathy as the projection of one's own personality into the personality of another in order to understand the person better. Other definitions followed a similar vein of thinking: the idea that we may best understand another person’s plight by impressing our own sensibilities upon them. Which is not an exchange and not a conversation.
Odd, really.

If the one language we speak is the Language of Me, then how are we to understand anyone at all? Maybe a vital part of defining empathy would be the awareness that understanding another person must indeed, include the other person.
Posted Direct from the Spidey-Hole.



"The Abundant Universe" 2006

Change and Doctrines

The Universe had been really busy. Busy. Busy. Busy. God stood by (as much as God can stand by) and observed all the frenetic activity. "Hey there, The Universe!", interjected God, "That looks like quite the adventure of evolving actual things. Got any concept of what will come out of all this busy-ness?"
"God", replied The Universe, "it is what it is."

"That's cool, returned God, "whatcha gonna do when the is-ness becomes Being?"



Mystery Photo (attributed to John Schulz)

Antecedent States

"The Universe was wondering how the Historical Reality could exist along with the Contemporary Reality, if indeed it even does", pondered The Universe out loud. "Slow day?" laughed God. "Well, no - don't laugh at The Universe", pouted The Universe. "The Universe means, God acts as the linking datum of existence in a continuum, right?"

"Yeah", replied God, "But still the extensive divisions of potentialities can mess with that. Mess with that bad."


"Arabesque" (detail) 2008
From the "Inter-faith Prayer Painting Project"©


The Category of Transmutation

“The perceptions of "images" in the presentational immediacy must be like looking at the light of a particular star and enjoying in in the moment, even as an Entity understands that the star may no longer exist", stated The Universe with just a touch of smugness.

"Fascinating!" responded God. "And then by following relevant historical routes, then that perception of that light may form a corpuscular society and become a galaxy which then is the 'real' galaxy."

"Whatever, God", barked a petulant The Universe.



Scene from Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" 1927

"People spoke the same language, but could not understand each other."

O

"That which has form emerges from that which has no form; that which has no form emerges from that which has form. Therefore the path of supreme spirituality cannot be sought in being
and cannot be fathomed in non-being;
it cannot be lost through movement

and cannot be gained through stillness."
Ming-Chiao, "Five Houses of Zen"

A Lass: Babble On

This concludes Week Nine of
"The God and The Universe Conversations".


All art and writing by Tom Schulz unless otherwise noted, or unless it is so cool
he will try to get away with claiming it as his own.


1 comment:

Cathy Hasty said...

And God said, "I like what that poet, Keats said 'The concept of Negative Capability is the ability to contemplate the world without the desire to try and reconcile contradictory aspects or fit it into closed and rational systems.' If Keats can do that, I can too," said God. (There's lots more of what Keats in terms of negative capability and empathy at http://www.alpheratz.f2s.com/negative-capability.htm) Thanks, Tom, for this marvelous engagement.