"The God and The Universe Conversations". Week Eighteen

"The Sacrifice of Isaac"
Part Two


“If you are not coming to put into question everything you do,
I don’t see why you’re here.”
Jacques Lacan


"My Shadow"© 2005
Gesso, shellac, watercolor on paper mounted on canvas.

^"9When they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound Isaac his son and^(E) laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. ¹⁰Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son." Genesis 22, The New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989

"Boo Kini"© 2004 by Isaac Schulz
Acrylic on Canvas

From the Editor: It is our current observation that sacrifice most often ends up being a way of making a demand. As in, "I'll give something up in order to evoke the results that I desire." In humanity's darkest past, when humans sacrificed humans to appease gods, and then to appease God, there was a mimetic power and control in the action. Today, while we deem our society too moral to practice human or even animal sacrifice, we embrace the same symbolic significance through ritual, sport, politics, and entertainment. Essentially, like Abraham, we are all too willing to take the knife to the throat to that which represents the very essence of our love. Maintenance of a violent cultural tension creates both victims and surrogate victims. Every time we place someone in harm's way, we make a human sacrifice. Every time we turn away from someone in need, someone perceived as different, or every time we stare, badger, and bully......we make a human sacrifice. How do you enact sacrifice, Pilgrim?

"Heat Lightning"© 1992
Pastel on Paper

“About sacrifice and the offering of sacrifices, sacrificial animals think quite differently from those who look on: but they have never been allowed to have their say.”
Friedrich Nietzsche

This concludes Week Eighteen 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."The God and The Universe Conversations" are based on Tom's protracted reading of Process and Reality, by Alfred North Whitehead.

The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to
sacrifice what we are for what we could become.
Charles Du Bos

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

One must have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

Photo by John Paul Schulz

“Actual Occasions”

“God, when The Universe perceives that there is something other than what The Universe experiences, then what should The Universe do with that information?", asked The Universe.
"God is into the concept of being a radical empiricist", replied God. "Entities require a broad field awareness that involves much more than utilizing sense perceptions".

"So the light at the end of the tunnel includes the tunnel and the creation of the tunnel and the trajectory of the light and the beginning of the tunnel, and the recognition of place in the tunnel?"

"Yep, that's the Journey", nodded God.

Photo by Mary Geitner, 9-Volt Design

“Flux of Forms”

“Oh God", said The Universe. "Does God remember when The Universe was a tiny Little the Universe and played with the comet tails?"
"Has The Universe been looking at the after images again?", asked God

"Yeah", answered The Universe, "it is The Universe's special stamp of creative emphasis on the determinations of efficient cause."

"Chaos and Order: Caution"© (detail) 2010

“Finding Ourselves in a Buzzing World”

“God, why does God refer to The Universe as The Universe instead of Universe?", asked The Universe completely out of the Void."
"This is kinda tough", considered God. "See, the particular is necessarily a part of the universal, but the universal doesn't always speak to the particular. An entity is concrete cause it is such a particular expression in the universe. And God considers The Universe an Entity. Ergo, The Universe."

"God, no disrespect, but isn't the word ergo like, so eons ago?"

"Delete Magnify Silence"© marker on vellum 2000

“The Imposition of Conformity”

“The Universe has a question for God", said The Universe quietly but directly. "Does God ever keep secrets from The Universe?"
"No, not really", replied God. "Everything that God is part of, so The Universe is part of the same".
"Well, The Universe keeps plenty of secrets!", bellowed The Universe.

"Yeah. God knows that The Universe keeps secrets", acknowledged God. "Except God refers to them as Choices".

Video by podpeopleproductions - Hashaleena N. Wright

“Conduits”

“Know what, The Universe?", asked God of The Universe. "A lot of entities think the just because God knows everything, that maybe God can't be surprised, or..or impacted by the behavior of other entities. God, God's self is radically moved and changed by that behavior."
"Yeah, The Universe experiences that as well", chimed in The Universe. "It's like the Cosmos is really just a neighborhood - a community."

"Totally."

And really the purpose of art - for me, fiction - is to alert,
to indicate to stop, to say:
Make certain that when you rush through you will not miss the moment
which you might have had, or might still have.
Jerzy Kosinski

This concludes Week Seven 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.