Hope

The Christian scriptures record a story of the prophet Jesus that provides an interesting insight of hope, in the book of Mark, chapter 4, paragraphs 16 & 17.

¹⁷And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

¹⁸The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

¹⁹To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.

As one of his first public discourses, Jesus offers a beautiful synopsis of the mystical world view by quoting Isaiah, that there is hope. He speaks to those that are poor, brokenhearted, captive, blind, or bruised and tells them there is hope. It doesn't hurt to compare the original writing in Isaiah, the first 3 verses of chapter 61.

Many people of ancient societies saw the world more symbolically than we do today, and sometimes we believe that our way of seeing the world is more modern, mature, and better. We see this need to attach meaning to everything - as primitive and childish. Much of the mystical world view requires a certain willingness to set aside our own prejudices, at least for a time.

So while he spoke of the poor, the blind, and the brokenhearted, I believe that many would have understood him to speak more of those who felt this way emotionally. To those who felt they have an empty life (poor), or who feel disillusioned or that life holds many unmet expectations (brokenhearted), or who feel trapped (captive), or even can't see another way to live life (blind), or to those who just simple feel beaten down and hopeless -- to all of these Jesus speaks the mystic's message, there is another way to see the world. That life has hope.

I believe Jesus chose Isaiah for a reason. To me, when I read Isaiah, I see a particular message repeated over and over again, almost like Bach takes a musical motif and repeats it in endless ways - forwards, backwards, stretched out, shortened, in contrast to itself, and many other variations. Here is the message of Isaiah, as I understand it:

1. To those who feel beaten and downtrodden by life
2. You feel pain because of how you see the world
3. But there is hope
4. There is another way to see
5. Through at-one-ment [a.k.a truth, a.k.a G-d, a.k.a the mystical world view, a.k.a. enlightenment, a.k.a. nirvana, a.k.a many other terms]

I enjoy reading the symbols of the ancient stories, and surprisingly they often correlate with modern dream dictionaries. So, I will end this post with a quick side tour of a few symbols as I have come to understand them (and often as expressed in many dream dictionaries - especially Jungian interpretations).

• Mountains - often mean obstacles and challenges (can also mean goals or achievements)
  
• Valleys - usually denote depression, as in the valley of despair, or of the shadow of death
• Road - represents finding ones way. when you are lost and find a road, you know that it leads somewhere
• God - Truth, Unity, Oneness, Aleph, the Beginning
• One - God, Unity, Truth, Aleph (the Hebrew letter A), the mystic's way of seeing the world
  
• Wilderness - A state of being barren, a barren soul, unnourished
• Garden - A bountiful and full soul. A soul that has found peace, contentment.
• Crookedness - represents confusion, many voices, insecurity
• Rough Places - a period of difficulty, hardship, tough times (like tough economic times)
  

Christian's often quote the following verses as a prophecy of John the Baptist, whose voice was "crying in the wilderness." If you read it using the symbols above, it takes on a whole new meaning, one of hope and solace for those who live, "in the wilderness."

From Isaiah, chapter 40, verses 3 and 4

3 - The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God

4 - Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain:

For some of you, as you read these two verses, perhaps a new way of seeing these verses jumped out at you. At the risk of simplifying too much, I will repeat the elements within the verses with my own interpretation.

• The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness [to those who are in pain - in THEIR OWN wilderness]
• prepare ye the way of the LORD [there is hope. get ready for hope]
• make straight in the desert a highway for our God [you will find truth, or truth will find you]
• Every valley shall be exalted [your sorrows will be lessened]
• and every mountain and hill shall be made low [your obstacles will be removed]
• and the crooked shall be made straight [you will find the way in the midst of chaos and multiple voices]
• and the rough places made plain [and the hard times will be over]

I see these verses as part of Isaiah's broader message of hope. And maybe you're in a place to hear that message. If you life is one of struggle, if people around you just "don't get it", if there is often pain everywhere you go... perhaps you can at least hear this much of the message from Isaiah and Jesus, that there is Hope.

What is an Agnostic?

I may as well start from the beginning by saying that I intend to ramble. Not just ramble, but to verbally (typographically???) travel many places, most of them seemingly unrelated.

But today I will start simply, asking the question, "What is an Agnostic?"

Atheists and Believers (Theists) often think of an agnostic as a weak version of an Atheist, or someone who sits on the fence unable to decide. But the Atheist and the Theist argue the question "IS there a God?" and the Theist will answer, "Yes, of course!" and the Atheist will answer "NO, how could there be a God?"

Richard Dawkins makes this point in his book, "The God Delusion," where he even goes so far to suggest that a completely impartial agnostic would say there is a 50% chance that there is a God, and a 50% chance that there is not a God. This is a very odd position, to say the least, to let two other groups define your own beliefs. [To be fair, he does explain that permanent agnostic would argue that they don't belong on this range - I will post more about his list in a later post.]

No, Agnostics argue a different question entirely. Their question is based in the root of their name, "gnosis" the Greek word for knowledge. Agnostics argue the question, "CAN we know if there is a God?" To which they reply, "No, we cannot."

What's exciting to me is that there is another group that takes up the argument (for, how can you have an argument with only one group?). Throughout history in many places and in many ways there has always been a group, usually referred to as the mystics who contend that there is a way to Know there is a God. They are the Masons, Gnostics, the Sufi's, the Kaballahists, and many, many others. Even poets, mad men (and women), and spiritual teachers.

So, just as Richard Dawkins posits his range of 7 steps to "guide" us in the (mis)understanding the various kinds of Theists and Atheists; this blog will be an exploration of the other question, "Can we KNOW, if there is a God?" and the range of answers between "Yes" and "No."