The Trial of God

Man in jury duty

In the legend of King Arthur … Merlin takes the ever curious … Morgana of Cornwall … under his wing … to bring some guide to her learning. In doing so … we observe that … his motivation in helping her … originates from a source … that is common in his own experience. Its been described in many ways as … the drive to learn … an appreciation for knowledge … understanding the will of the world … and sometimes … simply the search quotient.

 

Its the arrowhead of our initiatives … and the will of creation … that rest on the shaft of the drive … to propel it to its target. When rightly perceived … it receives the support of the eros and creative energies … that represents the experience as physical act. Its that which the mind of man … affirms as an act of self … in his growing appreciation of his individual effectiveness. Its a satisfaction … we look for in our role as man.

 

Life began with a search … when the stars first formed in the skies … and thereafter engaged the eros energies to fuel that search. In such a position … its not hard to see that … our eros energies … created the thrust for the creation endeavor … followed by the establishment of the God idea … as part of the creation impulse. But in a latter day account … man finds himself responding to God … as having sinned … and applies himself to the guide of God.

 

Is that the only way we approach God today? If the initial initiative was named as … King … would he outrank God? And in our present position of man … how do we reconcile the impulses of the King … in relation to our identity as man? Obviously we have to organize our perceptions … of ourselves in the eros energies … and the bland experiencing nature of the man in society. Its a point that transports us from the nature of impulses to actions performed.

 

Such a man … at the point of the contact between the impulses and actions was the Apostle Peter. When the Christ approached him … in Bethsaida … on the sea of Galilee … he told Peter … ' I want you to be the fisher of men.' Our own eros impulses … find man pretty much in the same position … and requests us to turn our attention … to an understanding of ourselves. For Peter … it took him on a surging wave … that built the first church in Antioch.

 

In our experiences today … as we throw back our attention to that day … in Bethsaida … we find in a strange way a corresponding sensation of the experience … in our own passions … of the meeting between the two. In the mild Mediterranean weather … by the sea … Bethsaida … had seen itself transform from the worship of Astarte … to that of the Imperial Cult of Rome. And then on that fateful day … Peter came to an opportunity … for self determination … in the matter of his faith. It must have appeared sweet … in the breezy colors of the Mediterranean.

 

 Today's man … seeks to satisfy his inquiries that he has loyally fulfilled … his duties to God … and preserved his faith by him. But have we learnt to prove that? Its certainly a new experience for man … at the end of the 2000 years … since the message of faith was brought to us? Do we seek assurances that we have done so … in our daily lives? Are we sometimes put into a sea of doubt about whether we have? Don't we need a way of managing that?

 

What we observe is all manner … of ways … in which we create savvy … strategize our thoughts and attitudes … and spin sticky webs of tales. Our writings speak of the ' warrior's last stand ' …  in which the individual … stops all excuses … escapism … and avoidances … to look squarely into the eye of faith … to determine our individual part in its experiences. In that we may have come to a new experience in these times.

 

When looking at the chalice of faith … we are no longer presented … with simply the trials of faith.  Our responses to the issue of keeping the faith … involves as much issues of goodwill … as it does … issues of reason. However when confronted with self inquiry … of natures that are profound and sublime … we simply fall back … on our lamb duties as regards faith. We succumb to a notion of sin.

 

That sometimes causes … quite a comedy in several acts. We first grow weary of being questioned … dump on all subscription to faith … and then … convert in rage … to a mind of pragmatic facts. Then we combat the faith with our confessions … that we had to resort to reason … even in our acts of faith. By then … in a state of being totally exposed on our ambiguous practice of faith … we start to create new rules … that faith and reason … should be accepted as a standard mix … in any assessment of a man.

 

It must come as a curiosity to many … that when we act we apply good common sense to our acts … but when questioned on faith … we are unable to raise the use of common sense … in our practices. There's a new church in town that goes by the name … ' Sunday Assembly.' Their congregation gathers once a week … has some sandwiches and coffee … and speak from the rostrum of their experiences during the week. Much of it introduces the element of human will … mixed with the divine.

 

Haven't we learnt to do that already? And what is that … horrific look of disdain … first on the faces of wives … then friends … and then children … that registers a complaint that we have left the faith? Do we then climb into our loft of indifference? And how long before we return to face the issue again? These are certainly questions … worthy of a King's ransom … if we have abducted the throne … assigned to us by the people.

 

In Bethsaida … a person may perceive the King as having returned to the people … to face the test of having betrayed the faith and devotion of man to God. The man today … realizes that its his offering to the Gods … that constitutes his faith … and if lingering questions remain … both man and God … would need to look to their actions in the matter. Its a curious view … perceived in a singular manner … from the perceptions of the man in the society today. But we do need to answer the inquiry … 'What is man?' … before we answer … ' What is God?'