Tag: desire
Protected: Preparing for the Discernment Process (a follow up post; part 1)
Protected: A 7 Step Discernment Process
This temple Site pre-dates civilization, itself
As promised, I’m giving you a summary of the Wesley Forum I attended on April 7.
Lecturer Dr Ben Witherington focused his 3 lectures on The Imago Dei (Image of God)
The 1st session had to do with the Imago Dei seen through archeology.
He spoke about the huge dig at a high place found in Turkey, in 1993, called Gobeckli (click for amazing National Geographic photos and info).
This is probably one of the most significant discoveries since the Rosetta Stone–and I hadn’t even heard of it. Have you?
It invalidates the typical (secular) ideas of how religious and spiritual life emerged among humans.
Social Anthropologists have, until now, thought that religion came after people began farming and wanted to gain control of their unpredictable environment.
It worked like this…so they thought…
• Human stumbles on a new kind of mutated wheat that be more easily harvested.
• They kept the seeds and settled in areas to raise crops.
• They struggled against the harsh elements and began to think of wind, sun, rain, etc as superpowers (i.e. gods)…(superstitious folks).
• They tried to please and apprise the gods to gain better circumstances…and…
• Boom…religion.
You’ve heard this theory before, right?
To Witherington, this recent discovery shows that the need to reconcile with the divine is part of the human experience, not an invention that came at the advent of the agricultural age.
The religion of these high places helped begin civilization, not the other way around.
The oldest part of the Gobeckli site is dated to 10,000-12,000 years ago and is the oldest temple ever found in the world.
That’s old…but how old?
Wrap your brain around this!
It was created before people were living in villages, farming, and before they had domesticated any animals (sheep, dogs, cattle, etc).
People were wandering, gathering, hunting, and trying to connect to the divine…the whole time.
As the highest point in the region and situated between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, I can’t help but wonder if Cain and Able used this very place. It could be just east of Eden. (LD)
Now, think of the age of this place this way:
The site dates to about 6,000 years before the Great Pyramids were created. It’s a time that precedes writing, by thousands of years.
And yes, it’s pre-Noah and the flood.
Giant monoliths, the largest weighing about 50 tons (¡ yikes !), depict a host of detailed carvings of animals. There are also some stylized carvings of people dressed in priestly vestments. Even more tremendous are the enormous erected stones which have holes drilled into them to tie up animals.
But, remember this is a pre-bronze age. Pre-iron age.
How long did it take to make a hole such as this in this rock with just another rock?
These structures are made in a sophisticated fashion. Cave people were smarter than we assume.
It’s astonishing.
But there are not just 1 of these 30 m. circles with 13 massive stones …they have found 17 of them.
Each takes about 3 years to unearth. (Things are just starting to get interesting! In 50 years they still will not be finish. Much more surprises could be in store.)
Here’s the wikipeda article about the site.
According to archeologists on the dig, the site was eventually backfilled (purposefully) at a point in human development when villages were being established. It seems that local temples were used at that point.
NOTE: (Witherington believes they were not backfilled purposefully, but that the flood (in Noah’s time) moved sand up to the place from the Tigris River. I, personally, think that the flood would have ruined them and that they were indeed backfilled purposefully [for what specific reason, I don’t know]. To me, this burying is what preserved them so well so we could now find them intact. It’s a crazy amount of work to do such a thing, and I don’t know how they could, but the whole site baffles our understanding, so I haven’t ruled it out.)
Dr Witherington concludes that because of the image of God within us, we desire to commune with God (or gods). We always have.
All the ancient people groups had 3 things:
1. Temples
2. Priests
3. Sacrifices
I will elaborate more on the lectures in the next post and include some of my notes from the other 2 sessions.
Read PART II
Read PART III
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Re-inventing how we use Money?
When you don’t have enough money, you start to question the idea of it in the first place.
Who controls it? Why? and how?
You start to wonder if the typical system makes sense or if it’s really up to any good.
I’ve often wondered why the most important work doesn’t pay well. The answers are more complicated than I can talk about here or even truly understand without a lot of research. Nevertheless, many of the answers tend to stem from issues of power, the sources of control/power, and the desire to keep things a certain way for people who have amassed wealth and power.
The capital of the United States is now the richest city in the country and awash in new millionaires and billionaires; not because these folks created important and noble things, but because they are following a gravy train of money, special favors, and power for a very few.
I don’t subscribe to all of Charles Eisenstein‘s views, but what he has to say about money and what we can do to make our relationships better and the world a better place are worth hearing.
It’s good to question the influential things in our lives. It’s smart to vet them for their goodness and test them for their true benefits. If our ways are left wanting, it’s good to re-invent how we interact and exchange with one another.
Today, I give you this video as food-for-thought. How could we do things differently?
I’m planning a webinar on April 24th with my friend Bill Fox. I’ve learned that he is beginning to use a gifting model for his work. It’s intrigued me and I’m starting to investigate it for my purposes too. More on the webinar (topics and schedule) will be coming in the next week or so…stay tuned!…
OKAY UPDATE! My newest resource is now available using the gifting system. Check out the details HERE!
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