A secular prayer (OK for atheists)

Reality known

and unknown

We celebrate

your creation

We're thankful that

we are made free

Let truth and beauty

be our aim

Let justice flow

for everyone

Forgive the wrongs

that we have done

As we forgive

those who do wrong

Lead us not into

temptation

Deliver us from

evil ways

Be our strong

vision every day

Give us the power

to be made whole

Give us the strength

to reach our goal

¶

Unless the

perpetrator

of harm

seeks forgiveness

no amount of praying

for that person

will avail

¶

Reciprocal

forgiveness

lies at the heart

of

global change

¶

Forgiveness can move

us past millennia of

criminality

corruption

and war

The Slow as Molasses Press

Seek daily forgiveness

There is an offer that was made to the world 2000 years ago by an itinerant carpenter who happened to believe he could converse with Reality itself. The man was Jesus. The Reality he named was Abba.

Jesus faced down the temptation to do glitzy miracles. He thought they were offensive and tacky. Instead, he spent his days doing two simple things: forgiving and healing people. Some legends suggest that he did some strenuous miracles. He fed a lot of people and he appeared on the surface of a stormy lake. But there are a lot of legends about Jesus. The healing and forgiving were for real and the proof lies in the bare-bones story, first set down for posterity in what we call the Gospel of Mark.

In that story, Jesus began by suggesting that things would become heavenly if people would honestly repent of the harm they had done. He called this the good news. (Mark 1)

Jesus then used his abilities to heal, with one important caveat. Most of those he healed were required to believe, to have faith. He actually suggested that faith was intrinsic to the process.

When you examine Mark for the reason Jesus was executed you will discover two major reasons:

He wanted to end the legalism and hypocrisy of religion.

And he insisted that he and his followers possessed the power to forgive and to heal.

Knowing his fate was sealed,  Jesus gave his followers the Lords Prayer. It is the only prayer he left us. It is right up there with Hamlet's most famous soliloquy. I like it in the form I have cast it in. It has twelve lines in three stanzas and can be sung to myriad melodies.

Abba whose home

in heaven is

Hallowed and holy

is your name

Let your realm come

your will be done

Till earth and heaven

are the same

Give us this day

our daily bread

Forgive the wrongs

that we have done

As we forgive

those who do wrong

Lead us not into

temptation

Deliver us

from evil Lord

And guide us safely

to your shore

Yours is the power

to heal and mend

Yours is the glory

evermore

Now what do you find here that is genuinely unusual?  Two big things. The name Abba which stands for Dad, Father, friend. This is the direct opposite of the vindictive, side-taking deity whose MO is to pit people against one another and ethics be damned.  You also find a contract, an oral pledge, a covenant, a recipe for harmonious existence for all.

Now I do not believe this Jesus cared a whit for establishing a church that would have a creed and build large buildings and conduct wars and play politics. Jesus's Sermon on the Mount is directly opposed to this list of ecclesiastical practices.  Jesus is much closer to the one that Neitzsche described in The Antichrist as the only true Christian who ever existed. This Jesus had only one demand and he put it in this prayer. 

Forgive the wrongs

that we have done

As we forgive

those who do wrong

There it is, folks. Plain as day. A contract. If you repent you will be forgiven.

If there is going to be any cure for the wrongs of life, there must be universal repentance. And repentance, as this prayer makes plain, is the only way anyone can be forgiven.

We do not get better because others pray for us. We get better because we pray for ourselves. We get forgiven because we seek forgiveness. This prayer is about the way reality works.

To drive this point home is to provide the most compelling reason why this philosophy is on the mark. Consider the reality. Me or you and the wrongs we've done. The people we've wronged and everyone else who do wrong. And? And? Abba. Or Reality. Or I-am. We are saying that binary has not, cannot and never will cut it. Only when we interpose a third element do we have a practical effect. A real effect. Only there do we touch the only way to infinity.  It takes thinking this through to perceive that when we say "think in threes" we are proposing not an option but a necessity on the way to becoming human. 

   

To suggest that everyone repeat this prayer or some equivalent three times a day sounds like the most unrealistic request of this millennium. But I have no hesitation in adding that it would make all the difference.

We can either have a repetition of the wrongs of the past or an evolution toward a future based on decency, hope and mutual care.

The Slow as Molasses Press

The theory of now is simple and direct

The Slow as Molasses Press

From
Triadic Primer

¶

The theory of now

is simple and direct

For us there is only

now

Now is the only

context for considering

reality

Time progresses and

signs are like frames

on a film linking what

is past to now

Because now is

all there ever is

the notion that

one is captive

to the past

is false

For spiritual background see Abba's Way and  The Tao of Mark  

For a companion to this Primer see  Triadic Philosophy

To give a copy of this book to a friend visit Triadic Primer at Kinde

Seek daily forgiveness

The Slow as Molasses Press


A selection from

Triadic Primer

Ω

There is an offer that was made to the world 2000 years ago by an itinerant carpenter who happened to believe he could converse with Reality itself. The man was Jesus. The Reality he named was Abba.

Jesus faced down the temptation to do glitzy miracles. He thought they were offensive and tacky. Instead, he spent his days doing two simple things: forgiving and healing people. Some legends suggest that he did some strenuous miracles. He fed a lot of people and he appeared on the surface of a stormy lake. But there are a lot of legends about Jesus. The healing and forgiving were for real and the proof lies in the bare-bones story, first set down for posterity in what we call the Gospel of Mark.

In that story, Jesus began by suggesting that things would become heavenly if people would honestly repent of the harm they had done. He called this the good news. (Mark 1)

Jesus then used his abilities to heal, with one important caveat. Most of those he healed were required to believe, to have faith. He actually suggested that faith was intrinsic to the process.

When you examine Mark for the reason Jesus was executed you will discover two major reasons:

He wanted to end the legalism and hypocrisy of religion.

And he insisted that he and his followers possessed the power to forgive and to heal.

Knowing his fate was sealed,  Jesus gave his followers the Lords Prayer. It is the only prayer he left us. It is right up there with Hamlet's most famous soliloquy. I like it in the form I have cast it in. It has twelve lines in three stanzas and can be sung to myriad melodies.

Abba whose home

in heaven is

Hallowed and holy

is your name

Let your realm come

your will be done

Till earth and heaven

are the same

Give us this day

our daily bread

Forgive the wrongs

that we have done

As we forgive

those who do wrong

Lead us not into

temptation

Deliver us

from evil Lord

And guide us safely

to your shore

Yours is the power

to heal and mend

Yours is the glory

evermore

Now what do you find here that is genuinely unusual?  Two big things. The name Abba which stands for Dad, Father, friend. This is the direct opposite of the vindictive, side-taking deity whose MO is to pit people against one another and ethics be damned.  You also find a contract, an oral pledge, a covenant, a recipe for harmonious existence for all.

Now I do not believe this Jesus cared a whit for establishing a church that would have a creed and build large buildings and conduct wars and play politics. Jesus's Sermon on the Mount is directly opposed to this list of ecclesiastical practices.  Jesus is much closer to the one that Neitzsche described in The Antichrist as the only true Christian who ever existed. This Jesus had only one demand and he put it in this prayer. 

Forgive the wrongs

that we have done

As we forgive

those who do wrong

There it is, folks. Plain as day. A contract. If you repent you will be forgiven.

If there is going to be any cure for the wrongs of life, there must be universal repentance. And repentance, as this prayer makes plain, is the only way anyone can be forgiven.

We do not get better because others pray for us. We get better because we pray for ourselves. We get forgiven because we seek forgiveness. This prayer is about the way reality works.

To drive this point home is to provide the most compelling reason why this philosophy is on the mark. Consider the reality. Me or you and the wrongs we've done. The people we've wronged and everyone else who do wrong. And? And? Abba. Or Reality. Or I-am. We are saying that binary has not, cannot and never will cut it. Only when we interpose a third element do we have a practical effect. A real effect. Only there do we touch the only way to infinity.  It takes thinking this through to perceive that when we say "think in threes" we are proposing not an option but a necessity on the way to becoming human. 

   

To suggest that everyone repeat this prayer or some equivalent three times a day sounds like the most unrealistic request of this millennium. But I have no hesitation in adding that it would make all the difference.

We can either have a repetition of the wrongs of the past or an evolution toward a future based on decency, hope and mutual care.

For spiritual background see Abba's Way and  The Tao of Mark  

For a companion to this Primer see  Triadic Philosophy

To give a copy of this book to a friend visit Triadic Primer at Kinde

Living in the now -- Three meanings

Living in the now has at least three meanings.

1. It can mean not being mired in the past.

2. It can mean being spontaneous and free.

3. It can mean consciously focusing on what is before you.

All of these meanings apply. 
But there is another meaning that does not apply. 
It cannot mean ignoring the future.

The only attention to the future that is inappropriate 
is blindness to where we are at present. 
Otherwise, everything that happens in the now 
has no choice but to be germane to the future.

The summons to live in the now 
is primarily an effort to correct the tendency 
to live in the past, to be captive to memory, 
to ignore what is here at the moment, 
under our noses. 
If there is any form of reality that is clearly not here now, 
it is the past.

To be sure, there is a good deal of conscious effort 
to keep the past alive. 
The 9/11 observances are examples. 
We cannot shrug off either horrendous tragedies 
or wonderful memories. 
But to cling to things that we need 
to move beyond 
is no recipe for happiness or progress.

A wickedly painful divorce. 
Filled with recrimination. 
Fraught with consequences for children. 
We have all been there in our own lives 
or in the lives of those we love. 
When do we begin to control memory 
to the point that it does not paralyze?

It is true that time works to dim sad memories. 
But not always. 
Better to have at your beck and call 
a way to modify the effect of memories 
that continue to stop you in your tracks. 
That way is to interpose an INDEX 
into your two-step thought process. 
Instead of painful memory 
and a morose response, 
a painful memory, an INDEX of options 
and a free response..

That index is crucial. 
It's a list. 
It might well include some very personal needs: 
learning to clear your mind, 
seeking a text to recite that  snaps you out 
of your preoccupation, 
seeking  help.

Or your list could remind you 
of good values and action avenues 
that are there in profusion if one seeks them.

It really is now or never. 
Either break out or spend another day 
locked in some iteration of memory, 
some block, some sad cave, some inhibition.  
Almost everyone who has snapped out 
of something can remember 
when that freeing event took place. 
Something happened. Everything changed. 
The point of consciously living in the now 
is to increase the number of such moments. 
We need more and more now actions 
that represent progress 
both for ourselves and for the whole planet.

   ¶

The "now" would be unimportant 
if this was a nominalist universe, 
say that of Descartes. 
If our thinking was the only validation 
we had of our existence, 
we would have no way of  explaining 
commonality, love, resonance, 
simultaneous thoughts, harmonies we create, 
bumps we experience, 
our inherited past 
or anything else that suggests reality 
beyond our perception of it.

The Slow as Molasses Press

Ethics in the future should be values-based

Ethics

in the future

should be

values-based

Triadic Philosophy

substitutes Values

for Aristotle's binary

virtues

¶

Aristotle set the stage

for ethics discussion 

But Aristotle bases

his ethics on

character and

virtue rather than will 

Now Western thought

has a "value system" 

based not on will

but on honor 

Aristotle's

overarching virtue

Values and will

are one 

Values create history

and culture 

Values transcend

character 

Values transcend

virtue 

Values are

the desires of the heart

 Jesus understands

all of this 

Aristotle appears

not to

Only the will

is capable of desire

Values are desires 

They are not

characteristics

They are motivations

Their power is

realized as they

become conscious

and operative

All of us operate

on values 

that represent

what we most honor

what we give

the most credence to

what moves us

Search the terms

value and virtue 

in the text

of Aristotle's "Ethics" 

You will find

virtue and character 

For Aristotle

value is merely

a word 

denoting relative

advantage

in relationships

The Slow as Molasses Press

Aristotle Jousts with The Bard

Aristotle linked

ethics to virtues

But virtues cut

both ways and

lead to binary

thinking

¶

We owe the

destruction

of virtue-based

ethics

to the noble

Bard

"Falstaff: Can honor set-to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honor hath no skill in surgery then? no. What is honor? a word. What is that word, honor? air. A trim reckoning!--Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth be hear it? no. Is it insensible, then? yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it: honor is a mere scutcheon:--and so ends my catechism. 
(Henry IV Part One V, I)"

The Slow as Molasses Press