OF NATURES GOD
the god of creation

Left to ourselves, it is pretty obvious, that we are primates. This is our animal nature. To live in civilization and overcome this “fallen” nature we must re-teach the wisdom garnered over thousands of years anew to each generation. Wisdom Teachers speak in parables and proverbs teaching lessons through stories of life itself. Every culture has Wisdom and because humans have not substantially changed for hundreds of thousands of years Wisdom says amazingly similar things in every culture. From Ancient Egypt orIsrael, to the Viking Havamal, to Confucius, Africa, or the Native Americans. The Wisdom of Life is amazingly consistent. In the Bible, the most accessible ancient scriptures we have, Wisdom is found in Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the teachings of Jesus, and throughout parts of the Old Testament. In Bible times Wisdom teachers were called the Sages and sometimes prophets – but not in the aspect of “foretelling” but in the aspect of “truthtelling.”

Most cultures teach that there are fundamental flaws in human nature. The Catholics call these the seven deadly sins of Pride, Lust, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Gluttony, and Greed. These are embedded in human nature and from the ancient Greek stories to the modern news cycle so much of human downfall and failing can be traced back to them. Oddly, in seminary, one of my favorite books was a book that made me groan when I read the title: Not the Way Its Supposed to Be; A Breviary of Sin by Cornelius Plantinga. But this book opened an entire new understanding. That sin and evil were not a force of its own but a parasitic force that only exist if it had something to corrupt and twist. Evil and sin warp us from the Divine Image that God placed in us at Birth. It robs us of our divine potential and, in the end, the very thing that promises to give us pleasure, becomes our greatest pain and source of suffering. To fulfill the Divine Promise implanted in each of us, we must be honest about the pitfalls that try to make us less than who we are.

We live in the midst of an eternal war of light vs. darkness, freedom and fulfillment vs chaos and tyranny. We are the Church Embattled battling against the darkness that wants to consume the world. Yoda taught us all that there is a light side and a dark side, although this has been known for all of human history. What is often obscured in our materialistic society is that we are not machines but organisms who live in an organic UNI-verse that is interconnected and mutually dependent and the grey we see is not reality in itself but the interplay of light and shadow and our every action, our every thought, what we choose to read or watch, all of that echoes through the halls of eternity. The old Templars were Knights of the Temple of Solomon. But the New Testament says that the Spirit of God dwells in each of us and WE are the Temple of the Holy Spirit. I think it’s time we have new Templars. Jedi who recognize that they are in this fight and ready to stand for what is right no matter the opposition.

 The Bible says that “The entire creation groans under the weight of sin. The world waits with eager longing for the revelation of the children of God.” Not the people…the world. Humans were never given dominion of the Earth. They were made stewards of the Earth in the absence of the Lord, and when the Lord returns, He will demand a reckoning over what we have done to his world and to each other. The world is not confused, we are. All over the world animals come up to humans for help when they are injured or need assistance. They know who we are supposed to be, who we were created to be. It is we who have forgotten. The Green Movement today are too often the ignorant servants of the very powers who so polluted this world that in my youth the Rhine River would catch on fire. Today’s Green New Deal wants us to give our money and trust to the very people who ruined the Earth. It is not ecological it is monetary. True ecology would show us how to make a difference and not how to spend more money and make the rich richer by buying their solar panels, wind mills, and pay carbon taxes.

God of Many Names, Gathered into One. This is the phrase of a Hymn by Brian Wren that speaks to a powerful truth. God the Father, the great unknowable other than exists above and beyond all other gods that even they must answer to. Jesus, the word, the male principle, the creative principle is the Avatar. The Divine personification come to us in human form. Jesus is the most relatable person of the trinity because he lived like us. Jesus can be touched, his words are heard. The Holy Spirit is the Divine Feminine. The Ruah and Shekinah of the Hebrew faith, Sophia/Wisdom that was there at the birth of Creation and danced with joy. It is always referred to as female in the Hebrew Bible. ofNaturesGod.com uses the Bible a great deal and without apology. But I came to God after serving in Intelligence and coming to believe their could be no God. I applied my intel analysis skills to religions ancient and modern and I found the same truths embedded deep in their foundations. A Triune Deity, an omnipresent Spirit that guided and sustained, the Word of Power and Creation that is the Son of God in Christianity. This is because God has revealed himself to all peoples at all times through the glory of his creation. If you believe the Bible you have to believe this. Because it is in the Bible.

It is amazing to me how the symbols of the Divine repeat over and over again in different religions throughout time and culture. Words and explanations may vary but it is almost as if the truths they are trying to communicate resonate at their core even if the human efforts to express them through religion have wondered off course. Sometimes very far off course. Yet symbols are a language that speaks directly to our spirit.