Perfectionists - all of us

It is remarkable how in the past two days I have said and heard others say that we were striving for perfection, and always as an excuse for not completing some task or other.

This was not perfection in the purest form, which is by definition, unattainable, but perfection in the moment.

In our work we realise that we have come short or missed some aspect and we rework what we were doing, in search of some personal target that for us and for that moment we consider as perfection.

This striving for some ultimate goal is usually not inspired by our employers, whose goal is to ship just satisfactory products, in as short a time as possible, so it must be personal. It may on occasion be competition between peers, but typically not so.

It seems that we may be wired that way, to always go the extra mile. Perhaps it was drilled into us at school during our formative years or some early religious training, in that we must strive to please our God.

The irony with this is that the standard set by our educators or religion is almost always beyond reach, so perhaps it is in the striving that we hope to obtain favour. As we reach maturity the pattern is set permanently within our makeup and we may lose the need for the task masters of religion or education, but their mark has been made on us for life.

Our only hope for this self inflicted slavery is a confrontation with God and to recognise that long ago he made a way to escape the slavery of legalism and self recrimination or guilt, in his ultimate sacrifice given for our freedom.

It may come as a great surprise that God does not expect us to live a perfect life and actually expects us to sin against him and our fellow man; not wants, of course, but expects.

So where does this notion come from that God is this awful judge who will condemn us all to Hell?

We can almost be sure it comes from the Images of God revealed to us in the Old Testament, where we see his rage and anger, because of the sin of mankind in general and of his chosen people, the Jews, in particular.

However these come together with images of God’s love and forgiveness, often seemingly changing his mind and this often in response to please and arguments from people like Moses and other heroes of faith.

This has even led some serious and sincere people to say that the God of the New Testament is not even the same God, but some lesser god who had human-like weaknesses.

If we think of God as having feelings then much of the descriptions of an angry God take on a different perspective, but not that God has human-like feelings, but that we have God-like feelings, since we are ‘made in his own image.’

So how else would we see and feel his anger and his love except that he would become angry and then his love would change his anger to forgiveness?

We have been taught that certain behaviours of God show his Love and others his Justice as if these were in separate boxes in God, but rarely have we been taught that these changing faces of God show that he has feelings, as if to have feelings is not a God-like thing to have, but it explains a lot.

So then, if we can now agree that our feelings of joy, happiness, anger and sadness, despair and all our other feelings like hunger and satisfaction are God-given or even inherited from God, then can we start forgiving ourselves for all the negative feelings that give us feelings of guilt, and stop trying to control them and start enjoying and using them as thermometers of what we are at any one time?

So who are we trying to please with our aims of perfection? Is it the echoes of the training given by teachers, parents or preachers? Or is it the demands of God himself in what ever form he has taken in our lives in this godless generation? Or is it the echo of the feelings inherited from a perfect God in our imperfect human form? I think I rather like this last option. It reminds me of my real roots and makes me know that I know that God exists and why he is still interested in me personally and as an individual.

Age of Enlightenment

For a week I have been considering further evidence that something incredible happened around the time that humans decided to record the events of history. Which in itself is either very amazing or very simple and obvious.
So let's start there with writing. I have said somewhere that Humans could not help, but discover the art of writing. This was in defense of a recent creation. However equally feasible is the concept that Adam was equal in all respects, brain capacity, DNA and physical appearance, but different in some special way, making him (Adam) very different to the other homo sapiens who coexisted with him on Earth. If a type of human lived on Earth for several hundred millenniums and they left no evidence of inventing writing then I have a real problem with that or they were not the humans that I know. Never mind about the discovery of the use of fire, the bronze and iron ages. I'm going there soon.
What about the Clay Age? The people of Samaria (of cuneiform fame) used clay tablets for writing upon, during the Bronze Age.
These 'ages' came so fast on each other's heels they overlapped. What started that Age of Enlightenment?

A new look at Homo Sapiens

Rosebank Union Church (RUC) in Johannesburg is the physical Church where I occasionally attend. I guess that hints that I attend a church that is not a physical place.
Well in a sense that may be true. I generally attend the Spirit Word Channel Church that is of course a physical place and I have been there, but I typically attend there as a virtual church.
I receive the transmissions from Spirit Word via a satellite signal. It is also available on the Internet.
I attend as a virtual person may be more accurate, but I am not a member of any physical Church and thus cannot speak on the behalf of any Church.
Forgive me I am rambling away from the point, but I wanted you to understand me and my relationship to RUC, where an amazing series of three talks is taking place. The three talks are from a book that is not yet published. It is a preview and extract about the fascinating topic of the Creation.
This is a topic that is close to the heart of Adam's Clay which is a story sprinkled with truth as I mentioned before so the discussion about Creation is relevant.
This series of talks is presented by a Christian Lawyer who has examined at the evidence, both scientific and biblical and has concluded that these two sources of evidence agree.
I know that there is now disbelief that this cannot be true, from both sides of the argument. The biblical record and the scientific discoveries are contradictory.
When the book is published I will announce the details and you read and decide, however there is one of the many points I want to examine further and share this with you.
Science claims that Homo Sapiens, as a species, has existed on Earth for a much longer time than proclaimed by the Bible.
You might ask how does the Christian legal mind accept that these two contradictory claims are in accord with one another.
Well for them both to be true then there must be a time when Homo Sapiens lived before the Adam and Eve of the Bible. This a logical and obvious claim and one that can only be made when one accepts that both the claims of Science and of the Bible are both true. Most people would take sides and not see the logic of this option.
In my book Sam finds the source of God's Truth and was horrified that while he knew the truth it was not good enough to be used as 'Stand Up In Court Evidence'. Even though he didn't realise it immediately even God's Truth was tainted by his own perception.
Truth cannot be compared to evidence, but evidence is all that we can use.
So what is the evidence that something strange changed about the time that Adam and Eve lived? That is what I want to examine over the next few posts of this blog.

Hey Geoff Wot's the recipe for your book?

Well, take a big slice of science fiction, sprinkle it with truth, add an African flavour, bring in some evil characters for the tension, have plenty of scientific wonders and surprise everyone with a controversial twist in the tale (pun on tail).

Sam discovers the SuperNet

Imagine my amazement. I came straight from the jungles of Africa into the High Tech world of New-Ray Tech Inc., met many great people who were really interested in me and then they swoop me off to the Moon of all places.
In a short time I 'acquire' more knowledge than I can contain. Fortunately my boss-lady called Angelique gives me a crash course on using it and I become the smartest sangoma alive.
I treat technology with disdain. I have no need of it; my super brain is more than I need, until I have something to say to a lot of people, not people I know but they know me and I need to tell them things that are really important.
My best friend says I must get a Pet on the Net. So I do. She shows me how and now I can communicate. It's wonderful.
I'm sure your first question is, "What's a Pet?"
Good question, it's a persona emulator or translator or something. They have some fancy name, but it is a program that is me, or rather my personality, that lives on the Super Net. It is so much like me because it learns to be me - smart hey?
Now this pet, which is me can communicate with all the other pets in the world, and off the world for that matter and it acts like a personal secretary answering my mail, and more importantly rejects the mail I don't want.
Of course it tells all those people I mentioned my good news as well and they can choose to accept it or reject it and my pet gives me statistics so I don't waste my time if no one is listening.
Ok, you say, but what's a sangoma and what's the good news?
All in good time but sign up or rather subscribe to this pet, oops I mean blog and I will let you know all about my exciting life.