Saturday, January 7, 2017
THE GENDER OF GOD!
1/7/2017
Hello, Everyone!
Tomorrow, the local Laramie Boomerang should be printing my next religious column article - one I call THE GENDER OF GOD. I will copy it below this letter for any interested in reviewing it. Yesterday, I encountered a neighbor, Roger, as we both opened up our mail boxes at the street and Roger told me he enjoys reading my column when it appears in the Boomerang. I told him that tomorrow my next column will be printing that I am calling THE GENDER OF GOD. Roger smiled at me and quipped: I don't think God has a gender, does He? I told him that I agree and that is the entire gist of my next article. Most, I think, do believe that God has a gender - or belongs to a given gender, male - but at least there are two - Roger and me - who do not agree with that stance. I will leave my logic to my article below.
This is a rather special day for me, however, on another front. I just finished my first draft of my next book (my 6th) - one I am calling: JESUS - VIA THOMAS & MARY - AND ME. I will have to proof read it some more before uploading it to my publisher - Create Space; but with luck, I should be able to finish that by month end - and maybe by mid month. Once I have submitted it to Create Space, it will probably take a couple of months before we can call it done; but let's just say, the project is well on its way. Come Spring, I will probably be able to share it with any who are interested. Standby for Spring!
I must admit, though, that JESUS - VIA THOMAS & MARY - AND ME - has been somewhat easy to write - simply because I am only compiling a few essay works that I wrote in 2009 into this one - along with a few songs of the past too. When you have already "finished" a book before you even start it - now that is what I call easy. But it just goes to show that it never hurts to write something today that is not published today - simply because there is always a tomorrow - or at least for the most part, there is a tomorrow. Right?
What is this one about? It offers the text of two of my favorite gospels - THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS and THE GOSPEL OF MARY MAGDALENE - both banned in the 4th Century and only recently discovered. I will leave that story - or stories - to my book, but personally I consider the two gospels of my work absolutely wonderful treasures that almost no one knows about. It is my pleasure - and privilege - to try and change that. I know one book cannot do much to introduce these two treasures, but it can do a little; and whatever little I can do, well, I think it is worth it. Don't you agree? The AND ME part of the book is that I offer my own personal interpretations of the verses found in these two gospels. Not sure how long the book will be when Create Space finishes it, but I will be uploading about 150 pages. More than likely, the final product will be about that same length.
Another project that is well on its way is my planned final book (my 7th) that I will publish - by the end of 2018 or early 2019. I just added item # 24 to that one - which is the article I will copy below called THE GENDER OF GOD. That final book I am calling IT'S A NEW DAY! - and it will include mostly the religious column articles I have written and will have written that have appeared in the local Laramie Boomerang - and will have appeared in that local paper. I figure that if I should die before I submit IT'S A NEW DAY!, a relative or friend who believes in my writings can finish it off and submit it to Create Space in my name. How about that for a plan? Of course, I do not plan on any earlier demise, but one never knows. Right?
Well, I gonna leave ya now! As I remember the Dean Martin Show of the '60s or '70s, that is how ole Dean often closed his show - or at least as I remember it. I gonna leave ya now!
Be in touch as you wish - and read item # 24 of IT'S A NEW DAY! below if you wish.
Have a Good One!
Gently,
Francis William Bessler (Sonny, Frank, Will)
www.una-bella-vita.com
THE GENDER OF GOD
By
Francis William Bessler
Laramie, Wyoming
11/6/2016
Is God a guy? I must admit that in my early years, I had no doubt that God is a guy - or of the masculine gender - simply because my faith referred to God as "the man upstairs" - or some such.
But that was a long time ago. I have not considered God a male - or even a person of either gender - for many years. Why? Because when I think of existence as being infinite - or having to be so - all sense of God as a "person" has gone by the wayside. How in the world can infinity be classified by virtue of gender?
Think about it if you will. Go outside and look into a clear blue sky. Can you locate an end to that sky, at least in your mind? If you cannot, then be honest. If "the sky" has no end, how could God - as infinite - end? There it is - "rational proof" that God cannot be a guy. To be a guy, God would have to be an "individual" with limitations. Believe it or not - that is what being any gender means - being an "individual" and having limits and locating only to a given place. How could something without limits - such as God must be - be defined as something with limits - or having a "torso" or "body" with dangling modifiers, so to speak?
Hey, wait a minute, I hear some who believe that God is an individual, separate from reality, saying. God is a spirit, not something with a body or torso - as you say. You cannot define God like that. A spirit cannot be confined to a body or torso. Well, alright. Then that takes away God's claimed masculinity in another way. If God is a "spirit" and has no confinement by body, then by that definition, God cannot be a "guy" either. No matter which way you look at God - being a spirit without a body or being endless existence - it makes no sense to think of God as a guy - or a gal.
When I was a kid, though, I never took the idea of "infinity" into account; and I think that is why I assumed that when someone of my faith referred to God as "the man upstairs," I swallowed the idea and became very comfortable with it. That "man upstairs" and I had a tremendous relationship and friendship. Everywhere I went, my "man upstairs" followed me. I would smile; and my "man upstairs" would smile back - or I imagined "him" smiling back. God and me could do everything. We were inseparable as companions and nothing dared to oppose us or stand in our way.
And I think the ancients saw it that way too. They saw God like themselves because that is all they knew - themselves. In part, at least, I think they saw ends where no end is; and based on seeing false ends - and endings - they perceived false visions. They thought the earth is one end of things because they could not see below it; and based on that false vision, they contrived an end to where they were looking into the sky. In other words, the ancients based all thought on various confinements; and naturally, they would define God in that same way.
The truth is, however, the Earth is not "an end." Below the Earth, which is really a planet and not some "false bottom," there is only "sky." In essence, there is not even a "below the earth" because the Earth being suspended in a sky is not an end, but only a place in a Grand, Infinite, Universe. In reality, no end exists either "above" the Earth or "below" the Earth.
But the ancients did not know that. Did they? And so based on ends they saw that are not there, they contrived a god who could be one place and not another; and then that god was given a gender since that is all they knew. The idea of infinity probably did not even occur to them; and so they naturally concluded that any god has to also be finite - or someone who could be defined with arms and hands and legs and feet - and other parts.
Amazingly, we still believe it. We still believe that God is an individual that is separated from us to believe that God can even remotely be classified as a "man upstairs." In the light of infinity - and the real clear "probability" that God is equal to that Infinity - God cannot be a "being" that is separated from us that can overlook us or reprimand us or punish us or reward us. God cannot be an individual - male, female, or otherwise - and must be an Infinite Presence that is in all and makes all as Sacred as that Infinity is.
Or so I Believe!