The Lilies Of The Field Forget Themselves

From Batsage "Mulling Wittgenstein" ( as if he were a cider ) in "What Powderfinger said..." Acceptance = Surrender = Giving Over of Self. It's called for in all religions. As Jerry Garcia--yes, the Grateful Dead guitarist--said: "To forget yourself is to see everything else." Not only does it lead to living the right way, it's the only way to live right. To forget oneself is easier said than done. It is to give up what we hold most dear. Addictions are not what we hold most dear. If you break the habit of a particularly nasty addiction, you will not have forgotten yourself: you will quote how many days it has been that YOU are clean or sober. If you wish to hear God, you must deny the notion that God can speak to you. If you wish to see God, you must firmly realize God cannot appear to you. If you want your prayers answered, you must be like the lilies of the field - essentially it never enters their dainty heads about what to wear or what to eat. They just keep on keeping on. If you want God to be your pal, you have to realize He will abandon you. Once you do these things, then you see the opposites are also true. That is no small insight. But it is hard to truly believe the above. It is almost impossible to give up these things, unless you are on the brink of despair. That's why Christianity spread among the slaves, Judaeism grew strong in dispersion and persecution, and Islam took root as the original Muslims were in danger of being destroyed by their enemies. If you want real religion, go where they refuse money; go where they do not need honors nor degrees; go where they do not need to appear on cable TV, where the ministers do not speak to the leaders of the world. Where is the Church which refuses your money? A church that is small, and which the tithes just keep going, not the mammoth churches whose financial tendrils pervade the world. Jesus said spread the word; he also said emulate the lilies of the field, so we cannot justify the enormous physical plant and finances of mega-churches, for they give too much thought to where the revenues shall come from. A Church with money and power seeks to force God to its will. God will have none of it. He goes slumming in the churches where the downtrodden visit, they who already know they have no power to force anyone to anything. We tried to enslave God to our version of capitalism. How's that working out?