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This blog is for those who take the line in the Nicene Creed seriously that says, “I await the resurrection of the dead and the life of the ages to come.” That is the life immortal into which Jesus Christ will someday usher renewed humans. For centuries these people have been called Christians, and they are still called Christians, but since Christianity has become such a broad term and Christ said that the gate into immortal life is narrow and difficult to squeeze through, then perhaps those few serious people would be better identified as “Aspiring Immortals”.

This blog is a journal of just such an Aspiring Immortal. Through stories, poems, and journal entries I teach orthodox Christianity. I am not a religious rebel, instead I’d rather identify with GK Chesterton, CS Lewis, and my favorite Saints such as Francis of Assisi, Chrysostom, and Climacus whose vision and creativity have guided so many aspiring immortals through this earthly life.

 

A companion to this blog is my book entitled “The Immortal Life (TIL).” TIL teaches orthodox Christianity to those who want to know the reason for life and death, good and evil. TIL explains it all from the fall of mankind to the annihilation of this planet with a refreshing contemporary voice that is at times even funny.

 

We all work very hard to improve life on this planet for ourselves and for each other. And yet there is so much more life has to offer. Aspiring immortals are the salt of this earth and the substance of the next one.

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Entries in Lord (3)

Wednesday
07Oct2009

3- The Day After Noah

DateWednesday, October 7, 2009 at 07:15AM

Part 3 of the series, God –The Love Story Autumn

With that Noah stood up and held out his hand to me. Reflexively I kissed it. He nodded slightly and said, “May we meet again in kingdom-come, my child.”

I whispered, “I hope so.” But before I could finish Noah had turned away and began to descend the boulders. I sat as still as the rock under me watching him go. His gait was as spry as if he was wearing shoes, which he wasn’t. I don’t know if I saw him actually disappear or if he merely went so far that I couldn’t see him anymore, or if my thoughts distracted me from seeing him disappear so mesmerized was I by the whirlwind in my mind.  

I knew that I was not ready to walk. Noah had given me a lot to think about so I sat there for one, maybe two hours trying to listen for my conscience. Suddenly I heard the buzzing sound of fairies. Had they been there all along? The largest fairy fluttered in front of my face. She looked so much like Tinkerbelle I had to chuckle with delight.

“You know he was right,” she said. “He’s a classic; that man did not make it this far being wrong!”

“Mine-Fairy,” I replied, “Are you my conscience?”

 She shrugged her little shoulders and said, “Let’s just say we’re related.”

 “May I ask you a question? If Christmas is in my heart, do I have to walk on those pebbles?”

“Dearie”, she said sounding slightly peeved with me, “You can’t sit here till Christmas or till kingdom comes. Because you still live in time, you must keep moving. The person who won’t move is like the man who hid all his talent because he was afraid to risk losing it.”

“Okay, if I’ll walk if I must, but what did he say about the pain?” I asked.

She fluttered over to my shoulder and landed, then whispered in my ear. “Try to remember. Look to see if Noah planted his words in your mind.”

I closed my eyes and thought as hard as I could. Sure enough, Noah’s words percolated to the surface, clear as crystal. ‘The pain of walking to Christmas is the pain of corruption and mortality.’ So, walking doesn’t have to be painful! If I can overcome corruption and mortality I can walk to Christmas or anywhere just as Noah did.”

“Right!” my fairy was so happy that I remembered what he said.

With the lines of communication fairly open to my conscience, or at least to Tinkerbelle, I was ready to move on to the second piece of Noah’s advice, to obey the commands. I was going to need a lot more help with this so I turned to look up at my fairy that by now was fluttering around the nearby olive tree. “What are the commands?” I shouted a bit to get her attention. “Did he mean the Ten Commandments; how did he even know them since he lived centuries before Moses?”

“Goodness-me! No wonder your feet hurt so much when you walk! Don’t you know anything? Noah didn’t need the tablets of stone because he simply did all that the Lord commanded him. That is how he distinguished himself from the rest of humanity. For you, it’s different. You need all the help you can get; the Ten Commandments are a start. But Jesus gave you about an hundred more commands. Remember what He said.”

 I was stumped. “Give me a hint.”

AuthorEvangeline Hopkins | CommentPost a Comment |
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Sunday
05Jul2009

The Taste Test

DateSunday, July 5, 2009 at 07:22AM

Greeks think differently than the English which is reflected in the two languages.In this piece I want to bring Greek thinking to English speakers. English-speakers say that God tests people.He allows us to be tempted and to suffer to see how we will respond. Will we become angry or patient? Will we hurt back or turn a cheek? In bad times, will we still trust Him or abandon Him willy-nilly?

There’s the vehicle crash test and there’s the mid-term exam. One test aims to destroy to find weaknesses to correct and the other one determines whether knowledge has been absorbed.

On the other hand, the Greeks say that God ‘tastes’ us. To be tasted is less about achievement than about being. A good pudding is not like a strong Volvo or a math exam. There is artistry in cooking that doesn’t exist in testing.

As the world turns things happen by natural causes and by human causes. Hurricanes, earthquakes, and droughts create situations that can be compared to poverty, divorce, and crime. When very bad, or even very good things happen in our lives, whether we see the situation as a test or an opportunity to add flavor may inform our response. We are the chefs of ourselves. We become sweet or sour by our own making. A test, on the other hand, is done to us. React to tests, or create tastes?

Does God send us disease or misfortune to see if we pass or fail or does He merely taste us to see how we are turning out as a consequence of living in nature and among a variety of flavors of other people?

Cooking is the relationship of flavors and textures, of ratios and of becoming something better with extreme heat or cold, with whipping, and whisking, chopping and dicing. Food goes through much of what we could call abuse with some fabulous results, so do some people.

God tastes Frances who just had a mastectomy. Did she become more tender and devoted to Him by the experience or did she harden? That depends on the other ingredients that she chose to add to the whipping of the mastectomy, either a cup of self pity or a cup of wonder? Did she whip up some inner courage and bravery or did she bruise and rot in fear? Frances is delicious; many ingredients go into her sweet being.

We cook ourselves while being exposed to various situations and by absorbing wisdom and knowledge through the arts (e.g. literature, music, painting, and theater.) God is simply the taster, not the chef. We are the chef of ourselves. The Greeks would claim that to say Frances was tested by her mastectomy is too simplistic to be accurate. Also, the notion of a test pits the testor and the tested at odds with each other. The concept of being tasted creates a friendlier relationship between the foodie and God.

Even English-speakers see people as having flavor. We say things like, ‘David is so sweet that honey pours out of his mouth. Rona is a bitter person, always looking for blame and fault. Little Sammy is so cute; Beth wants to eat him from head to toe.’ People as food; it makes sense.

We are asked to taste God too. Psalm 34:8 says, “Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.”

We love to eat! Let us take the art of cooking, to heart!

Bon Appétit, Lord!

AuthorEvangeline Hopkins | CommentPost a Comment |
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Saturday
21Mar2009

Road Warriors

DateSaturday, March 21, 2009 at 03:29PM

If you are reading this blog for the first time during Lent, you should be aware that you have entered a story that overlays the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt to the Promise Land with the Journey of Aspiring Immortals to the Kingdom of God that is on the new immortal Earth. The parallels are striking. The Exodus can teach us Christians some very important lessons about attitude and relationship. For more about this comparison go to Exodus II explained. The series began with Two Wait for Lent.

Ben and Asa could usually be found walking side by side, chatting enough to become oblivious to their sore feet and hunger. Each morning as they set out, most of the pilgrims positioned themselves in the same quadrant of the moving mass of humanity that traveled to a dirge-like rhythm in gender segregated groups of families and tribes. Infants and toddlers swaddled in cotton cocoons dangling from strong female shoulders. God’s swarm of speaking bees intuitively knew when it was time for quiet so they could listen for approaching enemies.

But that wasn’t now. Few clusters were talking about anything besides their thirst, some complaining, some squinting into the distance for a river or even a pond in Olympian competition to be the bearer of the good news. It had been three full days since the last drop of water cooled a parched tongue.

“Mama.”

“Yes, David, my child what is it?” answered Zeporah with refreshed amazement at every new word that emanated from the miniature lips of her three year old baby.

“Why doesn’t anyone ask God to make water come out of these rocks for us?”

“Yes David, rocks we have, water we want. How clever you are! Don’t we always ask God to give us the exact opposite of what we have? If we have sickness we ask for health. If we have doubt, we ask for faith. If we have worry, we ask for trust. If we have war, we ask for peace. We have rocks, now let’s ask for water. My pure one, how could the God of our fathers deny you? You be the one to ask.”

“Mama, will you ask Him with me?” Spotting a nested boulder David ran over to it and climbed on top to wait for his mother to join him. Letting the others pass, the woman and the child set out to relieve their fellow voyagers.

“Okay David, I will begin. O’ Lord, who is teaching us with this journey to trust you, to depend on you for every life sustaining element, hear our prayer. I thirst.” Zeporah then nudged David with her piercing green eyes to follow her lead.

“Lord, you made us to need water,” David hesitated searching for the right words to say from his limited vocabulary “and you are pushing us to the good land. Why do you wait for me to ask? Is it because you want to show me that you are the God who hears? Hear me. I thirst.”

Zeporah and David bowed their heads, small tender pink hand clutching her big rough hand. Suddenly David let go and ran over to pick up a straight stick that he spotted in the brush. In less time than it would take to sneeze, David was back on top of the rock. He looked up into the heavens, then straight to the passing chattering throng, then behind him to the oncoming masses. Meanwhile, Zeporah slid off the rock. David lifted his little hand as high as he could and with all his might he struck the granite boulder. Once.

A geyser of the sweet, clear life-giving drink, shot up a good seventy feet from a crevice that David’s unlikely tap made, into the air and returned raining on the giggling boy with the cool refreshment of answered prayer.

Ben and Asa, who were just approaching the scene were among the first to rush over. After looking up with mouths wide open to receive the life- renewing water, and after a few hefty gulps, they quickly became self appointed crowd control officials.

“Oh Lord who provides! How patient you are watching us suffer all this time, deliver us from our own impatience and self reliance.” whispered Zeporah carrying her little savior-child away from the dense epicenter to make room for their thirsty brethren.

AuthorEvangeline Hopkins | CommentPost a Comment |
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