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Dear All of Us,

It comes down to ideas and experience.

On our spiritual journey ideas will get us from New York to Newark.

On our spiritual journey experience will get us from New York 

to California's Napa Valley and its heavenly wine.
      
                  Ideas and experience.

                Theology is ideas about God.
                Faith is experience of God.

While complementary, theology and faith are as different as 

class in aviation school and flying for Delta.

Most western religions are grounded these days because 

theology has been passed off as faith -

                - ideas as the experience

                - concept as contact.

Theological insight gets packaged as doctrines, dogmas and rituals.

Believe/Practice them, even if blindly, and

you are "in," you are safe and saved.  

That's like the best first year med student sitting at his desk,

holding his new stethoscope 

and thinking he's a good doctor.



Faith isn't unthinking, but it isn't basically thinking.

It's about being a lover.

Lovers think about each other for sure.

That's not what makes them lovers, though.

It's the experience of each other.

It's contact so deep there is real union.



OK, so what is faith?

Let's check out Jesus on the matter.

The crowd presses in on him.

A woman hemorrhaging for twelve years 

reaches out and touches Jesus.

She's cured.

For all the bumping and jostling in the crowd, 

Jesus felt her touch and said,

"Who touched me?...

I noticed that power had gone out from me." 

They had connected center to center, 

person to person.

So complete was the contact that the very intensity of Jesus 

intensified the woman's body to health.

Jesus doesn't claim cure.

He credits the woman's complete giving of herself,

her willingness to experience the innerness of herself and Jesus as one.

That total trust, that contact center to center, 

that one to one to One,

that personal experience cured -

her faith.



"Your faith has cured you." ( Luke 8:42-48 ).



Faith/Belief is giving ourselves to God, 

and accepting God's giving to us, 

center to center, one to one to One.

Faith/Belief is openness to actually experiencing union with God.

Faith/Belief isn't primarily an intellectual nod but a mutual gifting.

Faith/Belief is the experience of shared life.

"Belief" means we  " be life "  together.

It is contact unto union.



So on our spiritual journey how do we get from New York

to California's Napa Valley and its heavenly wine?

Well, here are a few flights to book.


         TOUCH YOUR BODY

Feel the universe of wonders it is, 

the divine energy pulsating in it,

continually creating it

in your right here and now. 

Be present to the Presence,

touch and be touched - 

experience contact.


       TOUCH BEAUTY  

Allow yourself to experience 

the goodness and beauty of God

deep down in art, music, 

science. literature, study, nature -

touch and be touched - 

experience contact.


     TOUCH INTIMATELY

Close the door to surface static,

strip spirit naked.

Let The Love 

that holds you in existence

have you,

touch and be touched -

experience contact. 


          TOUCH NEED

In love give presence, care, help

to the hurt and needful.

Draw close the pushed out.

              Feel

The Love Who Is God

flowing through you to them

and from them to you,

touch and be touched - 

experience contact.


         
               TOUCH  LIFE

Dedicate your whole life to life, 

to giving life,

to supporting and protecting life,

to encouraging life.

Let it emerge from the substratum 

of who you are at your contact point 

with the Giver of Life.

Let it be your vocation and work.

Let it flow through your talents, 

gifts, opportunities and energies.

Sense God surging through you for others,

touch and be touched-

experience contact.


          TOUCH GOD

Practice the presence of God.

Slow down to see and sense God 

at the core and flowering of all that is,

of all people, all places, all things.

Open to the mystery of the limitless.

Quiet to the experience of presence,

be touched by the divine -

touch and be touched,

experience contact.


                        A DISCLAIMER

All of this is in no way to denigrate theology.

I enjoyed all sorts of theology courses in high school and college.

I did six years of post graduate study 

and two post graduate degrees in theology.

Over fifty years there has been a plethora of theological pursuits:

seminars, continuing ed courses, workshops, journals, reading the classics 

as well as contemporary theologians, teaching theology courses.

Theology is fine as far as it goes.

It goes to Newark.

In our spiritual journey experience goes the distance -

goes beyond distance.


Assenting to doctrines and dogmas, 

practicing religious rituals, are like a movie trailer.

Hopefully they get you interested, 

but they're not the reel/real deal.

And that's the point here.

I don't pray that our western world  gets religion.

We have way too much of that for our own good.

What is needed in this spiritually starved west

are people actually experiencing God, touch to contact.

Our young people see that our religious emperor has no cloths.

They're not interested.

Let's offer them the reel/real deal.

That means continual conversion and growth for/on our part.

As it happens, we won't need to tell them about it.

They'll see and feel and want it.

They're waiting/ wanting to connect to a real experience,

to the reel/real deal.




So, our spiritual journey is way more than ideas about God. 

                       It is an experience of God -

                              real contact.

                      That's delightfully divine!!

                            

                             "God is love"

                          and love sure is a 

                            Contact Sport!!!


       It's great to be in contact with you each week.

                        In God's Dear Love,

                            John Frank

                              *****


                REFERENCE AND RECOMMENDATION


Jesus Before Christianity, Albert Nolan, Orbis Books.

Excellent scriptural scholarship in a non-academic presentation.

Good read. Jesus before he was outfitted in doctrines, 

dogmas and ritual. Jesus in Realtime - his.

                                *****


It's just plain good to have new folks join us here each week

                            WELCOME!

                               *****


                       "frankly speaking"

                   spirituality for the street

             (johnfrankshares.blogsppot.com)


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                                       THANKS

                      to all who are sharing word about 

                                   "frankly speaking"

                  by word of mouth and through their social media.

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