54 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
54 lines
4.9 KiB
Markdown
Hi Father,
|
||
|
||
- enjoyed book
|
||
- vision of the New Jerusalem vs disembodied heaven
|
||
- also been reading on Regen Ag more and more
|
||
- obviously, something needs to change
|
||
- attraction to the priesthood:
|
||
- what
|
||
- attraction to farming:
|
||
|
||
|
||
My reaction is the same as that of the physicist Niels Bohr...: "You probably think these ideas are crazy," ; Bohr replied: "I do, but, unfortunately, they are not crazy enough."
|
||
|
||
"The machine imagination of reality dominates" - no room for the immaterial/spiritual
|
||
|
||
What's most relevant?
|
||
- I am attracted to the message you preach
|
||
- The vision of the New Jerusalem
|
||
|
||
======
|
||
|
||
I am grabbed by the conception of the Heavenly Jerusalem.
|
||
|
||
The most compelling and astonishing thing you write is on page 120:
|
||
|
||
Firstly, we must try to get our heads around the fact that the Creator intends to heavenize Planet Earth — yes, the biosphere, and not just humans. I can empathize with your astonishment. We moderns don’t think of the end of history in this way. Our imagination is of an otherworldly, ethereal, “spiritual” hereafter with Earth thrown on the junk heap of history. We plan on going “upwards” to Heaven, abandoning the ship of this world. Far from our thoughts is what John describes: “the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God” (Rv 21:10), a fact which he repeats in Revelation 22 to make sure we get the message. Even the visionary was apparently so hurled into numbing perplexity by what he saw that the angel had to assure him that what he was viewing was reliable (see Rv 21:5) and to urge him to start writing (Rv 1:19).
|
||
|
||
Our personal destination is the Heavenized Earth via Heaven. Although in the intermediate state between our death and the Second Coming of Jesus, God’s plan is for us to “go up to” Heaven — this is not the final place of arrival. It will be a stopover. Heaven at the end of history will be amalgamated with Planet Earth, utterly transforming it. Therefore, salvation is, as N. T. Wright, explains it, “not rescue from the present world, but rescue and renewal within the present world.”447
|
||
|
||
Paul Kingsnorth recently gave [a talk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3hMSZqatHI&t=1690s) at First Things titled "Against Christian Civilization" that is quite compelling, and I might (hastily) summarize his point: Christian Civilization should not be a conscious goal to strive towards (when it is, it ends up being weaponized), but at its best, is a natural outflowing of striving to adhere to the commandments that God has revealed to us. The Q&A afterwards was particularly interesting; with the final crux: The Heavenly Jerusalem is given, not built by us; the New Jerusalem comes down to meet and save us - it is not us reaching upwards.
|
||
|
||
I don't think this is contrary to what you write. But so much talk about civilization and the fruits of following God can tempt us into idolatry of these things - whether this be created human culture, or even nature-worship.
|
||
|
||
I ponder what our role is here, ultimately. We live in exciting times. Just as you write about new developments in physics that better align with God's ways, it appears that this growing sphere of "Regenerative agriculture" better understands and interacts with land, biology, community, economy in Godly ways:
|
||
- Understanding that everything is interwoven and interconnected
|
||
- Understanding that the complexity of the world is far beyond our understanding
|
||
- Recognizing that there is an inherent goodness in the given biology of the world that we are to shepherd, not just dominate and extract value from
|
||
|
||
For all of this I am still left wondering where I fit in to everything. I grew up on our farm. I went to school for engineering. I do have a 'knack' for design. I worked in industry for a few years. Everything felt wrong. I came back here to the farm. The prescriptive machine thinking prevails here just as much. I am growing out of it intellectually, but unsure how to materialize this.
|
||
- I may be able to steer our farm away from current practices towards biological ones
|
||
- I may be able to build something new within our farm's shell
|
||
- I may leave to start a different farming operation
|
||
- I may find more engineering work that helps this regenerative agriculture sphere
|
||
- I may abandon it all for a life of religion
|
||
|
||
This last option confounds me. It comes up to me in times and places. But mostly when I'm "fed up" with the world.
|
||
- I enjoy wrestling with and discussing ideas, especially philosophy and theology
|
||
- I believe I possess most basic seeds for such a calling, although wise judgement / discernment seems to be a weak point of mine
|
||
- I enjoy "roughing it" and desire to live in a radically different way
|
||
- I am, when I have clear direction, energetic
|
||
|
||
Back to Kingsnorth. What is our role? Is it to build something that emulates God's ways here and now by obeying His commandments? Or is it to prepare ourselves for the coming down of the New Jerusalem? Are these the same thing?
|
||
|
||
Do I re-attend to the garden here and now? Or wait for the new one to come? |