… We confront an exceptionally proud lack of knowing things that truly matter. The ignorance delimits our collective’s sense of satisfaction to what can be achieved in a conceptual wasteland. The Old Testament calls it a “dry land” in which we abandon correct actions to play with the golden-calf. The narrative is similar to what happens when a well respected teacher is called out of the classroom for any extended period. Soon, the illusion of freedom presented to the immature evinces a natural tendency for exciting play in the wrong venue; which means that correct actions are never even tabled for sober consideration. To the contrary, folks who appreciate the mana of knowledge during our troublesome journey on earth eventually cross the Jordan of decision to become fruitful collectives the Bible calls “married lands”, meaning profitably joined to the Order of Divine Will:
“Thy land shall be no more termed waste, but thou shalt be called Hephzibah [my delight is in her], and thy land Beulah [married], for Jehovah delighteth in thee, and thy land shall be married (Isa. 62:4).”
Speaking specifically to Prophet Isaiah and his obedient church, which was certainly not all of Israel and can be likened to what evangelicals call the ‘Bride of Christ’; a metaphor that includes the prophet. This marriage allows such a collective to experience meaningful purpose in life. All else brings the same dissatisfaction that left an entire generation to die in Sinai’s wilderness of sin.
It seems to this writer that those who fail the test of mana in the wilderness will rule over sin till their term on earth is up. Cain and his brood of antinomians politically organized this way of death during the Silver and Bronze ages when agricultural collectives fertilized urbane greed, leading to the savage Iron Age of mass slaughter by vain empires (see Ovid’s Metamorphosis). Unabated carnage has continued by Muslims, Christians, and Jews who refused the lesson. Do the math, especially in contemporary Palestine. Ironically, even the Sinai is now off limits.
Manna eaters legitimately betroth themselves to a daily fare of Truth in a tabernacle where wind (ruh/mariah) and clarified waters of inspiration cause the milk and honey of human kindness and decency to flow for everyone, and not just their own kind. It reminds me of the Golden Age before the fall, a time when rape and murder apparently had no words in any language. Corrected translations of extremely suspect Gospels call Jesus the ‘way to truth’ or Messiah. Calling him “God” is a pure interpolation that stands fast with ancient imagination of divinely inseminated ‘heroes’ who came to save everyone from stupidity.
Lao Tse soberly called our sojourn through the wilderness of sin the Dao. Thus, the processes that release us from the classroom include the following:
crucifixion: which is transformation or maturation of the Jungian shadow, followed by
resurrection or epiphany: which is the new birth, growth and spiritual development that follow a proper orientation to truth; and finally,
ascension to the only dominion of the soul that brings satisfaction.
This entire scheme is profoundly misunderstood and is why Jesus told the young man not to attend his father’s funeral but rather stay with him, saying: “Let the dead bury the dead” . . . the implication being a goodly number of us live and die a near meaningless life of desertification. Dali Painted it in two or three scenes with greater precision than any Cathedral made by misguided men in love with vain temples.
Maturity is a choice, not a religion.