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MY
SUNDAY JOURNAL
By Dalton Roberts
An IPS Feature
10-13-02
IS GOD JUST LAW?
I take a magazine and enjoy it but the main emphasis is that God is Law.
While that is one helpful hook, it doesn't really fit most of my
experience.
Christian Science has seven synonyms for God that I find helpful: Life,
Love, Principle, Truth, Soul, Spirit and Mind.. I am also indebted to
Christian Science for revealing God as Mother as well as Father. Are you
aware that the word "Spirit" throughout the Bible is feminine
in gender? The patriarchy in the early church caused us to "fatherize"
God. Still, none of these really capture what I feel. None completely
fit my own experience.
While I agree with Al Harvey that the best thing about Jesus was he gave
God a human face, God as a Person is too limiting a concept to convey
all the spiritual juice we need for living..
There are over 1700 names for God among all the world's cultures and
peoples. Surely each person should come up with those that have the most
reality for them.
The concept that carries the most meaning for me is God as a Presence.
An ever-present, ever-available living Presence.
What concepts do you find most helpful?
PORKLEY AMIL GUSTAFSON IV
I have never been able to paint or draw recognizable things, except for
Porkley Amil Gustafson IV. One day while working in my journal, he just
came over me. He wanted to be born so I drew him right there in my
10-11-88 journal page. He is my only decent drawing.
Porkley may have been "overweight" to other people, and looked
like a pig, but to himself he was one beautiful creature. And he told
you so. He said, "I look really good and I have a marvelous
personality."
His advice was, "Believe in yourself so strongly that it totally
discourages all would-be detractors. Have adamant self respect."
I love that phrase, "adamant self-respect"!
When I get to thinking I am not so hot, or someone severely criticizes
me, I call on Porkley. I go back and look him up in my journal and stare
into his eyes until his adamant self-respect infuses me.
Get in touch with your "inner character." Draw him or her.
Don't tell me you can't because if I can draw Porkley, anyone can draw
their own personal inner character.
Porkley makes me laugh but he has so much self-confidence it rubs off on
me. No force on this planet can take him down. You could hit him upside
the head with a sledgehammer and he would never blink his eyes.
Hail Porkley Amil Gustafson IV!
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