Tom's Northwest Passages

Most of my problems in life have come from poor self-management, from a lack of balance, and from desires out of control. Over the years, I have become somewhat healthier, mentally, physically, and spiritually, by keeping, as best I can, the following counsel: *Detach from all outcomes, from having to have it a certain way. Relax and let God's will be done. completely surrender to God. Let go of any fear or worry. All will be well. *Give up the demand for clarity, for everything to make sense, to meet your own criteria of what is acceptable or right. Be faithful to what you know and do good work anyway, even if you can't see the larger picture. *Detach from judgment, evaluation, and criticism of others or yourself. If there is a problem, God will take care of it. Stop trying to manage the universe. *Don't complain and don't explain. Trust God to work things out if they need to change. Self-defense is unnecessary and counter-productive. *Let it be. Accept what is, withou...

The Presentation of God in the Book of Revelation Prof. Thomas F. Johnson George Fox University [This "paper" is part of a larger project I am working on - the presentation of the character of God in the Bible. There is a lot of diversity in the Bible's presentation of who God is and what God does. It cannot all be easily reconciled. We should expect this, given the long time frame over which the biblical documents were written and the various viewpoints represented by their writers. Revelation was written by and for a Christian community undergoing intense suffering in the Roman province of Asia, probably at the end of the first century A.D. They, through their author, the prophet John (probably not an apostle), represent God in a way that supports their need for a divine deliverer who will vindicate them and judge their enemies, if not in this life, then in the life to come. Revelation is nothing like the book portrayed in recent best-selling popular fiction. For an ana...

United Airlines Flight 232 – 7/19/89 Apricot chicken or seafood newburg, the flight attendant asks. I choose the chicken, Iowa boy no shoreline to the farm. But this bird can't fly either and I come home to rest among the corn.

Lettuce Lettuce she says contains a natural sedative inducing salad sleep in cal'rie wary dieters. I keep to burgers wide awake until I die. Norton Ford

Sacrament I see a sacrament in bread and wine and cheese and chocolate and good strong beer, all vehicles of godly grace which bring me cheer and join my soul to some most holy place.

The Sense of the Presence I know that the authority for the truthfulness of what I am saying here is shaky. It may seem to you completely insubstantial. You do not sense this Presence, and I am saying that I do, and you cannot know whether I am telling the truth, am mistaken, or am just nuts. Yes, it is what it is. I am testifying to my own experience as faithfully as I can. I do not know whether you can connect with it. I hope you will think about it, because it is a very good thing, perhaps, you may feel, too good to be true, just so much wishful thinking. I respect that, but I can tell you that it doesn’t seem like wishful thinking. When I engage in wishful thinking, there is a kind of emptiness to it, a sense of fantasy, like thoughts that have no foundation, mere hypotheses not yet tested by experience. It might be fun, but I know that it is a game, a game I am generating. The Presence, though, comes to me, initiates Itself, confronts me, “plays” me. This very moment, at 5:33 AM, ...

The Presence I have the sense that our lives are surrounded at all times by a personal, benevolent, loving Presence, a Presence that is pure, right, or true and that sees and knows. I can no more deny the reality of this Presence than I can the reality of my own existence. The sense of it is just as real. I got up at 3:45 this morning to write this. I felt that I wanted to get up, that I was free to, that it would be good to record this observation, this sense I was experiencing and that is really the truth about what I always experience or feel. This Presence leaves me with many questions, but there is a sense of joy that we get to have questions and that asking them is also all right. It is a good and natural thing, not to know and, therefore, to ask. But the not knowing is itself also just fine. One can rest in not knowing. How It is for me I say that I sense this, but I am also saying that I think that it is true for everyone in the world, all humans. Not that everyone senses it, o...