THE PRESENT, PAST AND FUTURE SELF

Your future is not written in stone.   Maybe that's a new idea for some.   I started thinking about this when I was reading the book of Revelation this morning in the Bible.    Chapter 1 vs 8 says,

"I am the alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was , and who is to come, the Almighty."

What we see expressed here is a continuity.    A continuous thread throughout history.  Something unchangeable.   A perfect and unwavering balance.   Now some people have used this to promote the idea of "predetermination" (a thinly-veiled religious disguise for fatalism).  But I wonder if its different.   As I've written in previous posts about Jesus teaching about the kingdom of heaven within, and living with God not for God... I think that our future is not predetermined and is in fact a distraction made popular by movies like "It's A Wonderful Life".

To quote a popular TV character from Star Trek: the next generation,

"I prefer to look on the future as something which is not written in stone. A lot of things can happen in 25 years." ~ Jean-Luc Picard.   

We can only live in the present and while our present is writing the future; the end is not written until we take our last breath.   So if the future is not yet written we still have a choice.   Every action, every thought, every word is only a pen-stroke in the story of our lives; a point along the golden thread that weaves through our lives.   This notion of continuity, a golden thread is actually a very old idea.  Is expressed in an ancient book of Confucian teaching called DOCTRINE OF THE MEAN, sometimes referred to as the "Golden Mean" or "Golden Path".   The purpose of the "mean" is to direct the mind to a state of constant equilibrium - a perfect balance.    Aristotle also addressed this in his book on Ethics, by describing the Golden Mean as that middle ground between two extremes.  Those extremes consist of excess and deficiency.  A popular example is the virtue of courage:  taken to extremes courage is manifest as recklessness, when there is a deficiency it is manifest as cowardice.   We need to find the balance in our lives.   And when our lives are filled with busyness we need to find time for stillness and meditation as a way of bringing balance to our lives.    Even the Christian philosopher, St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that Christian morality is consistent with this golden mean or the "middle way".  He wrote in his Summa Theologica that 

"evil consists in discordance from their rule or measure.  Now this may happen either by their exceeding the measure or by their falling short of it;...Therefore it is evident that moral virtue observes the mean." 

In short, the evil we do or that we observe in our world that is inconsistent with the morality and teachings of Jesus Christ is a result of either excess or deficiency - a falling off the golden path to one side or the other.   Going through life can be like a high-wire act sometimes - but the goal is to stay on the wire while crossing it.

Live in the present the way you want to live in the future.

If you are a follower of The Way, that will mean that you will be living, and seeking to live a life of harmony and brotherly love for, and with, all humanity even when others may not support you or agree with you - even when others may attempt to undermine you or even bring you harm (physical, mental, emotional, spiritual).

Well that's all I have for now.   What started out as just a snippet of an idea for this post has grown into a full-fledged article.   Feel free to add your comments and ideas.  Thanks for reading.  Also just a quick word about this blog.  I have changed the format of this blog to only show one post at a time.   You can view and access older posts in the blog archive in the sidebar.  

mobius faith

Here is a nice jazz piece by Andy Summers called THE GOLDEN WIRE.   Enjoy.