Or is each box like a egg crate with partitions within the box. It seems really constraing to me. there is no place for the Spirit to move.

My box is the biggest box possible, and is also beyond all boxes: the totality of being, in a unitive state of synthesis.

Darn,

I was hoping CH had some new church growth plan, just open the box and let it go!

Show others how they put things into boxes and then, with this, let them loose to experiment/experience.
 

So then, they can see how people's boxes are constructed and intentionally created. Or what would happen if there is no Box. Or if there is a large egg carton of boxes. Or what happens when two opposing boxes come into contact with one another.

They then can stop being fearful and feeling overwhelmed by boxes that they think exist totally independently of them. They have a role in the creation of the box. And they can have FUN with the box. Mark it with crayons, add some tassles, cut a few holes for doors and windows...

Just a Self-writing poem,
Inannawhimsey

Hi crazyheart,

Reminds me of the emporer's new clothes.

If you can stuff it in a box it isn't God you are.

Grace and peace to  you.

John

Hi Inanna:

When Schrödinger's Cat was let out of the box, and Pandora's box opened, our universe became quite boxless, eh?

Now we are free to create any box we want, or just live in a boxless universe.

Thanks be to God!

Hello Great Postmaster,

All Praise the Great Boxmaker, in all of ITs endless names, UPS and Canada Post and DX Services and FedEx...

All Praise the Holy Phrases, "Neither rain nor snow nor sleet...", "Please return to sender", "SASE", "No Return Address"...

A-MEN!

A-WOMAN!

Just a Self-writing poem,

Inannawhimsey

Arminius

One day we are going to have to discuss why we have this facination with this one , particular cat???

IT

Russ

There are many possible responses to this. Here's some I brainstormed just now:

"God is in the box and so are we. Let's learn more about both God and the box."

"We put God in a box with our dogmas and doctrines. Let's take him out and let him go free."

"God is the box that we dwell in."

Not sure which one I want to discuss right now. I'd say that they are all valid images that I could preach on given enough time to think them through.

I also like InannaWhimsey's line about having fun with the box. We are not Created, but Creators and should be creative with our box(es).

Mendalla

Mendalla - good thoughts.

Hi Russ:

When Schrödinger's cat was let out of the box, the bottom dropped out of the universe, and we became free to create IT.

This does not mean there is no objective reality, but the objective reality has collapsed into the empty set of Null, and whichever way we conceptualize IT is the way IT is.

In other words, reality is in an ultimate state of nonduality, or synthesis. And the analysis or conceptualization thereof is, within limits, our arbitrary creation.

Schrödinger's cat liberated humankind from conceptual bondage.

Quite a cat, eh?

Above: not a tile to cover your head.

Below: not an inch of ground to stand on.

-Ancient Zen proverb

No one to ask,

Nowhere to turn,

Nothing to go by.

Only cherryblossom petals dancing in the spring breeze,

And miracle upon miracle unfolding on Earth.

-Arminius

Arminius

So how do release the cat that is trapped in the Bible?

I get the impression we are born outside the box, and through our education system, we end up being enclosed.  It is so easy to believe in dragons (the pink Chinese friendly ones, Puff variety) when you are young!

IT

Russ

Yes, Russ, we are born boxless, and then the social process boxes us in. But it is just as easy to become boxless again—if we don't believe the boxes that confine us to be absolutely true.

Rather than liberating us from our boxes—which should be the function of religion—traditionalist religion has rigidified them. Leading edge science has done a much better job liberating us from our conceptual prisons than traditionalist religion.

Progressive, postmodern religion is trying to remedy that, and Schrödinger's cat and the Bible are now united in an uneasy truce (truth? :-)

Greetings!

God, and all we know and understand, is in our own personal box.  If a person's understanding of God is small and narrow hence will the box be.  If a person's understanding of God is not as limited hence will the box be.  The more we allow ourselves to understand and know God the larger our box will be.  As we become more open and encompassing so will the box we see God in.

Hope, peace, joy, love . . .

Sounds like a chant "there is no box, there is no box...."

IT

Russ

With respect, I must beg to differ and say that we are born with some "boxes". Perhaps not as many as the ones we create and enter through social conditioning and experience through life, but we have boxes nevertheless. These boxes are an inherent part of being human and human limitations.

Maybe God does fit "in a box". If, for all practical purposes, we will never be able to comprehend the nature of this box, does that still make God omnipotent? I would think so.

Kappa

That would be my interpretation.  I was ignoring the boxes we have to have as mortal beings, and was thinking of the boxes we build ourselves.

Perhaps God is the box and the content.  We are in the box and therefore we are part of God.  We are in the box and therefore God is part of us.  Back to the IT.  And science tells us we cannot see the edge of the Universe, therefore we cannot see all of God.  

IT

Russ

Hi Kappa:

By "box" I mean the conceptual boxes that we create for ourselves, not the natural limitations of the natural world.

God, as the non-dualistic "boxless" universe, is beyound conceptualization. It can only be experienced, and is being experienced, when we refrain from conceptualizing.

That would make God omni-everything: The ultimate box: The boxless box.

Perhasp the box is like the cat. Both box and not box, a changling.  Something not to grasped.

IT

Russ

Yes, Russ, the boxless box (True to the Kosmic Spirit of Non-Duality :-)

I was having coffee with a First Nations person at an event. He said,"You know, you white people put everything in boxes."It happened 15 years ago but I still remember the comment.

Remember the words to this song ?

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,¹
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
 

There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
 

And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
 

And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
 

There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

Malvina Reynolds songbook(s) in which the music to this song appears:
---- Little Boxes and Other Handmade Songs
---- The Malvina Reynolds Songbook
---- There's Music in the Air: Songs for the Middle-Young

Would "God in a box" all look the same?

I can't conceive of any box that could contain God.

A box suggests confinement and barriers - God is everywhere and His influence infinite.

It's mankind, through our history, that has often tried to confine God to a box constructed by us - not Him.

Sadly, sometimes that box has been the Bible.

Pilgrim

IMHO (there that means my comments aren't woth a pinch) we are talking mathematical set theory.

We have this infinite Kosmic GAIA called God, that we can't grasp.  So we take the parts we can grasp and put them into boxes of ticky tacky.  Some boxes overlap, some are by themselves.  But no single box, as you say, contains God.

And we argue, like the blind men describing the elephant, exactly what "our" supposedly perfect box contains.

Perhaps by stilling our minds, the box desolves and we start to sense the whole?

IT

Russ

Greetings!

I was thinking of that song, CH, I actually googled it because I couldn't remember all the words.

Hope, peace, joy, love . . .

When one grows and questions the box, fear is projected from self to the box and the box retreats ... like the containment of the soul. Where the swelling has bean. If one is really curious, are there no limits? That's light connecting mortal to the infinite ... both sides feel the tickle. Can't you hear the giggle around the bend?

Then some people can't believe in bent space and cannot accept flexible hearts and soft minds ... then perhaps they have no box at all to put their limited and warped thoughts into ... just because ... no reason for them to toss the metaphysical out of all space. They chose not to have it in theirs and become the outer walls of the box. Pan Door as ... always there a wee flaw in the sole of the shoe ... a hollow spot to store travelling dirt ... mother earth in space? Mir metaphor, or is that al-leg-orae up in thinking space? Some go completely on emotions without reason! IT/ID is all left to choice in how we create balance.

Express a thorn ... a barb of light to a hard sole ... is there reflection? Black Box Scenario states thet once the item comes to balance ... even a Black Box radiates! Doesn't Hawking's enigma ... hollow darkness throw Hawking radiation ... unseen light?

Ides a Black Ba'aL Game ... been there all of time to make physical creations question the interest and talents ... provide the blind entity some answers as IT functioned first on passion, a blind intuition ... fey word (ta,  Taos, th' Os eM silence of Love, {fey'th}). It responds patiently and kindly when things get too dirty ... ides a wash ... Ba'th'ZhiBa at the calm dead centre! You must be bumped back into play ... therefore the projection of a bump in the night ... hed less hors m'n! It-oo a blind act, like shimmy in a dampened cave ... plat eau-like splash the twin is bound in S'c-rat's ... gnawing curiosity of: "How did this happen; A'dam what did you do in the garden?" Then there was implosion, or was that explosion ... difficult to orient in abstract spactial mote. Wee things on the infinite ayin ... a curiosity in the hole thing?

"What did you find out there my child?" M'n in OT lingoes was non sect, a gift of flip flot in a wilder Ness! Anima (ID) and animus (IT, Egoes) in both male and female genre ... spiritual moving portion of the story. Then there are Ptolemies ... extremes of all proportions like stars of red, blue brun ... even Black Monsters ... real Pi-G's that'll contain anything as food for the mind! Are there cross-bred beasts of alter and super Egoests ... like red and yellow in a world that some take as black and white? That would just bleu the mind away in heavy henna .. brui-sing, painful story of initiation for the purely uninitiated to th' ought in the start? Id'll come in time'd Eire; sometimes does C doe, sometimes boque in Ire Ba'aL!

Then thoes outside the wah ... cannot ebb'n floe they get their back up over the oddest things not knowing that on the other side of the event horizon ... things are completely reciprocated as Sheme ... old word, expression for the emotions of neu-kid Gods when revealed w/o coven antes! Ruines bare down by the reeves ... weed oves in flight!

Will they ever understand that the story goes on and on? Gospel of John! Now if soul of humanity is the story and the Kor isle Eire holds true ... is the grass still damp ore'need of further whetting? Dulling the point to the other extremes of emotion? Don't yah love the softened light of a story over a brute point of T'Ruth?

IT snot a box but a dark sphere of har mon Ai ... well roun dein Tuition aL ite! Whine Os knows ... by sounding the waters!

People who are only religious at church/synagogue/mosque/et ceterea... <---God "In a box".

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

Yer lookin good out there Omni!

Sometimes, I think, the fear wins out. We are, after all, a species that found shelter in caves and danger in the open spaces.

I have yet to meet anyone who tries to keep God in a box (meaning limited to their particular interpretation) who did not exhibit symptoms of irrational fear - crystalline insistence of their "rightness", hysterical blindness to all reason, violent opposition to opposing opinion, withdrawal and retreat when they can't silence their critics, etc.

I like the metaphor from Edwin Markham's poem -

He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in!
--Edwin Markham

This is why I don't worry about the exclusives' perspective, at least in the sense of their own "well being". God's circle is so vast that we can't see the edges, let alone get "outside of it". And all of our own boxes, self created as they are, fit within quite handily.

In fact, I rather look forward to upending a few of those metaphorical boxes in the metaphorical hereafter, using them to hold up a round or two of something tall and cool, and shooting the breeze with some who are, for now, totally certain that their box is all there is or ever could be.

First one's on me. Long haired guy from the mid East offered to do refills

GR,

There is an old saying that salvation is within reason ... is that a logical light when threading (spel'lunk'n, be witch'n) dark caves (scull'n space)? {plat eau-nick whetted tongue in-cheek!} A Vi-Pur (pure notch in space of ancient runes)! Is'tar dust ancient ruins? How little we understand the metaphor we call mind/soul/psyche/Zhi-Qi/sigh-ques as a feather (phe th'Eire) touches the skin of a mortal brea 'n!

Now many think that Steven Hawking, as a scientist (observer of the infinite mysteries) is a non-believer. As a threshold event did he see reversion at the event horizon, a complete reciprocation in the mortal that causes them to have a close look at themselves Ba-red of coven ante (Ba-Carolle--- Van Goth')?

They do say we should take no regrets to the gre'vide side ... presently shadowed by overwhelming desire ... the fires of 'elle ... mother earth? Perhaps just a pyre of wish that Ur offspring would learn something before leaving T'Home. Yet gods will be demons when poorly lit (Eire Ayr'd) in function ... reuse, recycle, re diym in distant time.

Does the infinite have patience and a soft nature ... differential to m'n (the isolated gift, A'Don's) still in Easy Kells wee Isle of space? Is spatial mode still abstract Moe-Vin-Ein as one? That's integral space if the m'n portion could just see outside the blind Ness of a primal pas Zion ... you know ... ID/IT is convertable like light and River Maas in the nether lans; Riv-Ur Mid Night Tuson in the search ... for no thing ... ethes-ide of the shadow is clear ... space of thin King ... Joshua tri ... ragged prickly beast inna desert assigned symbol! The mind is to be handled gently as a Lam ... use caution for bolts ... as Zues without the Lam ... Is's in other word, Je sauce to others a pain in pas Zion existence? 'S malle potion contained ... you wouldn't believe the portion that wonders unconsciously to the bier ... brea're beast is unknown just dark space ... like the shadow of the mind wondering what wee qod pud Eire ... like Ire 'sh passions buried and able as the sibling we travel with ... UN acknowledged ... like Gnosis we know of.. the Epraim bit of infinite sole-ace ... Paris? Oenon! Is the mind a myth, just beyond physical reality: "Go just beyond the ble' Anne Isle stop and wait for you ..." First you must learn a touch of the spectrum of word ... Jeanne'v Arc, often known as common sense space .. you know m'e'me' in Dawkin Zoanian space!

It is required that we gives dues to Sagan for the mtythical Contact with Einstein's Philadelphia Experiment ... denied by western militant powers! IT's all outside of a churches fixation with what they believe they know but don't even acknowledge the initiation ... emotivation blind pas Zion! After this pellen the light comes on in the sephia'nthe daze! Many that follow the monad of Love ... hate to see the bore of clear space capture them. Is that Pi-ETei ... like an infinitely upstanding pole with a light over head ... "i" ... sometime known as the square route of a negative Ein ... numina of the choc-O'late-king experience of ... Black Light? Remember it is most of the stuff of the spectrum ... a rae of the unknown is noah sum feet! Pudendah in Heb is the basis of learning something to travel on bear as Moses (muses) was/were told ... 100 is a community for Hebrew except for the lost one in a pocket of space .. sacre ble'?

Are there a remnant in church? Shuol iz: metamorphical Lite!  But they are like mice, poor phoqah trying to teach thy's elf-proclaimed A'dam that refuses to connect! A mind un whetted with waxen (that's old knowledge) is hard for ignatious (to light in Latin). A crossing of the flame with dark bitumen (Shem in Heb is an old form of God) ... love burns on its own fuels/fools without heft ... a lift? Heliotrope is the da' Vinchi term ... upward spiral a sign of the ul-tim-ate philosopher's struggle to teach interest ... the desire to learn in  dumbeast ... the west never would assist as if they would lose some learning ... on the other side the toes't aches hold. The desert Don Quis win in the end!

There is a Celtic twist to this story of the contained, a song about a "Widow and  ... Ain't IT a Lovely Casket Mon?" I cannot give credit because I know knot where it cometh. Echoes of Mobius Dick by Melville, infinite humours of the pool of "c"? Luciferous pearls? (see my poem abot crypt of nite .. touch your toe gently to the waters above!)

Thank you my friend, ye be not looking too shabby yourself!

As-salaamu alaikum

-Omni

That "box" is the one the Bible comes in. Many cannot get past the image of God that is contained within that box. You could go to a book store, fill a bigger box with spiritual books, read them, and find out what God can really be.

Should we leave the box alone? - No!

I guess you can google anything!

Gotta say I liked Arminius' take on some stuff, but I'm thinking of the whole deal like "Schrödinger's faith", so to speak.  There may or may not be a box in our conception, but whether or not there is a deity isn't known until we open ourselves.

Discard our conceptual box and discover our divinity, eh, Feral?

James you and I are on the same page - no pun intended. 

I've been thinking about this very thing for a couple of days now.  Is God so small that the covers of a book can contain the whole?

I don't believe so and primarily because when I look out my window I see such diversity of life, new growth upon dead, minute by minute changes, that I can not conceive of reducing such wonders to something that can be closed and put on a shelf.  For me, Creation is infinite it did not stop thousands of years ago.

LB

You can tell the size of your God by looking at the size of your worry list. The longer your list, the smaller your God.     Author Unknown

Just think of God as a metaphor of unlimited perez of words ... unbridled except in the case of an injury to some one on the opposing dimension .. reverence of all is required.

Is God like the labrynith, catatonic of the brain ... Russ's metaphysical field of energy within the physical space ... brae in? Pauling Exclusion Theory ... yah can't have the same matter in the same space ... but can you have differentials as integrals ... that's w'ne dark sticky burred! It is the symbol of one Celtic sect ... that we call Th'istle ... a calm flowering ... it'still of spirit (wiz qui). Authority can't make d'mon stop thinking without fear to crowd out opposing spirits like a bump ona log ... or Bo^ish in a wilderness of empty space. There are many more examples of disrespect that you cannot use in truth ... but as metaphor; would knowit' aLs consider it shabby to point out how little we know of the hole' thing ... just a shadow of the extremes of sole ... singular satyr, shadow persona!

Is it all contained as multiple entendre in WORD? Who curtailed the process, burned the libraries 2000 years ago ... a militant sort who intended to rule what he couldn't as a man-God? He didn't know the bare essence ... the bit shared with his brea'n .. cave in flat out terms ... just whetted and waiting for total immersion in what? Light fluid ... wadis  thys?

Fluid thought goan ... love received in calm uni cation ... az ion reflection. Are there particles of opposite charge Russ? Perhaps creation put them in a small corner of space ... so they wouldn't disturb the greater har muon Ai! It is a odd story of charged space ... just look up on a cool, clear evening ... does such induce thoughts? 

Now consider the differences between a man that can whet his spirit with brew from the moor and one that realizes that the brew will control him if he doesn't know ... hymn's elf. Ai net a network of an unseed devil, making the Gods work at th' ink'n ... creating script-Ur ... she's a neat story eh ... scribbled in the clay tablet and bent all out of shape by rigid following of what was meant Toby X-Panned upon as correction to the flaws. The E'gib'n myth called Ur clay-O'pat-Os ... dirty toes but then you have to know the context of the Hebrew foot, foundation of life as a sighing in the willowing ... Tammy (de rivative of Tamar)! ID's a shadowy story in the light of Judah's actions.

As upset of the mind, is reversed satire ... completely reciprocal action given the nature of m'n to lock a female spook up in a stone hole ... dunne Gaia 'n. Conveerted it's: "Pyre in the Hole!" The Pi Lars of Joy will kill me eventually ... toys of the devil do one another in like wee soldiers of fortune ... just for the money, without theO (ought)?

WaterBuoy

Scrbbled in the tablet, and that's where it all started to go wrong. 

Up to then, it was a dynamic story told over a campfire. Suddenly, it was written in stone and not to be changed, for fear of God raining punishment on you.  Notice how the OT stories changed, morphed into NT stories, there was exploration in the study of God.  Suddenly, bam, in stone and this is the way it is going to be.

So not only do we have to Folow the Way, we have to get back to the ruts and explore what it all means.

IT

Russ

Yes, let's get back to the roots and start at circle one.

Yes you awe ... Wahls come tumbling down!

It all started when God's image failed to relate: "A'd'm, what did you do in there?" A'D'M; a secondary God had created passion from a primal desire ... and wouldn't tell. If we can't learn about extreme passions ... is IT all doomed to withdrawl (druid to) neither space ... netherlands ... Llanos?

Can a man be enlightened, lifted? ID comes across perverted like you're fallen ... thus DanTiyes perspective of the light of the mind ... he was there with Luciferous view ... that's ironic like buried's word ... wee, rusty, trapped in stone? Makes fer good casting of the script ... point to the penne I took? Indeterminate space to revolve about ... spiral of the philosopher's stone ... naughty lust Ur, beauty to look upon in the Bath ... ESE ain't eL Moes pyre! Burns in all of us if we can find the contained light.

The story is meant to be expanded ... like light in space ... infinitely and a mere man in the swim cannot do a thing but ponder; depth activites ... dun'ne?

I always envisioned "God in a box" as Chinese food take out. (Heavy on the chicken balls)

Retired Rev ...

That reminds me of Peter's denial ... deep henned rooster ... a bruised Coque St John in old tongues. There's no end of the eastern platter ... large feast compared to limited Christianity ... that needs freedom to expand inwardly ... not in conquest!

Could we stand some brightening as nude shine on the bra'sire ... a covered breast of God? My complements to Steinbecks Grapes of Rath .. or was that what God wrote in pas Zion. Nothing is script without primal emotivation!

retiredrev

I always find they are heavy on the batter, and light on the chicken.

IT

Russ

Human notions of GOD are what we put in boxes. The actual nature of GOD can never be boxed because it is hopelessly beyond our understanding. Churches and religions are man-made, but GOD is self-made. GOD, in His fullness, is utterly ineffable.

The Tao that can be written is not the true Tao ...

People who are only religious at church/synagogue/mosque/et ceterea... <---God "In a box".

Due to our nature as finite beings in a dualistically-perceived universe, humans need a box in which to put God. God is beyond dualism but we are not.

And the infinite goes on and on while isolated beans (Jack-Os) insist that IT/ID is just a concept of the mind which then tu ... is intimately bound. Like a hoo Dha in the night ... yah! Zhi's alwahs th'Eire waiting, just beyond the bleu .. in deis goes? Light pene treating the shadow of sole'ais!

Hi retiredrev:

How about an endless Chinese Box within a box within a box within a box, ad infinitum.