Leela Music Newsletter, October 2007Michael Stribling Here's an overview of what you'll find in this issue:
The international radio promotion for Another Day in Paradise starts November 1 and continues for the next two months. The CD is now available at CDBaby.com, Amazon.com, and iTunes, among others. Some reviews of the CD are now posted on the website, with others expected to arrive in a few days.
I recently taught a comparative religion course at a local university, and one of the students raised a question, based on something I said in class. I had suggested that God doesn't have human emotions, which are part of the human evolutionary package, and that, when we ascribe emotions like anger, or even love, to God, we are probably guilty of anthropomorphic projection (how's that for a 25-cent word?!). Basically, we perceive what we've experienced, or what we're capable of sensing, and we experience everything through the filters of our cultural setting (context). We can't directly perceive radio waves, or infrared light (although we have instruments that can), even though those realities exist, and that's because our human sensory apparatus is limited. Those realities are out there, but we can't apprehend them. And just as we can't perceive radio waves, because they're too far beyond the capacity of our sensory apparatus, we also can't perceive any spiritual reality that calibrates higher than our own level of consciousness. It's simply beyond our reach and our comprehension; at least it is at this point on the journey. We project onto the world (and God) our own inner experience, so if we have an angry, punitive daddy, we're going to believe in an angry, punitive God. It's just a law of "human physics". We necessarily perceive and interpret things from our own limited perspectives. The student asked, "but doesn't God have love?" In keeping with the above remarks (and analogies), whatever we mean by the word "love" may be quite different from how God/Creator/Higher Power understands it. For one thing, there are many kinds of love, even though English is limited to just the one word. By contrast, for example, in biblical Greek there are four words, as C. S. Lewis describes in his classic book, The Four Loves. Moreover, a four-year-old's definition of love would likely be different than an eighty-four-year-old's, based on their level of development and their life experiences. By extension, a person's level of consciousness (per David Hawkins' Map of Human Consciousness) will significantly influence a person's experience and understanding of the word "love" (along with influencing just about everything else in life). Just as the nature of consciousness changes as one moves up the scale of consciousness, so does the understanding of the nature of love. As we evolve as a species, love, and our understanding of it, has also evolved; however, we probably have a long way to go. Any attempt to project a human attribute onto God is both natural (human), and limited (inaccurate). God transcends human emotion, by quite a bit. May we consistently strive for higher levels of awareness and consciousness so that we may continue to grow, and love, and serve.
And while we're talking about God, and in the spirit of the above remarks about how we perceive (and misperceive) things according to our level of awareness, here's a fun little piece called "Child's View of the Bible": ============================================================ In the beginning, which occurred near the start, there was nothing but God, darkness, and some gas. The Bible says, "The Lord thy God is one," but I think He must be a lot older than that. Anyway, God said, "Give me a light!" and someone did. Then God made the world. He split the Adam and made Eve. Adam and Eve were naked, but they weren't embarrassed because mirrors hadn't been invented yet. Adam and Eve disobeyed God by eating one bad apple, so they were driven from the Garden of Eden. Not sure what they were driven in though, because they didn't have cars. Adam and Eve had a son, Cain, who hated his brother as long as he was Abel. Pretty soon all of the early people died off, except for Methuselah, who lived to be like a million or something. One of the next important people was Noah, who was a good guy, but one of his kids was kind of a Ham. Noah built a large boat and put his family and some animals on it. He asked some other people to join him, but they said they would have to take a rain check. After Noah came Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Jacob was more famous than his brother, Esau, because Esau sold Jacob his birthmark in exchange for some pot roast. Jacob had a son named Joseph who wore a really loud sports coat. Another important Bible guy is Moses, whose real name was Charlton Heston. Moses led the Israel Lights out of Egypt and away from the evil Pharaoh after God sent ten plagues on Pharaoh's people. These plagues included frogs, mice, lice, bowels, and no cable. God fed the Israel Lights every day with manicotti. Then He gave them His Top Ten Commandments. These include don't lie, cheat, smoke, dance, or covet your neighbor's stuff. Oh, yeah, I just thought of one more: Humor thy father and thy mother. One of Moses' best helpers was Joshua who was the first Bible guy to use spies. Joshua fought the battle of Geritol and the fence fell over on the town. After Joshua came David. He got to be king by killing a giant with a slingshot. He had a son named Solomon who had about 300 wives and 500 porcupines. My teacher says he was wise, but that doesn't sound very wise to me. After Solomon there were a bunch of major league prophets. One of these was Jonah, who was swallowed by a big whale and then barfed up on the shore. There were also some minor league prophets, but I guess we don't have to worry about them. After the Old Testament came the New Testament. Jesus is the star of the New Testament. He was born in Bethlehem in a barn. (I wish I had been born in a barn, too, because my mom is always saying to me, "Close the door! Were you born in a barn?" It would be nice to say, "As a matter of fact, I was.") During His life, Jesus had many arguments with sinners like the Pharisees and the Republicans. Jesus also had twelve opossums. The worst one was Judas Asparagus. Judas was so evil that they named a terrible vegetable after him. Jesus was a great man. He healed many leopards and even preached to some Germans on the Mount. But the Republicans and all those guys put Jesus on trial before Pontius the Pilot. Pilot didn't stick up for Jesus. He just washed his hands instead. Anyway, Jesus died for our sins, then came back to life again. He went up to Heaven but will be back at the end of the Aluminum. His return is foretold in the book of Revolution. ============================================================ Out of the mouths of babes ...
Every issue, I give away a free CD (autographed, of course :-). If you're on the mailing list, you're automatically entered in every drawing. This month, the winner is Francesca Lerma. Congratulations! ============================================================ That's it for this issue. Feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you liked, or didn't like, in this issue, and any recommendations or requests you have for future editions. Thank you for your support. Please invite your friends to visit my website and sign the guestbook. Oh yeah, it's okay to order some CDs, too! They make wonderful gifts :-). I also have a page on MySpace.com. Have a look and join the list of friends at www.myspace.com/leelamusic I wish you peace, joy, and love. Namasté, Michael Stribling If you would like to be removed from my mailing list, please reply to this email and type the word "unsubscribe" in either the subject line or the body of your reply. Leela Music Newsletters
|
