Your commitment to your mission is very inspiring. We each have our unique missions to follow at this critical point in time. Blessings to you with your mission.
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Living in and among us all, if we look within in peace.
Praises and thanks to you Eko. May you be truly blessed for bringing me closer to Jesus and reinforcing my love for God's unfathomably beautiful and complex creation.
Jesus also said "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The Church consists of the people of God, not buildings or power structures. The best examples are the underground church groups under persecution around the world. They are growing while ones in the West are shrinking.
As a self-declared and discovered "Freelance Christian", this resonates with me. With eight years of Jesuit education, I saw them/us as some sort of "Pioneering Thought Leaders" for The Church, even though I was not a REAL Believer. Yes, I knew about the historical Jesuits in Europe, but I am talking about the American Jesuits.
My God - Fauci Professorships at Georgetown, Fauci buildings at Holy Cross, and don't get me started on the money loving Jesuit at Boston College who mandated women to take Covid shots that are clearly damaging women and their reproductive abilities. At least call for some REAL studies of what we have done.
Enough!
Mike Sweeney
Boston College 1984
"I was supposed to have been a Jesuit priest or a Naval Academy grad" Jimmy Buffet
I have been fortunate to have tremendous blessings through my membership in churches across several (Protestant) denominations. Not to deny that being too comfortable can be a trap, or that complacency is a virtue, but those were years I put my family first. I always felt as a wife and mother that was my calling. But my faith has always been personal and my beliefs unwavering. I pray every churchgoer and non-churchgoer can find a similar path to the one true Father in heaven.
I love much of what you right but I’m by nature more like Joe Friday, from Dragnet - “Just the facts.” Therefore clarity is something I find to be important and sometimes your writing leave points unclear. Some of your comments (e.g., looking within for the Kingdom) sound very Gnostic. Are we “waking up” to understand some of the follies of the church over the centuries or to accepting the knowledge in the gnosis? As a reader and a fan of your writing I would love to see some clarity that shows your position anchored in orthodoxy rather than Gnosticism.
Thank you for the clarification. I agree with so many of the important points you raise. I love your art and writing style. It was simply the use of language that is open to a Gnostic interpretation that was a concern for me.
It is not fear of language, that I’m speaking of but rather the confusion that results when we use language that lacks clarity of meaning. For example when you just wrote about “the Father within” that introduces an idea foreign to Christian orthodoxy- that we are in-dwelt by the Father rather than by the Spirit. Both are God but the Father is not the Spirit.
From my frame, it's not confusion. Just continuity.
Jesus said, “The Father and I are one”, and also, “You will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
That points to something relational, indwelling, and deeply personal.
When I speak of the Father within, I’m referencing that sacred fragment of divine origin that invites us into direct relationship. Not in place of the Spirit, but alongside it. A fuller view. A family structure, not a flat schema.
Sometimes what sounds foreign is simply older than the categories we’ve inherited.
I understand the concern for precision.
But sometimes we can miss the forest for the grammar.
Those of us who tend to see patterns need to guard against apophenia. There is also a danger of assuming that just because an idea is older than Christianity that it is therefore correct. For example the idea of the Godhead as a divine family predates Christianity.
The Bible speaks of the Father and the Son so that language could support that older idea or the position of Christian orthodoxy that those titles describe relationships within the Economic Trinity but they neither imply nor allow for ontological distinctions within the Godhead because God is one.
The Father and Son are one, just as Jesus said but to speak of the Father within confuses the “persons” (distinct realities) within the Godhead.
If you rely on scripture for your understanding “honest Christianity”, you can’t elevate the red letters and toss the epistles. Intellectually dishonest.
Thank you Eko for another beautiful piece. Your work brings me great joy!
Your commitment to your mission is very inspiring. We each have our unique missions to follow at this critical point in time. Blessings to you with your mission.
Beauty. Simplicity. Truth. Your words are poetry.
Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. Living in and among us all, if we look within in peace.
Praises and thanks to you Eko. May you be truly blessed for bringing me closer to Jesus and reinforcing my love for God's unfathomably beautiful and complex creation.
Jesus also said "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." The Church consists of the people of God, not buildings or power structures. The best examples are the underground church groups under persecution around the world. They are growing while ones in the West are shrinking.
Wonderful.
Yes! Exactly correct!
“One of the main functions of organized religion is to protect people against a direct experience of God.”
- C. G. Jung
As a self-declared and discovered "Freelance Christian", this resonates with me. With eight years of Jesuit education, I saw them/us as some sort of "Pioneering Thought Leaders" for The Church, even though I was not a REAL Believer. Yes, I knew about the historical Jesuits in Europe, but I am talking about the American Jesuits.
My God - Fauci Professorships at Georgetown, Fauci buildings at Holy Cross, and don't get me started on the money loving Jesuit at Boston College who mandated women to take Covid shots that are clearly damaging women and their reproductive abilities. At least call for some REAL studies of what we have done.
Enough!
Mike Sweeney
Boston College 1984
"I was supposed to have been a Jesuit priest or a Naval Academy grad" Jimmy Buffet
I have been fortunate to have tremendous blessings through my membership in churches across several (Protestant) denominations. Not to deny that being too comfortable can be a trap, or that complacency is a virtue, but those were years I put my family first. I always felt as a wife and mother that was my calling. But my faith has always been personal and my beliefs unwavering. I pray every churchgoer and non-churchgoer can find a similar path to the one true Father in heaven.
WELL DONE, based in TRUTH
“He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love,”
I love much of what you right but I’m by nature more like Joe Friday, from Dragnet - “Just the facts.” Therefore clarity is something I find to be important and sometimes your writing leave points unclear. Some of your comments (e.g., looking within for the Kingdom) sound very Gnostic. Are we “waking up” to understand some of the follies of the church over the centuries or to accepting the knowledge in the gnosis? As a reader and a fan of your writing I would love to see some clarity that shows your position anchored in orthodoxy rather than Gnosticism.
Not drawing from Gnosticism. Not referencing hidden knowledge, nor rejecting the material world.
I’m working within what Jesus said openly: that the kingdom is near, even within.
That core idea predates church structures, and I’d argue, transcends them.
My aim isn’t to obscure with mystery, but to name what’s been buried in plain sight.
Amen! Buried in plain sight… buried in ritual, expectations, and complacency. The root of our faith is Jesus in us and His Word.
Thank you for the clarification. I agree with so many of the important points you raise. I love your art and writing style. It was simply the use of language that is open to a Gnostic interpretation that was a concern for me.
I’ve found that truth shows up in many places.
Sometimes, even, in language we’ve been taught to fear.
I’m not drawn to systems. I’m drawn to fruit.
If something leads to love, freedom, and alignment with the Father within, I pay attention.
It is not fear of language, that I’m speaking of but rather the confusion that results when we use language that lacks clarity of meaning. For example when you just wrote about “the Father within” that introduces an idea foreign to Christian orthodoxy- that we are in-dwelt by the Father rather than by the Spirit. Both are God but the Father is not the Spirit.
From my frame, it's not confusion. Just continuity.
Jesus said, “The Father and I are one”, and also, “You will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.”
That points to something relational, indwelling, and deeply personal.
When I speak of the Father within, I’m referencing that sacred fragment of divine origin that invites us into direct relationship. Not in place of the Spirit, but alongside it. A fuller view. A family structure, not a flat schema.
Sometimes what sounds foreign is simply older than the categories we’ve inherited.
I understand the concern for precision.
But sometimes we can miss the forest for the grammar.
Those of us who tend to see patterns need to guard against apophenia. There is also a danger of assuming that just because an idea is older than Christianity that it is therefore correct. For example the idea of the Godhead as a divine family predates Christianity.
The Bible speaks of the Father and the Son so that language could support that older idea or the position of Christian orthodoxy that those titles describe relationships within the Economic Trinity but they neither imply nor allow for ontological distinctions within the Godhead because God is one.
The Father and Son are one, just as Jesus said but to speak of the Father within confuses the “persons” (distinct realities) within the Godhead.
❤️❤️❤️ this!
by grace, through faith in Christ
1 corinthians 15 1-4 amen
G-d’s plan —we just need to SEE it and embrace it.
If you rely on scripture for your understanding “honest Christianity”, you can’t elevate the red letters and toss the epistles. Intellectually dishonest.
why does your soul assume bad faith?
Whaaaat?