SCRIPTURES                  

SCRIPTURE  (Acts)

-Athens had been the home of the great philosophers from Socrates to Plato.  The great dramatists Aeschylus, Sophocles and Aristophanes wrote there magnificent works here.  Theirs was a golden culture, perhaps the most shining society the world has ever known.

-In the language of theology, this way of understanding God is known as panentheism. The Greek roots of the word explain its meaning: pan (everything) en (in) theos (God). We are in God. We live and move in God. God is not someone "out there," but a presence all around us. Thus, it matters that the Bible also describes God as the encompassing Spirit. This way of understanding God does not create the intellectual problems generated by supernatural theism. Furthermore, this way of imagining God sees God as close at hand, right here, as close to us as our own breath. It sees the religious life not as believing in a God who may or may not exist, but as entering into a relationship with the God who is "right here." Borg

-"the unknown god" that nevertheless inspires altars – the unknown that might stand for the unanswered questions, the inexpressible longing for the transcendent, the spiritual hunger that every human being experiences  Samuel

-  Paul could have asked,  "Do your gods know you?"   lindy

-The problem isn't that we don't believe in God...it's that we believe in too many gods

-Sometimes I feel like a motherless child," wails the spiritual, "a long way from my home." It is part of the human journey, this feeling of loneliness and separation.

-Orphanos is translated as "comfortless, fatherless, bereaved, or orphaned."

-Four centuries had passed since Socrates had stood where Paul now stood

-It was as if Paul said to them, "You have looked everywhere for God, but have not found him.  God is nearer than you thought.  You have looked everywhere and missed him."

- That God that is unknown is not out there but in here!  Lindy

-  ·  Jesolatry (crosses around our necks)  another idol.?

-'For we too are his offspring.'"  Greek poet Aratus

-"For 'In him we live and move and have our being'; (VS 28) Greek poet,  Epimenides.

-G. Campbell Morgan sums up Paul's message this way, "If you really want to find God, do not degrade yourselves in erecting images of gold and silver.  Listen to the deepest fact of your own being; be silent in the presence of the mystery of what you are; and then look out beyond to that unknown God whom I declare to you."

-Are we any different from the Greeks?  Ours too is a golden age ? computers, space travel, techniques in medicine the world never dreamed of, engineering feats it never believed possible.  And we too are looking for ultimate value, for God.  We try pleasure, drugs, business, everything ? always looking, looking, looking for what will satisfy the God-shaped longing in our hearts.  So near we could touch it, if we only knew, if we only realized. Mickey Anders

GOD:  HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

-Don't worship the God of other people's opinion.  Mc Williams

- Does your god know you?

-Joan Osborn's Rock tune "What if God were one of us?"

-Any God I ever found in church, I brought with me.  Color Purple

-for God is always future    needing to be born." Meister Eckhart

-The indwelling spirit Paul

- we are God’s conduits

-All relationships are ultimately a relationship with God. Chopra

-Bidden or not bidden, God is present. Carl Jung

-God defined is God finished.  Fosdick

-God is the inward light Quaker    

- God is hidden in plain sight.  Not so much in this book (Bible) nor in this building (Church) but  hidden within the hearts of all of us....hidden yes, but in plain sight.   Lindy  

-Profound things are "hidden in plain sight" (gravity, spirit, love, God) simple, in us, close by 

-To be closer to God, be closer to people. Gibran   

-We experience God in three ways: as something beyond; something among something within Buechner

-Your God is too small. J.B.Phillips  

-You cannot define God, you can only experience God.   Spong

SCRIPTURES  (John scripture)

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- I am in the Father, and the Father is in me, and you in me (vv. 11 and 20). Christ makes us enter into the divine family. Thus, we no longer speak of approaching God as if he were far from us. We no longer feel as if God were a single person in front of us. We enter “into” the mysterious life of the divine Persons who share every­thing and who are the one and only God. Material things cannot penetrate each other; but in the world of the spirit such is possible. Christ is in the Father and the Father in him. They make their home within us (v. 23). Wesley White

-Part of the Easter mystery is the business of not recognizing in the present what is already here. For whatever reason those near and dear to Jesus don't recognize him.  The importance of the spiritual disciplines to practice seeing the presence of GOD cannot be overstated. Until then we live in a hope of someday seeing and living. Wesley White

-John composed these parting words with more than the immediate disciples in mind. Do they not still make sense and help people make sense of their tradition? William Loader

-What does it mean to have a relationship with Jesus in his absence? That was a question for John's first readers and for us today. One answer is that while Jesus may be absent, God is not.  Stoffregen

- There's a difference between being alone and being all alone. You can be alone in a crowd. That's what I mean by being all alone.

-  -God comes to us at time we least expect  through people we least expect , in ways we least expect 

-We are all sparks of the Divine flame. -Hildegard of Bingen

- If you stand on six inches of rubber, 5,000 volts will refuse to go through you. Spirit is like that, will not work unless it can move through you.

-The word Paraclete has been translated as Comforter, Helper, Counselor, and Advocate

. No single translation captures all the aspects of the Christian meaning of the word and so we will use the transliterated Greek form, paraclete.  The word paraclete in Greek is composed of two roots that would mean "one called to your side." It was used to describe a person who stood up with another who was on trial or under pressure. It was not a lawyer in the sense that we now think of lawyers or advocates; the paraclete didn't speak to the judge, s/he spoke with the person on trial encouraging and helping them through it. Roger Hahn

-"They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me." I have those commandments; does trying count?  need to understand that I do live and move and have my being in God's love, whether I feel it or not. God is not revealed one moment and absent the next. Known or unknown, God remains the Ground of my being.  Sojourners

-We never face our troubles alone. Our main advocate, the Holy Spirit, is always with us, helping us

-The Spirit/Counselor does not make decisions for you.  Sometimes, that is just what we want; we want God to make the decisions for us, especially difficult decisions.  Rather, God is the “paraclete,” who comes to our side and gives us the strength and new resources and new insights, so we can make difficult and painful decisions. But the Spirit/Counselor does not solve our problems or make decisions for us.  Nor does any good counselor. Edward F. Markquart

-The church is the counseling community, counseling us in the ways of God and the way of love.

-Christ left us that He may never leave us

-This issue at heart is not living the “perfect life” but living the “perfectly focused” life.  Jerry Goebel
 

QUOTES

-Tower of Babel (God comes to us, not the other way around)

-Man has cosmic companionship. Martin l.King Jr.

-Thomas Aquinas wrote, "We remain joined to Him as to one unknown."

-"Remember, you are the offspring of God!"  Paul

-"from God, in God, and to God again!"  Presbyterian

-Spirit is another word for "God Present" (Tillich)

-God does for me what I can't do for myself

-Profound things are "hidden in plain sight" (gravity, spirit, love, God) simple, in us, close by

-“You in me - I in You” as a mantra

-The spirit never leaves....is simply overlooked.

-Spirituality is for the hatching of the heart Allen Jones

ILLUSTRATIONS  

-What We Can Learn from Dogs,"  If you can't get an illustration out of this.....well.....

-iiving in rural Washington we have a saying about “Cowboy wanna-be’s.”  We say they are “all hat and no cows.”  Does that symbolize my faith?  Am I an obedient Christian or am I all hat and no cows?  You have to put Christ’s commands to work in your life to experience his fullness.  To Christ, obedience faith is love enacted; do I have obedient faith? Gerry Goebel

-To use the analogy of marriage for a moment, Christ’s physical presence among the twelve had been something like an engagement. The departure or going of the Lord meant an end to this kind of relationship. But it also brought about a marriage, in which a much fuller and more permanent union would be accomplished Bob Deffinbaugh

-In the yellow page of a telephone book, you can find marriage counselors, wedding counselors, guidance counselors, drug counselors, sex counselors, vocational counselors, rehabilitation counselors, and school counselors.  In the newspaper the other day, I saw an ad for a car counselor. You can listen to the lawyer, Bruce Williams, to counsel you about law, or you can listen to Dr. Laura for all kinds of personal advice

-“What is the purpose of a good counselor?”  He answered:  “A counselor tries to facilitate growth.  He/she tries to enable a person to grow.  We all have blocks in our paths to maturity.  We all have blocks to growth such as painful, early childhood trauma with parents or persistent personality problems or addictions or embarrassing personal habits that prevent us from growing into God’s fullness for us. A counselor helps remove those blocks.  Like when a person has a blood clot in the leg, medication may be given to dissolve that block.  So a counselor works with the client to help dissolved those blocks that prevent them from growing. A counselor does not solve problems for people, but helps them grow stronger so they can solve their own problems.  A counselor does not make hard decisions for people but helps them become strong so they can make their own choices.”  [The Greek word for “counselor” is “paraclete]

-Story about a movie set in Hollywood set up to look like a real gas station.   Someone pulled up so the actors played along with them and pretended to fill up car, cleaned windshield, etc. The sad part is the man thought he had a full tank, even when he did not and figured the gas gauge was broken.  

-The Paraclete is not a little yellow bird. Paracletes are not those things on the bottom of football and baseball shoes.

-(true but funny) Celtic Christians chose the wild goose as a symbol representing the Holy Spirit.  A wild goose is one noisy, bothersome bird.  I like this image of the Holy Spirit as a wild goose because it jars us out of our complacency. 

--O God, if there is a God, save my soul, if I have a soul, so I can go to heaven, if there is a heaven.”   

CHILDREN   

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