Category: Personal Thoughts

A morning to reflect

The Sunday after Christmas and one wonders if people are here thinking of family, food, fun. Or, if they are reflecting on the wonder of words Jesus spoke, the majesty of his message and the wholeness of the teaching of love, peace, mercy, and friendship.

Instead, one is drawn to reflect on reality. A world divided along religious, racial and cultural lines. Be it right from left, liberal from conservative or male from female.

I was once told to never ask the WHY question.  Yet, it is this one question we each must consider when we think of the divisions surrounding us.

A new year is around the corner. The ability to change is inherent in all of us. the challenge is to put friendship and love first. Then we can think of bounty and the goodness of this earth.

First, we must put our mind to preserving the majesty of what the creator enabled.

Cryptocurrencies, Politics and the Future

A world of volatility and speculation

This morning hash rates, degrees of difficulty and the creating of derivatives to moderate the risk of Bitcoin mining drew me in.  Several years ago I was asked to participate in a fireside chat on Crypto-currencies at the Federal Reserve in Atlanta.

Blockchain A FireSide Chat

 

One of my concerns then and still today is the exponential growth in the cost of mining.  These charts offer a perspective on a concept called the Hash Rate, a measure of the work necessary to create a block. Clearly, as time marches forward, the work to earn the reward gets harder.  Thus creating a need to increase the fees charged to add a transaction within a block to the chain.

When people speak to the justification of Bitcoin they would speak to the reduction in cost.  Is this statement still valid?

Disruption, lies, and politics

While considering the potential of Bitcoin; the working of our government rambles on, as we consider the fate of the American President.  Lies, bribes, abuse, and obstruction seems to be the order of the day.

The division between political parties; drives division within families, cities, and two people sitting together over lunch creates animosity.

We are now a world driven to speculate or better said gamble while not wanting to find a gentle and graceful road to mutual satisfaction.

We need to reflect consider and potential restore faith in what is real, what is just and what is fair for all. 

Spending money on machines of war instead of investing in education and our environment makes no sense to this lone individual.  We need to once again seek peace and justice.

Identity – A Most Complex Thought

The idea of my identity, your identity, and our identity took me on a journey into social norms, physical realities, spiritual considerations, psychological consideration, and philosophy.  Starting with the classic approach of learning the definition of a word takes us to the dictionary.  What then assured the complexity of my quest is each of several definitions is similar, but, not the same.

I then found an interesting quote:

G.K. Chesterton once observed that the “special mark of the modern world is not that it is skeptical, but that it is dogmatic without knowing it.” His point was that moderns have forgotten that they are assuming what they believe to be a given. “In short,” he concludes, “they always have an unconscious dogma; and an unconscious dogma is the definition of a prejudice.”

With this thinking in mind on definition stood out:

identity n.

          1. an individual’s sense of self defined by (a) a set of physical, psychological, and interpersonal characteristics that is not wholly shared with any other person and (b) a range of affiliations (e.g., ethnicity) and social roles. Identity involves a sense of continuity, or the feeling that one is the same person today that one was yesterday or last year (despite physical or other changes). Such a sense is derived from one’s body sensations; one’s body image; and the feeling that one’s memories, goals, values, expectations, and beliefs belong to the self. Also called personal identity.
          2. in cognitive development, awareness that an object is the same even though it may undergo transformations. For example, a coffee cup remains the same object despite differences in distance, size, color, lighting, orientation, and even shape. Also called object identity.

I then thought of the various ways people expand on this word Identity and began to build a list.

        • Brand Identity
        • Cultural Identity
        • Digital Identity
        • Ego Identity
        • Emotional Identity
        • Ethnic Identity
        • Family Identity
        • Gender Identity
        • intellectual Identity
        • Material Identity
        • Moral Identity
        • National Identity
        • National Identity
        • Official Identity
        • Organizational Identity
        • Personal Identity
        • Physical identity
        • Political Identity
        • Psychology Identity
        • Racial Identity
        • Sexual Identity
        • Social Identity
        • Spatial Identity
        • Visual Identity

I am convinced my list is not complete.  What I can say is each item can be found in an article, definition or other written material produced by others.

As a final thought
Understand our identity leads one to wonder
“Who am I”
an Existential question
we each must answer for ourselves

Why do we humans ignore the instruction of the ages

John 23:1 Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD. 2 Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD. 3 Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the LORD. Woe to the shepherds {officials, kings, priests governors} who destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! says the LORD. 2 Therefore thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning the shepherds who shepherd my people: It is you who have scattered my flock, and have driven them away, and you have not attended to them. So I will attend to you for your evil doings, says the LORD. 3 Then I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the lands where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply. 4 I will raise up shepherds over them who will shepherd them, and they shall not fear any longer, or be dismayed, nor shall any be missing, says the LORD.

When I read this passage of today’s liturgy, I was drawn to think of the Shepperd as those responsible for leading and the sheep those who are led. If the shepherds seek to control Kajol and threaten the sheep with taxes, racist jargon or lies wind up with a tribe bent to the will of these malicious leaders who seek to profit from the efforts of others.

One is then drawn to ponder the colonial instincts of various nations to subjugate others to their will.

Tribalism, nationalism, and racism are all driven by greed, and a belief one is better than another.

A Nation Divided

Reviewing Facebook comments I worry for some who have lost sight of the center.  We as a country or maybe we as a globe appear to be splintering into two oppositional groupings.

Some simply brand the divide as the Right and the Left or the Liberals and the Conservatives.

With this in mind, we should look back in history. At 5 PM June 16th, 1858 Abraham Lincoln spoke in the Springfield Illinois Hall of Representatives.  He spoke of the issue of slavery yet if we reflect on the bigger issue he was also speaking to those who still insist on racial, religious or any other difference as reason for segregation.

If we delve back in time we find in Luke 11:17, Matthew 12:25 and Mark 3:25 writings of how Jesus spoke of a simple reality.  Every Kingdom or house divided against itself will be laid waste, become a desert, fall upon itself or will not stand.

We could read and listen to the lyrics of  Dave Mustaine.

Brother will kill brother
Spilling blood across the land
Killing for religion
Something I don’t understand
Fools like me, who cross the sea
And come to foreign lands
Ask the sheep, for their beliefs
Do you kill on God’s command?
A country that’s divided
Surely will not stand
My past erased, no more disgrace
No foolish naive stand
The end is near, it’s crystal clear
Part of the master plan
Don’t look now to Israel
It might be your homelands
Holy wars
Upon my podium, as the
Know it all scholar
Down in my seat of judgement
Gavel’s bang, uphold the law
Up on my soapbox, a leader
Out to change the world
Down in my pulpit as the holier
Than-thou-could-be-messenger of God
Wage the war on organized crime
Sneak attacks, repel down the rocks
Behind the lines
Some people risk to employ me
Some people live to destroy me
Either way they die, they die
They killed my wife, and my baby
With hopes to enslave me
First mistake, last mistake!
Paid by the alliance, to slay all the giants
Next mistake, no more mistakes
Fill the cracks in, with judicial granite
Because I don’t say it,
Don’t mean I ain’t thinkin’ it
Next thing you know, they’ll take my thoughts away
I know what I said, now I must scream of the overdose
And the lack of mercy killings
Mercy killings
Mercy killings
Killings, killings, killings, killings
Mercy you know, they’ll take my thoughts away

In the end, the question is clear

When will we learn?

 

 

God of Israel

Who is this God of one place. It is not the God of my imagination. The God of my imagination extends far beyond Israel, extends to all mankind.

God is a spirit who does not care how we worship. God only seeks the memory of the grace of God, the story of those who spoke boldly of each of our responsibility to love and do for others as we would expect to be loved. The doing is the key to our social engagement.

Generational poverty this is the bane of our society. This division between those that are brought up with and those brought up without. How do those without escape poverty. What hand reaches out across the abyss to help those without.

Or is it capitalism without a thought for society. The innovation capitalism and the effort of those who can is significantly better than the concept of a society managed by the few for the many. When there is nothing unique to be gained for our effort, the desire to do our best is lost. The flaw of capitalism is when wealth and power become the aims. It is this concentration of wealth and power which takes from the many to benefit the few.

We must find a method to merge the good of capitalism with the warmth and humanity of socialism. We must help the powerful to appreciate their role to help the many. We need to find a way to share wealth while assuring the individual desire to innovate and strive to create, Shepard’s and be good stewards.

Nature, the resources and the spirit within society and this earth are here to be employed, conserved and cherished. When greed wants for me and my pride assumes I am better than you then we lose and society slips into conflict within itself and with its neighbors.

The End of Time

Today at Church the sermon started with a reading of Wacky Wednesday. A story of how we wake and nothing fits into place or is as it should be.

Our rector then proceeds to like it to today’s passage in Luke’s Gospel

21:7 They asked him, “Teacher, when will this be, and what will be the sign that this is about to take place?” 8 And he said, “Beware that you are not led astray; for many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’* and, ‘The time is near!’ Do not go after them.

9 “When you hear of wars and insurrections, do not be terrified; for these things must take place first, but the end will not follow immediately.” 10 Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; 11 there will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and plagues; and there will be dreadful portents and great signs from heaven.

12 “But before all this occurs, they will arrest you and persecute you; they will hand you over to synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors because of my name. 13 This will give you an opportunity to testify. 14 So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; 15 for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. 17 You will be hated by all because of my name. 18 But not a hair of your head will perish. 19 By your endurance you will gain your souls.

The sermon reminds us of the time after the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem. I, maybe we, are caused to reflect on current times. I wonder of the impeachment investigation. I worry of the conflicts within families. The fractured nature of civil society. The structure of our economy where wealth accumulates at the top and flows away from those in the lower 50%. A a global worry; driven by dictators tyrants, democracies and republics. No social system has yet found the way of balance.

Battles of religion and belief bring lose, assure destruction and feed those that profit from conflict.

Our spiritual leaders, Jesus Christ, the vortex of so many before, brought all of the positive thoughts from within and beyond. Asked each of us to adhere to two simple commandments.

Why can’t we? Is it greed? Is it our pride?

Until we finally understand we are all the same and yet different. Stewards of this earth. Servants here to care for each other.

when the end, is it simply the fear of what we see today and know has been. Is there an end or simply repetition of the continuous conflict between tribes who can’t see the value of love and peace.

Where are we

Today.

How many passwords are you trying to manage!  Does your LinkedIn contact list connecting you to more than  4,000 individuals?  Does Facebook, Instagram, and other social media websites inundating you with news and stories about your friends, colleagues and interesting people?

How many cookies have your computers accumulated?  How many databases have more information about you than they need?  If we search the dark web, how valuable is your data?

Cando seeks to help you manage your data, identity, assets, and relationships.

Philip lives on Sea Island with his 93-year-old father, the Doctor.  They pursue travel and Philip keeps his head into what is happening in financial services, blockchain, authentication, digital identity, and, whatever else people seeking to understand the transformation; particularly those in the identity and payments space.

What is happening means we can unlock our hotel rooms, cars, and homes from our phones. Our security system iwill be another app we have to find on our phone.

Instead, we need an intuitive assistant seeking to simplify our lives by taking on repetitive tasks like driving, working inside a data table or simply opening up the house for the season.

Normalizing data and performing the analysis capable of earning value is the name of the game.  Management is about stimulating a team to work in the mutual interest of the organization.  Executives define the strategy and articulate the vision in a manner conducive to success.

Cando seeks to help you manage your assets and relationships.  Assets those places and things you use doing your daily life and those interactions you have with people and entities seeking to serve, sell and partner with you.

Then there are friends who we expect to be part of our lives and therefore have privileges and access capabilities.

All of this with a target of selling integration services to the top million and simply assuring each person has an identity thus serving the bottom billion.  ultimately earning $1 per year per user to simply be there when it all breaks and you wish to restore your digital life.

At the core, your digital security will be based on the use of cryptography and sophisticated matching algorithms designed to assure anyone that you are that one individual in the populatations of the universe.

What You possess, What You Are, What You Claim … Your Certificates

NCCOE NIST Multi-Factor Authentication

What you Possess — The Thing

What you Are — You

Your Relationships

Responsibilities

Authority

Advice

— Secrets

My Certificates

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seven Words

World Wide Web Consortium

FIDO Alliance

Global Platform

The Trusted Computing Group

Future interests

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Machine Learning
  • Nature Language Interface
  • Predictive Analytics

Review of the IMF The rise of Digital Money

While reading the recent document produced by the IMF I am compelled to wonder.

What is the difference between what they call Bank Deposits and e-money.  My first question, ignoring the words bank deposit.  Both are electronic accounts of value, recorded in someone’s ledger.  These two diagrams extracted from a BIS paper offer a perspective.  

They then speak to four attributed to the “means of payment”

  1. The Type, be it a claim or an object.
  2. The value, be it fixed or variable.
  3. If it is a claim who is liable?
  4. The technology, be it centralized or decentralized


They then speak to the five ‘Means of payment”.

Object-Based

  1. Central Bank Money (cash)
  2. Crypto-currency (non-Bank Issued)

As we think of the evolution of these object-based means of payment, we need to reflect on a new term “Central Bank Digital Currency” CBDC.

As a historian, I then wonder where things like Digi-cash and Mondex fit into the classification.  The value was originated and then distributed into a personal and secure storage device (Wallet).  Redemption or better said the guarantee, was provided by a party.  Maybe not a bank or the central bank, yet, easily embraced by such an institution.  Somehow history seems to lose sight of the origins of money and assumes the existence of a central bank.  Here in the USA, the formation of a Central bank was one of many areas of political discourse.

Claim-Based

  1. b-money (Bank issued)
  2. e-money (Privately issued)
  3. i-money (Investment funds)

The magic word behind all of these discussions is “Liquidity”.  The bottom line does the receiver of the money appreciate the value of the unit of measure and is the receiver confident they will be able to convert that money into another form, of their preference

 

 

Blockchain made simple

Let’s start at the beginning, the transaction, the distributed ledger entry. Think about the content of the transaction as the payload. Next think of the payload as land deed, cryptocurrency value, record of ownership, journal entry, smart contract … marriage contract. Either two or more people seek to exchange and record. Another way to think about all of this is as a block of data, code or other digital representation of something duplicated in every participant’s copy of the current ledger. No matter what happens, a secure system must be established for a smooth cryptocurrency transaction to take place. Maybe look for the best vpn for crypto trading? Could be an option, but only in the later stages when the initial nitty-gritty of the process is established.

A governance model is required

What is essential, before anyone can do anything.

The parties seeking to exploit a distributed ledger must define how it will work.

It is what the community or parties seek to represent and manage, using distributed ledger technology, agree.

The whole process of defining the payload begins when the community agrees to and sets off to publish the processes, procedures, rules, functions, and purpose of their application. It is this act of governance we use to define how and what will be conveyed in the payload to be stored and recorded on a blockchain. Which blockchain, protocol, and cryptographic processes; obviously it is a decision of the community.

We need to be clear before we can do anything with the payload. Ourselves and ultimately others will have initially and subsequently defined the mechanics and processes designed to assure the integrity of the blockchain itself.

A Transaction is appended to the chain

There are two parties to each event recorded within these transactions. The agreed events, transactions and smart contracts are ultimately included in a block and properly extended onto the chain for everyone to see and read. More about Confidentiality in another post.

Once governance is established
People can now interact

Each party has an address and then addresses unique to each asset e.g. coin. The address, in most cases, is simply an asymmetric cryptographic public key.

    • The individual, as is always the case with cryptography, has their own private key(s); they must retain, never lose and keep secret.

When the two parties decide to record an event; the sale or transfer of the title to a car.

    • A formal record of a property, a transaction, ledger entry is created.
    • The basic data.
      • The seller’s public key
      • the buyers public key
      • the payload
      • a hash
      • the signature created by the seller using their private key.

The transactions are broadcast to the network, buying and selling included. These transactions can take place through various methods; for instance, digital currencies could be purchased online, whereas to sell, you may have to use Bitcoin ATM and other ideas, which you can learn on Coin Cloud or similar company blogs.

The nodes or miners continuously work to assemble a defined number of transactions and create the next block.

The chain’s role is to record the providence of an asset and the immutability of all the associated transactions.

    • Each active node or miner is attempting to create the next block.
    • The mathematics involved and the use of hashes to bind this new block to the existing blocks in the chain is beyond the scope of this blog.
    • Let us simply assume the mathematicians and cryptographers define as part of the original design of each chain an infallible solution to the issues of economics, security, integrity, and immutability.
    • These specifications will define the hash game and how one adds the next block to the chain retaining the immutability of the present and the past

By being the first to calculate the cryptographic nonce

The winner receives a reward.

    • Hopefully proportional to the cost of work or other discernable and agreed method of reward.
    • The other active nodes then test to see if they agree the first got it right.
    • If consensus is reached the new block is appended to the chain.
    • This all assumes 51% or more of the miners or nodes reach consensus on the winner’s answer. And no one can control 51% or anything closer than 33%.

Around and around the game continues, as transactions are added and immutably recorded on the chain.

This whole process fundamentally assures history cannot be altered.

Chains split and fun things happen

If the process is not elegantly managed in full sight of all the participants.

What is Faith

Faith a profound and complex topic, yet, it is simply a word. How does this one-word meld with that other word anger? Is it love or shall it be hate we allow to drive the conversation, to focus our thinking or to heal?

Faith a belief in more than what we know, see or feel. A longing for salvation. A desire for truth. A hope of comfort.
Some immediately seek to align Faith with a belief in a set of religious or spiritual axioms. When we define Faith as a religion or an agreed or imposed doctrine; we attempt to force Faith on the many.

When we allow each of us to figure out and define Faith, I wonder how each of us would define our Faith.

Is it simply the belief the sun will rise in the morning? Is it the belief God will keep you safe? Is it the belief Jesus Christ is the route to salvation?

Many ask, many wonder, many are told to have Faith.

What is Faith?

Biometrics – Do we end up in a surveillance state

http://www.planetbiometrics.com/article-details/i/10211/desc/guest-post-experience-a-seamless-lifestyle–idemia/

https://www.aclu.org/other/whats-wrong-public-video-surveillance

https://www.govtech.com/policy-management/Study-Surveillance-Cams-Worth-Money.html

As we think about the world we are living in and the world we want to live in. We must balance friction and convenience against the potential risks which will emerge as technology blossoms and expands to touch ever part of our lives. This morning I got a text informing me of the 200 million cameras the Chinese had watching their citizens. I immediately remember the CATV system in London and

CCTV Camera technology on screen display

what parts of the City it covers. Its goal record everyone’s movements to protect against terrorists. Airlines are talking about ticketless travel and some are speaking of passport-less and ticketless airports. We wonder if Alexa is recording our every word and we know our PC, Tablet, Baby monitor & mobile phone cameras and microphones can be used by: who knows who, to watch who knows what, whenever they so please?

Is this the world we want to live in? Or would we prefer our cities to enact laws like those recently enacted in San Francisco. This law is meant to ban the use of these various cameras and listening devices from being used to identify everyone they see or hear.

This conversation then immediately bleeds into the question of our right to privacy. With all that the internet offers for free and what all these devices are capable of sharing; we’ve given our privacy away.

How often do you wonder why the ads you see seem to attempt to sell you exactly what you recent read about? How often do you wonder why you no longer can easily find the site you are looking for? Instead you have to filter through the search list to get past all the ads. How many of us even understand the information people can glean from what we do and were we are; when we use or carry our devices around?

On one side of the discussion is reality. As has been the case for as long as I can remember.  TV, radio, newspaper, magazine, browser, social media, much web content and mobile app are funded by advertising dollars. Spent by those who want to convince some of us to buy what is on offer. It is these advertising dollars which pays for the content and ultimately decides what will survive the test of time. On the other side are the politicians, regulators, lobbyist and corporations who are focused on one thing. Helping people prosper or worse protecting some so they can continue to prosper.

The acquisition of wealth, the construction of infrastructure, the destruction of our enemies or the support for those without; is all about money.

If we seek to protect our privacy and be assured, we will not live in a surveillance state. We must be willing to read the fine print and be ready to pay for what is now free.  We must be ready and willing to take the extra time to pull out our passport, enter our user name, present our boarding pass. We must insist on the necessary friction to protect our identity and our freedoms.

If convenience is what we insist on.  Be assured, companies will happily build solutions to remove friction. Beware, removing friction, when it comes to  your identity or privacy, means you will allow people and organizations to collect and store everything they can about you/  Their goal to identity you and without friction, with the purpose of serving you or better said profiting from your actions.

All of this is more than the Uber experience.  Uber recognizes your phone and account not you.

This will be a world where the system behind the camera will see you, compare your face to all the faces on file and determines it is you. Therefore, knowing who you are, it can do what it is told to do; because it is you.

Monday Morning May 13th 2019

A day begins.  Life anew.  The tensions of what next are real.

The life of Philip can be seen in four dimensions

  • Spiritual – A space confused by dogma, the needs of the many and the understanding of science.  We seek answers to what we do not understand.  We find salvation in believing life is eternal and our sins and mistakes can be forgiven if not also forgotten.  This spiritual plain also hopes for peace and tranquility.  Yet there is a tribal bias of you am right and I are wrong.  It is this schism; this unbending difference in view, perception and belief drives us to compete, to wage,war and creates the tensions surrounding all of us.
    The great spiritual teachers all spoke of the respect and love we should demonstrate to and for each other.  If only we could come together and not always attempt to find the differences.
  • Worldview – A landscape peppered with the vastness of patriotism, nationalism, globalization and the desire to best the other.  Fraught with the struggles emerging from tribal instincts, built upon greed and the desire to have what others possess.  To often man seeks to demonstrate superiority and the need to lord over others.
    Here in America we have our own issues, The need is to remove the noise from our lives while still feeling part of something.  We need to consider all people as equal and no longer fear some, disrespect others and worship the unworthy.
    Economic forces sit deep within any worldview.  The need to eat, have a place to sleep and most unfortunate the desire to have more and more.
  • Family and Life – That can I say a struggle.
  • Career – Those of us who grew up as baby boomers were expected to work all hours given.  To what end where went the time will family and life.

NYTimes: Reverend, You Say the Virgin Birth Is ‘a Bizarre Claim’?

Reverend, You Say the Virgin Birth Is ‘a Bizarre Claim’? https://nyti.ms/2UOW6iT

This particular interview, at this time in the christian year, is an appropriate discussion as we remember the teaching and value Jesus brought to this world.

I have often wondered about the birth and death of Christ. These are the two parts of the life of Jesus Christ which I continue to struggle with.

It is easy to accept the need to create such a noble beginning and end to his life. Easier still when we think of our society and how people are. We must remember they then and still now struggle to learn and embrace complex thought. The mythology helped so many find their way to the true teaching of Jesus.

Easter thought. John 20:1-18

Surprises. Oh how surprises impact one and each of us. Who is Mary to Jesus? Does this event demonstrate how our bodies can go into a stasis, dead to most – alive in truth.

Gracious in a spacious place -there the truth can be found.

How is it that Mary and Jesus are ever so personally and ever so intimately entangled. Who is this person named Mary?

The Teacher. A teacher who touched billions over thousands of years. One who came, learned and shared. Here to led us into the wilderness. Here to bring us out into the light.

We still have not fully embraced the gift of love he shared with us. We have not recognized the truth is in the love he asked each of us to have for one another.

Jesus, the one among a handful who has finally and ultimately shared the truth these few tried so hard to share with us.

The others who shared with other parts of the ancient world tried to help us understand the mysteries of life, the value of meditation and the glory of God. The one God who created all, sees all, knows all.

Faith, What is Faith

Faith, what is faith? Is faith the belief in the words in a book. Is it the acceptance of cultural norms or is it an understanding of the unimaginable power, majesty, timelessness and infinity reality of that which we call The Almighty, Tian, Shandgi, God, the Tao, Buddha and a hundred other names? Is it one identifiable entity or is it a spirit form. Is it singular or as some believe a collection of forces personalized to make them understandable?

Clearly this God is an unimaginably power, one we cannot even begin to understand!

For me, faith is accepting I can never appreciate that which is so infinite as to be beyond knowledge. It is to accept how each one of us builds our own understanding of that which we cannot conceive.

When we human kind claim to know; be it as a tribe, a society, a civilization or a religion. It is at this moment we create division. These human constructs become the imprinted beliefs we give our children. As these tribes grow larger, they seek to expand. To expand they come in contact with others different than their own.

In this difference springs animosity. In this animosity emerges fear. From fear comes the temptation to be right. Being right means those who do not believe and think as the tribe does must be wrong. If the tribe is wrong, then, surely they should be vanquished.

War and violence. Man again man is the greatest of sins. We in all faiths are taught to embrace our enemy, to encourage discourse, to share in the joy and happiness of others and most importantly to love each other as we seek to love ourselves. Be it the Christian youth ministry or the religious textbooks of other religions – love and respect for humankind is what is taught everywhere. It is this one requirement, common to so many, we most often ignore.

How can we find the common bond to heal the hurt, fix the wrong, right the balance and discover the peace; we so all desire?

And what of

When we think back to history, we in the western world are brought up on the history of the Bible and the righteous position of the Jewish people. We are taught little of the growth and beliefs of the other regions of the ancient world. Egypt, Greece and Roman are seen as part of this history. The Persian empire is the enemy and that which is to the north and off to the east are known as trading alliances, maybe not people like those of biblical, Greek or Roman times.

One day a son is born into this culture. Pure of spirit and oh so wise capable of understanding much at the tender age of twelve. Already traveled, one can only imagine he continued to travel, to learn to embrace and to bring light to all he met. To imagine he traveled to the far reaches of the spice routes is so imaginable.

John 1

The Word Became Flesh

1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being 4 in him was life,* and the life was the light of all people. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. 9The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.*

In these words we learn of a teacher who will return. John his cousin, who did not travel east, instead shared beliefs and the letters he had receiving from this learned man. John’s childhood friend who traveled through and around all of the civilizations of ancient times.

Finally the thoughts and teaching from these other ancient lands and people would be merged together with the thoughts of Jesus’ original faith. A new loving and more holistic system of belief could rise binding all of human kind into one chosen people. One group of people not distinct from the other. All loved by the creator.

For some the idea all are equal is not easily, especially still, to accept. This is the great message we should have and must learn. This learned man moved around teaching, performing get things and creating a following embracing all.

The First Commandment

28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”32 Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; 33 and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question.

This is the greatest teaching to love one another, not to create divisions and ferment hate. Embrace each as you wish to be embraced is the true learning we must all learn.