I am now going to answer, in this blog, the most important question in human history.
What does God want?
For many people that answer will be startling.
Even for those who aren’t completely surprised, the answer will be dramatically different. It will not even come close to the ideas that people usually hear about God.
Humanity’s ideas about God produce humanity’s ideas about life and about people. Dramatically
different ideas about God will produce dramatically
different ideas about life and about people. If the world could use anything right now, that’s it.
We stand today on the brink of a global cultural war. The opening volleys have already been exchanged. The really major clashes, the unthinkable FutureWorld battles, may be yet to come.
Given the direction in which humanity appears to be moving, it may seem as though this larger conflict is inevitable. It isn’t. There’s something very powerful that can stop it:
dramatically different ideas about God and dramatically different ideas about life and about people.
Such ideas, if accepted and adopted, will produce dramatically different ways of living and being. Values will change. Priorities will change. Power structures and power-
holders will change.
When all is said and done what will change…or, at least, what
could change…is humanity’s Cultural Story. And that is what we are “up to” here at The Global Conversation. We are “up to” changing our Cultural Story; proposing and co-writing, with you, a new one.
Are you up to this with us? If so, stick around here now….visit this blogsite often…because I am going to be offering you here a new idea — actually, many new ideas — surrounding what our New Cultural Story could look like.
Chief among these are our ideas about What God Wants.
I think that we desperately need to change our thoughts about that. Now for people who really want things to stay the way they are, this could be a dangerous idea. Because the new idea that is going to be proposed here could
change everything. And change can be a dangerous thing to suggest, not only around people of power (to whom change is the ultimate threat), but also around ordinary people (for whom change is threatening simply because it leads to the unknown).
Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore had it exactly right in a September, 2004 interview in
The New Yorker: “In a world of disconcertig change, when large and complex forces threaten familiar and comfortable guideposts, the natural impulse is to grab hold of the tree trunk that seems to have the deepest roots and hold on for dear life and
never question the possibility that it’s not going to be the source of your salvation.”
The final part of that sentence (italics mine) tells the tale of humanity’s belief about God and life in 15 words. Mr. Gore confirms this with his next statement. “And the deepest roots,” he says, “are in philosophical and religious traditions that go way back.”
Al Gore’s insight leaves us all facing a thunderous question: Is the
way forward to be found by going
way back?
The answer is, no.
And while, as the former Vice President notes, we never question the possibility that our philosophical and religious traditions are not going to be the source of our salvation—presumably because we feel threatened by such questioning—could there be times when
not to question those traditions presents an even larger threat?
The answer is, yes.
And this is one of those times.
So stick around. Come back here every other day at least. We’re going on a roller coaster ride — and you’re in the front car!
(FROM THE NDW RESOURCES & INFORMATION TEAM: The commentaries here are being excerpted from the book
What God Wants, by Neale Donald Walsch. To discuss, in person with Neale, the ideas presented here, you may wish to join The Messengers’ Circle, a subscription service at
http://www.nealedonaldwalsch.com/. In the Reader’s Forum at that location Neale is able to respond to postings individually, as there are generally far fewer of them. The Messengers’ Circle is a fee-for-service offering for those who choose to commit time and resources to become serious students of the CWG material.)
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