NZ time 6:48 A.M.

 

Rained all day yesterday.  Green Green, It’s the Greenest Green I’ve ever seen, the rain keeps New Zealand Green.

 

Still dark outside, but it looks like a touch of blue sky today…. Along with some rain.

 

 Real time verses virtual time.

 

The other day (actually it was a couple of weeks ago) my son, Brennon shared some of his thoughts with me about virtual time and real time.

It was a great conversation, because it really helped me understand the waking up process that is taking place deep inside of me.

 

 

What I got from our conversion was this.  This present moment, in fact this very instant is the only place where reality exists, this instant is Real Time.  Anything outside of this present moment is memories of the past, or fantasies of the future.  That’s called Virtual Time

 

So the past and the future “live” only in our minds. Yes the past has actually happened, but there is no life in it. It’s dead, it’s gone forever, it’s totally inaccessible to us. But we certainly don’t want to forget the past, for if we do forget it, we will be doomed to repeat the same mistakes over and over and over again. So memory is a good thing, but if we live in our memories, we live in a dead place, where nothing can ever be changed; I would call that living death, or even more accurately, living hell on earth.

 

And yes the future will happen, but what future? There are so many variables, so many combinations of different possibilities that could happen, why would we want to waste one precious instant of this sacred moment, this cleft in time, this Holy place, where we merge, and become one with the “isness” of Being, one with Christ, one with life, one with all creation.  No longer lost in thought, no longer a slave to our thinking mind with its guilt and regrets of past actions and missed opportunities.  No longer lost in our fantasies, longing for some future salvation that we hope will deliver us from our present fears, doubts and unfulfilled emptiness.

 

I’ve heard that there is an old English archery term for missing the mark, and the word they use is “sin”. If you’re out of “The Bullseye” you’re in sin. So I suppose the further out of “The Bullseye” you are, the deeper in sin you would be.  Think about it; the narrow door, Jesus said, (Luke 13:24) “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door…”.   (Matt 19:24), “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle…”,  (Matt 7:13) “enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction…”. (Mark 4:31) “It is like a mustard seed, which is the smallest seed, you plant in the ground. Yet when planted, it grows, and becomes the largest of all garden plants…”  . The eye of the needle, the narrow gate, the mustard seed, I think are all parables referring to “The bullseye” this present moment, this eternal now, which is the only place where we have access to our Creator, our God, Our Christ, our Holy Spirit. (2Cor 6:2) “..Now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.” (Heb 4:7) “Therefore God again set a certain day, calling it “Today”…. “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…”.

 

This is getting a little long winded so I’ll continue with more about “The Bulls eye” verses “The strong man” in some future Now.

 

I’ll be back,   (maybe)

B Mc G     

07-06-05

N.Z. Time 7:03 AM

 

It’s another wild and woolly morning outside. It’s still dark so I haven’t been outside yet but I can hear the rain slamming into the windows and what sounds like Niagara is cascading down on the iron roof over my head. Just another typical winter day in New Zealand.

 

Back to my original question. How big is big?

 

I’m going to use some words to try to describe something that I can’t quite get a hold of with my thinking mind.  So it helps me to put it down in writing, so I can at least try to get a glimpse of “that”, which at this present time, I am unable to see.  So here I go with a word construction….

 

How big is big? 

 

Consider the Universe and its vast dimensions. Consider space, eternal, unmeasurable, without boundaries, the very space that this universe is expanding into.  How far does it (what we might call emptiness) go? 

 

Before God uttered those four words   “Let there be light”   there was nothing but (what we might call) empty space, without boundaries, going on forever and ever and ever and ever, eternally eternal, on and on, never ending, on and on for ever and ever and ever……..

 

That’s Big!!!

 

It is my thought that this vast, unmeasurable, eternally infinite expanse is in fact, the body of the very Being we call God.

 

And into this vast, unmeasurable, eternal expanse, this infinite Being spoke into existence, a uterus, basically created within its own body.  We call this uterus a universe.  But think about it, this tiny insignificant speck of a universe, adrift in the unfathomable unmeasurable, eternally infinite, ocean of space that goes on forever and ever and ever and ever, eternally eternal, on and on, never ending, for ever and ever. What a sea to be set adrift in.

 

And within this tiny speck, this speck that we consider so huge, almost beyond measure, certainly beyond my feeble mental ability to imagine.  Within this infinitesimal speck which contains trillions upon trillions of galaxies, each of which contains multiple billions of stars, one of which is our own special medium sized star, that we call our sun.  And orbiting around our sun is a group of quarks and charms that we call planets. And on one of these photon sized planets we call earth, we find ourselves.

 

And somehow this infinite Being, this all knowing, all powerful, omnipresent entity, who is from ever lasting to ever lasting, somehow, lives in the deepest chamber of our hearts. In the very deepest centre of our being is the Kingdom of God, and in the very deepest centre of that Kingdom is the Holy of Holies,  and there within that chamber, deep unto deep, is the portal to Eternal Being.  The door is always open; the King is always in residence, always there waiting for us to drop in and bathe in the eternal beauty of His Being. Waiting for us to consummate our relationship with Him and become one with him, as He is one with Christ and Christ is one with us

 

How big does it get? Well how small does it get?  You tell me.

 

That’s about it for today.  Tomorrow I’d like to talk about real time versus virtual time.

 

I’ll be back  (maybe)

New Zealand, 5th July, 2005

I was just outside sitting under my back porch roof. And I was overtaken by a wondrous feeling of LIFE. Even now sitting at my computer I can still feel the afterglow of those moments.
Everywhere I looked I saw the ebb and flow of life.

At this moment the wind is racking through the trees

In the distance, the sea is covered with white capped waves.

New Zealands bird life is flitting all around me.

Tuis, Fantails, Rosellas, Woodpigeons, Quail and Minor birds.

The sounds and motion of Life fill me with such peace, and yet….

I am also filled with the energy and excitement of just being alive

Alive to experience this moment, this sacred moment of Being.

Alive,

Breathing, feeling the air filling my lungs with sweet, sweet oxygen and life.

Hearing, filled with the rushing sounds of trees rocking to and fro,

slapping the dead branches off of each other, making way for new growth, new life.

Seeing, filled with the beauty of dark, heavy rolling clouds scudding through the morning sky.

Feeling my heart pumping life through my body.

Yeah for a beating heart!

Yeah for a body that’s still alive!

And yeah for pacemakers (I got one five years ago).

Oh yes, and KNOWING....

Knowing that I am inseparably connected to all that is, and...

Knowing all that is, is inseparably, eternally, connected to me.

 

All this to say….. 

It’s a hip hop happy morning, on a flip flop flappy day

Storm clouds all are warning, that rain will come our way

But there’s no need to worry, ‘cause everything’s OK

It’s a flip flop flappy, slip slop slappy, hip hop happy day

It’s a flip flop flappy, slip slop slappy, hip hop happy day

Ole!!!!

 

I’ll be back!!!  (maybe)

New Zealand time, 4th July, 2005

Well, here we are back in New Zealand and I'm off on my new web log adventure. 

First of all, it's hard for me to believe there's anybody out there in I-land that would have any interest whatsoever in what I have to say about anything.  But, if you're there, and you're interested, here I go.

My passion has always been to know what makes things tick.  Not necessarily why they tick, that's interesting, or how they tick, that's really interesting, but my supreme interest has always been in what or who makes them tick.

Star Wars introduced the term, "the force be with you", which is cool, but my hunger is to know the source of the force, so let's start with a couple of questions, just to give you something to think about.  These are questions I have thought about for years and finally, at last the fog is clearing in my brain, and I am on the "dawn of understanding."  We'll get to my thoughts later.  But first, a couple of questions.

1.  How big is big?  I mean, have you ever gone out on a starry night and looked up at the sky, I'm sure you have, everybody has, (unless they live in a cave or they're born blind.)  While looking up at the night sky, have you ever asked yourself, "I wonder how far it goes?"  Science tells us that it goes on forever.  Science also tells us that the universe is expanding and expanding in every direction it can whiz.  My question, "what's it expanding into?"  Science tells us that at some place/time in the distant past everything we see, everything that exists in our time/space continuum, from the quirks, charms, photons, atoms, molecules, planets, stars, out to the furtherest quasistellar objects that are within our observable universe, were at one time contained in some primordial nut, I guess it's kind of like a black hole, and out of that nut came a huge explosion, they call the "big bang," and everything that is was blown into existence.  (What a huge, long sentence, but I failed my English class, so bear with me.) (I also failed my spelling class, so my wife does her best with the words I throw at her without looking up a dictionary.)

So, that brings me to another question.

2.  What existed before the big bang?  You would think eternal nothingness, but is it really nothing?  And how big is it?  I'll get back to these things later.

I don't know what your concept of God is, I don't know what name you might use to identify your concept of God.  God, Jehovah, Allah, the list of names goes on for every tribe and race on the planet, but really, doesn't a rose by any other name smell the same?  If you had a thousand people all holding hands in a big circle, and right in the center of that circle was a humoungus elephant, and you asked each individual to describe what the elephant looked like, you would get one thousand differenct answers.  The first person would give you his picture, the second person would describe what they saw, it would be similar to the first person's but a tiny bit different.  Two or three hundred people down the line, the description would be quite a bit different from the first person's, and by the five hundredth person, you would get a completely opposite description from person number one.  So, who in this great circle is right?

I've said all this to hopefully raise your awareness to the reality that God is a pretty big elephant and if we all can just share our perspective view and listen to others without judging what they say as being right or wrong, but just accept what is being said as their perspective, which is different from ours, maybe as time goes by, we can discover what this infinite being is really about.

Anyway, that's just a couple of things to think about till I get back in the next few days.  If you have any thoughts on these questions email them to me and maybe I'll catch a glimpse of your perspective.

It's time for waking up to the "isness" of being.

Barry 

Hey Ho! My dear friends,
Today Mari and I are embarking on a cruise to Alaska for 7 days of wonderful adventure!

Why is it that when we were kids, a day seemed like it was a week long, and a week seemed to be a month long, and summers went on forever. Why is it that the people we love the most, we usually spend the least amount of time with? Maybe it's because many of us are so busy trying to make a living that we have no time left over to enjoy life with those dearest to us. Well, an adventure like this allows time to stop the clock. (no phones, no TV, no agendas, no traffic jams) while enjoying the breathtaking scenery and wildlife of Alaska.

We will be sharing rich fellowship, inspirational teaching, and evening concerts that will stir the heart along with about 1000 shipmates including my friends Annie Herring and Matthew Ward (of the group "2nd Chapter of Acts") and Singer/Songwriter Don Francisco.

We will return to California on Friday, June 24th and fly home to New Zealand on Sunday, June 26th.

I won't be "Blogging" again until I settle in back home after the 27th. So check back here later that week!

So... until then, remember:
"We've got time, we've got all the time in the world!"

Barry