http://www.parabola.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=274&Itemid=41What say you? I'm not interested in the debate of the Fire and Devil, or Pearly Gates but merely your thoughts.
An Excerpt:
This is an understanding of the non-duality of God that begins for Christians with kenosis, the Greek word for emptiness. It is a way of understanding Christ as the “Incarnate Word.” The second chapter of Philippians, known as the Kenosis Hymn, describes the kenosis of Christ:
“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”
This is an encouragement to empty ourselves, to become as servants to one another, and to enter into the fullness of our humanity, and our full human potential. This practice of kenosis, of putting on the “Mind of Christ” and emptying our self, is one way a Christian may come to understand Jesus as redeemer, revealer, reconciler, and to accept him as savior. Knitter touches on kenosis when he explains that the “ideal of Christian life is to lose one’s own self-centered identity in the wider activity of the risen Christ-Spirit. It is to step back and let this Spirit live in and as us.”2 This stepping back or emptying ourselves of ourselves resonates with the Buddhist bodhisattva, who develops universal compassion and a spontaneous wish to attain Buddhahood not for his or her own sake but for the benefit of all sentient beings. It is also in the Bible, in Romans 8:26-27, 38-39 (RSV):
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.
27 And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
What I highlighted, is the exact opposite of what we (Americans) today do, we are a selfish lot. Yet, we expect things to go right for us, when we only thing about what want to do, and not how it affects others, and the consequences of out actions.
