My faith is the basis for a lot of what I write, and so I will be talking about interesting stuff with my beliefs here. If you don’t believe the way I do or get offended by it, that’s cool. We don’t have to agree. Go in peace. For those who don’t care or agree or can hack it, read on.
Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of sermons online. I love Tony Evans. The man just gets it for deep learning of scripture. Just fantastic stuff. If you really want to deepen your walk with God and strengthen your understanding of Scripture and the Bible, he’s a great preacher and resource. It has done so much for me in helping me understand my faith… I just can’t praise it enough. Go check him out if you are so inclined. www.tonyevans.org
Shameless plug is now over.
These studies and sermons I’ve been listening to have been getting me to think very intensely on the nature of eternity in comparison to how we live in temporal space of our reality. Not only that, I was having problems envisioning it, till I hit upon the realization that I am a purveyor of metaphors, if not actual eternal products! It’s been going on ever since man was able to do this, and to realize this is amazing.
As an extension of considering the nature of Heaven and how we will be alive for all eternity in a place that has no past or future and exists totally in the present, my brain threw a rod till I had this epiphany. The real world example I can give you is writing a story.
“Bwuh?” You gasp in surprise. “How is a bloody book an example of eternity?” Well, a book is one form that the concept of eternity can hold. It can also be a movie, or TV show, or any narrative describing the nature of life. Technically music and poetry can be examples of eternity, but it’s not quite the same thing. But I digress.
Storytelling gives a set of events by which we are entertained, and is at its heart an eternal object.
Storytelling gives a set of events by which we are entertained, and is at its heart an eternal object. Sure it can be rewritten and retold, but much like “The Hero’s Journey” it is still eternal. You can, and have probably, distilled down a story to its essence to understand it better, but that doesn’t change the fact that the story is still eternal.
I will go even a step farther. Every individual story, as told is eternity in action… or inaction… whatever. Pick up your favorite book. I’ll just grab David Weber’s “On Basilisk Station” because it’s handy and I love me some Honor Harrington. This book is an eternal representation of her, the fictional character’s life and events as important enough to be told by the author. From the first page to the last exist simultaneously as long as the book exists. The entropy of matter is an irrelevancy for the moment. That means that the events of when Honor Harrington “pots” the King Roger with a single broadside with the Fearless in a sneaky maneuver exists and happens concurrently as the seizing of the Mondragon for smuggling. They are separated only by the limitations of our four dimensional existence (X,Y,Z,Time).
The point remains that the events exist equally in the framework of the story in your head. The pages it is written exist simultaneously, chronicling the events, and by extension in some respect happen forever as well. Those events do not change over time, every time you read page 152 or whatever, it will remain the same. That means it is in an eternal state (ignore the entropy of our temporal entropy afflicted world you get the point I think).
Now before you say, “but”, on me let’s trot this thought out as well. You ever hear about how some people want a copyright defined? I heard this example once and was flabbergasted at its implications. A musician that writes a song, like say, Stephen Foster and “Camptown Races” (doo dah doo dah), owns not just the paper of the song, or the copies of the song books or the recordings, they own the concept and even the thought or idea of the song! That means if you destroyed every recording and piece of sheet music out there, and someone happens to whistle or sing those familiar notes and words, the artist owns those! (…And is due a royalty. Of course this was given by a record company lawyer so you can imagine who they thought really owned those.) :::rolleyes::: Which I include to point out that the nature of a story is immaterial and eternal.
Even our own memory is eternal in nature. You just can’t recall it simultaneously, but that’s a limit of the temporal world. All our memories are stored in our heads simultaneously.
This is the essence of how eternity exists in the form of storytelling. The events in our minds make them eternal as transferred to us in the form of storytelling. Even our own memory is eternal in nature. You just can’t recall it simultaneously, but that’s a limit of the temporal world. All our memories are stored in our heads simultaneously. The story of “On Basilisk Station” is now in my head and the events are called up sequentially, because I’m trapped in 4 dimensions, but they can come in any order and any time I choose or am reminded. Backwards and forwards in time in the context of the story at will.
That’s eternity. All things happening at once without need of order or being sequential. Or be a mashup where they can then take on a characteristic unique in its combination (Check out LeeDM101 for some fantastic mashup music).
You could, in effect do the same with an autobiography or any book on history which converts the events of the past into a pastiche of eternity even though it spent some time in temporal reality.
Pretty wild, huh? Needless to say, I’m still wrapping my head around it but this has given me a hook.
(Stop reading if Christianity or anything not Pre-Tribulation Christianity offends you. You’ve been warned.)
As an addendum, which I throw in to melt some brains. For those who study the Rapture and end times events, I have come to realize why the whole “yo-yo rapture” criticism of “late/mid” Trib Rapture is irrelevant. (By this I mean anything that occurs post 1st Seal opening. Not Amillenialism, or no-trib, post-trib. Those have other things to deal with. Just specifically the “yo-yo” criticism.) This is epitomized by the idea that those ‘caught up into the air’, meet Jesus coming down to enact the wrath of God, turn around mid way, and come back as a victorious army.
If one is raptured out of the temporal world into the eternal world of heaven, it may seem like those caught up were only gone for a second or less or instantaneous, but instead spent an unknown amount of experience (since time is irrelevant) outside of timespace and could (from the remnant left on Earth about to get a-paddlin’) bounce right back down. Meanwhile the experience of a lifetime may have gone on between that, including whatever needs be done to prepare those raptured to come back down and kick ass with Jesus. Kind of interesting when you take that little wrinkle into account, hmmm?
Anyway, just a fun thought based on the above statements to bake one’s noodle with. (45 minutes @ 350degrees).
(I like parenthesuses… and elipsesuses.)
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