I was afraid I had lost Shari after my blunder. I am SO glad to have you back!

When I thought Mark had quit me, I was openly worried.

Not very macho, is it?

When I think something out, I keep running into the guy who died at half my age two thousand years ago. As I write this it occurs to me that HE talked abouthow the shepherd will leave the flock and go after one wandering sheep.

But the analogy ends there. The LAST thing I would want here or try to get back is a sheep. What I want back are the ones who give me hell.

Which leads me to another of Joe’s comments I can’t find right now. He said that if he did drop-kick somebody here he wouldn’t apologize, he would just leave.

Joe, that’s great for YOU. But where does it leave the rest of us?

I don’t believe you’ve even THOUGHT about THAT.

You make a mistake and punish US for it by leaving us without a word. Where is the moral courage in THAT?

You seem to insist it can never happen, that you could never make a mistake like that. If that is the case, fine. But what about those of us, me at the head of hte list, who DO make that mistake? Should I just stomp off and not say another word?

I am glad to have Shari back. I am prooud of Mark’s moral courage.

And, Joe, you said you and I needed to keep learning. What about your obligations to US?

In our ongoing discussion of apologies, Joe says,

“This room is an interesting place to be quartered. I learn here. I love to learn. I am one of those truthseekers that you described in your talk on “truthseekers.” I belong to that group who seeks objective truth. I do not seek “my” truth. As a matter of fact, I know that “my” truth doesn’t exist. Truth exists. Falsehood exists. I’m beginning to get a lot better at detecting falsehood. The way to get to truth is to eliminate all falsehood. Once all falsehood has been eliminated, there it is staring you in the face: truth. That applies to everything. No exceptions. No question about it.

Comment by joe rorke —

Joe, this is a seminar. You learn here because you TEACH here.

The difference between this blog and all else I seem to see is that peole in general have settled for pre-Aryan thought. The concept of the Moot is completely lost. Our ancestors only considered a question seriously considred if it was decided in a Moot, a discussion.

Now the judges refer to a question as either answered, which means they have issued an Opinion on it, or “moot,” which means it is still subject to discussion by us peasants.

A Whitakerism consists of taking something out that we take so much for granted that we pass over it and looking at it closely. This use of the word”moot” refelcts the whole mentality of our society.

Another Whitakerism is about Odin and what he gave his eye for. He gave his eye for exactly what you are talking about: some truth, not The Truth, Final and Forever and pronounced by somebody in a black robe.

Christianity was originally brought to us in the form of the Gospel, which fit in perfectly with our concept of truth.

But as soon as they had sold Christianity to us, they dragged the whole Old Testament with them on a very big boat — you couldn’t carry all those scrolls on a small one, and started to impose the old Temple Priesthood on us. The Moot became something for the country people, which is what pagan means.

And that is the way the word “moot” is used today.

The lesson of the Gospel is that, at the age of twelve, Jesus was already learned enough to take his place among the Temple Scholars. If he wanted to become a Biblical scholar he could have stayed there. But he went out among the people, shaking the dust of the theologians from his feet.

The Gospels we accepted told us EXACTLY what the theologians suppress: that truth is truth, not something declared by Authority.

Jesus could have given straight dictates from the Old Testament. He chose to speak in parables, and a parable means you have to do your own thinking.

So my entire picture of Christ is entirely different from that of those who dig into the Old Testament to find the answer to everything.

Every time I read the words of Jesus, they seem to be saying to me exactly what you are saying:

“The way to get to truth is to eliminate all falsehood. Once all falsehood has been eliminated, there it is staring you in the face: truth. That applies to everything. No exceptions.”

I find that in the Old God Odin hanging on the world tree IN THIS WORLD to gain a little more knowledge.

I find that in THE NEXT WORLD in Jesus hanging on the cross and making it as clear as anybody could make it that salvation is not deep in books. He has given it to us, and not in some subtle hint of Gnostic interpretation.

To me, this is a Whitakerism: Jesus wasn’t subtle. He hung right there on the cross in agony to tell us where to look, and eyes turn away and look myopically into the texts.

If we cannot take this little hint of Jesus towering above history on the cross, just what would it TAKE for us to get our eyes and hearts out of a Book?