Adam Blatner

I give thanks this Thanksgiving for life, life with Allee, family, etc. I realize very dimly that I am part of this whole God-Becoming-Everything. Lest that seem too proud, you are also, and everything and everyone else is, also. I like that phrase, “becoming-ness,” actually. It could perhaps make for a good sermon.

My life has not been stellar in any special category, but on balance, pretty good in many ways, though mediocre in many others, and distinctly inferior in lots. This subconscious question of “How am I doing?” is fatuous, now that I think of it. To quote Popeye (the cartoon Sailor-Man comic character of the 1930s-1950s), “I yam what I yam.” It’s a good thing to penetrate my illusions (or conditionings?) of having to be “special.” I’m special enough, just as I am. It’s taken me much of a century to get here, though. Internalized conditioning can be difficult to counter.

Also, “the Becoming-Ness of God,” in the sense of thinking as some Rabbi and Theologian did, that God is a Verb. What indeed if we’re mid-way in the process —nowhere near the end or culmination, but so far from the beginning that we have the illusion that we are at the summit! As if being able to think is the very summit of awareness. But indeed, we are all to far.

Also, I rather like that idea that becoming-ness is a divine quality. We claim God is eternal but that is just waving our hands submissively. We have no idea what that means, but it denies God the thrill of becoming more, fuller, discovering, etc.

Time is in a way another reflection on the way the world becomes, it’s in process. It doesn’t just “be.” Everything flows, as some Greek philosopher—Thales?—noted. This inclusion of time in our cosmology is part of a peculiar brand of philosophy called “Process Philosophy.” I was attracted to it. It began with the “process” philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead (1865-1947) and Charles Hartshorne (1897-2000), which has been carried on by the Center for Process Studies at Claremont College. They tie in the reality that time is a reality, and everything that happens does so in time.

Professor Whitehead died in 1947 but his insight has been carried on. For a time I was open to this view, but then came to a conclusion that there is a level beyond that: Mind! The problem is that many things may be considered to have minds, which experience time, space, and matter.

Humans really think about thinking, and my intuition is that this generates or occupies a further dimension. Space is 3-dimensional, time is 4th dimensional, bare consciousness is 5 dimensional, and thinking about thinking is 6th dimen-sional. For about 2-5000 years, there have been those who have thought about this—thinking about human-level reflections; thinking about thinking about thinking. At this 7th level, many things interweave, as poetry, music, more complex art. myth, magic, stories—all begin to add to the richness of human thought. It’s more than just thinking-about.

At the 8th dimension God is known, a little, or maybe a little more than a little. It’s obvious! What isn’t at all obvious is how many more dimensions this intuitive dimension picks up. Maybe three or four or more. I certainly don’t know. Prophecy happens.

The problem is that we don’t know much about this or “higher” or “more encom-passing” or more “essential” roles, being that we are not all that different from the story character of Winnie-the-Pooh,” “a bear of very little brain.”  (Winnie the Pooh was a toy bear who had adventures made up by A. A. Milne for his son, Christopher and popularized as children’s classic book.)

That there is a “higher” realm has been witnessed to by saints in various religions, and perceived by “psychonauts” who have taken LSD (e.g., Professor Houston Smith). Oh, yeah, they realized, it’s so obvious. Indeed, what if in some future time more and more people realize this?