July 25, 2015

My Life Today

I'm supposed to blog regularly, say something poignant, profound, or inspirational.  Yet, my head is consumed with current events in my life and the emotional roller-coaster of this last week. So... you get a Jo story.

Last minute edits of my book, which goes to the printer this weekend, is both exhilarating and frightening.  If I wasn't editing until my brain hurt, then I walked around the house in a daze.  I’m still not sure what to do next.

Mom’s Alzheimer’s… Talk about ups and downs.  Happy giggles then paranoid screaming.  If you know mom or someone with dementia, you have heard it all, and you have felt what I’ve felt. Enough said there?

Other people in my life have had major ups and downs.  One friend died.  Others have new babies.  Problems seem to go with knowing people.  For an introverted hermit, like me, that overwhelms the emotions.  I must remember all the good things that go along with knowing God’s children.  Only then, can I cope.

Our puppy is over 11 weeks old and over 22 lbs.  This is going to be a BIG dog.  Her name is Lightfoot.  I tend to call her Underfoot.  Though I haven’t fallen yet, it is a constant fear.  I must remember that this is a puppy thing and pet her soft ears.  And her face… such love and adoration…

We have a new baby turkey.  It is so ugly it is cute.  And cuddly.  Baby turkeys like to cuddle and take a nap in your arms.  I need a “turkey fix” about as much as a kitten or puppy.  Kind of boggles the mind.

The down side of pets is that my old goose, Tippy, died the same day the turkey hatched.  She had been sick for several days, not eating and lethargic.  However, I thought she was getting better.  But, no.  My good goose is gone.  She will be missed.  Without her, there is no reason to keep water birds in my backyard.  We will be taking the last duck and the tank out to the ranch and returning to a lawn with flowers.  An era has ended.

My emotional roller-coaster life has more ups than downs.  That is good.  Looking at all these events through the eyes of God’s love, changes them.  They become special, normal, and manageable.  God is good.  He will teach us to love the unlovable and appreciate the ugly.  Do all things in love.



July 22, 2015

cover for GOD MAKES US HOLY

My first book, GOD MAKES US HOLY, is about to be published and ready for purchase July 31, 2015.  This is the cover.

July 18, 2015

Unbelieving Believers

“I can’t rationally accept that those people were healed.”  My friend and I discussed a church revival.  The crippled walked or danced, backs no longer sent shooting pain, and fused joints moved.  Most of the crowd acted happy-crazy.  Dozens ended up on the ground.  They laughed or sobbed.  A few jerked like fish out of water.  It was all too unrealistic to be true.

The lady who spoke believes in God.  She has a Bible degree.  She even believes God can heal.  Her problem is a lack of faith in humanity.  Charlatans are real.  They want our attention, our devotion, and our money.  If the healing does not happen to her, or to her friend, how can she know the event was not staged?

I recognize her words as my words.  We both think analytically.  We need proof.  Yet, we hesitate to go where the proof might be found, places generally loud and emotionally unrestrained.  The group’s religious background varies from person to person.  Some in the audience do not have any structured belief system at all.  A cultural clash keeps us at arm’s length, and we hold those arms crossed defiantly.

I pondered our beliefs, and realized I had heard those words spoken from my youth by my parents, my church teachers, and from the pulpit.  “God does not work that way any more.”  “Those miracle workers are all frauds.”  “Be strong against those who do magic tricks to heighten emotional reactions.”  “Don’t let your guard down.”  “Don’t be weird.”

Those teachers had valid points.  They warned against extremists who disrespected tradition and exploited emotions.  They opposed “teachers” who provided no lasting substance.  Those charlatans stole members from the local churches, and then abandoned them, broken and confused.  Only a few would return to regular worship, and they were never quite the same.

Yet, the people I saw healed are not strangers, not “shills” brought in to con “marks” out of money.  They are not even pretenders wanting attention.  I know some of them.  I know people who know others.  No one was asked to switch congregations.  Faith was not focused on one miracle man; everyone joined in.  What happened was encouragement to accept, trust, and build faith in our God.  The people and the leaders expressed pure faith.  Joy and power flowed freely and continued to grow.

I have fought this inner battle for over 30 years.  How to trust when I was raised by the church to not trust.  How to have faith in the acts of a living God, when I was told those events were simply coincidences, or worse, lies.  How could I have faith like Abraham, when no one told me to listen for God’s voice?

The answer was within me.  I had to step out in faith, keep stepping out, and trust God to lead.  I had to go where miracles were spoken of as wondrously normal.  I had to force myself to accept the possibility that what I saw was reality, that I was capable of hearing His voice.  I had to first get to know the people who prayed and those who received prayer.  I had to become one of the weird people so that I could say, “I know that person.  They were broken.  Now, they are not.”

Then, and only then, did I hear God’s voice.  What a wondrously normal thing!


After years of watching, I let down my guard to receive a miraculous healing.  I can now smile and say, “I am one of those people.”

July 14, 2015

Eden Revisited #8: The Lesson of Blessing

What are we to learn from the Eden stories?  Is it “how depravity started”?  No.  Without the unbiblical constraints of perfectionism, Adam and Eve’s sin becomes a blessing, our blessing to become the Image of God.

Unbiblical perfectionism distorts the gift of knowledge into an atrocity.  It describes the all-knowing God as clueless, intolerant, and vindictive.  His shortsighted ineptitude allowed the people access, allowed the serpent access, then He condemned the people for listening to a “voice of reason.”  He did nothing to prevent any of it from happening.  Nor did He have the power to reverse the effects.

In a natural interpretation, the stories tell us how God made humanity into His likeness, the process that continues today with each individual and each community.  When we “lost innocence,” we gained knowledge like His.  That means our potential to be virtuous overshadows our capability to do evil.

God set up the garden scenario.  He planted the two trees within reach knowing all along what would happen.  The people were bound to eat from one or the other without the assistance of the serpent.  The serpent hurried the process and decided to act with evil intent.  He became curse and his existence changed.  The people followed bad advice.  They acted in selfishness and were no longer innocent animals.  Their existence changed too but were not cursed.  God remained with them, since what happened did not change His plan.

God wants us.  He longs for each of us.  God particularly loves those who fumble at being good.  Jesus came to serve those people.  His “good news” message starts and ends with how much love God bestows onto humanity.  Grace covers our inadequacies as long as we humbly continue trying.

Our Creator enjoys it when we take responsibility for our thoughts and actions.  Yet, our Father wants us to let Him be responsible for our restoration.  He rejoices with forgiveness each time we repent.  God desires that we learn to live as His image.

[Lessons from Creation’s Parables: Genesis and Standard Science, Sung as One, by Jo Helen Cox.]

July 11, 2015

Eden Revisited #7: Original Sin Theology

At what point do Adam and Eve “fall from grace”?  How does Original Sin fit with a natural interpretation of the Eden texts?  Actually, these theologies are not biblical, so they do not.  Without the unbiblical constraints of perfectionism, God treats each individual uniquely.  Grace abounds with love, mercy, and forgiveness.

Sin is the choice to transgress law.  Choice is not hereditary, however consequences can be. 

Adam and Eve listened to bad advice and made a bad choice before touching the fruit.—Yes, they sinned before touching the fruit.—Eating gave them God-like knowledge of good and evil plus the byproduct of shame, neither of which are inherently sinful or evil.  Along with the Breath (our spirit), these were their children’s inheritance.  Each person must choose how to manage these God given gifts.

People can live sinless lives (like Enoch or Jesus) by always making good choices.  For the majority of us who continue to make stupid, bad, or rebellious choices against God’s law, God is gracious to provide a cleansing process.  From the beginning, He chose to forgive the sins of a repentant heart.  He chose to wash sins clean with the blood of animals, then with His own blood.

God is patient and His grace abundant.  Abba Father meets our failures with a smile and open arms.  He forgives every time we repent.  That forgiveness is complete with no reservations.  Humans do not forgive fully.  Often we do not forgive ourselves.  God does.

Only our hard heart interrupts that process.  Pride tells God we do not need His help, His guidance, or His mercy.  Arrogance tells God that it is not His place to criticize our decisions or interfere in our life.  Tradition tells us we can redeem ourselves through ritual.  That grieves His Spirit, but He honors our choice.

It is natural for humans to defend their actions.  However, if we rationalize and justify evil, then shame no longer softens our heart.  If people do not try to be good, then evil becomes “normal.”  Repentance seems ridiculous.  Eventually, God cleanses a population that thinks evil is good and good is evil.

Without repentance, each bad choice corrupts our soul (our mind) and slowly kills our spirit (God’s image).  We “die” of a hard heart before our physical heart stops beating.  This is second death.  Physical death locks-in our non-repented choices as final.  We condemn ourselves.

God begs us to choose differently than that kind of arrogant death.

God did not kick Adam and Eve out of the garden for eating forbidden fruit.  Nor did they get the boot for sinning, lying, hiding, or even bringing evil into the world.  God separated them from the tree that gave eternal life.  He restored our access to that life through the death of Jesus.  If we eat His sweet flesh and drink His “juice,” life is ours.  But, we must make the choice to repent of our rebellion, submit to His guidance, and “die” to our selfishness.  This grows a clean soft heart.

God died so that we could know how much grace He always offers.  He graciously gave Adam and Eve the opportunity to repent.  They chose to pass blame.  God gave Cain the opportunity to repent.  He chose a lie.  God did not instantly kill them.  He let them live, hoping they might eventually learn to take responsibility for their actions.  Biblically, God’s grace begs us to learn repentance each time we transgress law, each time we think of transgressing His law, and each time we do not love our enemies.  He desires our goodness.

When we enact that knowledge, God rejoices.  Life is not based on religious ritual.  Life finds salvation in relationship.  This was God’s plan from the beginning.

To be continued:

[Lessons from Creation’s Parables: Genesis and Standard Science, Sung as One, by Jo Helen Cox.]

July 6, 2015

Eden Revisited #6: Curse? What Curse?

Biblically, God never cursed Adam and Eve.  That word appears in the section titles, which Christians added later.  Without the unbiblical constraints of perfectionism, God’s “anger” softens into words of love, mercy, and forgiveness.

The Creator came to the frightened humans gently, just as He had always done.  He knew exactly what they had done.  He always knows.  God cursed the serpent with words filled with anger, but not the people.  He cursed the ground, yet placed no curse upon Man or Woman. 

He gave them the chance to repent but knew they would play pass-the-blame.  Instead of curses, God simply tells them how knowledge and sin would change their lives and their children’s lives.  Babies would have larger heads to store larger brains, so producing children would become difficult.  Desire would distort relationships with each other, with the world, and with God.  People would exhaust themselves providing for their growing communities.  Their intellect would deceive them by believing they were separate from all creation, yet when they died, their body would again become the dust of its origin.

The naming of Eve always stumped me, until the unbiblical anger was removed.  Adam was no longer afraid.  God’s voice put him at ease.  Then the man suddenly realized that he was going to be a dad, so he gave his wife a name in honor of that future joy.

Instead of immediately expelling repulsively sin-stained humans, God spent time teaching His children how to tan animal hide for clothing.  Only when they were ready did He send them out of the safe garden.  Likewise, He did not kill Cain for murder.  God gave a warning before it happened.  Afterward, God spoke gently until a lie came out.  Then, God laid out the consequences, which included a curse that simply changed Cain’s occupation.  Again, instead of immediately expelling a murderer, God eased the man’s fears with a mark before sending him out too.  Their Creator gave grace freely.

The people lived with the consequences of their actions.  In everything, God controlled the situations.  Yet, religion forced God to hate those He loved.  It painted a scene almost violent with condemnation.  It propagates self-loathing and rejection from God.  Where does God’s love, mercy, and forgiveness fit into such an interpretation?  Is love, mercy, and forgiveness only for the perfect?  No, Jesus told us to be better than perfect.

Biblically, humans gained God-like knowledge and learned lasting shame.  This transformation made us more like Him.  Even though we sin, God sees our potential goodness.  Through our shame, we learn to act more like Him.  Each lesson teaches love, mercy, and forgiveness, a state that holds no shame.

To be continued:

July 4, 2015

Eden Revisited #5: Creation of Death

Where does the Bible say that sin revoked immortality?  Actually, nowhere.  Without the unbiblical constraints of perfectionism, death was part of God’s creation from the beginning, no redesign necessary.

Most believers will reply, “What about God’s first command in Genesis 2:17?  If the fruit made the man die after eating, then that means he was immortal before eating.”

It is not that simple.  Scholars describe God’s command as a difficult Hebrew phrase to interpret.  The literal translation is “In the day you eat, to die you will die.”  Translators assume this is a “Hebrew double” used as an emphasis.  They already believed eating the fruit activated eventual physical death within the once immortal man, so it became, “… you will surely die.”  Theology influenced the interpretation, which supported the theology.

Immortality is an important detail.  Believers use it to define the basic concepts of humanity.  Yet, no biblical text mentions initial immortality or morns its loss.  If the Bible totally ignores it, then is the interpretation more inspired then the text?

How did Adam comprehend God’s command, if he had never seen death?  God could have simply said, “Don’t eat that,” but He did not.  God provided a reason.  Without man’s understanding, the reason for the command was meaningless.  Perfection theology answers with God instilling understanding into Adam and Eve.  This addition makes no sense.  It requires God to tarnish perfection before the reality of sin or death even existed.  It establishes God as irrational. 

How could the Tree of Life give additional life to an immortal?  In Genesis 3:22, God tells the cherubim that it would be bad if the people, with knowledge like theirs, ate from the Tree and lived forever.  He does not say the fruit would return humanity to an immortal state.  That is an assumption.  God’s statement may not even mean the tree’s blessing was physical immortality.  The Tree of Life gave life beyond what was normal. 

All these problems come to the same conclusion: a perfect and immortal creation is an assumption based on non-biblical perfectionistic ideologies.  Biblically, God created everything.  He called creation good, not perfect.  The additions scorn God’s “good” creation by insisting our current existence is not what He intended.  Theology degraded God’s supremacy, when it assigned God-like authority to sin as the creator of our current world.  All it took was a simple act of non-compliance to spoil everything He planned.  Perfectionism’s attempt to guard God’s holiness simply displays him as incompetent. 

The serpent spoke the truth; eating the fruit did not instantly kill.  He twisted the meaning, and religious dogma retained that distortion.  The choice to eat the fruit changed how Adam and Eve perceived the world.  Physically, they remained normal.  Today, normal means life requires death to survive (food).  If no biblical passage mentions a redesign to end immortality, then that means God lied to Adam or the edict of “death” did not refer to physical bodies.

In a natural interpretation of the text, if Adam and Eve had not eaten from either tree, then they would have died in the garden as innocents of natural causes.

Biblically and scientifically, a naturally imperfect universe included physical death from the beginning.  Death is not evil, not something to be feared.  It is a transition from one state of being into another, which takes place throughout the universe, not just in life.  Stars die (explode) to seed the next generation of stars with heavier atoms.  Rocky planets form around these, and life appeared on this one.  Life lives and dies, which changes the atmospheric and mineral makeup of the planet.  Because of death, multitudes of life forms can exist.  Our sun will die too, and the universe will be richer in that death.

God’s command introduces the concept of a different kind of death, one much more important.  The Old Testament regularly hints at this death and the New Testament clearly defined it.  Choosing to eat the fruit was the choice to make bad choices.  Such choices slowly distort and wound the human soul.  Enough bad choices can kill the spirit, God’s Breath within, long before the physical body dies.  Dead soul/spirits do not go to heaven.

To create His image, God warned the man of second death.  “In the day you eat, to die you will die.”  Our Creator wants you to live.  He desires your presence in heaven.

To be continued: