Update June 21: "Church?"

I have a very different view of the Scriptural obligation ot "assemble yourselves together" than the common one I have heard for so long: "Go to church regularly (and pay your tithes there) or you're being unfaithful." I see that Jesus is assembling together His Body to function as He has given us gifts--"and so much the more as you see the day approaching." Jesus identifies himself as the woman who has lost a coin, or the shepherd who has lost one lamb--intensely concerned for the one lost in order to fill the complement of the whole group. He wants us "assembled", that is, each one in place, doing what He has assigned and blessed each one of us to do. I believe that sometimes this means going to 'church', and sometimes not.
I have had help in seeing this from Bruce Gibson, a powerful praying friend who does not go to church, and this has been confirmed in my own prayer times. My wife just bought me a book by George Barna called Revolution on this topic, and I have just started looking into some of the writings of Brian McLaren and others on the "emerging church."
I don't know what exactly I am looking for, but I know (intimately) a lot of things that it is not, and I know that Jesus delights in expressing His presence and character in ways and places where we are not looking for Him.

Update on Inner Profile--June 14

I have a couple of posts to add in to here to keep up to date. Later, when my computer-literate daughter is on the scene, I will get her to help me add in a personal profile with my self-portrait, as I have been threatening to do.
On June 14 I wrote:
I see the brilliance of Jesus, a bright light filling all my field of vision, the life-giving power behind everything that is and each living being that lives. I am drawn to the holy, pure, peacemaking, loving, reconciling Presence of His power, the radiance of His being. I long to remain in His Presence and contemplate the endless wonders of divine, uncreated life that I see here. The source of all life is also the source of all harmony and peace, as the Bible says: "In his presence are pleasures evermore."
At the same time, and in the same vision, I sense a militant fierceness of holiness such as Jesus showed when He cleansed the holy temple of the corrupt moneychangers. His purity and righteousness ("The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit") excludes all pettiness, strife, prejudice, hatred, bigotry, injustice of any kind--and He expresses His perfect love in ways that are not tolerant of opposition to His agenda to bless and rule creation from within by the love He poured out upon us in His redemptive sacrifice. His holy, merciful love is not tolerant of evil, of that which is unkind and cruel and destructive ("Satan's work is to steal and kill and destroy"), of that which is false and deceptive ("He is a liar and the father of lies")--of that which is unlike Him.

Hello!!

Peter’s Rants
06 June 2006

This seems to be the best time to start this blog, since I do appear to have a bit more free time than usual—though what we call free time has a way of disappearing very quickly, and we find ourselves busier than during our regular work times!
I have been encouraged by a number of friends and ‘Net friends to begin this blog and say what I have to say—including Bear and Bull from lectio divina, and a number of others. I think today is the day of the Julian meeting in Atlanta, which is a bit far away for me to get to….
Rather than do a whole lot of personal introduction stuff here, I want to just say that I am Peter, called prophetpeter in a LiveJournal account that no one seems to be reading any more, and that I hope to make this blog a kind of corollary to my personal journal, which has never had a lot to do with the details of my personal life, but which has always been more of a place for spiritual reflections about the Bible and Jesus and prayer and mystical experiences and life in general. I admire the writing style of Bear and Bull and Bear’s friend Carl, and I hope to be able to link to them and have an ongoing dialogue with them and others with similar interests.
I do have some autobiographical material which I have sent to the folks at lectio divina—a bit of a chronicle of my spiritual journey—and I expect that I will put some of that in here before long. At this point I want to follow the advice of an old German proverb which says, “Be sure to keep the main thing the main thing,” and to talk about what I find to be the most important of topics.
Simply put, that would be this: the centrality of Jesus in the spiritual universe.
In my searching I have looked in many places for a spiritual center, what Carl calls a viewpoint to speak from, and I have discovered that Jesus is that center in a unique way. There are no rivals that I have found worthy of my affection or devotion in the way that he has done and continues to do. Jesus is the center of my conscious life and, as far as I am tuned in to it, my unconscious, subconscious, etc. as well.
Jesus is my friend, my lover, my healer, my master, my light, my hope, my constant companion, my conscience, my judge, my future...in a word, Jesus is my life.
This has myriad consequences socially, spiritually, personally, etc.—it determines my spiritual practice, for instance, and my stance in communicating about spiritual realities with other seekers. I wholeheartedly desire to be a “pagan-friendly Christian” (to use another term of Carl’s), and I find this completely consistent with my central focus.
I need to go now, and get back to this later—and I need to figure out the mechanics of how to get this blog thing up and running. I invite all comments and questions, as always, because I truly desire to be and remain open.
Blessings and love to all,
Peter