The God Named Lettuce

The God Named Lettuce

I recall, oh say a thousand times, sitting in Bible Studies in the Ambassador Gymnasium and HWA beginning his study with, “Elohim is a uniplural word.  I could feel my chest sink, my posture slouch and in my head I was begging the Deity to “please, not again!”    Next, we would hear, again, “And God said, “Let US make man in OUR image, after our likeness….”   And thus, in my rather passive aggressive mind, the study was going to be on the Uniplural God, Elohim, whom I had nick named “Lettuce”  from my disdain of hearing the words “Let us….” over and over and over and over and over….

 

Christians are brought up to believe that the Old Testament is such an amazing document because it is the first to portray the true monotheism of reality in the spiritual world.  It does not.  What we have is the fact that Israelites believed in more than one god but that YHVH was the high God who deserved their worship.

When, in the Ten Commandments, God is quoted as saying “You shall have no other gods before me….for I the Lord THY God am a jealous God,” we are being given the rules of engagement in a world of many gods.   A better translation might be, “You shall not bring any other gods into my presence.”  Reason?  “For I the Lord thy God am a jealous God.”  There are other gods in Israel and they all knew it. All they needed to do was not bring into the presence of YHVH and all would be good. 

Clearly the Old Testament teaches the existence of many gods.

“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods (Elohim).  Who is like you…”  Exodus 15:11

“For the Lord is a great God (El, singular) and a great King above all the gods. (Elohim)

“Bless the Lord, all his hosts, his ministers that do his will.” Ps 103:21

“Praise him, all his angels. Praise him all his host!”  Ps 148:2

These “hosts” and “angels” are all members of the Divine Council of the Gods with El being the chief god.  BTW…The original “El” was Canaanite in origins. 

And so let us speak of the great God “Lettuce.”

“Let us make man in our image.”  The speaker here is YHVH El, the Chief God over the divine council of whom “the Satan,” whom we see fully accepted as a council member more in the book of Job, familiar to most of us. El is speaking to the Council of the lesser gods and telling them that humans will be made after the image of these gods and in their likeness. And so it was.

An interesting and surprisingly blunt admission of this multiplicity of gods is found in Deut. 32:8-9

“When the Most High (Elyon) apportioned the nations, when he divided human kind, he fixed the boundaries of his peoples according TO THE NUMBER OF THE GODS. (Elohim). The Lord’s (YHVH a lesser god than Elyon) own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.”

Here we have a rare and somewhat embarrassing admission that there was a god even higher than YHVH. The Most High was Elyon who had the authority to divvy up the nations between the other lesser gods.  In this account YHVH is a lesser god who was placed over the limited geographical area inhabited by Jacob.  This is why it was always well understood that the power of the god diminished the further away from its allotted land.  If they strayed too far, they qualified as “foreign gods,” which we all know were powerless in the new areas and definitely false.  You know, “My God is the true god, and …well…your’s is the Satan, or lesser and pow erless god around here. “

So we learn that  YHVH and YHVH Elohim may have several implications.  This can mean that YHVH is the god over a band of lesser gods or that YHVH is a god that comes from a class of gods known as Elohim.  

And now let us speak of the God “Lettuce.”  Back to those Bible studies by HWA that began with the chilling and “oh please not again!” words, “There were Two Trees in the  Garden of Eden.”  Towards the end of his life, it seemed to me that HWA could only conduct studies that were the ones he could give on auto pilot.

 I felt the same way about Gerald Waterhouse who simply seemed to flip a switch, sometimes probably not knowing exactly what church area he was now in due to his extensive travels around and around to all the churches.  In all my time in WCG, I never heard Gerald Waterhouse give any other sermon topic besides the one he was considered “an expert” in.  I don’t question his sincerity but I did question his sanity at times.  The man simply spent years on auto pilot to where even the “conviction” seemed contrived or at least way too habitual.  Frankly and in hindsite, he was the the Goebbels of the WC G.  He was the propagandist that kept us all “inspired.”  I hated those visits. I told the elderly and those with small children not to feel guilty if they could not come midweek for a four hour harangue and speculation on things that probably would not happen the way he felt they would. It was unfair and unkind to the elderly and really to all to sit for so long and gain so little from it.  Of course there were Gerald Waterhouse groupies but I stayed away from them as much as possible with my very bad attitude about the value of his visit.  I often had to go multiple times in a row due to pastoring multiple churches.  It was a real groaner for me.  Towards the end I finally got up the courage, with a kick in th e shins delivered under the table, to tell him that his visits caused me more problems and need to deal with member fears and concerns than the inspired.  He just looked at me.  I then got really brave, what the heck, I was cooked now…and asked him what he was going to do or think when HWA died? His answer made me realize my ministry was coming to an end in time.  He said, “I’ll believe it after three days and three nights.”  All I could do was sigh and get ready to endure yet another four hour trial.

At any rate, back to the God Lettuce and the concerns about the now accomplished fall and sin of those created by the “Us” of the Council in “Our image, after Our likeness.” 

“And the Lord God said, ‘The man (hey I thought it was the woman who sinned?) has now become like one of US, knowing good and evil. “  Right here I have to say I always wondered what was so wrong about humans knowing right from wrong?  And if the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong came only from eating from a forbidden tree, how can humans be blamed for sin since before eating it, they did not know right from wrong or good from evil?  Kids, not clouded by the filters accumulated by adults over the years think like that.  No problem, it gets shamed out of them for even asking.  

 

Back to the story.  ‘ He MUST not be allowed to reach out his hand (hey what about her?!) and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever!’  So the Lord God banished him (Hey, what about them!) from the Garden of Eden  (BTW, the Sumerian version calls it the Garden of Edin), to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man (Can Eve come with me?) out, he placed on the East side of the Garden of Eden Cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth  to guard the way to the Tree of Life.”  Genesis 3: 22-24

Now once again, as a kid, I wondered how you kept people out of an area by only guarding the East side of the compound?  Could they, if they wished, not sneak back in from the North, South or West?  I would almost bet that this Cherub in the story was the Constellation of Orion who rises in the East, huge obvious with an upraised sword twinkling with starlight, but I spare you.  Astrol-theology at its best.  Literally the story makes no sense, but in the sky…very nice touch.

The Plain Truth is that both trees, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and The Tree of Life were God-Food Trees. Only the gods were allowed such esoteric knowledge and only the gods were allowed to live forever.  El and his Elohim , or Council of the Gods, could simply not abide the idea that worker drones in the original Sumerian myth could attain godhood and know such things.  And so they were driven out to work even harder on the planet to survive.  

An additional funny comes later when Cain gets booted from his space for killing his only brother and son of the only other two humans on the planet, Adam and Eve.  (Seth is called the third). His fear is that “whoever finds me shall kill me…”  Ummmm Cain!  There are no other humans   “out there.”  You killed your only other brother and caused there to only be you, mom and dad on the planet for now.  THERE IS NO ONE ELSE OUT THERE TO KILL YOU!  However, El/YHVH failed to clarify this and told Cain not to w orry about that and that if someone did, they would really be sorry but the mark God puts on him would prevent that. I guess El also forgot there were no other folks out there to cause Cain a problem. 

Myths brought to earth can get corny out of their original context. 

So there you have it. El was NOT talking to anyone who would eventually become Jesus. That’s all made up a few thousand years later to explain how a Jesus could have been around forever and a godman.  In context, gods forbid, it was about the polytheistic beliefs of, first of all the Sumerians, and then the Hebrews who tweeked the original story for to give themselves their own special origins.  Insignificant types often contrive huge stories to give themselves amazing pedigrees no matter how phoney.

The Hebrew Sabbath origins also sprung from the original Sumerian creation myth where it was the gods and El who were wanting peace and quiet on the Seventh Day but could get none due to the complaining of the worker drones who tended the god-food trees in the Garden of Edin. When they finally drove the humans out, they rested on the Seventh Day…finally. The Hebrews tweeked the story to mean that both gods and man would rest on the Sabbath.

And so now we can, for the first time and as never understood  and now revealed by me, understand a God called Lettuce.    

 ( I guess I could add, "And Brethren, I don't believe I have ever given a sermon quite like this before.  Maybe something like it back on Feb 17th, 1989 but really that was nothing like this.  I'm sure you have never heard anything like this before...ala Dave Pack, but I won't :)

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

The Most Difficult Forgiveness of All

The Most Difficult Forgiveness of All

Forgiveness is such a difficult topic to deal with and has so many complicated dynamics. Either it is almost an impossibility for people to grasp, or maybe it is so simple, we simply don't get it. It's probably both.


Religion is all about being forgiven.  God forgives humans through Jesus. Jesus forgives us if we ask.  And of course, without the shedding of blood, there is NO forgiveness of sin, however why nor has always personally escaped me.  What's so difficult about the Deity saying, "I forgive you."   Enough with the blood already...


Most of the time we focus on either being forgiven by others, which has it's own dynamics, or trying to figure out how to forgive those that hurt or offended us. Everyone has both kinds forgiveness going on and so it can get complicated at times. We often are motivated by the idea of "well, I guess I have to forgive them because they said they forgave me...how dare them, damn it." Even the Bible encourages Christians to forgive simply because they were forgiven by God,through Jesus. It even says that God forgave us, not for our sake, but for Jesus sake, which seems a bit like missing the intended mark. I want to be forgiven for my sake for Jesus sake!


Frankly, most don't really forgive but rather let it go to a point of trying not to think about it and yet it simmers on the stove, always available to continue in some form of drama or painful memories to throw back and forth like lawn darts trying to hit the ring right in the middle and claim points over.


I have people in my life who I hope in time would forgive me and I have issues with some for which I need to keep growing toward a more complete and genuine forgiveness. I am at a stage where I am able to look back and see that sometimes what seems such an insult is really an opportunity to grow past something where things can work out better than it ever could have without the push. It is not always this way, of course, but can be if we look for the good in the "bad," which often lurks there grinning at us.


I'd like to talk a bit about the one kind of forgiveness that seems the most difficult of all. That would be forgiving YOURSELF. Forgiving yourself is something that is the final issue to be resolved when offenses have occurred for which forgiving or being forgiven has run it's course. We either can forgive others, and we do it over time and in degrees, or we can't. We are either forgiven, again over time and to various degrees, or we are not. We can control the pace of the one, forgiving others, but not when, if or how others forgive us. That is their issue, not ours, even though we wish it could be given in such a ways as to feel genuine and perhaps open some new doors to reconciliation in any way.


But forgiving yourself feels almost impossible. Why? First of all, there is that funky part of our nature that feels our forgiving ourself is contingent on being forgiven FIRST by others for our offenses. Once they do that, then MAYBE, one can think of forgiving themselves. The problem is you might wait until hell freezes over before you are given permission of this kind to forgive yourself. If you forgive yourself without being forgiven by others, there tends to be a voice in your head that says, "How dare you forgive yourself. We have not forgiven you yet. What are you thinking!" It is followed by, "when we get around to forgiving you, we will let you know and then you can play at forgiving yourself, you jerk."


You see , forgiving oneself seems to others a some form of denial or that you don't take what has happened very seriously. To forgive yourself is to send a message that you are rather shallow or oblivious to the pain caused, when in fact, only you know that it is the depth of the pain that makes you want to be able to forgive yourself and move on. NO ONE can be harder on me than me. That is my own experience. I am the monkey on my own back when I cause pain to others. Perhaps others don't know this, believe this or even want to think this as it might take away some of the sting they can inflict if they choose to, but it is true. Most sensitive people, who even care about this topic are way ahead of their accusers in self condemnation and knowing the pain they have caused that they seek forgiveness for. There are flippant types who hurt others and seem oblivious to it. I do not speak of this type of person, nor is that who I am.


Secondly, as mentioned, we feel that if we forgive ourselves, even if there is no forgiveness extended to us, we are not taking the drama seriously enough. I felt and can feel guilty if not careful for even enjoying life as that might prove I don't take things seriously enough on this topic of forgiveness. "No I won't forgive you. You don't seem miserable enough yet." So often, being forgiven includes requirements and proof you are really sorry for the offense and prove it day and night, over and over by being miserable, practically forever...amen.
Sometimes the requirements that one must meet to be forgiven are just impossible to comply with. Sometimes there is a temptation to comply just to feel forgiven, but it won't last as the two really can't be connected.


Forgiveness is a clean experience that allows everyone to be who they really are and think as they really think, no apologies. Anything less is mere compliance for a time and then of course, on go the masks until the next time they fall off. Messy forgiveness is the obligatory kind usually enforced by a fear that if we don't, then Jesus or God or some Deity might just not forgive us of our picky little sins, that we really have very few of.
So in order to forgive ones self, one has to not connect the forgiveness with performance as proof. I can only speak for myself, and I am sure this would be a point of contention, but when I cause the need to be forgiven, I was doing the best I could at the time of the perceived problem. We always do our best at any particular moment which is different from doing better as others might wish us to do to come up to standards they feel are more correct, in their view. But doing better is a future thing. Doing our best is what we always do at any moment we do what we do, or we would do better!


Finally, it is hard to forgive ourselves because we tie being able to do that with fixing that which we are needing to be forgiven for. I am a fixer and caretaker by nature. That is how I am wired. ENFP according to Meyers and Briggs. That is Extrovert, Intuitive, Feeling and Perceptive. People like me become ministers, counselors, negotiators and of all things, massage therapists. So I have not strayed far from how I was wired at birth. We are negotiators because we tend to see both sides of all stories and the points that both sides make for their views. But the downside to this is that we can get stuck in views and not make decisions. If we can't fix it, we can't move on. If we can't fix it, then we don't mean it. If we can't fix it, then we are shallow and gutless. The fact is that some things just don't fix. That is painful but true. All things broken cannot be fixed and if forgiveness of the self is based on first fixing that which is broken, or different, or changed or one sided, then you can't forgive yourself and never will. And so you spin. Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Stuck between rocks and hard places, heaven and earth, the devil and the deep blue sea.
But, fixing is not a criteria for forgiving yourself. It can't be because we can't always fix that which is broken but we must forgive ourselves as a part of real living.


So examine how things came to be.


Know that you probably were doing the best you could under the circumstances at that time and that is not the same as doing better, but these are two different things.


Don't base your need to forgive yourself on whether anyone else on the planet forgives you for what you have done, not done or said you wished you could do.


Realize that, of course, you have taken this all very seriously. This might be proven by, oh say, the tears, the anxiety, the doubt, the head banging against the wall, the depression, which is anger turned inwards. It might be the shame you feel which is a perception that you have not lived up to tribal or religious expectations, as if most do, or the guilt over breaking the taboos of the group. Only you need to know how seriously you take that which happens in life and do not let your forgiving yourself depend on whether others give you permission to do so.


And finally, some things don't fix. Just getting back into some box that doesn't work is not a fix. Patching is not fixing and trying to be what others expect as the only way to fix is patching and masking. Often things don't fix because one is not accepted for what they are, how they think or what they believe. This is why many with marital problems separate for six months, return, separate for three months, return and then separate for one week , return for their socks and can't fix it.


Forgiveness is not something to take for granted, but a healthy life includes the ability to see through this topic in practical ways and forgive YOURSELF as well, and maybe even first of all.

Dennis C. Diehl
DenniscDiehl@aol.com

Happy Easter!