God's not up there...

In this world…but not of this world.

The old saying, “be IN this world… but not OF this world” is a bit is a crutch.  I’m not a fan of it’s use.   When I hear someone quote this phrase, I actually hear “don’t do the things that THOSE people are doing doing NOW.  Do the things that WE are doing, or did 20, 50, 100 years ago (etc).  The underlying meaning of this quote comes to me as “be not of THIS world, but be of this OTHER world, the one that I’m presenting…the one that God has blessed me to understand more clearly than you…don’t be of the world that the devil is tempting you with and the Lord God has blessed me with the strength and wisdom to see through!!” 

The result of taking this idea too far is decidedly unChristian*.  This view tells me to simply stick with the ideas that I am comfortable with, or the ideas that bring me comfort (spiritual and physical).  This view encourages me to adopt positions that require little deep reflection about my faith. Deep dives into spiritual ideas are likely to produce results that conflict with the theology of those that have been more fully blessed (“called”).  

Worse yet, this saying insinuates an “us vs. them” situation.  “WE” are not of this world…”THEY” are of this world, and it is obvious because they do X or say Y.”   

On closing, I must admit that this saying has some merit.  On it’s surface, the phrase seems be telling me simply to understand that there are bigger things than this world.  I am part of this world, but also part of a much bigger _________(world, idea, yet-unknown, etc).  

*Is there a word differentiates “in accordance with Jesus’ teachings”, with “in accordance with current Christian Church dogma”?

“Don’t aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one’s surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-run—in the long-run, I say!—success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it”

― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

“The thing is,” Meese said, “you don’t have many suspects who are innocent of a crime. That’s contradictory. If a person is innocent of a crime, then he is not a suspect.”

-Ed Meese, White House counsel to President Ronald Reagan, and US Attorney General

To all those that think the current blight of  “guilty until proven innocent” is an invention of the campus activist and alt-left organizers.

Update (05.02.2019) This post is “re-dedicated” to those old-guard Republicans that defend the current president in light of his legal troubles. Karma’s a real bitch, aint it?