I can't "go there."

On the one hand, I literally can't get there by any means known to me now. On another hand, the effort would be diametric from the route to which God calls me today.

Some years ago, I did spend a lot of time trying to see how the world might look from "outside of time." I was still trying to do that when I became active here in December 2003; as I can recall having tried to ask pertinent questions here (such as I would never dare raise, say, in a Sunday school class at my church).

In those days, I supposed that, from the POV of one "outside time," all events in time would occur simultaneously.

Whereas the dimensions of space as we know it are, in effect, up-and-down, north-and-south, east-and-west; the dimensions of space "outside time" would pertain to purposes, intentions, motivations. Electromagnetic, gravitational, and quantum "fields" pervade our space; that space is pervaded instead by fields of affect.

So one can look at the various historical events that have been named here above, and ask what motivations were involved. Which motivations are consistent with what a historical Jesus actually taught? Which events would the perpetrators have carried out anyway, no matter what ideatic system they espoused?

All that got me nowhere, and my POV has since changed, although (1) motivations still seem to me paramount and (2) the above is consistent with Jesus' having seen affects as acts.

I have since come to embrace the enigma or dialectic, that the only real route to timelessness, or to the mind of God, as it were, is not away from time, but through it a radical presence to the here-and-now, with all the uncertainty that entails. Ringo Starr:You've got to pay your dues
if you want to sing the blues,
and you know, it don't come easy.
As to the question of motivations: A great 19th-century missionary hymn begins:
O Zion, haste your mission high fulfilling
to tell to all the world that God is light;
that he who made the nations is not willing
one soul should perish, lost in shades of night.
E. moved into my house about six weeks ago. He's 30 years old, has no job, and two sons who live elsewhere. He became "born again" not long ago, and is highly motivated that his future should be as different as possible from his past.

Of his adult life, he reports to me numerous felony convictions pertaining to assaults and CDS activity. One was for murder. He's told me little about his childhood and teen years, but that can't have been much different.

His mother was judged unfit to raise him, so her mother did to the extent anyone did. He had two brothers, both now dead pursuant to IV drug use and/or criminality. His mother had two brothers also, both also now dead for like reasons.

His father has never been a significant presence in his life, but has become paraplegic pursuant to IV CDS use. I had not known before that this can do that to a person.

I would guess his IQ to be about 100 absolutely normal, but thus lower than that of anyone who routinely participates here. His reading skills are minimal, and he is without many of the "basic facts" of arithmetic (e.g. 6+2=8).

I have spent A LOT of time working with him on various issues. The most gratifying feature, to me, has been seeing for myself, and hearing likewise from him, that the sort of radical presence I have discussed on this board, is, in fact, more useful to him than that sort of Christianity which most irritates Jews.

What motivates this activity on my part? Can it have anything to do with tikkun olam, the creation of shalom, or "redeeming the husks?"
P.
The most persuasive case
anyone can make for one's religion
is the way one lives one's life.