FootprintsintheWind.com

It is time for a new response to the Ten Commandments. These are not for all time, but specifically for these times, inviting revision as times change.

G*d is not changeless, for only dead rock is changeless (and not even that); a living G*d breathes and responds and changes as we change. People argued with G*d in the Hebrew Bible: What if only 20 righteous souls…only 10…only 5? In the Christian New Testament we have…a new covenant! On top of that, Jesus wept. The tablets of the first 10 were broken and the second 10 have been lost and probably have started to disintegrate to dust.

Our new responses are open ended, incomplete, not having a full 10 or 13, inviting people to add what they see as holy. I do not have all truth, but we have all that is available to any of us.
The work is to be done by and in us. Thus remands. The root man is from manual, hand. So this can be seen as “It is in your hands, always has been.” When we most want to abdicate, we are sent back into our own hands:

1. Loving is our work: loving those who live with us in our homes, neighborhoods and worlds; loving those who have no one; loving those who are hard to love; loving wastefully, expecting no thanks and no repayment; loving even ourselves when we fall short, loving our efforts and intentions and attempts.

2. We will walk and work together, knowing that community is the completing of us, that community is of G*d.

3. We take into ourselves the responsibility to grow into a fuller humanity, including all, however they differ, knowing that love and truth are in our differences, and that love is superior to truth. We will seek truth wherever we can find it, will listen to all and seek them out, and will discard as readily as we can what is no longer truth. We will uplift each other, showing each other a new more excellent way.

4. We take responsibility for the health of our world—the earth, the universe, and all children even beyond the seventh generation. We will use resources wisely, restoring what we take, leaving the place cleaner than we found it, giving life.

5. We pledge to each other to make all our decisions for the welfare of the whole human race. We will work to: curb our spiraling birthrate; use our rich resources to feed both rich and poor; bring to center whomever is marginalized; remember the oneness of all; and live as if we all mattered.

6. We will bring to living, loving and being the wonder and hope of life and what is sacred and divine among us. We pledge to each other to grow in vision and maturity, taking responsibility for loving.

7. We will all together and each take responsibility for adding, changing, varying and contradicting these Remands, knowing that living, loving and being are always growing….

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