Revelation, Reconciliation, and Time

I've been doing some thinking on the teachings of Jesus and the Book of Revelations.  First, forgive me if I get anything wrong, I'm not a big reader of the bible so I don't know it chapter and verse, I try to get the "big picture".  So, from what I'm understanding of the teachings of Jesus is that his ministry is all about the love of god, and how it is freely given by grace, not earned, and that we all should show this kind of love to everyone else.

John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that everyone who believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Through the years, many have noted the incongruity between the description of God, who loves the world so much that He sent His Son to die for our sins, and a being who would cause sinners to be tormented for eternity. Some have tried to reason around this inconsistency by saying that God’s greatness demands such punishment for sin. But this reasoning is flawed, for it contradicts the Scriptures.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). Here, the opposite of receiving everlasting life is to “perish.” God has “no pleasure in the death of the wicked”—not their ongoing punishment (Ezekiel 33:11). He is not “willing that any should perish” (2 Peter 3:9).
Realizing that the Bible teaches that the wicked will be mercifully destroyed, some churches now refer to this teaching as annihilation. It is clearly a better explanation of what happens to the wicked.

 https://lifehopeandtruth.com/prophecy/revelation/lake-of-fire/

I don't find this interpretation any more comforting than the one I previously held where the "wicked" were tormented forever.  Annihilation seems no better a fate to me than eternal torment.

Matthew

Chapter 25

31 When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal. 

I fail to see how so simplistic a view can either land you in heaven or hell (whatever those might be), for who has always been either helpful or unhelpful.  What happens to those that have helped some strangers, but not all?  Were the followers of Jesus really so simplistic as to not see this problem?  I can't believe that, something has to have been lost, either to time or translation.  In either case, I don't see that Jesus would cast the "wicked" into either eternal torment or annihilation, that just doesn't fit with all his prior teaching of love.  What am I missing here?

The other thing completely unrelated I've been thinking about is how our measurement of time seems to affect our thinking and expectations.  It seems that societies that don't mark the passage of every second, hour, minute, ..., year have a more circular view of time (i.e. the flow of the seasons), whereas those that do have a linear view.  I live in one of the linear view societies, but I'm not convinced it is the best way to view things.  Look at our view on the environment, I think that's directly attributable to how we view time in a linear fashion, we don't see the way we treat things as coming back "full circle" and influencing the future like the more circular view would.  More on this later.

Today's Exercise: What is your dream goal?

So with the motivation series on headspace the exercise is to ask yourself a question and notice the feeling the question evokes, but not to answer the question (difficult to do).  Todays question was "What is your dream goal?"  I was actually pretty successful in the exercise and didn't try for answers, and did notice an immediate evocation of excitement at the question, almost like an electrical surge.  Pretty cool that just asking yourself the question can do something like that.

In other areas, I'm likely to be offered a permanent position with my current contract, so I get the joy of going through and comparing benefits to the ones I have with my contract agency, changing benefits if I accept, setting all that up again with every doctor.   Whee.

I've been slowly working on a website for IT people looking for "part time" positions.  I don't see much in the way out there as far as resource for this type of work.  It's probably a pretty niche market, but I think people will look for more of this in the future.  I know I would prefer to have several part time positions (if only your health benefits weren't so tied to your employer, but this will change as well) than one full time one, so I don't have all my eggs in one basket.

What's the most important thing in your life right now?

I've been doing headspace for over a year (off and on) and I just started the Motivation pack, and the focus of the first day was the question "What is the most important thing in your life right now?"  Now we weren't supposed to focus on an answer during the exercise, but of course that's difficult not to do.  As I expect most people with children would answer, my answer was "my kids".  Then I thought some more, and wondered about how and if my focus and actions reflected that.  Some tough questions there.  So, "What's the most important thing in your life right now?", and are you acting like it is?

State of the nation

Something else I just have to get out, I've written about this before.  From what I'm seeing and what I'm anticipating almost 2 years from now a lot more people need to read and absorb the concept.  We are becoming so polarized as a nation that I fear in the next presidential election we're going to tear ourselves apart.  This may be coming earlier due to Trump being president than it would have otherwise, but I think it would still be coming in the next several election cycles.  My reasoning on why Trump as accelerated this is that he is willing to use far more divisive tactics to win than most politicos.  We have become so divided that we no longer see the "other" side(s)0 as people/human, and are willing to call out for the death (or worse!) of those that hold opposing views to our own.  I don't see how people that hold these kinds of views can continue to function as a civil society.  I've read several accounts on the breakdown of modern countries into SHTF situations (Bosnia was the latest I've read) and it seems to me that we're getting perilously close to the point where societies break down.  One of the big signs that I've seen is that once people start dehumanizing the "other" side(s), they feel it is OK to take rights away from said groups, not understanding they are also removing those rights from themselves, and that's a road we don't want to travel down.  I fear that the results of the next election will result in a not peaceful transition/extension.

Illusions

It's so easy to fall into the pit of the virtual, be it social media or gaming.  My theory is that it is because these places give us the illusion that we're in control of them.  I think that once something loses that attribute (like facebook has for many) we are much less drawn to them.  Social media tends to give us the illusion that we are much more in control of it than we are with our real life interactions, as do many games.  So how do we go about getting that feeling of control for our real lives?  It would appear that all we need is the illusion that we're in control to make us feel better, as I know (probably better than most) that we're not in control of our social media, and mostly not in games (depending on the game).

Something to ponder on for the day: Illusions