<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Interesting review. Here is a brief excerpt.</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The book explores metaphorical interpretations of Genesis–and Smoley engages in his own parables, which he returns to in his short, effective exegesis of practical mysticism. One of the unitive themes of <em style="box-sizing: border-box;">How God Became God </em> is Smoley’s metaphor of a “water table underlying everything we call reality,” a transcendent consciousness, a “living, vibrant, moving presence…”</span></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 20px 25px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); line-height: inherit; -webkit-hyphens: none; quotes: none; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The world of the five senses…is simply a crust that floats on this eternal presence.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Smoley identifies this presence with the Ground of Being, or Spirit. And, he tells us,</span></p><blockquote style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 20px 25px; margin: 0px 0px 30px; border: 1px solid rgb(238, 238, 238); line-height: inherit; -webkit-hyphens: none; quotes: none; border-top-left-radius: 2px; border-top-right-radius: 2px; border-bottom-right-radius: 2px; border-bottom-left-radius: 2px;"><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; line-height: inherit;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">We can say that there are points in this crust of reality where the water of the Spirit breaks through…Those “wells,” shall we say, are moments of encounter with the Sacred.</span></p></blockquote><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 20px; padding: 0px;"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Despite its many desert-like stretches of barbarism, its faulty transmission, its biases and flagrant myths, the Bible, Smoley demonstrates, seethes beneath the surface with sacred springs. ♦</span></p><blockquote type="cite"><font color="#000000"><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><b>Subject:</b> <b>How god became god</b><br><br></span></font></blockquote><blockquote type="cite"><a href="http://parabola.org/2016/04/28/god-became-god-scholars-really-saying-god-bible/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://parabola.org/2016/04/28/god-became-god-scholars-really-saying-god-bible/</font></a><br></blockquote><br><div><br></div><div>Jim Wiegel</div><div><a href="x-apple-data-detectors://0" x-apple-data-detectors="true" x-apple-data-detectors-type="address" x-apple-data-detectors-result="0" style="font-size: 13pt; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">401 North Beverly Way, Tolleson, Arizona 85353</a></div><div><font color="#000000">Tel.</font><span style="font-size: 13pt; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><a href="tel:011-623-936-8671" x-apple-data-detectors="true" x-apple-data-detectors-type="telephone" x-apple-data-detectors-result="1" style="font-size: 13pt;">011-623-936-8671</a><span style="font-size: 13pt; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><span style="font-size: 13pt; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">or</span><span style="font-size: 13pt; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><a href="tel:011-623-363-3277" x-apple-data-detectors="true" x-apple-data-detectors-type="telephone" x-apple-data-detectors-result="2/0" style="font-size: 13pt;">011-623-363-3277</a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="mailto:marilyn.oyler@gmail.com" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">jfwiegel@yahoo.com</font></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.partnersinparticipation.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">www.partnersinparticipation.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div>"<span style="font-size: 13pt;">We are no longer living in an era of change. We are living in a change of era." Pope Francis</span></div></div></body></html>