Watching Farmington?
In the interest of full disclosure I should tell you, I think God talks to me. I think I hear from God in different ways and one time in my life I thought I audibly heard a voice speaking directly to me. That sounds crazy to me. Also, at the beginning of every school year I would tell my students that by the end of the year, at least one of them would come to me crying, asking: "Mr [Skybalon] what do I have to do to pass the class, I'm not going to graduate boo hoo," and I would tell them at that future time what I was telling them then, "Here's what you can do to make sure you pass this class: do every homework assignment and I'm sure you will at least get a D." I was always right. I hear from God and I successfully predict the future, but that doesn't make me a prophet or what I have to say prophetic.
So today's the day, no not that day. It's 6-6-2006, not 6-6-6 so whatever else you were expecting, you might be a couple of thousand years late. Anyway it's 6-6-2006 and if you've been lurking about various Quaker message boards you know that today is the day that Farmington, Maine is going to go through its miraculous transformation. If you have been watching Farmington and planning your trip to America's New Jerusalem, this is the day you were waiting for. Conversely if you were skeptical and cynical about the so-called prophecies surrounding Farmington, you were also waiting for today- cleaning up your "I told you sos" and your "I knew you were crazies."
If you have no idea what I am talking about consider yourself lucky, but here's a rundown. Licia says she received a word from the Lord that Farmington, Maine was the place to be if you wanted to experience all the goodness God has to offer. For a while, a couple of the mail and message groups I read were overwhelmed with her prophecies and various objections to it. The arguments always boiled down to this: "Well do you have a specific verse from the Bible or a clear word from God that says this won't happen?... Then don't tell me anything." So there you go.
I had almost forgotten this "prophecy" was made until someone asked me what happened with it. Nothing as far as I can tell. The Farmington Maine homepage makes no mention of it... but then maybe something like that is something you want to keep secret and hog for yourself. Jerks.
It is at least refreshing that these "new world order" prophecies don't involve Ronald Reagan, bird flu, or subdermal microchips. Maybe that's why so few people believed it.
I happen to not believe the prophecy. I never got in on the debate, though. I originally thought the "prophecy" was a pretty good book promotional campaign and that's all the debate was for. There is a novel that accompanies the prophecy, but the "prophet" steadfastly maintains she is not just promoting the book but actually conveying a message she received from God. I think that it isn't true.
I think that something inside of me is telling me it isn't true, that it was a bad idea to encourage this because it is nonsense. But I had no "clear voice" tell me so and I sure couldn't cite any Bible verse that said it wasn't true, so what do you do? The thing is I do believe in prophecy, I do believe in hearing from God, I do believe in knowing what is true because of insight from God and, to me, that seems pretty sturdy. I expect the same to happen to other people but this particular bit of prophecy so called is nonsense to me. There are a number of reasons I see it as misguided, incorrect and possibly insane and it does not do or fit what I understand prophecy to be. But these reasons seem like they are "inside me" and nothing I say would convince someone who was inclined to believe the prophecy that it wasn't so. Even with clear, presumably authoritative words, reason, Biblical argument, pointing out what is being assumed or ignored, whatever, if someone wants to believe something or not, that's pretty much all there is to it. God wants you to have four spouses. God's leading you to get a divorce, God wants you to kill someone, God wants you to kill lots of someones, God wants you to put your finger in your butt*, God wants you to do whatever- I guess that's it. I don't know.
No Random Playlist This Morning
Living With War- Neil Young
*If you come to our Summer kick off Barbecue you can hear the story of the man who thought God was telling him to put his finger in his butt.
4 comments:
I believe in prophecy, too, but don't put much stock in future telling except, as you explain, connecting conduct to consequences.
Prophecy has come to mean, to me, looking at the "sky" and predicting the "weather." Or as Bob Wier once sang, "I can tell your future, just look what's in your hand."
I agree with Lynn. Whatever hullabaloo has been stirred up by this, whatever disapointments and glee will come for whomever out of however things happen (or appear to happen or can be made to appear to have happened) by transformation or lack thereof that takes place in Farmington there is a way we are led, in love, to respond. God and the Adversary will both speak to us in regard to all this, as in regard to everything else. It is written that the voice is known to the sheperd's flock.
And, by the way, anyone who has lived on a farm should know, too, the difference between the voice of a lamb and the voice of a kid.
I certainly feel neither disappointment nor "glee" that the events predicted by Licia didn't happen. I am not disappointed because I did not expect them to happen. I am not gleeful because there is nothing to be gleeful about.
To anyone who knows her, the idea that Licia dreamed up her prophecy as a book promotion is unthinkable. Her utter sincerity is unmistakable.
Licia has always been brilliant, paasionate, and completely dedicated to her vision of the truth - which has changed over the years. She has obviously not always been right about what the truth is, and often not very open to appreciating the point of view of others. Now that it's clear death and disease are still in the world - including Farmington - Licia must be faced with the task of making sense of what she has gone through these past few years and what it means for her whole view of herself, the world, and God.
There is no reason at all as far as I can see for anyone to be gleeful.
- - Rich Accetta-Evans
I am praying for Licia in what I suspect is a very difficult time for her.
I once asked her directly if the prophecy was a promotional tie-in of some sort. She told me clearly it wasn't. I think it would've been a clever connection but I believed her when she explained the book was intended as a way to more palatably explain the prophecy. The message of her novel, in my opinion, is possibly prophetic and inspired in that it speaks to how we think we understand God or what we might do when encountered by God (a la the story of the inqusitor and Jesus in the Brothers Karamazov). I could offer nothing more than that in that I didn't believe it spoke of actual coming events. Maybe it's strange that I find fiction prophetic.
Still that task of making sense of these events is set out before all of us- even those that didn't believe the prophecy foretold actual happenings.
I still know what I think of the prophecy though I don't know what it means for her deadline to have come and gone with "nothing" happening. My skepticism is confirmed? What's that worth? I still don't know what it means that someone can believe in something with so much conviction and zeal while I find it outlandish and a mistake.
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