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provide everyone we can with that connection with the Lord.
A more central goal of the Lord’s provide is to find a particular place for
each person:
It is a continual object of Divine providence that a person may become a heaven in
form and so an image of the Lord…. But its inmost object is that a person may be in
this or that place in heaven, or in this or that place in the Divine human in heaven,
for thus is he in the Lord. (Divine Providence 67)
I think that in a parallel way our goal for helping new members of the
Church should be not simply to bring them into the body, but to help them
find the specific place, the particular small group and specific church use that
is right for each person. I hope that with an increasing focus on small groups
we can allow the Church to become more an image of the Lord and heaven.
The Rev. John L. Odhner was ordained in 1980 and into the
second degree in 1981. He has served as a pastor in Florida and
California, and was one of the key people in revising the General
Church Liturgy. He is assistant to the pastor of the Bryn Athyn
Church, teaches in the Bryn Athyn Church School, and works on
the Office of Outreach Internet Project. He lives in Bryn Athyn with
his wife, Lori (Soneson), and their family. Contact: John.Odhner@
newchurch.org.
O U R N E W C H U RC H V O C A B U L A R Y
Part of a continuing series developed by the Rev. W. Cairns Henderson, 1961-1966.
APPEARANCE
This is a term which has in the Writings a meaning different from that which is generally given
to it. In common speech, appearance is frequently used to describe an illusion, or that which is
other than reality, but the Writings employ two different usages.
The Divine as it is in itself cannot be comprehended by any finite mind. Pure truth never exists
with angel or man. Therefore Divine truth is presented in the Word, not as it is itself, but as it
seems to angels and men to be from their different but finite viewpoints; in the case of man,
according to his state and even to the fallacies of the senses, and thus in forms from a sensuous
and human origin which induce the idea that Divine things are the same as human ones. These
accommodated presentations of Divine truth are what are called “appearances” and they are so
called, not because they are illusions, but because they cause genuine truths to appear. In other
words, they are appearings of the truth.
In the other world spirits sometimes seem to change their situation and to traverse distances
when they do not. These seeming changes are called appearances because they are not real.
Related terms are “real appearances” and “appearances not real.” The phenomena of heaven are
real appearances because they actually exist, correspond to the states of the angels, and are as
constant as those states are; are, in fact, appearings of the real. But the phenomena of hell are
“appearances not real” because they are seen to be entirely different when the light of heaven
enters. (See Arcana Coelestia 1376, 3207, 4623)
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