Two Books, One Story.

By Teddy Donobauer

Where would a Cuckoo and a Lobster be found in the proximity of Cancers and Rainbows? Where would bread, unleavened or puffed up, shed light on life and sincerity in religious practice? They meet within the pages of this latest book by Teddy Donobauer. What appears natural in some aspects carries spiritual significance in many other. A butterfly not only flutters by, but cries to the soul, learn from me.

The almost universal concern for the environment is on the lips of every man. And we are blamed for virtually every evil. What is not on the lips of all, is the fact that our natural environment depends on the spiritual environment which precedes it, and out of which it came. Our sins against creation started as sins against the larger environment of the Creator. It is our loss of correspondence with the Creator which has led to our disastrous behaviour in His world.

Creation and the Uncreated cannot be separated from each other as that which is visible is entirely dependent on invisible realities. Creation and God cannot be separated, and every physical thing is under Spiritual laws. There are therefore two books to read. The Bible and the Creation of which the Bible speaks in a multitude of ways. What is true in the world is also true in the Spiritual world.

This book explores this double message in a few chosen areas. The one-eyed visions of the naturalist must be complemented with a spiritual second eye. A stereo vision of the visible and the invisible together. Seeing with two eyes, and looking with eyes wide open on the world while it is still ours to live in. It’s salvation will still be the Creator’s business

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: May 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664115552

Teddy Donobauer

The author’s search for his authentic self has been going on for 74 years. Through fatherless childhood and teenage years without other role models than ‘modern man’, he has meandered through a few occupations, educations, relationships and cultural environments in search of ‘Behold a man’. Most men he has met have been no better or worse than he found himself to be. But he was never alone. An inseparable shadow has followed him. And finally it dawned on him that shadows prove that there is a light somewhere creating it. Having seen that light he has borrowed the torch which he uses here to point to the Man of Sorrows, acquainted with the grief of being a man. Born and raised in Austrian mountains and on the West Coast of Sweden, studied Theology in UK and Sweden, Bible Teacher, Professional Chef, Caregiver, Auto-worker at Volvo, teacher of Philosophy and Religion and Languages. Married and lives in South Yorkshire in the UK. A Christian male in search of Man.

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Copyright © 2021 by Teddy Donobauer.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Rev. date: 05/06/2021

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CONTENTS

The Eye Opener

Chapter 1     Bread of Heaven without leaven

Chapter 2     Come to Bethel and Transgress

Chapter 3     "The Stones Will Cry! A Spiritual Geography

Chapter 4     The Traitor in The House

Chapter 5     The Cuckoo and The Lobster

Chapter 6     And God Said: Let There Be Light

Chapter 7     The Greater and The Lesser Light

Chapter 8     Like The Bow That is Seen in The Sky When it Rains.

Chapter 9     Give The Dew it’s Deserved Due

Chapter 10   The Lamb and The Lion

Chapter 11   At The Cross, at The Cross

Chapter 12   Sewing it All Together; The Tent Makers Job!

Last Word

THE EYE OPENER

I became a Christian in the original sense of the word in early autumn 1966. What I mean by that is that a conversion to Christ contains two things that are at the core of the gospel: First you are confronted by the need to bow before God the Creator since you are merely one of billions of created beings. You see and recognize your true size in the eternal scheme of Creation. Secondly you come up against the moral reality of not being or living according to the created status. You have not been living as if you were accountable to God nor had you accepted your dependence on God for every breath you take. In the language of the Bible: you have been convicted of being a lost sinner and you need salvation. So I bowed my knees to that double recognition, one night in September 1966. Through events that belong to a larger story, I found myself enrolled in a Bible School programme in the north of England within days of having bowed before God and availed myself of the salvation offered to humankind in the Person of Jesus Christ.

It was part and parcel of the Capernwray Bible School programme that students partook in practical duties around the old castle and grounds. Someone was made responsible for the proper function of the sewage plant. Others looked after sheep, some tended to the repair and maintenance of the vehicles and farming tools. Some dug trenches for growing Sweet Peas, some made concrete fence posts and so on. Chores indoor and outdoor were shared by students and staff. A half day a week was a workday for all. If my memory is to be trusted. Tending the sewage plant was my share of the needed duties. It consisted of a round filter bed some 6-8 foot deep filled with the very porous slag from ironworks or other coal burning places. The cinders were perfect for housing billions of microorganisms that did the actual job of turning the household effluents into humus and clear water. The count of Echeveria Coli Bacteria must not be above a certain level. The run-off went into the brook and eventually out into Morecambe Bay.

The Health Authority could shut down the whole Bible School if bacteria levels rose beyond a certain point. Over time the filter medium got clogged and had to be exchanged. It was dug out from the tank and the entire area cleared of the now humus enriched slag. One this particular winter morning the basin had been emptied and cleared ready for the next lorry load. While the infiltration bed was empty all liquid sewage ran untreated through the plant. The distribution of a cubic meter of sewage water continued as often as the run off from the Hall demanded and filled the bottom of the tank to the height of half a foot before draining off down the pipes towards the sea.

So there I was in the venerable Lecture Hall on a cold and dismal winter morning in 1967. Everybody was waiting for the bell that announced the mid-morning cup of tea! On cue all dashed to hug radiators and mugs of steaming tea to warm up. The lecture hall was not very well insulated against the English winter. As the bell rang I rose to dash towards my share of the tea. I was arrested in mid-stride from my chair by a distinct voice. No tea for you. Go down to the sewage plant, now. It was not a hint, not a suggestion with lots of ifs and buts attached, it was an order. I grabbed my coat and ran down the field to the plant. I saw the big dipper rapidly filling and knew that it would, at any moment, gush its load into the empty basin. I looked and looked and looked. Saw nothing amiss. Was about to turn and walk away when the distinct sound of chirp chirp came up from the bottom. On a small heap of cinders a chaffinch sat with a drooping, maybe broken wing. I threw down the end of the ladder. Hop hop, three rungs at a time, grabbed the bird and was on my way up just as the dipper tipped the load of a thousand litres of mucky liquid into the distributing arms and quickly covered the bottom of the tank. Saved by the bell, that bird was.

I brought the bird to the laundry, put it in a shoe box after having immobilized the wing in the correct position and was back in the lecture hall for next class. I was puzzled. I could not get my head around what had just happened. How could a bird in a million be the concern of God? Did I even know that it was the voice of God? Millions of birds die due to human activity every day with no one to save them from drowning, so why this one? I was not listening to the lecturer. I was sitting there with my thoughts far away staring at my bible and leafing haphazardly through it. I was only a few months old as a believer and could not have told you where anything was in the book. I barely knew that there was a difference between the Old and the new Testament. Leafing through and glancing absent-mindedly, as one does while stalling time, my eye was arrested by the following sentence:

But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you; and the fish of the sea will explain to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done all this, in whose hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of all mankind. (Job 12:7f)

I actually stopped breathing. At that moment the lecturer, I have no recollection of which one it was, was speaking on the passage in Matthew about the falling sparrows. (Matt 10:29-31) I saw and heard that the Lord used a commonplace natural phenomenon and taught the most profound spiritual lesson of unshakable faith in the Living God by them. He was using sparrows falling off their perches as something far grander. As in classic Greek pedagogics: start with what the pupil knows, and help him or her negotiate to what they do not yet know, from that which they know! We spend our lives surrounded by the world of natural events and motions, but most have no idea that these things are theology in motion. Oh how monochrome that is!

The coincidence was too much. My head reeled and a fundamental lesson was imprinted into my heart. There are two books to read! It has taken all of another fifty years to have some sort of grip on some of the implications. That is why I am not writing this book forty years ago although I knew the basics in 1967.

In the passage about the sparrows there is another fundamental lesson given. Starting at verse 24 we are given to understand that if we are disciples of Christ then what Christ is and did will be acted out through the disciples when they have been baptized by Spirit and fire. It is Christ in us who is the teacher through us. Listen:

A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the Master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household. Therefore do not fear them. There is nothing covered that will not be revealed and hidden that will not be known. (Matt 10:24-26)

Master, Rabbi, Lord

We call Him Master, Rabbi, Lord but hardly behave as if we believed it. If we did not fall short how come we do not serve Him as he served? How come we do not teach the way the Rabbi did? How come if He is Lord, that we do not obey Him as if He is the Lord? To study the methods and ways and means of Jesus teaching means learning how He, who was the one through whom everything that was created came to be what it is, uses the created things to teach about uncreated things. Using the natural and readily available he goes from that which is known to the as yet unknown. He draws the parallel lessons using the earthly and limited, to declare the eternal and spiritual, which never shall pass away. Not only do sparrows, lilies and fish come in handy to teach profound truth. But also historical events like the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the fate of Jonah, and the misery of prophets slain between door and altar in the temple, etc. All kinds of natural objects are called upon as didactic tools to proclaim the reality of the kingdom of God. And to point the way for lost mankind to a restoration of mankind in and through Jesus Christ.

Prophet and priest alike in awe

What on earth is going on when the prophet calls out: Oh Earth, earth, earth hear the words of the Lord! (Jeremiah 22:29) What is the meaning when Jesus is being asked to shut them up who were hailing him as king, and answers: And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, Teacher, rebuke Your disciples. But He answered and said to them, I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out."(Luke 19:39-40)

What is Moses doing chatting online with the clouds and the dew? Give ear O Heavens, and I will speak; and hear O earth, the words of my mouth. Let my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distil as the dew, as raindrops on the tender herb, and as showers on the grass. (Deuteronomy 32:1-3)

What does Paul mean when he insists on seeing the entire creation as a witness to the invisible reality of God?

"For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools," (Rom 1:18-22)

Paul says and means that the book of creation is a book about God, even down to God’s invisible attributes and eternal goodness, eternal Godhead, eternal character of faithfulness, sustaining power but also sovereignty over all creation.

The line that must not be crossed is the line of worship. When the invisible God is exchanged for the visible creation, in whole or in part, then the resulting occlusion and darkness of the mind makes mankind stupid. Making God and creation one and the same is folly. Denying creation’s ’showcase’ role as true spokesman of the eternal God is also folly. Drawing distinctions between spiritual and material so as to totally deny any relation between them is also folly. Neither pantheism nor panentheism are wisdom. Pantheism is the idea that God is everything and everything is God. Scripture denies that. Panentheism is the term used to describe the idea that everything that exists is in God, but God also transcends that which is. But I would like to introduce a different word for the relationship between the material and the spiritual. The Greek word dia means through, theos means God. What is spiritual is seen through the material. The street light outside my house casts a shadow on the blind. I see a tree through the blind. The picture on the blind is not the tree. Hence I suggest diatheism. (No doubt people will tell me why I should not use this new word. Every humanly possible word will always be bogged down in some way. Diatheism means that as far as the created order is concerned, God can be seen through creation.) The entire creation rests within the being of its Maker, Owner and Sustainer, Life Giver and Judge, and although it is different from the Creator in its essentials, it is still a true witness to Him. He has literally got the whole world in His hand. And the heavens declare the glory of God! It is in God that we breathe, live and exist.

And Paul is also dead serious when he tells us about how creation in its entirety is suffering from the sins of the World and waiting for the ultimate deliverance from and for us all.

"For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labours with birth pangs together until now. (Rom 8:19-22)

Mother Earth? In childbirth, panting, sweating and screaming? We call it earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, heatwave and tsunamis. Seeing details, never reading the larger story. It is our story but we are like children who prefer to draw our own portraits on the pages of the text, whilst understanding nothing at all. Mother nature is not as such a biblical concept. But the entire creation is seen as a woman in labour eager to give birth to a new Humanity in Christ. (Romans 8:22-23)

Job’s lament and quandary

The book of Job adds much much more to this insight than the initial quote from chapter 12 above. Job has a most pressing existential and moral issue to discuss with his Maker. The question is raised against a backdrop of a world where many processes seem impossibly immoral. Why does a man who lives as upright as is humanly possible