Reasons for hope advance at an ever-quickening pace. New books appear daily intent on educating the public to optimism ahead. From a wide variety of leaders from Jane Goodall to the late John Paul II hopeful messages about the future are being heard. Hope indeed springs eternal while mankind perseveres on its journey lasting tens of thousands of years towards the golden future. Indeed the entire outlook for humanity vacillates between dreams of hope and dreams of catastrophe. There is optimism and there is pessimism about the future, most of the citizens on planet Earth prefer to hope. When they sit down to ponder now what might be the finest hope for the future during our times of global unrest, they can turn to advancing science and they can turn to enlightened religion. Many intellectuals prefer the hope for the future can best be found in ecology and saving the environment. Others having a background in western religion believe that renewal must begin in the church. Either or both routes to the future, and preferably both appear to offer great optimism for humanity.

The challenge of discovering in western religion optimism for the future may be troubling to some scholars. Their minds are occupied by the highest reaches of modern physics, the quantum mechanics, morphological and vibration energies of higher consciousness. They believe they have outgrown the simpler appeals of religion. They seek to convert the world to their way of thinking, being motivated to change the future. Nonetheless, their brand of optimism may appeal to just a comparative handful of humanity. For all their honest desire to convert humanity to their ideas during the next five to ten years, at best they can reach only a fraction of those who accept Christian teachings. The Almanac identifies on planet Earth almost two billion Christians, one billion being Roman Catholic like the late Pope, John Paul II. Therefore it stands to reason that social change can be achieved more quickly from an intriguing discovery in the Holy Bible that forces Christians to look at the world in a stimulating and exciting new way.

This essay employs the techniques of investigative science to examine some remarkable passages in the Holy Bible. It examines forty verses from the writings of the prophet Jeremiah around 600 B.C. Following discussion of Jeremiah, the text moves to the writings of an unknown author who about 60 A. D. wrote the provocative Letters to the Hebrew. It appears credible that the Jeremiah writings transformed by the author of Hebrews, along with the authentic letters of Paul, provide the cornerstone for the founding of a new religion today known as Christianity. In the text of Jeremiah, Hebrews and Paul we find reference to God’s renewing spirit. In the latter two there is scarcely a world about the historical Jesus depicted in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John that in the current form were not to appear for at least ten years. Therefore we gain a very early picture of Jesus resurrected and called The Christ first in the dream of Jeremiah and in its aftermath the declaration of the With the coming of the new covenant mediated by The Christ comes a new spirit and a new mind for the new religion that today provides solace for a large segment of humanity.

The reason for Jeremiah’s discourse in forty verses appears to be discontent then, as now, with the violent nature of the Hebrew God. He is a loving God and a violent God. At Sinai his giving of the law follows a series of plagues upon the Egyptians, including the slaying of their first-born male child. God placed insolence in the mind of Pharaoh then drowned in the sea his army pursuing the Israelites. To cap matters, Aaron the priest appointed by God through Moses, had shaped gold into a ritual calf for his people to worship. When Moses spies the Israelites dancing around the golden calf, he smashed the tablets of the Ten Commandments. God punished the dancers by commanding brother to rise up and slay his brother by the sword. A minor infraction committed by Moses denied him entry into the Holy Land. Joshua, his successor, took command of the troops and militantly captured lands and placed his adversaries occupying the land under the sword. This violent world of the biblical God five hundred years later provoked Jeremiah to foresee a renewed God of goodness, mercy and the hopeful side of the human nature.

Jeremiah the prophet in his wonderful dream imagined the Hebrew God given a second chance to lead his children home from exile in a foreign land. During Jeremiah’s lifetime, the Babylonians advanced through Jerusalem taking many hostages into exile. Now Jeremiah dreamed of their return to Jerusalem led by a God repenting for his excesses at Sinai. The renewed God in Jeremiah’s dream no longer punishes his children. The warriors with swords upraised no longer lead his people through the wilderness. There is even an oath taken by God that his ways have been changed, no longer to pluck up, break down, to overthrow, destroy and afflict. He will chasten the father of children who is disobedient, but no longer will be punish the children to the third generation. Should the father honestly repent with tears, God shall forgive him for the iniquity and will remember his sins no more. Now does God promise to return his people to Jerusalem, watch over them to build and to plant and to enrich the seed of the flocks. These are the promises of a God who opens up to people his loving side. He will love his people with a love everlasting. Coming will be a new age for humanity where replacing the violence and vengeance there shall be comfort for his people. The greatness of the God transformed can be no better seen than his decision to transfer leadership from the warriors and priests, turning it over in Jerusalem to the spirited younger women.

Now let us now us examine the twenty-six verses comprising Jeremiah’s Dream and its aftermath comprising fourteen additional verses. We begin study of Jeremiah, the thirty-first chapter, of forty verses by observing how Jeremiah opens the chapter by being blessedly asleep. He dreams of God announcing that he shall be the father to all the families of Israel (v. 1). Immediately, God announces how he is aware of how many of his children who died from the swords of their brothers (v. 2).  God then announces that given a second chance to deliver his children from exile shall heap on them his loving kindness (v. 3). Then he proclaims that the nation shall be treated as a prodigal daughter returning. She is now O virgin of Israel who shall dance and sing and make merry. Great things are in store as she makes joyous sounds for the younger men and the old in the new Jerusalem (v. 4). Happiness shall flow through the streets, vineyards and olive trees, and the grain abundant and the young of the cattle and sheep. God shall watch over them and their souls shall become as a watered garden (v. 5, 12).

While at Sinai the warriors led their people and on settling Jerusalem priests under God led their people. Now in their return from exile in Babylon, a great company gathered from the distant land, among them the blind and the lame. The woman with child weeping for joy and the pregnant woman walked the straight way back by the rivers of waters back to homes in the Holy Land (v. 9). There the fertility shall spring from the earth and the loins, all shall be comforted, their mourning turned to joy, and the weary will be comforted. Says Jehovah God, in  remarkable change of heart, his people will be granted his goodness for ever (v. 14, 35).

What needs interest us the most now is the great surprise God has in store the wayward O virgin of Israel. God then decreed for Jerusalem that he will award leadership to the young maidens. He will empower the women to change the society. He proclaims that he has created a new thing on earth: A woman shall compass (encircle) the man (v. 22).  What does he mean? In ancient Hebrew, ‘compass’ means ’to surround on all sides‘. The meaning of surrounding on all sides is the woman shall be the shield defending her man from attack. The shield is often rounded and it is carried in the left hand. Should God have created a new thing on earth, it is the young woman no longer requiring the man to protect her. She through her inner wisdom, her womanly intuition and her conscience shall protect her man and renew his weary soul (v. 25).

God’s imparting the womanly spirit to the new Jerusalem is intensified when Jeremiah awakening from his sweet sleep announces his vision for the future that is a new covenant for the Hebrew people. It was not at all the covenant that God made with their ancestors at Sinai when Moses smashed old covenant in stone on the ground. Instead in the days to come God declares for the new covenant, saying:

Mull these words. God of the old covenant demanded obedience and punishment for those who defied his commandments. Now he experiences a change of heart in a new covenant. The law and its enforcement has been removed from the hands of priests and transferred to the inward parts of the heart of all the people from the least to the greatest. Forgiveness is no longer sold to the people by priests sacrificing animals on the temple precincts. No, a new covenant appears where the men and the woman look towards the heavens to the handwork of God and to the ordinances implanted in them. The new covenant brings with it a more feminine, womanly, more youthful way of living. The men for the first time shall look within to their consciences before launching their aggressive attacks on their enemies for the moment.

When we seek affirmation for the womanly bias in the new covenant, we observe how Jeremiah calls Jehovah the one who gives the sun for a light by day and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars and who makes the oceans roar. These attributes of God described in Genesis the first chapter is the work of God’s wisdom who is feminine. When he casts the sun and moon into the heavens declaring that the greater body shall rule by day, and the lesser to rule by night, the world ‘rule’ is also feminine. As is the Hebrew word used by Jeremiah translated ‘ordinances’. Thus does the feminine or womanly create and regulate the heavens, and through the cycles of women imparts a deeper wisdom into the heart of man to guide him towards the future and show him the things that the heavens hold in store for him (v. 35).

The fourth and final argument for God’s new love for the womanly heart is his promise to all his people that we will protect his seed against adversaries for ever. He warns however of one way that he will forsake his seed. This occurs when men shall attempt to measure the heavens above and search out the foundations of the earth beneath. Then shall God cast off all the seed of Israel and for all they have done, the nation shall cease being known before him. In other words, God loves and protects his children only as long as womanly intuitions rather than masculine analysis prevail in Israel (v. 37).

Can anyone reviewing the new covenant and Jeremiah’s dream truly doubt that a God seen to repent creates a new thing on earth? A new spirit shall beat in the heart of the manliest man. No longer shall his hand unthinkingly grasp the sword. Now he shall be defended by the spirit of intuition and consciousness of a young woman. In Jerusalem there shall come a time brothers will be neighbors to their brothers. Indeed, their brothers will be all the people whom they shall forgive through mediation of spirit of the God of the universe implanted in their hearts. How remarkable therefore that hundreds of years later in the new Jerusalem, a young believer imbued with the spirit of the God-Man crucified and resurrected to the heavens shall turn to Jeremiah’s new covenant to explain the nature of the ever-living Christ.

The story was told in the authentic letters of Paul how an itinerant teacher died for the sins of humanity. He rose to the heavens to retake his seat by the right hand of God. He was called by believers The Christ.  Around 60 A.D. or thereabouts, an unknown writer perceives in the scrolls of Jeremiah, the essence of The Christ in the new covenant. Why not  proclaim The Christ in heaven to be mediator of the new covenant? In a moment of huge insight, the womanly essence of the new covenant became transformed into The Christ as bringer of the womanly nature into the heart of man.

To illustrate, let us turn to the thirteenth chapter of Hebrews, making an exhaustive list of the requirements of living In Christ. Are these traits and attributes of a mature man or a younger woman?

                        Love your spiritual brothers.
                        Show love towards strangers.
                        Care for those held in prison.
                        Empathize with those tortured.
                        Honor your marriage partner.
                        Be free from love of money.
                        Trust the Lord to provide.
                        Emulate faith of the leaders.
                        Be loyal to traditional teachings.
                        Live in hope for the future.
                        Praise your God continually.
                        Do good and communicate it.
                        Obey them who rule over you.
                        Pray for all in good conscience.

Notice how Hebrews 13 transfers the shield that is the younger woman’s heart into the body of the mature male convert. We observe how a decade before the appearance of the gospel of Mark, the first of the four gospels to be written, that a follower of the risen Jesus then called The Christ is enjoined to pursue peace, never let bitterness to enter his heart; to care for the weak, the dispirited, the wounded and those in prison; to act properly at all times, to set things straight; to be kind, charitable, good, kind, humble, gracious, loving; and to praise and glorify his God. He shall be chaste before marriage, and following the consummation shall remain loyal to his virgin bride. He is to seek the best in all of his fellow congregants living for the glory of The Christ.

Thus does the worship of The Christ in the Holy Land in reveal in the believer a generous womanly spirit. We perceive how the man retains his manliness, he still can cock his spear in defense of his nation. He can be a warrior when the times demand. But always in his social dealings with his neighbors, he shall seek to be meek and humble as the young woman, her goodness shining through his eyes. He is encouraged by the new covenant to love his neighbors and himself and to love God from his inward parts, being the depths of his heart.

The purpose of this essay, granted the writer is hardly a theologian, has been to provoke thoughts and conversation. Men who tend to be scientists have expended forests of paper and oceans of ink to claim they know what is high in civilization. They have been empowered by their texts to declare then define higher consciousness. Particularly those professors who revel in abstractions of the future prefer to teach about the future contained in quantum physics and in morphological and vibrational energies instead of in the mind of a young woman who may be just fifteen and sixteen years old. They, of course, become the believers in the common bias that the science of physics is high, while the tears, moodiness and indecision of younger women are low. This may be an opinion that can  be valued, but in logic we learn never to assume the conclusion.

In this essay on the higher consciousness of the younger woman beyond the control by older men who believe in violence and war, we must now suggest that academic scientists almost to the man have failed to search for higher consciousness in the spirit and mind of the young woman fifteen or sixteen years old. It is taken merely as a matter of faith that weepiness and moodiness and caution displayed in the lives of younger women are low as opposed to high. Even to the point of being treated as emotional or character deficiencies. This, of course, can be seen as bias against the mind of a young woman. Which fails to consider collateral assumption that somehow mature men at universities who contributed enormously to the death of 55 million souls during the last World War are, instead of the pacific and caring young women, are the fonts of lower consciousness. the fonts of higher wisdom. If we don’t ask this question our logic is flawed.

The truth must be made clear to those rejecting the biblical teachings in favor of academic higher consciousness, there have been scientific studies carried on every aspect of the ostensibly inferior young woman’s consciousness. When careful studies examine the effects of weeping, the evidence is clear that this emotional release improves the healing by the brain. Extensive studies of moods suggest that awareness of natural cycles of emotions exceeds in worth the taking of drugs to eradicate the mood cycles, calling them a disease. And importantly, the value of single-minded decisions often culminating in aggression and war cannot be demonstrated to be superior to the wariness of a young woman before making decisions that can bring much suffering and sorrow into the world. It may be wise for the academic non-Christian strutting his act upon the world stage might inquire into the biblical Book of Jeremiah and Letter to the Hebrews to discover what is the essence of higher consciousness in themselves and the rest of us.

Let us conclude with readings from Jane Goodall and from John Paul II. Both write intelligently.  Jane Goodall believes that the secrets of soul can be found in nature in whose cycles the human race must abide. She sees the greatest hope when young people in the schools, their eyes shining, in their excitement and commitment, eager to convert their parents. They are the most powerful force unleashed when they resolve to make a change. Imagine their enthusiasm on learning how the once and future hope for humanity can be found in tapping into the special abilities of young women. Their anticipated spiritual journeys can stimulate what Jane Goodall calls Reasons for Hope for a more natural therefore a more caring and sustainable world.

The late John Paul II was an influential world leader widely read, fluent in multiple languages -- East and West -- and a man who suffered through the Poland of World War Two rising to greatness as head of the Roman Catholic Church. He saw in the present generation a soreness of the spirit in men who abandon religion for reasons of intellectual hubris. He asked: why is the preferred intellectual fantasy treasured more than the loving, caring heart of God? He asked why the intellectual when confronted with the loss of hope that comes with the loss of his religious heritage and the Christian soul should abandon the church where the memory of a young woman  is held in the highest esteem, being the Virgin Mary.

(1) George Weigel in “The Cube and the Cathedral: Europe, America and Politics Without God” (New York: Basic Books/Perseus Group, 2005) raises the issue of intellectuals worshipping Politics instead of God. Since Darwin’s era, academics deprived of immortality endlessly invent alternatives to the Christian worldview. Easier the proverbial camel passes through the eye of a needle than the intellectuals gain the Kingdom of God.

(2) Jane Goodall in “Reason for Hope: The Spiritual Journey” (New York: Warner Books, 1999) understands well the overlap between the human and the chimpanzee DNA. She has seen chimpanzee violence that in embryo and on a monstrously expanded scale leads to the violence in leadership that drives great nations to fight the bloodiest wars to unconditional surrender.

(3) The author admits to having no training in formal theology. He does admit to befriending a Reformed pastor, an Episcopal priest and the Catholic abbot of a monastery. The basic thesis investigated in this article was discussed with the pastor for three months. The pastor did not refute the thesis, possibly because he is good natured, or perhaps the author may be right.

(4) The primary Bible employed was “The Cross Reference Bible,” being the Variorum edition of the American Standard Version. The copyright page in shreds has been lost. Nonetheless, it is a readable old Bible just barely hanging together. It brings to mind the world of scholarship before the present era of being pliable and nice ruling the academic world.

(5) Prior to writing this essay, in addition to several years thinking and taking notes on the nature of higher consciousness and the Book of Jeremiah, the author in the University of California at San Diego Main Library decided to pile on his table all of the academic books that could explain the new thing on earth Jeremiah 31:22. Imagine the author’s surprise at the professors who claim the passage is a gloss meaning ignore it, or that the woman shall seduce or woo the man. This is a new thing?

(6) Adoration of the Virgin Mary was a familiar Renaissance theme and persists today. At the nearby Prince of Peace abbey in Oceanside CA, an alcove for prayer features a mahogany Virgin Mary caressing in her arms the infant Jesus. Across the building in a second alcove is housed a replica of the Ark of the Covenant gleaming in burnished metal and inlayed jewels. Thus the visitor gets rewarded twice by the statue then the sculpture of the old and the new covenants.

(7) The author is hardly a Catholic and has no investment in Christian renewal as much as he felt the worries of Bishop John Shelby Spong in his “Sins of Scripture” (New York: Harper San Francisco, 2005). He has identified the cruel and unusual punishments that turned him away from the literalist interpretation of the Bible. He still holds to the goodness of Jesus and believes that the coming of The Christ ushered in a new consciousness for humanity. Let us hope that he is informed about this essay that saves the baby Jesus while throwing out the dirty bathwater.

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Contact: David Alan Goodman, PhD, Postal Box 803, San Marcos, CA USA 92079-0803; 760-736-1975; and davegoodman@juno.com.