With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds; let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking His blessing and His help, but knowing that here on
earth God's work must truly be our own.
After walking for one kilometer, hikers will reach the top of the mountain, where there is a fork and an
Earth God temple.
"We were working with our hands on
earth God gave us."
I began my interview with Wang Wu Hsiung, the caretaker for the Fu Sin Kung (Fortune Prospectus Temple) in Yingge (Figures 1 and 2), where the small bearded statue of Lo Ming resides (Figure 3), by asking how the statue of Lo Ming came to be housed there along with the
earth god.
People whose imaginations get sanctified by the pictures of scripture say things like "I have a dream" and act to stoke discontent in the world through graceful gestures that point toward the renewed heaven and
earth God will bring.
Whereas on
earth God has become human in Jesus Christ, what would this incarnation mean For intelligent creatures with other forms and histories?
Standing along with the bodhisattva Guanyin, the god Guan Di [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII] (patron of war and literature), and Tianhou (the Empress of Heaven and a marine/riverine goddess), Zhenwu/Bei Di flanks an unusual central deity, Tudi Gong [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII], the
Earth God or God of the Local Land.
Nut, a sky goddess and mate of Geb, an
earth god, is personified as a cow that nourishes mankind.
When the angels looked down from on high and sang out the first ever carol wishing the
Earth God's peace little did their audience of shepherds realise just how troubled and traumatised the Earth would become one day.
Kennedy, to answer that question: "Let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessing and his help, but knowing that here on
earth God's work must truly be our own."
It is translated as 'the
earth god' (Ahern 1973:6; Fried 1974:131; Maspero 1981:3; Suenari 1985:36), 'the
Earth God' (Diamond 1969:99; Brim 1974:98; Wei & Coutanceau 1976:28; Werner 1977:413f), 'the
Earth Gods' (Berkovits and others 1969:77), 'the local
earth gods' (Baity 1975:58), 'the local god' (Smith (1899) 1969:138; Bredon & Mitrophanom 1927:456), 'the Place Gods' (Sangren 1987:61), 'the God of the locality' (Burkhardt 1958b:151), 'the Locality God' (Wolf 1974:134; Feuchtwang 1992:47), 'the gods of the Locality' (Maspero 1981:110), 'the Tutelary Deity' (Baity 1975:273), and 'land gods' (Hsiao Kung-chuan 1960:275f).
Organic theology grows from the good
earth God created, the good earth Wisdom sings about in Proverbs 8.