Out beyond this joyous busy season, in the silent night of eternity, love's elegant, magnetic, electric presence softly resonates between two lovers. As two lights in the night sky, they embrace the sweetest Christmas love ever known. Their love is, as it always has been, even after all these years, a perfect mirror of God's purest passionate and abounding love for each of us. Rising within each soul, like the full moon at midnight, is a breathless love, gasping in awe and surrender with each heartbeat, as strong as the mountains and raging rivers that cut their way through the earth's soft surface, carving green valleys, as they empty themselves into the vast ocean. This love, this gift, arrived in our oppressive and weary war-torn world as greatness wrapped in simplicity, wealth hidden in humility, divinity embedded in humanity, a glistening radiant diamond in a dark coal mine. His glance across the hillside, filled with masses eager to hear his message, drew her to him, igniting something within her heart she had never felt before. The sweet blue bird lifted from its sleepy perch within her breast, dispelling all the lies, deceit, betrayal, exploitation and oppression she had only known. His glance met hers, and the world was never the same. They found a secret in the love they shared, one from which the world is still reeling and yet still does not comprehend. They knew the power of creation in the movement of their breath driven by a deep inner knowing only they understood. The false version of power with which the world had been grappling was never real. It was a terrible, twisted lie, oppressive and soulless, masquerading as real. It had no power of its own. It only had what it stole from the people it had enslaved through fear, control, manipulation, guilt and deception. The authentic power of love which would one day be ignited within us, the same as that shared between those two first lovers, is the free abandon of life itself only the creator can give. The seed for it, which he later would liken to a 'mustard seed' was already there as part of humanity's original design by God. It was prolific, drawing each soul into flight, well beyond the known boundaries of the time, then and now. "Where does the sky end?" she asked him, smiling softly into his dark brown eyes in the coolness of the evening in the garden where they whispered to each other. Human beings always had the capability of loving this way, but remained blinded to it by the controlling powers who hardened our hearts through fear. The love remained ungerminated, only ever in a state of potential, never rooting and blooming. Igniting that awareness of who we really are and the great potential for wisdom and love we contained within us, only needed to be switched on by our awareness and perhaps lit as a candle is lit, by God's love. He was born a lover, ever so much more than a king. His regal and divine power was woven with compassion, courage, wisdom and gentleness. Everything he said, everything he did was composed of love, a love that knew no boundaries. It was always about love, right up until the end and even beyond. So is it such a surprise that he would love a woman? Women then were not respected for their wisdom or intelligence. Then, as now, it was very much a man's world, polarized, steeped in the rigidity of control and legalism. It couldn't move with the gentle breeze that swept the reeds in the shallow marsh. It was hard and merciless, cold and sterile. He loved her as the dance loves the dancer, as the song loves the singer and the sun loves the amber hues reflecting off the horizon at the end of day. Why wouldn't he have loved her with this great passion he contained in his divine heart? If he could love a leper, a blind man, a dead man and a child, along with all the other good, bad and ugly of his time - genuinely and passionately love them - why wouldn't he have loved a woman? Aren't women deserving of love even as much as a corrupt tax collector or diseased person? What is it about the man's world that just can't believe that he could love a woman? But, there is so much evidence that he did love her. If he were a man who loved so much that he would allow his life to be taken rather than renounce his truth, with an astounding force of heroic courage, wouldn't he engage in this dance of cosmic divine love? His love for her must have been profound. The light within him must have radiated like the sun at noontime, and she, in response, must have glowed like the full moon shimmering outside my window on this cold December night. Those who have written about the two lovers described him as solar and she as lunar, two halves of the cosmic whole meeting. Her glow was his reflected light. While she certainly had her own light, she had the capacity in her own regal divinity to receive the intensity of his love and return it to him. The cosmos must have delighted in their passionate light dance spinning stars and galaxies in tune to their own music. Love is stirred within us when we look into the eyes of another and listen deeply to their heart, their joys, their hurts and their longing. It is our heart flowing with theirs. It is a merging of the spiritual with the earthen. It is God's immeasurable love for humanity that is celebrated in a very human kind of love.
Maybe it always was our Father's plan for the world. Maybe Mary's baby, who once turned the world upside down, can still be heard in our hearts. Maybe now we have the ears to hear and eyes to understand His message today and through it find our way out of the bondage of this oppressive world and into the beautiful rich creative lives of love and joy, which we were always meant to live. And, maybe when we realize how awesome all of this is, how powerful and beautiful the love given to the world on that cold winter night in Bethlehem was, we will sing joyously this Christmas.
The following is a reflection on the Christian mystical path to enlightenment. It's a jaunt through thoughts on orthodox Christianity and Christian mysticism.
It offers a feminine-principled understanding rather than the traditional and orthodox masculine-principled Church which has been the dominant interpretation through the ages. The feminine is a sharing of the love-power, innate in us and among us as equals likened to sharing a meal around a dinner table. The masculine is a fear-driven, power-down model that literally starves people of the truth. In my opinion, Jesus knew how radical his perspective was. It's no wonder the masculine Romans persecuted the Christians until they converted Jesus' message into masculine terms. Here, I share the message from what I believe is the original one, in the feminine perspective. A Muslim friend recently showed me a youtube discussion between two Muslim women and a Christian man from whom they were seeking clarification about the basic teachings on the Trinity, Holy Spirit, and Jesus as Son of God.
As I listened, I felt an overwhelming urge to correct the man as he spewed Nicene creed theological dogma at the two young Muslim women who had no framework for understanding what he was saying. At one point he said, "It might be hard to get your head around this." You think? I wonder if rather than think our way to understanding, if a clearer and more helpful understanding would be found in our hearts. Isn't that where true wisdom is found?
I felt we need to translate what we find in our hearts into common analogies to help someone who is unfamiliar with Christ and Christian language to understand some of the awesome depth of the mystical path and not further confuse them, especially those who have been taught that following Jesus is idolatry.
I wanted to share how I understand what it is to be a Christian in language that makes sense to me, and language that I thought explained some of the depth to someone completely unfamiliar with its spiritual mysticism.
I asked my friend if he wanted to hear the short version? To my absolute amazement, he said yes. I asked him to please listen with an open mind.
I dove in. I explained to him that an authentic, fully realized Christian is one who is "Christed," enlightened, aglow with the light, love, wisdom and power of the divine. I said such an enlightened person would have resolved and overcome his issues to a considerable extent and dismantled the ego's negativity through self-acceptance, self-love, and acceptance of God's perfect, comprehensive, unconditional love.
I refrained from elaborating on the scriptural references we hear in the Gospel in which Jesus calls us on the way by confronting the "log in our own eye," and unbinding "the strong man within"* in order to see what is authentic, rather than the dark reflection of the inner ego projected outwardly. Then, we are able to see the truth and beauty of God's divine nature which would flow into us as "a stream of living water," a metaphor for the flow of authentic life, leading to an on-going heightening of consciousness and deeper awakening.
Instead, I simply told him he would know a mature Christian by the power of the love he or she radiated. It would be palatable, powerful, and magnetic.
As the ideas flew at me, I reflected privately that at some point, a person who is on the path taught by Jesus, could reach that high state of enlightenment, akin to a Buddhist who has reached Buddha-hood because he embraced Buddha's way to enlightenment. At that point, he might be considered Christed.
It made sense, perfect sense. Suddenly, all the pieces of the Christian message were coming together like a thousand-piece puzzle. I realized a Christian is someone who is on a path headed toward enlightenment or Christing, but may not yet be at full enlightenment.
The Church's idea that a person is Christed at their Christening, or infant baptism, doesn't fit. It doesn't call the person to actually do the work, the hard interior work of cleaning the inner sanctum and then intentionally and deliberately inviting in the presence of the Holy Spirit, the Christing agency. Even in Confirmation classes, this idea is not presented clearly.
So, Christians are, in a sense, pilgrims or travelers on the way to enlightenment. That is their goal.
I turned to my friend, who remarkably was still listening, and said, Jesus realized he was the Son of God because he was enlightened. I added that I thought Jesus came to teach us the way to God, and might never have wanted us to worship him or focus our lens on him in an idolatrous way. He might have hoped we would learn from him as the Teacher that he was and join him on a level playing field. It makes sense that he wouldn't want us to elevate him above us and live in fear of him.
I realized He was teaching us how to love, exemplified as dining together, sharing a meal, rather than bowing down or trembling in fear of judgment and punishment. He wanted us to commune with Him and each other and share freely and lovingly. I think he was teaching us by example what authentic relationship is - with Him, ourselves, each other and with God.
He wanted a brother-to-brother relationship with us rather than a master-to-slave relationship. He wanted a relationship based on love and mutuality rather than fear and subjectivity. He wouldn't want us to see him as equal to God unless he saw us as equal to God as well. There's the awesome surprise in the Gospel. He wanted us to see ourselves as equal to God, not because we're so great, but because God's love is so great. "Did I not say you are gods?" remember, he asked in John 10:34.
It makes sense that you would only be able to accept such a seemingly grandiose notion if you were no longer enslaved by the belittling and highly critical ego. It seems only a humble, enlightened person can receive the gift this idea brings which may be why He challenged us to become authentically empowered by becoming genuinely humble.
He does not say His sonship is exclusive to Him. Again, He says, "did I not say you were gods?" He says we are also all sons and daughters of God, due to our innate original perfection, which remains buried under our egos, and therefore in a state of potential. Our divine nature is perfect as God is perfect. If that perfection is blocked due to a heavy ego, the light cannot or does not radiate outward.
The Jesus we meet in the Gospels had been "Christed" by the Holy Spirit during His baptism in the Jordan (a metaphor for the river of life) and is consequently fully enlightened. My friend, incidentally, is from Jordan.
Jesus is full of God's spirit yet is not the totality of God. This is like saying, "the glass is full of water, but is NOT the whole ocean." Neither is the glass the source of water, but the water within the glass is the same substance as the water in the ocean.
And, further, it seems the universe is holographic which means the whole nature or quality of its substance is contained in a fragment of it. There's more on that which is truly awesome and inspiring. Every aspect of the universe is magnetically connected to the whole. Fragments are in communication on some level with the larger whole. All of life is magnetic, magical, and alive with varying degrees and levels of consciousness. One's power is directly related to the degree and level of consciousness he or she has attained.
In a holographic universe, what is true on a cosmic level is also true on a microscopic level. A teaspoon of water has the same substance as an ocean. So, the Spirit of God who fills the universe and creates life, is the same substance, with the same catalyzing, life-giving wisdom and power, as if it were in a single human being. Jesus was full of God, or "fully God," but is not the whole universe. He contains, fully, God's spirit in his self-realized divine nature, a nature we all have. Needless to say, this is incredibly rare and unique. Maybe a handful of human beings have ever reached the zenith of enlightenment. Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, and ?
If you are not enlightened, or even awakened - and few are - you may not be able to teach what enlightenment is. I think it has to be experiential to some extent. What these mystical terms really mean and how we can reach a high level of consciousness are complex. We are not going to be able to explain our faith to someone if we don't really get it and are unable to translate it in modern terms. And, even if we do fully get it, those who aren't awakened enough, may not understand what you're saying anyway. (That was what happened to Jesus).
I continued sharing what I see as the Gnostic way, which is equally Christ-directed. It reflects the simple idea that within all human beings are two natures. One is your instinctual nature, and the other is the Divine in-dwelling host or your eternal nature. The Divine nature is like a candle planted within you that is lit by our Divine parent. It is in all of us, and when it's lit, the journey begins. The awakening process, or way to enlightenment, is a long road full of twists and turns mostly due to the darkness and lack of love in our age. Through perseverance and wisdom, we can eventually reach higher levels of awareness, consciousness and spiritual wisdom.
My friend, who is usually resistant to engaging in religious conversations because of the potential of them becoming oppositional, listened to me for 10 minutes, and got it. He understood the idea that we all have a light within us that we can turn up. He thought about the idea of Jesus being a Son of God, as we all are. That was a new idea to him which I don't think threatened his belief in Islam. As we talked, we found there is a place where Christianity and Islam can be compatible. If we both go to where our faith leads us, we might find we have arrived at the same place.
The question I wondered aloud was, "should anyone worship religion over doing the hard work of moving toward enlightenment, where you would encounter and become one with God, and each other?" He replied, "We need religion."
"But, if we worship a religion, isn't that idolatrous?" I asked him, adding, "Then, who comes first? God or your religion? So, the question really is, 'What does God want?' "
It was dawning on me that worship, elevation, in a power hierarchy like the Church or a legalistic Sharia as some forms of Islam is the opposite of what God is really calling us to. It seems to me God just wants us to come commune with Him. So, the bottom line is, what's more important, the way we get to Him or getting to Him and being in communion, total immersion in Him?
I could see this idea might open us all to reach out to each other, without an agenda to convert the other, and honor God as we honor each other's unique path to Him. It seems obvious that it's the work of the ego to elevate oneself, and one's path, above another. That's separating and anything that separates the body of God, is not of God. So, this idea seems it might help us to enter into a loving dialogue for a mutual understanding that benefits us both. ______________________
* another way of saying, "freeing the captive," or giving sight to the - spiritually - blind"
While reflecting on what it means to "love our enemy," it suddenly occurred to me, that, maybe in reality, there are no enemies.
I wondered, "Could we eliminate our enemies by realizing that in truth there are no enemies?" Do they only exist as a figment of our fear, born in our separated, fortressed imagination? Is our perception of them as enemies only a misguided idea based on an incomplete and fractured perception of ourselves? Are they only imagined as enemies out of a perception of ourselves as weak? Has their emerging anger terrorized us, and in our weakness, we have deemed them enemy?
But, is our weakness real or only a perception? Is our flawed fear of impotence, projecting as fear of them, based on the erroneous belief in their overwhelming strength and power because we think we're not strong or worthy enough to hold our own ground? Is it all just a mind game? And, none of it is true because we are all innately imbued with the power of creation within us. The dissonance comes when neither of us - them or us - realize who we are as co creators of life itself.
So, an enemy ceases to be an enemy as soon as we love (honor, value ourselves) and them, and make them a friend. When we listen to their story, hear their pain, their need for love with compassion and understanding, we walk with them in their pain, journey alongside them in their story. When we hear and understand their perspective, molded by their interpretation of what has happened to them, leading them to erroneously perceive themselves as victim or victor, we become a kind of companion to them.
By walking with them in their brokenness and their struggle, a divine compassion is drawn from within us bonding us to them, first as a companion and then, hopefully, even as friends. Then, they become neighbors, and brothers and sisters, all of whom we will grow to love in greater levels of truth, mutuality, and intimacy.
The idea of someone being an enemy has more to do with our sense of "us versus them," a kind of duality, a barrier we set up as defense.
Our enemy isn't an enemy to everyone - not to his or her spouse, friends, neighbors, other like-minded people, their children, their parents. Our enemy is only an enemy to us, and that may be more a reflection of our relationship to them which is primarily a reflection of our relationship to ourselves.
Maybe, more simply, someone is our enemy because they push a button in us, stir an unrecovered painful memory. If that memory or button weren't there, all their pushing in the world wouldn't - because it couldn't - push it. And, they could never be anything other than a friend, a companion on this journey in life.
I think that anyone we determine and name as our enemy is merely an outward expression of an inner presence. I wondered if our relationship with ourselves is shadowy and conflicted, stemming from a fractured sense of self, then wouldn't our relationship with them be a kind of anti-sacrament? But, if our inner presence is the presence of the Beloved, the Holy Spirit, the Divine Light, then all outward expressions would be manifestations of that divine love-light, which embraces all people, equally in love, connecting us all in that divine love-light. That very idea just blew me away in its incredible ability to mend the many huge broken divides everywhere in our world.
If that were the case, then, there would be no more enemies, either because we wouldn't perceive them as such or because we would be attracting into our lives magnetically those who reflect what is already in us, which would be the divine love-light.
It seems that if we first uncover our buried pains contributing to our brokenness and fear, love and heal ourselves, we would be able to love others. I guessed, if we face our own insufficient sense of personal identity and innate divinely-bestowed power, we might be able to heal our prejudice, hurts and brokenness. Then, as we practice this heightened kind of unconditional love and acceptance of ourselves and each other, courageously opening our hearts, quieting our minds, listening with our ears, hearts and minds, enemies might suddenly not be people in armor but people in love.
But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! Matthew 5:44
But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Luke 6:27
And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive them, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins. Mark 11:25 A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34
Sounds like marching orders. He certainly spoke these words. They're in three of the gospels, and similar versions are in the Gospel of Thomas and Paul's writings. How do we interpret this?
What does it mean to love?
I think it is comprised of both the masculine and feminine principles. It is gentle as a dove and wise as a serpent. It's a passionate, persevering, enlightened willing determination to not be brought down to their level of fear, terror, and hatred. It is a strong, intentional transmission of love, combined with a strong courage not to hate them, despite how terrible they are.
Maybe we need to stand up with a sure determination to love ourselves, and each other. Then, as we build up higher and stronger, increasingly radiant in the power of God's love, we can send that powerful love out to wrap "our enemies, those who persecute us." God's awesome power to heal, to create, to give life, can transform them. I believe this and it seems Jesus did also. Gandhi proved it can work. Our love has to be powerful and intentional, proactive and assertive. We cannot afford for one more minute to react to their terror. Maybe we've done that in the past, but we cannot react and allow ourselves to be lured to their level of hatred.
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone.
Isaiah 9:2
The people living in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.
Matthew 4:16
An awakening is bursting across the planet. It is birthing the long-awaited Golden Age. It is with absolute certainty that I write this to you this morning. This great birthing into the power and light of this global awakening is reflected in a million different expressions, and is called many things. For me, it is our birth into the light of Christ. The bride, who is the feminine and spiritual aspect of the divine, has heard our pain and is here now. We have collectively freed her from her long imprisonment by an abusive and unbalanced patriarchy. She is waking us up and together we are giving birth to a new earth. When human beings finally find their enslavement unbearable, and rise up out of it, they attain a strong level of self-empowerment. That's the psychological language. The spiritual, which is far more powerful and true, is "The people living in darkness have seen a great light."
Nothing can push a butterfly back into its cocoon. You can't put a hatched chick back into its newly cracked-open egg. We are like liberated butterflies and newborn chicks. An enlightened person cannot go back into the dark. Once you are awake, you can't go back to sleep. We are being born into our realized, enlightened state. Once you have broken out of the prison of abuse or unconsciousness, you begin the road to healing and wholeness and nothing is the same.
It's as if all our marbles, once tossed all over the living room floor by a mean playmate, are magnetically being drawn together into a single container. That is you. That's you when you feel your personal self-hood and your personal power. You feel invincible. It is the ultimate elation. That newly felt power launches you on a trajectory into the light. The love you feel propels you.
What if we all came together joined in that experience, awareness and global awakening? Could we radiate this powerful love across the planet and heal our world?
I believe we are already doing this in so many ways, from climate control to an outreach to the poor and hungry around the world, prison reform, a loud international cry for an end to the oppression of women and children everywhere and in every way, the end to cruelty to animals, environmental remediation, a rise in organic farming, a call to end genetically modified agriculture and the use of pesticides, compassion for the immigrant and refugee, a more conscious choice for healthy food, fair trading, and overall a tidal wave of conscious consumption.
The awakening is flickering through the waning dark clouds of a receding age. It is shining waves of conscious compassion, shifting the planet into a more compassionate realm, a more feminine one that sees the earth as our mysteriously fertile, miraculous, and sacred home.
Patriarchy, as we have known it, is on its death bed. The raw power of control, expressed outwardly as a judgmental god, is the unbalanced masculine principle which has viewed life in every manifestation as an object for its use, and abuse. It killed almost everything in its rage against life.
It is slowly giving way to the inner light of a feminine expression of unconditional love, and allowing. It is the Christ presence and the realm about which he taught us. The balancing of life is occurring, and that is the compassionate awakening.
Today, we are finally proclaiming "freedom for the prisoners, recovery of sight for the blind, and setting the oppressed free. (Luke 4:18) and feeding the hungry, healing the sick, the aged, those who have been trapped in almost anyway, languishing in an inner darkness, an interior prison. This was Jesus' mission statement, and it was the long-awaited call down through the ages for his return. He is returning in our awakening, and spiritually drawing us up out of our dark interior oppression to the dawning of this new age.
I also feel that as each one of us gets free, up and out of our inner prisons, we need to help others get free also. I think love is the way, rather than lecture, persuasion, religion. By being present with a heart of compassion, listening and acceptance, we help birth our world into this awakened stage.
I am sure the antidote to fear is love. The power of a freed mind is the only vaccine against an epidemic of hatred and anger.
Those who are stuck in the darkness, who have not awakened, have been steeped too long in that oppressive state of fear and terror, the raw power of a masculine judgmental god. Their awakening is overdue. They are late to the awakening, and have died in a sense. Life itself is only experienced in a state of freedom, in an awakened state. They need to be reborn. I certainly hope their awakening is imminent. Who knows when one finally awakens from the darkness of power and control?
Awakening from the lower stages of oppression is an evolutionary stage we move through. It is an adolescence, a natural stage in our maturation process. It is what causes the ready-to-hatch chick to start pecking his way out of his egg shell. What if he couldn't get out? I wonder if that's what's going on with the terrorists, and all other oppressed peoples trapped in poverty, prejudice or whatever limits their freedom of voice, self determination, and suppresses their creativity, joy and spontaneity?
The world has finally reached that stage where in unison, all those who have been oppressed, are breaking out of their coffins of pain. The awakening process is birthing them into a new stage of their lives.
The will to survive and thrive in life is an incredibly beautiful and powerful drive. It is the power of life itself, of God within and among us. However, it may be awhile before they move beyond the anger and grief of having been oppressed for so long. Once they do, the light will shine into their lives and the awakening will truly feel like joy. They will taste the sweet water from the living streams of true life and then everything they ever heard about the spiritual life will finally make sense.
By offering a united presence of love, collectively, as a strong, and effective response to terror, we are bathing the planet with a highly dynamic and powerful counter-force to ISIL's anti-life, anti-Christ force. We are now standing tall and strong in our awakened state of knowing that we are love and will not allow anything to dissuade our Being Love.
As we hold that vision, as a lamp within and before us, I hope we will remember and affirm this to each other. By sending our love out into the world, intentionally, we magnify its power. As we are reaching critical mass, which I think we have already hit, that love is now escalating into a magnificent global force that is changing the world.
Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. John 14:27KJV
When I ended Saturday's piece with Jesus' call for forgiveness, I felt an uncomfortable inner cringe. We obviously cannot just up and forgive ISIL for the bloodbath in Paris. What does Jesus mean? Could He mean that as all of us become strong and empowered, whole and healthy, lifted up and out of our own internalized anger and enslavement (and we are all enslaved by many things) we could gain the inner strength, similar to theirs, which would make our ability to love more powerful than their pain and anger, and more invincible, and an antidote to their pain-fed pseudo-invincibility? And, since that's the ultimate goal for humankind, there's a promise inherent in this situation, and that's this is not the end. It is a terribly painful stage. How do we midwife this planet's birth, into a new planet? Forgiveness is born out of an inner state of love which creates such a powerful all pervasive peace that it chooses not to be bound down by unforgiveness. Consequently, forgiveness becomes a powerful intention, a choice to see and understand by comprehending the bigger picture and realizing this is a frightening stage in the development of the human race, and specifically the maturing process of oppressed people. Forgiveness is a wise decision not to react but to choose love in response to another's reaction to the oppression of imperialism, racism, elitism, and religious persecution.
Theirs' is an uncritical reaction. It is a state of out of control anger so strong that it overwhelms any sanity or wisdom. It is the scapegoated Black teen who bolts out of the house, hungry and angry, and robs a 7-eleven, and then takes the fall from a magistrate of the white imperial court that has caused the whole system which has oppressed his people to an intolerable point. An Arab friend once said we ordinary American people don't understand the whole picture of what has happened historically in the Arabian context. I asked him to explain it to me, and he shook his head and declined, saying, I wouldn't understand.
So, there is another outcome we can hope for. I realize ISIL wants an Armageddon. And, sometimes I think the right wing Christian fundamentalists do too. I want a Golden Age. I want us to realize this is a stage - as terrible and dark and horrific as it is - and see that it's not the end of the story. It is not the end, despite what the media and religious fanatics say, it is only the birth pains that precedes the whole world's birth into the Golden Age, a new Genesis. If creator of the Universe, the great Parent of life itself, and more specifically a Parent who loves us, knows us, and is urging us to grow up, then our God always knew we would go through this terrible collective, global adolescence of rebellion against abusive, evil, control. It is an important, yet volatile stage, and one which our God has called us to do for more than 5000 years. If that's the case, which I think it is, then there is another stage to get to, the stage of reconciliation, of whole planet empowerment, of ultimate creative aliveness that will plant the flowers on the graves of all who have been lost in this huge global uprising. If it exists, the golden age promised in the Book of Revelation, that New Jerusalem, and if that's part of our global development, that would mean that we will get to that stage. It is part of the plan. So, whether or not the suicide bombers want to end life on the planet because in some strange way that would eliminate their anger, it is not the end. It may feel like it. It may feel like we can't come against this terrible consolidated power raging through the Middle East and Europe and taunting our U.S. shores, but we can.
I feel that we have to get to that place of pure peace and light and then stand tall and strong together in it. We have to grow up, become enlightened, empowered by the ultimate love of the universe, and stand up and allow that power, that awesome creative power, to flood the planet and flood these very angry men.
I only know one thing for sure. This is not the end. Humanity's God who loves us beyond our ability to love ourselves or each other is asking us to trust, to wait, to love, to believe, even to know God's love and infinite mercy, and with that full knowing, rise up and walk with His power.When we react, we feed the fire. When we watch and wait, listen with our hearts open, and learn to see our face in the face of our enemy, and love ourselves despite what we see by forgiving ourselves, we can authentically love them.
Then, maybe, hopefully, one-by-one we can begin to mitigate this great and terrible outpouring of pain and together give birth to a time of peace, thriving in the light of God's perfect love.
Religion, as we know it, may be a sham. But, before you lunge or laugh at that statement, let me explain. To begin, the canonical teachings of Jesus, on which the Christian religion thinks it's based, are not the whole picture. Since no one can appreciate anything that's unfocused, let's focus it and then live it, if we're going to live it at all. And, I truly believe fervently we need Christ more today than at any other time in the world's history. Fortunately, He's here just as much as our need is for Him. I know that's a wake up to anyone who has been reading Tiger Lilies, but Tiger Lilies has never advocated religion per se. It has rather called for universal enlightenment, some of which is found in most religions and is in all human beings as an a priori condition. Enlightenment requires a sound and liberated mind to begin with. So, I have offered thoughts on what has enslaved us and thoughts on how to break free of that inner enslavement. Human enlightenment seems to always have been an illusive dance between shadow and light, cast from within another dimension, another reality, while at the same time calling for compassion as our guide - a compassion for ourselves, individually, and collectively. If compassion is a religion, then it may be a reflection of a deep and powerful truth, far more powerful than any religion could ever be. It doesn't steal your soul. Rather, it opens the door of your heart to eternity, something religion offers but too often doesn't deliver. Tiger Lilies is based on what I believe are the real teachings of Jesus. For the mainstream that may sound heretical, but there is sufficient sound evidence that the Gnostic Christian teachings and writings offer the world a very different, and important, understanding of what Jesus really taught. So, I've maintained what I have come to believe are the authentic teachings of Jesus as the Son of God. Adding to that understanding, is one that He is a fully realized Son of God, and fully enlightened, as the Buddha was. While he stands apart from us, He is also always drawing us closer to him, opening the path to truth, enlightenment, total immersion in the Oneness of universal eternality. He does not need our worship. He does not need our sacrifice, nor does God. He wants us to take possession of our own minds and lives. He wants us to honor ourselves, and when we are ready, to open our minds and allow our hearts to breathe in the Holy Spirit which is the substance of creation itself. Nothing is more powerful or life-giving. When we worship in the old way, we give our power away, including our self determination, our psychological underpinning, our own owned interpretation of life itself. We become subordinated. Many of the saints of antiquity, who followed the old religion, died giving their power away to a God who did not require it. Jesus always wanted us to take back our power from the false power brokers. It was everything he hoped we'd understand. He knew the way and wanted to show us how to become whole, strengthened by that wholeness, and empowered by a personal integrity. Rather than the rigidity of an old religious moralistic legalism that demanded subservience to a religious law, just because disobedience meant punishment, He called us to an individualistic integrity stemming from a self determination built on knowing and honoring yourself that can only come at that point of authentic freedom from outside controls. It's something like, "Know yourself, honor yourself; know your boundaries, honor your boundaries; love yourself, love each other." When you are whole, you are strong; when you are strong, you can love; when you can love, you can forgive and heal yourself and the whole world. When the whole world is moving as one, it will dance with God in a way that I can't even imagine, but truly and earnestly hope for. But, there is a single, mind-blowing thought I want to leave with you here. Christianity as we know it has led to a ritualistic practice based on the wrong idea that Jesus was "the lamb of God," a sacrificial victim placed on the cross to absorb and absolve us of our punishment for our sins. This terrible idea comes from another terrible idea, which is that we are born sinners. What a sad state of affairs. Why would God create sinners? So, Christianity is a victim-based ideology. The more pain, the more gain. The more you suffer, the more you liken yourself to Jesus, it suggests. Martyrdom was and still is the cornerstone of the faith. However you want to define martyrdom, it is based on the idea that you give yourself away to a more noble cause and in the giving of yourself away you gain eternal life, regardless of the pain. So, during the Middle Ages, you went to be burned at the stake. In the Roman era, you were ripped apart by lions or tortured in other unimaginable ways - that's until ISIL came up with some new ways. And, that brings me to another terrible idea. ISIL terrorists are gaining recruits based on the same ideology, as wrong now as it ever was. The terror inflicted on the world recently in Paris, is an outrageous mirror to us of what we always believed ourselves, only packaged differently. Why else would someone blow himself up in a suicide vest? As we react to ISIL's terrorism, let's look at how we've terrorized our own minds for these past 1600 years, as Christians. You can say, "Oh that was a long time ago. We don't put people up to burn anymore. We don't kill in the name of religion anymore." Are you sure about that? As long as the over-riding ideology of the faith, which I maintain is an error made by the Church Fathers around AD 325, and cast in stone in the Nicene Creed, is based on a complete misunderstanding of what Jesus' death (crucifixion) was about, then we are upholding a victim-based, heroic belief in martyrdom which is identical to the idea that is fueling ISIL. We are looking our own false religion right in the face of every radical Muslim terrorist. Again, I'm not saying authentic Christianity is false. I'm saying this pivotal belief, which also keeps the mainstream away from a full communion with the divine, is based on a huge error, an error so big and so malignant that it has created an inflamed planet theologically and ideologically. So, back to Jesus. His last words to us were, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." I think that's where I begin and where I leave off. "Father, forgive us all - Christians and Muslims - because we didn't know what we were doing." But, now we do. Where do we go from here? (Continued tomorrow)
There are many kinds of
poverty. But the worst deprivation is the lack of a childhood. It is even worse
than financial poverty. It is the lack of an inner autonomy, an integrated and creative interiority, stemming from the sheer absence of adult love and guidance in the early formative years of a child's life.
Even if a child is languishing as a refugee in poverty, blighted by the most heinous terrorist regime ever known to the modern world, if that child feels loved by his parents, if he survives physically, that child has a good chance of success later in life. He may be deprived of other things, but with the love, acceptance and support of his parents, he will develop the inner skills to thrive. He will grow up with an intact "self," and his childhood will naturally develop into adulthood.
But, a child who is neglected or abused will not. He will remain trapped, imprisoned in whatever life stage he was in when he encountered traumatic abuse. Part of his inner self is frozen, paralyzed in that time and place. Psychologists can almost pinpoint when a person encountered abuse because a part of that person's self is stuck in that stage of development. Maybe that's what "adult child of an alcoholic" means, even though that's not what it was meant to mean.
Children learn to survive by doing whatever it takes to keep their parents happy. It may mean anything, even picking up glass shattered all over the kitchen at 2 am because one of their drunken parents had exploded in rage at the other. Clearly, that's shocking and ridiculous to subject a child to cleaning up shattered glass because the drunken raging parent threw all the glasses on the shelf at that other parent. Yes, it's shocking. But, the child accepts it as normal because it wasn't the first time and it won't be the last.
The child learns to listen to the parents talking in the driveway at night as they return home from another party. The child listens for any signs of anger in their voices. When he is sure there isn't going to be another big fight, he can slip off to sleep. But, even then, he can not be sure. Sometimes he's fooled if he's not careful, and the angry parent might not sound like he's angry with the other parent, but might just appear at his bedroom door, horrifically casting a long shadow on the bedroom wall by the bright hall light in the doorway. Then, throwing on the overhead light, staggers in raging at the child. He might demand the child get up and clean his room, or sweep the kitchen, or do homework. It's always unpredictable. Whatever it is, the child does it to avoid a beating or raging.
This is hard to believe it ever happens. It is pure insanity, but the child learns to accept that insanity - even though he doesn't know it's insanity - and does whatever he can to avoid it ever happening again. But, it does. Somewhere in his little heart he wishes his parent loved him, but for now just avoiding the inevitable seems to be his main goal in life. He doesn't know he's not being loved. He's just trying to survive the horrors of the night. Maybe someday it'll all make sense, but then maybe it never will.
It happens again and again and again. As the child grows, sometimes the abuse gets worse. Often the beatings are painful.Teachers notice, but don't ask, about the black eye or the deep finger nail scratch across the child's face or the poor attention in school. As the child withdraws from any social interaction, fearing abuse from the teacher on whom he has projected his fear of authority (which later he'll project onto future employers) or the bullies at school, he finds his only peace is in being alone. But, there's still the awareness, always there, that he has to go home after school. Life becomes survival, just survival, nothing more.
Unfortunately, by the time the child has managed to get out of the house in his late teens, the inner damage is done. Fight or flight begins and becomes the child's way of dealing with any future stress resembling that of the parent. And, that is just the beginning of the horrors that child will encounter as he tries to "fix" what happened to him. On a deep inner level, that child will always try to please that unloving and unavailable parent, however he turns up in his current life.
And, he always shows up - in the behavior of a partner, an employer, almost anyone. His world is flooded with these kinds of people. The subconscious, in an effort to correct what happened, will continually send into his life people like that abusive parent to give the child (now an adult) a renewed opportunity to make it right. What he can't know is that he can't make it right.That parent was unable to love at all, was most likely psychopathic or narcissistic at best, and it wasn't the child's fault. The child doesn't know it wasn't his fault and will try and try and try until he kills himself trying. Unless he's lucky or blessed by grace.
He will attract into his life partners that have that same unavailable cruel behavior which will trigger in him an attempt to please to win that person's love. It's become an automatic response / reaction. It's the fractured part of the child's self that is stuck in childhood. Even if, and that's a big if, he comes to understand his behavior, he is most likely unable to change it. It is bonded deeply within his psyche.
That child's inner self was split by the inner frustration of not being able to make his parent happy and receive the parents love. He will often find himself in relationships with people who are abusive, but can't recognize the person's abuse because it feels familiar, strangely meant to be, almost like soul mates. And, when that relationship fails, the next one is the same only packaged differently. Each time each relationship fails the original parent's damage is driven deeper and becomes increasingly more life threatening.
Dr. Phil recently said these children usually grow up to develop a chronic disease, autoimmune illnesses, addictions, high divorce rates, poor academic outcomes, and ultimately die five years earlier than other people. Essentially, these children are on a fatal life trajectory. Their parents start killing their little one's souls, and then seal the damage by teaching that child not to love himself by selflessly serving others at their own cost. They teach the child he is unlovable, and never will be, and how to abuse himself and endure slavery and abuse. The child becomes a master at that and never learns to love himself. The frustration, the failure, the drive to please those who cannot be pleased is a severe downward continuum.
The child (who is now an adult) may become an addict, live on the streets, or try to be successful at a job or career but never find any positive response to his efforts. He earns a low wage and is unable to sustain a real relationship (only abusive ones) and eventually reaches a point that he feels so physically and emotionally drained that he doesn't have the strength left to go on.
Living itself feels like an impossible reach unless, by the grace of God, he is able to endure that final moment, that "dark night of the soul," that single moment when the inner torment is an unbearable agony he wants to be over. The depression, despair and pain has completely overcome him and he is completely out of resources. He can't manage. The anger has been internalized for so long creating an overwhelming, insurmountable depression. He can't breathe. He can't go on. He wants to, needs to, desperately has to, end it all.
If he's lucky, just when he would end it all, commit suicide, he might manage to counsel himself that this will pass, as it has before. And, if he can survive, endure it, just long enough until it passes, he'll get another day to try again. Maybe he can, maybe he can't. Maybe that child (now an adult) finds a wise and loving adult or friend in life who is there in that darkest of moments, when he absolutely would end his miserable life.
That all sounds like a scene presented by Dicken's future ghost. But, sadly, it's really too late at that point. Maybe the child (now an adult) can begin to heal. But, there are those moments of such overwhelming grief at the lost opportunities in life that he is so badly destabilized, he is unable to change his life. He looks back and knows he can never have those years back. He realizes how under equipped he is to work the kind of job he wants, or have the kind of life he wants. It's too late.
The words, ideas, thoughts, voices of all the abusers in his lifetime still whisper to him. He had unwittingly invited and allowed them all into his life at various stages in his blind effort to win the love of and please his unloving parent, who by now is most likely dead.
The horror of the all pervading life devastation is overwhelming. It's condemnation is so enormous. He can see all the dead on the battlefield of his inner mind. It looks like Gettysburg. How can he pretend it isn't what it is. He can not lie to himself. He can see clearly the endless, vast ruined inner landscape. Any denial he used previously to get through daily life is shattered, like that glass on his parent's kitchen floor.
He is in the grip of a terrible loneliness because he hadn't been able to trust anyone. This single effort to protect himself led to a life of isolation. He was unable to stand up for himself and fight and there was no where to go. He was stuck. His only resource was to hide.
But, the grace, the hope, is now he is closer to something else, something real. Strangely, he is closer to God in a way he doesn't see yet. It all was such a terrible shortcut. But, now, in this emptiness there is nothing standing between him and God. Either it had all been ripped away from him or he had nothing left to surrender. Finally, without any effort, on his part, perhaps driven only by the stark reality of his devastated life and his own grief and emptiness, he finds or awakens to that "great unknowing." There is something in that dark nothing that is all around him. It's almost tangible, palatable. There issomething there.
Then, there's a brief moment of awareness, a glimpse of something, something fresh, like a breeze lightly brushing his cheek. He feels something - maybe for the first time in his life. Inexplicably, he intuitively knows that something is love. He wants to hold it as you would hold, if you could, a delicate butterfly. Internally, he grasps for it, but it's gone. He's used to losing things he loves, but instead of grief, he feels a flickering, yet fleeting, joy.
It may be awhile before he feels that again. But, he is sustained somehow by it, even the memory of it, which he reflects on for hours, along lonely walks on the beach or the park. Life is starting to get a bit better, just a tiny bit, day by day. He knows it's going to be a long road away from what he's learned is his lifetime in "co-dependence," which he has discovered in every aspect of his life.
He is learning new coping strategies and behavior choices that are leading to empowerment how to love himself - just because he has to learn it, not because it feels right or good. It's a new path. It's the only hope to life. Somehow in all of this newness, he chooses life, or maybe life chose him. Maybe the real truth is, it was grace that allowed that person to call when they did - even the words out of the mouth of the abuser gave him the respite in that moment of need, just enough to lift the heavy mantle of the overwhelming depression enough for him to catch a breath and move out of its path. It seems God will use anyone and anything to help save a person.
"What's next?" they ask him. "What do you want in your life?" "What are your goals, your dreams?" Tears flow down his ruddy cheeks. He has no idea. He wants to feel the breeze of the butterfly again. That's all. He wants to feel that feeling again. That's all. Isn't that enough?
Yes. It's more than just enough. It is everything. In that delicate tiny embrace of the wind fluttering under the wings of the butterfly, is heaven. It is the first kiss of the Holy Spirit. It is a rebirth. It is birth into life, into what is real, the calm after the storm, the hope after the devastation of a lifetime.
Jesus replied, 'I tell you the solemn truth, unless a person is born from above, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' . . . 'The wind blows wherever it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but do not know where it comes from and where it is going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.'
John 3: 3, 8
Never again, will he feel glass under his cherubic little knees or under the palms of his coupled hands as he crawls in the glass to clean it up, the big pieces first, then the shattered ones.
Now, he can breathe in peace. Others who had not endured what he had, those seemingly so much better off in life than him, who chose their dreams, their illusive goals and agendas of power and greed, will not know what he now knows. He has found personal value and peace at last, the only real and enduring, heartening peace. On that, he will rebuild. On that, he will ascend into the arms of the great lover, the true divine parent who is always loving, always there, waiting for the inner child and the adult man to merge and look up, and look within, and realize how precious and beloved he is.
That place of realizing that he is precious and loved and that he can live a life of self love, is the opening at the mouth of the cave in which he's lived all his life. It is just the very beginning, the tip of a new life. Life will rush at him next, like a river that's been dammed for a lifetime. But for now, to just breathe freely, exhale all the anxiety and fear, and breathe in the knowledge that God is love and that He is loved, is enough.
There is more, so much more, awaiting him. The answers to what are his goals and dreams will come in time. But, for now, to just breathe and "be still and know" (Psalm 46:10), that God, who is in him and with him, holding him and loving him, healing him and leading him, onward onto the real path of life, is all he needs.
