Yet, over the years and further study, I discovered it didn't really teach the whole story. In fact, it left out some of the most important parts of the story. Those parts would change the world in a way we never saw before. The message had to be seen through a new lens, expanded to a much wider globally-inclusive worldview, one that would set us all free of our blind obedience to an obsolete, enslaving and circular paradigm some call reality. It isn't real at all. We just think it is. It's a hard shell to crack, but we need to awaken from the collective illusion driving our separate and selfish agendas. There is very little out there we need. Its all within us, all of it.
Christ is calling us to awaken to a new way of being and living. He holds the truth out to us like a lantern, a beacon from somewhere else, and in that beacon, in the very substance of the light that is in the presence in that beacon is life. It's a strange thought, I admit. It's hard to get our heads around it and took me a lot of wrong turns to realize this. Thank God, Christ was patient with me.
Through my journey, I'd heard the sweet whisper of the Spirit, often surfacing in my writing, sometimes in dreams, and more powerfully in some of my mistakes and wrong turns in life. But, oddly, it was in the mistakes and wrong turns when I heard Christ the loudest, the strongest. Maybe Christ was thinking, "Let me know when you're ready to stop trying to do it your way. Then, I'll show you the only way that will ever work."
Who knows why I finally heard Christ. Maybe it was because I was finally really listening rather than being caught up in trying to please a parent, an employer, a husband or just about anyone who showed up in my life demanding my attention. Strangely, it was those external iconic personalities who seemed to have snuck up onto the throne of my heart, along with their agendas, insisting, even mandating my complete allegiance. I thought I was right to allow that, because I thought the Church had taught that. I was wrong. Being a servant does not mean being a slave.
I came to realize, after a long journey out of the dark shadow they cast over my life, they were wrong. I had to walk my own path, and my one and only companion on that path, was also my pilot, and best friend.
As I stood in the small courtyard of the church where my parents raised us and where we said goodbye to them tearfully at their funerals, I noticed an enormous maple tree on the other side of the street in front of the chancery. I'd never noticed it before. Now, in the fall, its leaves were radiantly gold and red. I thought of the burning bush in Exodus, and marveled that I'd never noticed it before, maybe like so many things I'd never noticed before, but now are glowing right before my eyes.
It was beginning to rain through the late afternoon sunshine, backlighting the amber leaves. The rain drops sparkled on the leaves like diamonds from heaven. I felt as if Christ was showing me a vision so beautiful, so true and meaningful.
I had come to realize that Christ is all I need, all any of us need. Christ stands taller than any Church, any faith, any government, any political party, any tradition, any dogma or universal teaching - ancient or modern. Christ is the Living Spirit of the Universal One, the ALL, the Alaha, the very life breath of the universe which is the life force itself.
I had sensed for awhile now that Christ is not exclusively a Christian. Christ doesn't want our worship. Christ wants our full immersion into Christ's life. Christ is so much bigger than any of the little boxes in which we try to contain the sacred source of life. Christ cannot be controlled or bound or limited. No religion contains Christ, yet all attempt to.
I continued down the street as the rain grew more intense. As I walked in the downpour, I sensed a new baptism, an authentic baptism of Christ's own making.
Today, whenever, I feel tempted to resort to my own planning and designing of my life, I take my plans into prayer, ask for Christ to be present, in wisdom, love, intelligence, and direct guidance.
This morning was another morning like that. I was being challenged by someone's request. I was feeling pulled in another direction, one that seemed right at the time. But, as I looked at it, I realized it wasn't. I am here in this small town with all the small townisms you'd expect. Part of me wants to flee back to civilization, to DC or NY or somewhere else - anywhere else. But, no, Christ has me here.
Then, I remembered for the billionth time, that nothing other than Christ will ever do. Christ is the solution to every problem because as I stand in His light, there are no problems. Christ in me is everything I need. I would add that in this contentious election season, Christ in US is all we need. Christ is larger than the election, the government, the plans that our divided nation, albeit being crafted by a terribly uninformed populus, have devised. If we - regardless of any religion - would all step into the light of Christ we would find all our plans dissolve like kool aid in the polluted water of our insanity leaving only the crystal clarity of ultimate wisdom which is not a plan or a doing at all, but rather a beinghood, a magnificent, loving Being.
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