Even if I had heard it personally from God, I wouldn't have ever declared to the world, "Today is the end. Today is judgment day," but since the words have been spoken, my heart asks, as usual, "what does it mean that someone would say that and even more so, what does it mean that CNN felt it was worth reporting on?"
And then it hit me. Of course it is the end of the world as we know it. And, maybe we can rejoice in it and celebrate the new day that is emerging in its wake. If today is the end of war or genocide, of torture, of alcoholism, child abuse, domestic violence, greed, cruelty to animals, exploitation of the weak, destruction of our environment, the end of filty water and AIDS in Africa, the end of poverty, the end of sickness, if it is, then we can all rejoice and sing and dance a jig down Main Street.
It must mean then that it's the dawning of a new age, the birth of peace, the birth of a radiantly new and beautiful hope for mankind, the blossoming of new life, the singing of children again, the love of nations, peace among all people, generosity, kindness, goodness and most of all love. Is it that, my dear friends? Could we think that it is that? Yes. Just maybe it is that. Could it be that the New Age officially begins today, according to the old curmudgeon who declared to the world that it was the end of the world. The flip side of his doomsday report is the blessing and love of our Creator who says he would always be with us, the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, and in every end is a beginning. So, today, if your heart is courageous, seek the light in the darkness that is sweeping away the old, and hold on to the love that will now spread and blossom across our world.
In God is all life, all love, all goodness and His promise is that He would never destroy the world again. It is the rainbow after the flood, the morning dawn after a dark night of terror. He loves everyone of us, no matter how little we have loved. He waits always loving, patiently as an expectant mother awaits the birth of her child. Maybe, just maybe, today is the birth of our new world.
The fragrance of new life softly whispered through our battered and war-weary world yesterday, tripping gently on the heels of the death of the world's most marauding pirate.
The late terrorist had held the world captive in fear, steeped in darkness, as the world teetered in economic collapse due to multi-billion dollar military operatives, crushing perhaps most of all the hope for a better future for our young.
But yesterday the world woke up to a new hope. The light dawned on a new age opening before us.
Yes, "the wicked witch is dead," I thought as words from the Oz circled in my head when I heard the news of bin Laden's death. He had held us all captive. It was an all-pervading dim fear, a palatable darkness, an uncertain future for the United States and the world.
Since 9/11 our economy had fallen, people had somehow adjusted to living in fear, stripped at airports, not sure if we would survive the decade. Today the news of his death brings a new hope. Maybe the troops will come home from Afghanistan. Maybe the dictators in the Middle East will wake up and step down and give the reigns of power to their people, where it should be. The world is waking up quickly to a new era. The old is gone as this "brave new world" is blinking open before us. (The Tempest, Act 5, Scene 1, Wm. Shakespeare).
Yet, if we only see the death of bin Laden as justice served, as an eye for an eye, we have missed the meaning of this hinge point in history. It is not justice. There can be no justice for the thousands killed by al Qaeda over these past 10 years. Nothing can return a life, undo a torture, remove the past, return the religious prejudice that underlined the entire decade.
Nothing the U.S. military does can ever put the heads back on those who were tortuously beheaded by al Qaeda, especially Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter, or the leader of Care International who was in Iraq to care for the suffering children and women and many others who were beheaded in the years after 9/11.
Nothing can bring life back to those countless many who were brutally tortured and slaughtered by the terrorist organization led by the world's most heinous human being.
Yet, yesterday morning's news does bring the world respite, an end of our long stormy decade of horror. The world survived because we walked these tempestuous years together, first weeping in grief, then in agony and fear and finally in faith and have won the victory over a most insidious oppressor. In this new day, we have breathed the last of the stench of bin Laden's worldwide network of terror. That night is over and we have together rediscovered how precious life is.
We came together - nation after nation - to rally for peace, for democracy, for justice. We as a world suffered and walked together, hand in hand bravely into the night of our former age, courageously and patiently and persistently reaching for the light of this new age, which dawned as the body of bin laden slipped into the depths of the Arabian Sea, calming the tempest of our times at last.
The heavy darkness, laden with guilt, worry, self recrimination, hatred and jealousy, feuding and thieving, dispersed as the last blast of our collective winter of the soul steamed out of town.
Softly replacing it, singing sweetly as the robin in the apple tree, was something else, something refreshing, uplifting and freeing, bright and beautiful.
This new life, this newfound joy was and is what God always wanted for us, but who could roll the stone of the tomb away which shrouded our hearts and minds and eyes from God's truth? Who would and could do that?
Only the power of God's truth, which is the love in this new day, could. Only the power of God that shines out to us as acceptance, surrender to life and to God, non-violence and the strength and courage to stand before those dark lumbering demons who stalked our collective night.
Only the courage of one to stand up to the many without a single word of self defense, but with the wisdom and the power of knowing that nothing in this world can deter the love of God to preserve him and all of us from the illusionary nightmares we once thought were real.
It seems as if the angel of truth and of love whispers to the whole world this morning,
"Yes, he is risen, and now so are you. Join in the great celebration, in the great song of life and embrace each other with love. And never forget and never slip back. You are new again and you are free. The bondage of oppressors, of malevolent dictators, of heavy greed and power-based corporations and governments has been slain. If you can walk each moment and each hour and each day and each year of this new vision, your world will wake up out of its nightmare. Each one of you who can grasp this truth and live heartily into it, will see that day."
And until that day, he has left his peace with us. His peace will carry us forward on this magnificent journey of life, together, and in love, forever.
On the drive to work this morning, I found myself reflecting on the sheer gentleness Jesus must have radiated, the pure love and innocence he must have exuded.
I was struck by the thought that we all on some level have been infected by the "pursuit of power" virus that controls the world and our lives - even those of us who live, work and strive for peace - in our hearts and in our world; even those of us who want to be fully drenched with heavenly love, even those of us who have turned away from the ways of our world.
Maybe we are all infected by that power-control virus that has seduced us, lured us into its den of vipers where we feel incompetent, unlovable, simply not good enough. As a result of feeling that way, we've learned how to put on armor and we check each other out to see if our armor is as good as an other's and they do the same thing to us. With our armor on we feel powerful, acceptable, good enough, even pretty good and yet we're as phony as every one else. Inside our armor, if we are honest, we feel isolated, lonely, unseen and unloved.
While waiting at a red light, my windshield wipers sweeping away the tears from another Portland morning rain, I wondered what he might have been like in person. Would he have had an edge, a wizened wit that could see right through you reducing you to feeling wholly inadequate? Would he have had the vision to see all your faults and issues which might cause you to feel a bit embarrassed to be seen so clearly, spiritually naked? I think we like to hide our fears and known faults. Would he have made us feel like a sinner, a bad person, incomplete somehow? Would he ask us to change in order to receive God's love? I wondered if he would not have felt attractive to us as a person with a strong powerful personality who charismatically compels our misplaced respect? I don't think so. I think his vision is so true that he would see all the way to our core where God's own self is united with ours. There, all we are is the beautiful light of God. He would see who we really are, not what we have become in this twisted, distorted, broken mirror of life. He also would not see our armor or our pretense. He would be so gentle, so calming, so sweet yet truly sincere that we might not realize the power that he really held? Would we not have loved him as much if we realized how innocent he truly is? We have been taught to value and respect the worldly power-wielding controllers, the tyrannical. While we resist that, how deep is that programming?
I thought how much we are all addicted to power-seeking and powerful people. I don't mean we're really addicted to controlling manipulators, but we are all easily intimidated by those who feel somehow more powerful, more confident, more put together and we want to emulate them. We want to dress like we're somebody. We want to impress people with our skills, jobs, education, money, spouse or children. We want to appear important. We want to feel important and we want to feel influential and powerful. I think we don't realize how much we do this and I think we do this because we don't know how much we really want to feel loved.
One of my challenges to worldly success has been an inability to seem very powerful. I just don't come across as powerful. I don't act or dress for success and quite frankly, I don't care. Of course, I've paid the price for it, but isn't that price the price Jesus told us we would pay if we followed him? Didn't he say that if the world despised him, they would despise his followers? And yet, it seems that so many of us somehow feel like losers because we can't - or won't - fit into the way of the world, the power games that many people everywhere in the world, in every social structure, every country, every religion seem to subscribe to. I think we may have forgotten that we are better off poor because then we don't fit into the power paradigm.
By the time I got to work this morning, I'd had a stunning realization of what Jesus might have meant when he said "whatever we do to the least of these, your brethren, we do unto him." It seems that he is telling us that he is as pure as those who cannot - or won't - fit into the power circles, or move among the beautiful people, the fashionable elite.
I think his purity of heart would have been completely without that condescending attitude of one who would help another publicly so he would seem praiseworthy, more powerful, more important or so he could just feel better than another. Whatever we do to another reflects our own human honesty, our own innocence, our own defenselessness. Do we see an other's pain or their joy, their beauty, their sweetness, their love? Another person can feel what we're looking at in them. If we judge them, they feel that judgment. They feel badly about themselves. If we appreciate them, they feel that too. They feel loved and accepted.
As I made my way in the early morning, darkness still shrouding the parking lot, I realized that those who are infected by the power and control virus of our world, might not consider Jesus very important, or very impressive or even very powerful in person because he would not have had that self important person persona. But, his love, oh his love - now that would have been palatable, I thought. He may feel like a kind gentlemen. I wondered if we've all become so numb to that kind of truth and warmth in a human being, that kind of innocence and gentleness that we might misunderstand it as powerlessness rather than powerfulness? Would we think he was insignificant because he didn't judge us, he didn't call us sinners?
What if he loved us instead of condemning and judging us? What if we felt that beautiful fluid peace of his love? What if his love touched us in such a penetrating way that our lives were changed forever, healed of all the toxic insults hurled at us throughout our lives? Then, I wondered, "Do we want to be loved or do we want to feel powerful?" If we say we are liberated, spiritual freedom seekers, we might want to ask ourselves that question. Do we want to feel loved or feel powerful? Is power-seeking a poor substitute for love?
As I entered through the double glass doors, I smiled at the janitor with whom I share a word or two each morning in Spanish, and waved to the guy at the service desk and then punched in. For the first time in a long time, I realized how blessed I was that I had the beautiful opportunity to work with those who are the "salt of the earth," as my mother would say, none of whom are important nor do they think they should be and are so very lovable because of it.
I felt for a moment that love was what I wanted to be about and in that love receive the lord's perfect peace and simplicity of being. I took a deep breath, put on my apron and went to work. Today I would serve a bit more love to everyone, a love they would feel because each person I would meet today was sent to me by God to love. Maybe that's what its all about really. Maybe its all about loving each other innocently and opening our hearts to each other while risking our own sense of vulnerability. Maybe that's all we have to do, despite how scary it might feel.
These artifacts are among 70 ring-bound books, or codices, made of lead and copper that was part of a secret hoard of ancient sealed books found in Jordan. (Photos by David Elkington)
(These tiny books are only the size of a credit card)
One of the largest and best-preserved collections of ancient sealed books has been discovered in a cave in Jordan and are believed to be some of the earliest Christian documents, according to the BBC.
The 70 tiny books could date back to the first century. Carbon dating tests found that a piece of leather found with the scrolls was over 2000 years old.
Experts say the books, made of lead and copper and bound by rings, may be more significant than the Dead Sea Scrolls, BBC reports.
The writing featured in the books is a form of archaic Hebrew script with ancient messianic symbols, mixed with some form of a code, according to a news release. The codices show notable references to symbols of the Feast of Tabernacle, and depict images of menorahs and fruiting palm trees.
The books are currently the subject of a dispute between authorities, archeologists and an Israeli Bedouin who acquired them from a Jordanian Bedouin and then smuggled the books into Israel and hid them, The Telegraph reports. Today their whereabouts remains a mystery.
Authorities in Jordan want the books returned, since under Jordanian law, they are property of the Kingdom of Jordan, according to the news release.
Archeologists in Israel claim the books are forgeries, while British archeologists are committed to saving and studying the ancient scrolls.
"It is an enormous privilege to be able to reveal this discovery to the world," David Elkington, leader of the British team, said in a news release, adding in an interview with the Daily Mail, "It is a breathtaking thought that we have held these objects that might have been held by the early saints of the Church."
On pages not much bigger than a credit card, are images, symbols and words that appear to refer to the Messiah and, possibly even, to the Crucifixion and Resurrection.
The books were discovered five years ago in a cave in a remote part of Jordan to which Christian refugees are known to have fled after the fall of Jerusalem in 70AD. Important documents from the same period have previously been found there.
Initial metallurgical tests indicate that some of the books could date from the first century AD.
If the dating is verified, the books would be among the earliest Christian documents, predating the writings of St Paul.
The prospect that they could contain contemporary accounts of the final years of Jesus’s life has excited scholars – although their enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that experts have previously been fooled by sophisticated fakes.
Elkington, a British scholar of ancient religious history and archeology and one of the few to have examined the books, says they could be "the major discovery of Christian history."
The Jordanian Government isworking at the highest levels to repatriate and safeguard the collection. Philip Davies, emeritus professor of biblical studies atSheffield University, said there was powerful evidence that the bookshave a Christian origin in plates cast into a picture map of the holycity of Jerusalem.
Adding to the intrigue, many of the books are sealed, prompting academics to speculate they are actually the lost collection of codices mentioned in the Bible’s Book Of Revelation.
Dr Margaret Barker, a former president of the Society for Old Testament Study, confirmed that a sealed book is mentioned in the Bible.
"As soon as I saw that, I was dumbstruck," she said. "That struck me as so obviously a Christian image. There is a cross in the foreground, and behind it is what has to be the tomb [of Jesus], a small building with an opening, and behind that the walls of the city.
"There are walls depicted on other pages of these books too and they almost certainly refer to Jerusalem. It is a Christian crucifixion taking place outside the city walls."
"The Book of Revelation tells of a sealed book that was opened only by the Messiah.
"Other texts from the period tell of sealed books of wisdom and of a secret tradition passed on by Jesus to his closest disciples. That is the context for this discovery."
Compiled from articles by David Elkington/Rex Features and
