God Touches A Stone

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The world must become your church, life must become your ministry and humanity must become your congregation.

Before I begin, let me say that I am entirely indifferent to matters of religion.  At worst, religion binds the individual to a community defined by dogma, structure, zealotry and the illusory identification with "the community of the faithful".  At best, religion is merely a means to an end -and it is this end (identification with God, existence, the One etc.) as means that I am concerned with.  Because of this, I do not discriminate among the different faiths -including atheism-, but instead, I examine the personal spirituality of the individual.  Religion provides a language and a structure in which to express this spirituality but ultimately, spirituality is an individual's personal expression of how they relate to the divine/Self.  One can participate with all one's efforts and energy in religion but have no spirituality -that is, no relation to the divine.  Likewise, one can have no religion but be the most spiritual person in the world.  To the society of his day, Jesus Christ appeared as the latter person.  The son-of-man broke with the religious traditions of his day to such an extent that he appeared a dangerous heretic to all that heard him but did not understand.  Jesus did not identify as an individual (he was/is Christ: he identified with/as God) but this did not mean that he wasn't afraid to stand out (in his society) as an individual: he spoke truth in an age and a society of lies.  For this reason he was crucified.

Now more than ever, the righteous must not be afraid to stand out as individuals.  Now more than ever, we find ourselves in a society of lies: the lie of the selfish consumer, the lie of false prosperity provided by the Federal Reserve, the lie of the false sense of power brought about by endless global war, the lie of the greatness of the wealthy and of celebrities, the lie of a society of atomized individuals.  Like Jesus Christ before us -who refused to identify as born of the corrupt Roman/Jewish world around him, but rather identified himself as the one born of God (of truth, Identity, One etc.)- the time has now come for the faithful to forge a new society, and with it, a new identity by which the corrupt society of our time might know us.
If I had to circumscribe myself as an individual (something I am loathed to do) I would do so by identifying as a libertarian (neither right nor left, capitalist nor socialist).  Ultimately this identification as libertarian is more of a belief in the abandonment of one's own individuality -and thus the liberation of Self (God, Identity, One etc.)- than it is an identification of oneself as a lone individual.

The first step in moving towards this new society consists not of making war on our "enemies" nor silencing those who disagree with us (for these are the tactics of the followers of lies) but rather, personal spiritual purification.  This consists not only of changing our lifestyle (involving ourselves more in the community and world around us, providing ourselves and our neighbors with more of the things we need to live, having a personal connection with the earth as well as with the sustenance the earth provides etc.) but also in changing that with which we identify:

When we fixate on "our" past and future, we bring "ourselves" away from the creator as we are drawn to the worldliness of creation.  God is the creator (God is Identity/One).  Though creation arises and passes away, the creator stands eternal -indifferent to the flux and flow of creation such that only God is capable of all creation and all creation exists only through its active revelation by the creator.  All that is revealed is (in) God.   Revelation/creation is ongoing.  Sin is identifying as created.  Jesus' ministry was founded in order to guide humanity away from identifying as created/worldly and towards identifying with/as the creator.  Identity is God. Identification with Identity takes place as (in) God.

God Touches A Stone (Christ Revealed)

Suddenly,

A loving smile radiated from his lips

Whose truth they understood more than his words:

“take,

eat;

this is my body”

Peter took the bread.

Peter put it to his lips.

Peter did not understand.

Puzzled stares

Dart towards each other

Finding no answers in their search.

The moment’s silence

Draws

Out.

(Though they felt his light,

they understood not his words.

But he could feel it in their eyes…)

His hands lifted the clay cup from the wood table.

“drink from it,

all of you”

Peter stepped forward.

Peter drank from the cup,

Peter felt the warmth radiate from his center,

And yet he did not understand

Still fettered in the shackles of his worldly birth

He watched

Puzzled

As the others put it to their lips.

The wine

Presented no sign to those expecting:

The simple drink from the rough cup

Sat humbly in the shepherd’s hand;

Worldly to those who did not yet know Him.

“This is my blood”

But no blood flowed from his veins.

No cut violated his body

And no bitter taste of salt and iron lingered in their mouths.

But suddenly Peter understood

As his thoughts brushed against God’s perfection.

Breaking free from the world’s tethers,

To accept his present, divine birth:

Given by Himself.

Given by Christ’s revelation:

He revealed himself in the cup,

In the wine,

In the faces of his followers,

In the dirt floor and thatched ceiling,

In the eyes:

For the first time

He shared the eyes of his beloved teacher

Who cast his gaze into the depths of his own.

Behind the eyes of the son of man

He saw the infinite identity of his father’s smile

That bore itself on the son’s complexion

Who lived there in his father’s words

As they were given to him by his faith

That kept him in the moment of his father’s unfolding creation.

Peter did not know what it was to be lost

Until God found him in his blind questioning

And struck all ego from his mind

And blessed his tongue with these words:

“This is... Me
This is Truth

This is God

This 
is 
Christ”