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The What If Jesus...

2/16/2016

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                                What if all truly great things begin with a "what if"?

What if we were all to drop the coverings of "conservative", "liberal", etc.? How could we relate without the notion of "better" and "bad"? What if the Divine Consciousness (commonly referred to as "God") were to ask of us to put aside all of our ideas about "good enough" or not "good enough"? What if Yeshua the Poet (commonly referred to as Jesus the Christ) were to ask of us to forget forever every idea that we have about any of our sisters or brothers as being worthy, or not, of love without limits?

What if this "What if Jesus" has really renewed, through his every expression of love, us each and all in the Divine Likeness? And what if that which we are invited to experience as our essential nature is laughter without end? And what if Rumi the Ecstatic was right on the mark when he wrote that how we make love is how the Divine will be with us? And what if the pursuit and practice of Social Justice was known by all to be the public display of our aptitude in bed?

What if we finally drop our justifications and excuses -- and become the vital agents of the liberation and rEvolution that is possible? The pagans, bohemians, beats, and hippies were all closer to the essence of the "What if Jesus" than the theologians who divined original sin and pinned it on Jesus... And what about the rest of us with our slurry of creeds and heroes who are hell bent on fostering every possible division for easier access to the perks and privileges of endless profit and power... When are we going to open our eyes, unplug our ears, and read and hear the Holy Gospel of the Universe singing out in an endless "Hallelujah": "We were created by Love, for Love, to become Love" (Simone Weil)...? 
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Quantum Remembrance

2/10/2016

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     The "Being" that can be named is not the Being before Mystery... (Tao Works)

Radiance of Soul
is our natural condition... a condition we might remember in our better moments and which we then tend to forget in the flow of our ordinary-living: we sleep wake sex eat work eat home pray rest play eat drink sleep wake... in a cycle of existence named "exhausting" and "disappointing"... But into our ordinary, perhaps a Rumi quotation, a movie, or a moment of sudden appreciation will nudge us toward a window of grace: we might glance for a minute or two upon an awareness that there are other possibilities that we have forgotten... a wildness just outside the gardens of our discomfort...

Fear -- the Great Bugaboo -- steadily winds its tentacles about our consciousness: first our sleeping then into our waking: until we have hunkered down into a certain smallness, a quieting of our desires for bliss, and a surrender into a comfortable sadness... This condition is our humiliation. We know it: why else would we be drinking so much? Or celebrating our religions of exclusion, or our politics of anger, or our economics of exploitation? Fear constricts our humanity while it works its anti-magic upon the radiance of our soul...

And yet, and yet: the birth of a cherished baby might remind us of something that we have lost... a surge of generosity might surprise us with the where- with-all to gift a school for girls in Afghanistan... an insight might cause us to remark to a co-worker that racist or sexist jokes are really not all that funny... a Valentine commercial on the TV might suddenly pull aside the curtain of our pride enough to allow us to apologize to our partner for a slight that we tossed his way... All of the "and yet" moments of our lives could be considered as an infiltration of grace, looking for us, and hunting for our tarnished reality of soul: to polish it once more into its original radiance...

Healing the split between the two halves of our brains, between our dreams of bliss and our acceptance of a small meanness, and between our forgetfulness and our possibilities for remembrance, is the grace-work of a Radiant Oneness: the Being before Mystery... Soul remembers That before... That radiance is who we are... Quantum Remembrance is the knowing-without-knowing that there is always a relationship, an interaction, between the objective and subjective, even at the sub-atomic level... There is no hierarchy or straight line into a radiance of soul: there is though, mystery, music, poetry, art, play, sex, dance, and compassion: manifesting as Earth, Air, Water, and Fire and all the Mystery Elements upon which matter is manifested... And it is good...

Quantum Remembrance is the active principle of art: the making of moments and space into art: gardens, kitchens, beds, altars, daily plans for improvising wonder, and service to place and Earth... Quantum Remembrance is the de-construction of the religions of rigor mortis into hot beds of delight: wherein minds are steadily freed, bodies are honored, and souls are recognized as vehicles for spirit: wherein every aspect of our lives (of every life) are known to be holy and as sacred as anything will ever get, when we love, when we are kind, when we practice an activated compassion...

Quantum Remembrance is the holy rag wiping the mirrors of our lives. Do you see a difference or a boundary? Erase it! Do you cling to a limitation, regret, or fear? Erase it! Do you yet cling to a smallness of mind or heart? Erase it! Do you think that you are anything other than worthy or beautiful or capable? Erase it! Pick up the holy rag of your divine inheritance and get to wiping what needs a wiping! Let your radiance of soul shine again with all the luster of its original nature! As all atoms move freely, interpenetrating one body or one thing after another, from star shine to green algae growing in a silent pond, from a black body to a white body, from a female to a male: we can practice quantum remembrance and live loose, fluid, where once we were dry and stale... We can awaken to our natural radiance! 



 
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Magic Vs. Patriarchy

2/4/2016

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               Apparently, there is nothing that cannot happen today! -- Mark Twain

That we are living within a magical universe is not obviously evident to the masses of people who are temporarily inhabiting this precious blue Planet: well, "what the bleep"! How is it that we are failing to live giddy with delight, wonder, and surprise? To give attention to the news and to the blathering of Right-Wing politicians, pundits, and religious zealots (whether Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist), one could legitimately begin to doubt both our humanity and our divinity... But are those doubts the way in which we really want to live? 

The evidence of a rabid patriarchy is everywhere abundant: again, Right-Wingers foster every sort of division in their quest for privilege and power (while deflecting the obviousness of their desires by accusing everyone else of doing what they are doing). Patriarchy is rooted in the "religious" conviction of man's superiority over women: the superiority of "Father G-d" over "Divine Mother": and the endless justifications of oppression, exploitation, and violence: raping women and children makes easy the rape of the Planet and the accumulation of limitless profit... And theologies are constructed to justify every kind of domination: under the guise of "revelation", power becomes "divine"...
To fully access this "divinity" one must be male: look at who rules the religions of the world! Look at who are raping and killing! Look at who are making, selling, and profiting from guns and war! (That any woman would vote for people like Trump, Cruz, Rubio, etc. or put money in any collection basket here in the United States or anywhere is bizarre!)

The Good News is there is another Way! There is another Way of opening, closing, and opening again your eyes! The central myth of Western Civilization is that of Jesus: but the mythic meaning of Jesus is not "revelation for patriarchy and power", but "liberation for beauty and compassion"! Re-birthing Jesus, as the mothers and liberators we are meant to be, is the Way of Divine Magic: the "What If before the Big Bang": That Divine Consciousness created out of the need to experience life and love through the living and loving of all beings and all of matter: we are the Mothers of G-d: we give birth to our Divine Son, Yeshua the Poet, by our every act of kindness, mercy, compassion, and justice! The Divine needs our hands to touch one another, as mothers and lovers, so that IT might know the wonder that before was only possible within the confines of the Divine Imagination!

We are meant for a magical way of life! Encoded within our very DNA is the essential mystery of this mystic truth: through and through we are made in the Image of the One. We have been made as revelations of That One: we are called into that Oneness which is always a revelation of Lover-to-Lover. "How we make love is how G-d will be with us", according to Rumi. Patriarchy is the problem which must be eliminated in our consciousness and in every system of social organization: and the liberation for beauty and compassion is our divine destiny: we are meant to serve and build this Earth in kindness, justice, equality, and peace. Reverence is a living magic meant to inspire a total rEvolution of thought and practice: this is the real religion, culture, economics, and politics: are you worth this? Are you worth the very best? Are you willing and able to name it, live it, and organize for it? What do you think: are you worth infinite loving? 

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    Author

    Robert Daniel Smith was privileged to serve the homeless and marginalized for 30 years in California. He is living now almost within shouting distance of the Twin Cities. He is a poet, artist, writer, and long-time  Companion of the Way still dreaming... 

    ​Recommended Reading:

    ​Son of Man by Andrew Harvey


    ​Be Love Now by Ram Dass

    ​Be Here Now by Ram Dass

    The Rebirthing of God by John Philip Newell

    The Hope by Andrew Harvey

    The Return of the Mother by Andrew Harvey

    ​Creation Spirituality by Matthew Fox

    Loaves and Fishes by Dorothy Day 

    Sacred Pleasure by Riane Eisler

    Occupy Spirituality by Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox

    Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda

    The Self-Aware Universe by Amit Goswami, Ph.D.

    Bhagavad Gita by Eknath Easwaran

    The Wisdom Jesus by Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault

    ​Living the Eternal Way by Rev. Ellen Grace O'Brian

    Listening For The Heartbeat of God by John Philip Newell

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