Cultivating the Grace of Awakening, Part Four...

                                     The Cosmic Cross is a Circle: In the Name of Love, Lover, and Loving...


Imagine the difference in the Christian faith, if all theology had started from, and built upon, the central Jesus' message of The Kingdom of Heaven is within you... From this change of mind foundation, everything would be different: wouldn't we read the Beatitudes different if we understood that they reflected the exact pathway into an awakening of the Kingdom within? Wouldn't everything be different if we understood Jesus as Way-Finder, instead of "Lord" or "Savior"? 

​There is a story that deserves a brief re-telling... It goes something like this... Once upon a time there was a very old monastery with only six very old monks still alive and dwelling there... each one simply waiting to die... The remarkable days of their community had already passed some half-century earlier... Since then, vocations had dwindled until no one came knocking upon their door anymore... Except for the very old Rabbi of a very old village some few miles away, down in the valley... The Rabbi, who had at one time had climbed the mountain to the monastery several times a year to pay a friendly visit to the Abbot, now visited only once a year, riding on the back of a donkey...

The old Abbot greeted the old Rabbi with a mutually tired embrace... The Rabbi said, "I am certain this will be my last visit to this Holy Ground, dear Brother. I'm afraid that I will be dead soon."

The Abbot waited, and then replied, "Dear Brother, I am thinking that I will certainly die first! I am so tired and I fear so for this Community which is also near death."

The Rabbi stood in silence for several minutes as the two old men looked into each other's eyes... until finally, he said, "It is true that I will be dead soon, but not before I tell you some very good news. I heard it myself in my morning prayer. I am certain it is true. Why would the Blessed One lie to me? It has been made known to me, and I am to tell you, that one of you holy monks is the Messiah!"

The good Abbot was stunned, never thinking that his old friend the Rabbi was crazy enough to believe such a wild thought... He said, "That cannot be true! We are Christians! We believe that Jesus was the Chosen One!"

"Ah, so you do" said the Rabbi. "Still, this is exactly what the Lord told me to tell you! There you have it. I've delivered His message. Can we please have a little bread and drink before I leave?" And so they did. And then the Rabbi, with Brother Michael's assistance, he sat upon his donkey, blessed his friends, and proceeded away...

That evening, after community prayer, the Abbot told his brother monks what the Rabbi had said... together, they all shared a hearty laugh, "That dear old Rabbi! Bless his soul! One of us the Messiah! How silly that old saint is!"

But then, and in the next few weeks, everything changed! Each of the six old monks became certain that it "just had to be brother so-and-so", and each began to see in the other the beautiful radiance of the Blessed One... They laughed often. They cried in wonder. And most of all, they really began to love one another! Oh, to be sure, they had always been respectful and kind, but the faults of all were an irritation, and the snoring! Someone or other was a violent wood-cutter! Now though, truly, heaven was at hand!

A lone pilgrim happened upon the monastery and was received with such joy! The humble monks made him so happy, prayed for him, fed him, sheltered him, and when parting, encouraged to return if ever he happened to pass their way again... the pilgrim told the story to the bartender in the village and also to the barber... they both told a few others... and then... and then... well, everyone just had to go see for themselves...

And as it surely turned out, six old monks who had suddenly seen in each other the Messiah, discovered the Rabbi was, after all, certainly right! But more! That Silly Messiah was now everywhere, in everyone, and in everything! Everyone, somehow, through the humble certainty of six old monks (and thanks be to God for the Rabbi), also knew it to be true: the Kingdom of Heaven is in everyone... and they finally, finally, after so many years of life, began to really live... And wouldn't you know, but one day, out of the blue, someone put up a sign in the town park... the sign didn't exactly point to any specific place, but everyone knew it was true...