The Redemption Path

Evil is relative to Good; violence is relative to Harmlessness; and that which is destructively ugly is relative to Beauty: all things and all manner of things, can be redeemed by Love. The supreme question is that of how this redemption can be fulfilled. What is the "redemption pathway"?

Father Zossima, in The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, answers the question this way: "There is only one means of salvation, then take yourself and make yourself responsible for all men's sins, that is the truth, you know, friends, for as soon as you sincerely make yourself responsible for everything and for all men, you will see at once that it is really so, and that you are to blame for every one and for all things."

Whoa! "I have enough problems: financial, personal, psychological, and spiritual! Am I really supposed to take on the blame for everything and for everyone? This would be pure madness!" Yet: this is the only choice that is left to us by both wisdom and grace... and by the signs of the times: the invitation is extended to enter one's body and soul into the "fray" of life, engage in the mystic identification with Love-Without-Limits, and to follow one's heart into every effort to un-create evil and then re-create time itself. When we take on this "pure madness", we no longer blame anyone for anything --beginning with every single story of ours that justifies our opinions, jealousies, hatreds, fears, and judgments: being reduced to the "nothingness" of "pure madness" all that is left is Love: a blameless, kind, harmless, gentle, radiant, beautiful, and redemptive Love. We may then take our stand with Yeshua, the Poet of Nazareth, and his cohort of folks like Mary, Francis, Rumi, Theresa, Ibn 'Arabi, Gandhi, King, Day, and all of the other Lovers, and proceed to love without limits. Our acceptance of personal responsibility for the suffering of every "other", and for the suffering of this precious blue Planet, is the "blame" that can create a new world.

Martin Buber wrote: "Love is the responsibility of an I for a Thou. In this lies the likeness -- impossible in any feeling whatsoever -- of all who love, from the smallest to the greatest and from the blessedly protected man, whose life is rounded in that of a loving being, to him who is all his life nailed to the cross of the world, and who ventures to bring himself to the dreadful point -- to love all men." In this, and only in this, can we imitate and identify with Yeshua -- all else is fantasy, idolatry, or simply blame projected upon others (and is in truth unworthy of redeemed humanity).

SAY IT: "Everyone -- every single person -- is worth the very best: is worth a Universe of Total Love": this redemptive reality is the task of embodiment: that is the life of faith and action. The Holy One is manifested in the New Creation of intention, in the struggle to give Birth to the Beloved Community, in the living together as One Love, and in the seeding of the world with the future -- right here and now in the suffering present.

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