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What about the men who run about the countryside painting signs that say “Jesus saves” and “Prepare to meet God!” Have you ever seen one of them, and I wonder what goes on in their minds. Strangely, their signs do not make me think of Jesus, but of them. Or perhaps it is “their Jesus” who gets in the way and makes all thought of Jesus impossible. They wish to force their Jesus upon us, and He is perhaps only a projection of themselves. They seem to be at times threatening the world with judgment and at other times promising it mercy. But are they asking simply to be loved and recognized and valued, for themselves? In any case, their Jesus is quite different from mine. But because their concept is different, should I reject it in horror, with distaste? If I do, perhaps I reject something in my own self that I no longer recognize to be there. And in any case, if I can tolerate their Jesus then I can accept and love them. Or I can at least conceive of doing so. Let not their Jesus be a barrier between us, or they will be a barrier between us and Jesus.
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- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, Ch. 15 “Sentences”, pg. 106
… that my reoccurring top post is “to tattoo or not to tattoo”. out of all my other “soul searching” posts the one post that comes up as most viewed is this. it’s ironic. what’s so important about tattooing? it’s permanent definitely, but besides that. definition of identity… in the ambiguity of identity lives anxiety. so then is it just to make me feel better about myself, feel secure? to say “this is who/what i am.” to quite literally wear my self on my sleeves. not trying to sound aloof or arrogant since someday i might get a tattoo. just wondering out loud…
My heart is a wine glass and only Allah can make it sing. Only He can fill it. Only His touch to the lips of my heart has the right pressure and friction to produce the resonance that makes it sing and shatter into a million pieces. Only the voice of God can speak my pieces back into the Oneness that can only be filled by Him. I long to be Sufi.
Whether I be Sufi or Christian, I don’t know. I know the basics of what I believe. I know what my heart believes. I know that my faith always seems to be walking on the razor’s edge. CERTAINLY i don’t boast with this. So much i wish i had a normal faith like everyone else that is easily “explainable”. Will I always struggle with this feeling of being an outcast? Jesus was an outcast, and look. So I should be thankful of my “problem” I guess. Maybe belonging to man’s delineation of God’s Kingdom is not my purpose. I don’t know. All I know is that Allah chooses to fill my cup through the Sufis and the Christians. For some reason I don’t find fullness in Sufism or Christianity alone. My cup is filled through Allah and Christ. I know my God, because even when I think I don’t, He knows me. I rest in that.
Christ is in our midst, Insha’Allah.
In prostration I find the wings of my heart. I feel the closest to my Beloved when prostrating my self and my heart before Him. Prostration is the most upright approach to the Divine.
But I have to say, Pride is a bitch. It rears its ugly head in the most twistedly creative ways.
My beloved and I have been joining a local Eastern Orthodox parish for morning prayer on Sundays and it has been so wonderfully sobering, humbling and fulfilling. After I started on my Sufi path most western Christian worship seemed hollow and meaningless to me. I’m sure that it is my own fallen nature that limits me in this way. Not that western worship IS meaningless and hollow, just my own experience of it. I was thinking last Sunday how long it’s been since I’ve actually looked forward to Sunday worship and tears filled my heart with hope and thankfulness for EO morning prayer. Thank God! Anyway…
This last Tuesday, Juanita and I went to the “Vesperal Liturgy of The Forerunner.” There was a point when everyone prostrated them selves before the Eucharist and I wanted to as well but all these thoughts and fears got in the way.
Every Sunday as well, I long to throw off the coat of self-consciousness and false humility. I long to throw myself before the feet of God. But every time this longing in my heart arises, I start to fear. I start to fear what will other people think who are REAL Orthodox? Will they think, “how inappropriate for a non-orthodox christian to worship in this way” or “just how inappropriate”? Will they think that I am being like the Pharisee who prayed at the top of his lungs, “thank you god that I am not like this sinner over here”? Will they think that I am simply doing it because everyone else is doing it and I just want to fit in? All this flaunts itself under the guise of, “there is a time and place for everything” or “after a while I’ll feel more comfortable doing… whatever.” Unfortunately though… possibly… if I take this route I’m sure those “comforts” will come to pass. But will I then be giving into the lies that my pride is telling me? Should I just go for it? Probably so… maybe not… but probably so. May God give me His courage over my pride! Ya Allah Al-Aziz!
Thanks be to God.
After watching an Indian film (called, ‘Water’) about Hindu widows, my heart got to thinking and asking…
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“What if your conscience conflicts with your faith?”
–quote from ‘Water’“I used to think that God was Truth, but now I know that Truth is God.”
–Ghandi (paraphrased)
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If one seeks truth above all else, does one find God? Not necessarily…? Then how does one find Truth? Purely by God’s grace. Purely by God’s predestined grace!
Abraham was a righteous man. God loved and blessed him for his righteousness. How did Abraham find righteousness outside of ‘religion’? (The same goes for Buddha.) Why does everyone after him need religion to find righteousness? (what about relationship?) Is it about a guarantee or a ‘get out of jail free card’ or a ‘life insurance policy’? What does Jesus say about righteousness in the context of his cultural Judaism and outside that same context? Can we trust the ‘Christian Gospels’?
Legalism is bullshit, a mockery of the Truth and the Law. A mockery of the Heart. But what of purity? Is righteousness found in one Man? In returning to the purity of God’s creation that He called ‘Good’? In the many idols of mankind? Or in the act of TRYING?? Is it found in the depths of the longing of the Heart of Hearts? Is Righteousness found in the Heart? Can God put it there to be found if He so pleases? Does He do so in everyone? Where is righteousness to be found? How is righteousness to be found?
Questions are not a sign of doubt.
Doubt is not a lack of Faith.
Faith is not a sign of Truth.
Truth is not a lack of Questions.
…and the Dharma wheel turns…
Why do people seem to need a system to find God? Do people who search for God in a system really find Him?
Many people in the system will find God, Truth, Al-Haqq, but many may not. Many people outside the system will find God, Truth, Al-Haqq, but many may not. Are there no guarantees of God’s predestination to His Will? (this definitely isn’t a path for discipleship)
I feel like a spiritual or religious outcast. An untouchable. Caught between systems. I cling ever so tightly to the Lord of Outcasts and Untouchables, Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God and Man.
Arthur held the vile meticulously in his hand. The waters of the tiny world trembled in his grip. He imagined a microscopic version of himself doing a cannon-ball into this little ocean.
His mind wandered past all of the cataclysmic events of the last few days and weeks and years that had led up to this point in time, the point in time where Arthur Holt was grasping the last 4 ounces of water on earth. The chemical’s new found singularity struck him strange, for prior to this moment, water had been the most common, elemental, forgotten and taken for granted substance known to man. Even if he was completely parched, he knew that somewhere, no matter how inaccessible it might be, there was water. But now… this was not even the case.
Now Arthur really held the last drop of water in his fingers. He wondered what it would feel like to drink the last 4 ounces of water, what emotions would rush through his veins, what thoughts of despair or ecstasy would swim around his head. This single water might be saved for later when truly needed at a cataclysmic moment of desperate rescue. It was a glistening potion of hope and despair, of comfort and anxiety, a monument to creation and a crumbled ruin of a reminder to the past.
How, Arthur wondered, how could this simple compound of Hydrogen and Oxygen contain so many paradoxes, enigmas and mysteries of the life it used to uphold. It held every question to every answer of earthly life. It was life itself. It told a story, not a human story, but a story of energy, power, creation, of god breathing life into a fiery, explosive element. The human element, they had exploded on the earth and scorched it beyond recognition ironically using the element of fire that when bonded with the breath of god created this basic building block of earthly life.
The vile, so precious and so endangered reminded him of the stories he read as a child where there was always a precious vile, singular in it’s ability and availability to offer its barer hope in darkness, healing at the last gasp of life and protection in the face of horror.
…………….
So I’ve been thinking about and writing these thought down when they occur to me. It’s not very well hashed out just some fragments, but here’s what I’ve got so far…
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A disaffected voter. One day at the (in)famous coffee shop I work for, a “partner” of mine said, “If you don’t vote you can’t complain!” At the time this statement pissed me off so, and I responded, somewhat angrily, “That assumes that voting makes a difference!” and she pessimistically agreed, but then we were both left in despair. So what’s the full circle in this conversation that moves from death to life? In that moment I couldn’t put my finger on what pissed me off so much about her dogmatic assumption. But what I really meant was, “That statement assumes that voting changes the conditions in your life that you want changed!” Exterior change is what I think I need in order to feel supported and whole. So I assume that different exterior conditions will produce different interior results.
The Loss of Ritual.
Exterior cannot change the interior except through Ritual! Because ritual is an portal/effigy that points to a spiritual reality not seen with the eyes of the head, but with the eyes of the heart.
Election seems to be a kind of ritual on the surface. So why cannot it offer an interior change as other ritual do? It used to be a sacred ritual, but in recent years, even the last two hundred years, the money changers and thieves have entered the temple and set up shop. The effacement to the temple has caused Him to leave it in dust and seek other means. Upon His shoulders the government stands, as does it fall. Falling doesn’t mean falling apart but rather a changing of the guard. Changing from the Divine Guard to the guard of man and along comes mans corruption with him. (By NO MEANS am I suggesting that turning to some kind of Theocracy is the right way.) So all that’s left is a sterilized made for TV mockery of the true ritual. This worship of the profane and lack of truth is why the electoral process or the government itself has lost it’s power to enact interior change. Now I wouldn’t say that government should be religious. But it should be holy, with a lower case “h”, set apart. Respected and kept holy as ritual.
What do you expect to get from voting, politics, politicians or government? Health, peace, abundance, security, prosperity, fulfillment, hope, harmony? This list of expectations sound vaguely familiar to something Jesus talks about called, “The Reign of God.” “Render unto Cesar what is Cesar’s and to God what is His.”
Who or what do you put your trust in, god or man?
and to whom does your trust really belong to? God or Cesar? To whom do you give the fulfillment of your heart?
If there is One* Power… in the light of that One Power, what other power can have reality? There is no other power, no other reality that can exist along side that of Divine. Sure there are things we give power/reality to by giving assent to them, but aside from the power/reality we as co-creative human beings give to something other than the Divine, what other power is there?
The Reign of God IS. …a matter of realization obtained fully through the graces of God. “Those who have eyes to see, let them see and those who have ears to hear, let them hear.” or how about “Pick up your mat and walk. Upon hearing this the man picked up his mat and walked.” Your faith/trust/realization of Divine Reality has made you well. The Reign of God is NOW within you! Perception changes reality. Not just your own, but everyone else’s as well!
A false dichotomy. Reliance on men, politicians, governments. This man or that man, this politician or that politician, this government or that government, this dogma or that dogma. The Truth will set you free. Truth is non dogmatic, but essential (of essence) and transmutational in nature. In my experience Real Truth seem to always present itself as non-dualistic and paradoxical.
A “falser” dichotomy. Having to choose between reliance on man or reliance on God. God works through all things. The weight of circumstantial and relational issues seems to try to do a great deal to keep me occupied and out of direct service of the Creator Messiah. I say “direct” as opposed to “indirect”, for who can escape the Oneness of God? There is nothing else. Consequently we all play a role in service to Creator, willing or unwilling… But to be sure you cannot recognize this “falser” dichotomy until you recognize the One Power. For to start from the “falser” dichotomy would be still de/illusion.
Why Vote?
I don’t know yet. Let you know when I figure that one out.
Seeking the Truth
“If you asked Jesus if you should seek after truth or seek after himself. He would tell you to seek after the truth”, because somehow the Truth keeps getting found in this God-man. The more I seek the truth through other realizations the more often I come back to Jesus and see how the One Power transmutes the truth throughout everything. This constant returning to Jesus doesn’t lessen the importance of my path through other ways, nor does it diminish the Truth of Jesus. One upholds the other, one cyclically bolsters the other in a mysterious and wonderful way of death and resurrection. This no doubt is only by God’s grace.
Living with Doubt
Go to the Death. To really go to the Death of Jesus, means so much more than most (myself included) even dare to think of. Jesus the divine, the epitome of humanity DIES! God in man dies! CAN YOU HEAR ME???!!!! When Jesus was crucified, every human being was crucified. When Jesus rose from the dead, so did every single human being. Why is there division? Why is there wheat and chaff? It goes back to realization. Every person is already purified by the sacrifice of The Lamb. Perception changes reality. If you can’t go to the Death of Humanity, you can’t reach the Resurrection of it either!!!! Shit this lands on me like a ton of bricks! I love you! Every time I think about Jesus dying on the cross, I never really believe he dies! Because three days later he is raised from the dead. I never really believe he rises because I never really believe he dies. Resurrection is “simply inconceivable!” Jesus’ Death is simply inconceivable if he showed up alive three days later! You have to go to the Death! Without death you’re never even born! Go to the Death FIRST!
In this world we think birth moves toward death, but in Reality we all move through Death towards Birth. The delusion of birth toward death is another example of this upside down kingdom. And maybe it’s that the perception of the process of human life is paradoxical/non-dualistic. Maybe truth is the axle that lies at the center of these two dichotomies, Birth to Death or Death to Birth. Or maybe it’s late at night and I need to go to bed. Yes grasshopper!
* (“One” is not commenting on triune nature/relationship, “One” rather speaks to the Unity of the Divine, since all persons are of the same essence/matter)
A man’s heart
Lies deep
Like a lake in his chest
Emotions Swim like fish or minnows
Rapid and Unknowing
Evading the Tongue
The Lady of the Lake calls out the Siren song
Hoping to draw in the catch
But she calls after a Phantom Menace
The elusive monster hides Himself in Myth and Mirth
She calls to the Deep
Longing for contact
Longing for the elusive Shadow
Called Man’s Emotion to
Reveal itself in untold
Spender and Majesty
She longs for Nothingness to show itself as Form
She longs to trap it in a cage of formalism
She longs for it’s death.
She Mourns,
She Mourns.
I am in my ashes,
I am in my ashes.
He says,
He says.
-jfs
Iraq Report by Dahr Jamail, An Unembedded Journalist
A very candid and eye opening report on journalism and the US occupation of Iraq. Compliments of a friend of mine…
The Report
Iraq Report by Dahr Jamail – An Unembedded Journalist
Q & A Discussion
Q & A with Dahr Jamail – Part 01
So I just discovered this amazing website:
it’s very beautiful and the audio recitation is very helpful in learning correct pronunciation of the Arabic.
I understand that the Arabic is spoken in the Eastern Orthodox Church. I plan on looking into this aspect more.
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