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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.
If you were married or had a Beloved you would come to realize…
The good you do for your beloved is the same good or actually better than the good you do for yourself.
Why serve yourself for the moment, when the fruits of serving your beloved in the midst of suffering, make your heart and belly full of peace, love, joy and satisfaction?
To serve The Beloved is to serve my beloved. To serve my beloved is to serve The Beloved and to serve My Beloved beats serving myself. If only I could finally learn this lesson…
may you have deep peace…
So I’ve been thinking and wanting and planning a tattoo for myself. I wanted to get proverbs 4:23 tattooed on the inside of my forearm. But now I am having second thoughts. I am not against tattooing in general and don’t think I’ll ever be, this is just in terms of my own body.
Here is a distilled version of a conversation with my friend and Sufi teacher David Weinthal:
“Study your motivation. Study your context. Think of tattooing this teaching on your heart and living in light of it’s truth before others, so as to draw their attention to God and not on yourself. Think of humbling yourself and exalting and drawing attention to the Spirit of God working through you. What’s your motivation for having this tattoo? What is it when you think of it in your heart? What is the appeal you find in your heart? Does this action represent your highest calling or path? Tattoos are not necessarily ‘bad’, but in light of your motivation, is it best for YOU?”
here’s what I was going to get tattooed on my forearm:
After watching an Indian film (called, ‘Water’) about Hindu widows, my heart got to thinking and asking…
“
“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)
“
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.
I am looking at my wedding ring. It tells a story. it tells the the story of the tension between singularity and plurality. This is why i consider myself a “traditionalist”.
I remember when I received the weld spot on my wedding ring. It was while I was Ironworking for Lewis Herrera. I was tack welding a jig for some job… near the end of the day… very mundane work… no fuss, no grand piece of art. it was “just” a jig. a “tool” which was created for one specific job and would be discarded after the job was done. I was rushing along tacking my jig together (without gloves, because whats the chance that I would injure myself from a few tack welds) and suddenly… INTENSE PAIN on my left hand… on my ring finger.
OH MY GOD IT WON’T STOP! FUCK IT HURTS FUCK FUCK FUCK!
A piece of weld spatter had stuck to my 18K white gold wedding band and had supper heated it and burned a semi-circular scar into my finger. I couldn’t flick it off, I couldn’t make the pain stop until the red hot ring of fire had cooled on its own. Then I thought of plunging my hand into the quench tank, but by then it was already cooled.
The pain is gone and even the scare is mostly gone, but the spot of hard steel remains on the soft tissue of my wedding ring.
It reminds me of the sacrifice that my beloved has made for me to follow my dreams and how she has never once held it against me or used them as cannon fodder for her rage.
Thank you my sweet. I love you with all my Heart!
-john
Once a friend of mine whom I love, said to me (i’m paraphrasing), “I pray that you don’t go down with the ship, I’m not suggesting anything, but I hope that if she decides to go down she doesn’t take you with her. All I’m saying is that you never know how thing’s will work out and you should be prepared for the possibility that your marriage may not work out.” Let me say I love this person and accept their advise from the standpoint of the their life experience. But I have to disagree… not with their stance as a realist, but with the reluctance to throw ones entire lot in with the body of Christ, though it is painful and gut-wrenching to say. I don’t mean to judge, but if the Body of Jesus cannot contain or exist in the downward spiral, death, despair, anxiety and depression, delusion, illusion of humanity… …then Jesus failed.
I believe he did not.
If I am to be christ to my wife as Christ is to His Body, then that means indeed going down with the ship if the ship is going down; Just as Christ went down with this earthship! And when all hope is lost, the new hope of the kingdom of God rises from the depths of the ocean that is the spirit and grace of God.
There are times I think I should have become a monk. That I could have learned more of God or become closer to Him or that my life would be more closely aligned with Him or that the sign of my trials… her trials… means I made a mistake and God is… or I am just reaping the the harvest of my choices. Really it’s a dream of a cop out. An addiction. Because I somehow think that then I wouldn’t have to face the hardship or suffering that I and my beloved face today. In addition there’s so much that I feel I would be the poorer for if I had not married Her. Frankly even though I have no experience in this and am a total fool saying this… But that is… that if followed with much love, dedication and sobriety of spirit, marriage to a wife is just as deeply and mystically refining, perfecting and rewarding as marriage to Christ through monasticism. It is marriage to Christ either way. One can be a David or Judas in both. One can be a saint or a satan in either.
The Truth is, when my beloved is suffering and I have to choose either shirking my love and covenant to her or swallowing my self-ness, fatigue, frustration, anger, resentment, bitterness… I cannot swallow anything really. The only way I am able to love my beloved in these moments (I am poor in myself, forgive me) is through Christ, through Christ living in me, through sacrificing my self with Christ in the moments of despair and rage and bitterness.
… and I fail miserably at this… the battle between forgiveness and bitterness, between rage and acceptance, erupts in my chest.
أيها الرب يسوع المسيح ابن الله, إرحمني أنا الخاطئ – Ayyuha-r-Rabbu Yasū` al-Masīħ, Ibnu-l-Lāh, irħamnī ana-l-khāti’ – Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner
I Love You,
Your Beloved
Thank you immensely for doing so.
The triangle is the first full form.
The Three is the principle of Order,
The Order that must exist before the multiplicity of things.
Therefore the Ancient Sage said:
“The Three produces all things.”
The Three acting as One,
One not acting without the Others.
The Triad contains itself in perfection,
For it is the first that surpasses the dyad.
It lies beyond the duality of matter,
Of subject and object,
Of self and other.
The Triad is beyond the distinction of the one and the many;
Its perfection goes beyond the multiplicity of which duality is the root.
Two is the number that separates,
Three is the number that transcends all separation.
The one and the many find themselves gathered together in the Three,
For the Triad, being many, is also a Unity:
Not a unity of self-absorption, but of love.
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…
…
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)
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