CHRISTIAN INSANITY
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Next to Naked White Women, this is my favorite subject -- Christian Insanity, more often called Christianity. I was born from my naked mother's body, and inculcated by an old coal miner who read stories to me directly from the Bible, like the one where Cain killed his brother Abel. Grandpa didn't go to church much, but he probably ended up going to hell. He killed a "colored man" way back when he was hardly a man himself, a mere teenager, just about a hundred years ago. It was the south and he got away with it, yet it ate away at him (cancer, in fact) for the rest of his life, finally devouring him in his own shame and separation. He called himself a Christian, but never allowed Jesus to guide him. Instead, he spent his days wallowing in self pity and praying to the television set he worshiped.
The one good thing he did before he left was buy me a paint-by-number kit. That small gift turned out to be a more powerful tool than the Bible, coloring my young mind forever after with an unholy awareness that could only compare to the dilemma that visited Adam and Eve at the foot of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. Naturally, in his heightened religious guilt, grandpa picked out "The Lord's Supper" for me to paint... but by some unforeseen and ironic twist, the clerk wrapped up "A Reclining Nude." And you can bet that all hell broke loose when I unwrapped it on my 9th Christmas at the orphanage where I had ended up. The rest is history.
And so I'm here to tell you that, although Jesus is still very much alive in me, I've just about outgrown my need for naked women! But more importantly, I have definitely outgrown my need for Christianity -- the insanity of all those well-meaning Christians out there trying to represent Him, whereas, in fact, they are only representing themselves and their closed-minded religions.
Don't get me wrong... I definitely love Jesus! But I'm more than a little upset with the bad rap people give him. (What did he ever do to them?) So let's just see where all these contradictions take me, as I attempt to bring us all a little closer to God, without using any religion whatsoever...
Pentecostal Church Service -- Family Christian Center, Indiana -- Easter 1996
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THE TREE OF LIFE
Christmas Day, 2002
"Ye must become as little children to enter the Kingdom of God." Well that's not exactly how my 16-year old soul mate phrased it when she came last night in a phone that sounded a lot like a vision. Actually she asked why I persistently hold to Christianity, when it is apparent that much of what I believe is closer to the tenants of Judaism. She points out that Christianity is an offshoot of Judaism, and is far too liberal in its interpretation of the Law.
Thankfully, for her, she is right. Otherwise I might tie her young ass down and whip that succulent virgin body of hers into submission and sacrifice. Instead, I allow her opinion. another bud on the branch that defines us. Besides, she's too young to be sacrificed. I think the legal age now is 18.
You know, she's right! I don't like Christianity any more than she does, however I do like Jesus a hell of a lot more! I think Jesus had the formula; he knew the way back to God, the difficult way back home. Further, he showed us that the Messiah is always alive in every generation, and does not wait around in some nebulous future to save us. He demonstrated daily how we might save ourselves from evil, and put temptation behind us.
I'm talking about what Jesus revealed to us, not what the assorted (sorted) religions dictate as propaganda in his stead. In fact, he commented on this problem years ago: "Having gotten caught up in the letter of the Law, they miss the Spirit which wrote it." He admonished his own to become embodiments of the Law, writing it in their hearts, fulfilling it in the actions of faith and love we visit upon one another. at which point the Law becomes a moot point. Only God Exists.
The fact that Jesus was a Jew and practiced the wisdom set down by Moses and the prophets is an important truth. Because it's a clear communication to his "followers" that he didn't worship any other God but the One that has always been worthy - he had no trek with the pagan celebrations of Easter and Christmas (which existed before they were so named); he celebrated the Passover and ignored the vain eulogies built up around birthdays.
But although I'm tempted to gain an unorthodox (but not unparalleled. think of Leonard Cohen and Janis Joplin) entrance into the Holy of Holies with this little Torah temptress, I still don't think I'm gonna convert to so-called Judaism, which itself is an offshoot of the Revelations of God to Abraham and Moses. The Jews, like the Christians after them, are really descendents of the one small tribe of Judah, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The religion they call Judaism is but a continual rabbinic interpretation of the original Revelation all the rest of us get our ideas from as well.
It's a great illustration: there are many branches, but only one tree. The original Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden was a symbol for the One God that continuously lives, as our lives here continuously demonstrate. The Tree has appeared in many guises throughout history. Adam and Eve fucked under it, creating the notion of good and evil. Jesus was crucified on it, delivering with his own sacrifice the good and evil thievery back to the source where it could be balanced and reintroduced. Carpenters dissected it, the academies made desks and books out of it, and the modern pagans and tree huggers have made a goddess out of it, attempting to restore again its reverence as a deity.
And then don't forget the stupid hippies, who smoked the damn leaves off of it, never suspecting that their hallucinations were the Logos alive in their heads! Many branches, many diversions. but always only one way back home...
See you when we get there!
"Forgiveness"
Another Burkhart Tract
When Jesus instructed his followers to forgive "not just seven times seven. but seventy times seven" he was talking about the forgiving of others. not one's self. Of course we must be able to "forgive ourselves," but the real question under consideration was: "How can we change another's awareness?" Well... we can't; we just permit or allow the other to keep it, until he or she sees fit to change. That's forgiveness!
The doctrine of penitence -- popularized by the early Roman Church (Catholicism) and illustrated in Dante's three-tiered afterworld - was not what Jesus had in mind when he walked and talked. Neither of those views represents Christ's teachings; neither is illumined thinking.
To the question, "would thee be healed?" Jesus didn't advise us to go and keep sinning all week long and then visit the church on Sunday for absolution. Instead, he answered, "Go and sin no more." And he was talking to his fellow Jews, who were trying to buy their ways into heaven with blood and gold. There is no such forgiveness; there is only a fattening of the golden idol that lurks behind the scarlet trappings of the church, whether Jewish, Catholic, or Pentecostal.
Jesus pointed out that we must "work out (y)our own salvation with fear and trembling." Humble realization of and regret for one's misdeeds is the true consciousness that intercedes for us; we don't have to pay someone to stand in for us - especially one who fancies himself standing in for God!
Christ pointed this out some years ago - "what you pray for, believe that you have it and it will be so." Of course! Ultimately we can only have what we are. You want repentance? Then demonstrate it to me. but don't try and buy it from someone else and then try to convince me you are saved. Save yourself the trouble!
At the Foot of the Old Rugged Cross
"I may look like Santa Claus but."
Now I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas, even though it's nearly a Hate Crime anymore to do so! Don't get me wrong. I don't celebrate the holiday, but I sure in the hell have to comment on it!
I read about one middle school that banned its children from wearing red and green, in order to separate Church and State! Another schoolroom banned the nativity scene, while allowing the Muslim star & crescent and the Hebrew menorah to remain. What? Next they'll ban white snow from falling on the 25th.
The bizarre truth is that Christmas has about as much to do with Christ and or religion as the next war has to do with peace on earth. It is a winter's solstice celebration, regardless of what the name implies -- a pagan holiday at best (not that there's anything wrong with that either). The confusion may result from an innocent text that stated "The wise men visited the new born king at Christmas." (I'm paraphrasing... yes I am!)
The star that appeared to the "Wise Men" at Christ's birth - the one they subsequently followed for months - showed itself first in the east, "where the shepherds attended their flocks in the rainy season." That's fall, not winter. By the time these travelers reached the new born king, he was already several months old! It wasn't the kid's birthday!
Additional scriptures also indicate that Christ was born in the autumn - not December. Refer to the family ledger. Mary's sister, Elizabeth gave birth to a baby, John, in the spring. (It was during the time that her husband Zacharias "executed his priest's office before God in the order of his course" that the child was conceived. Since it is known when Zacharias was on the job, counting forward nine months we arrive at a spring birth.) It is recorded that Mary then gave birth six months later to Jesus. that's approximately August or September, "during the rainy season" in Jerusalem. The flocks were still out grazing, long before winter set in.
Add to this that Jesus was a Jew (of the tribe of Judah) and celebrated Hebrew Holy Days - none of which were birthday celebrations - and it goes without saying that the world of Christianity today is deluded. It doesn't make things okay to celebrate something in name only, while in truth and in flesh, one celebrates the devil's work. Consumerism is that devil. This holiday is about people who buy up and exchange presents with one another, to satisfy and appease their own selfish life styles. This is usually done to the exclusion of all others in this Great Family of God, while almost nothing goes to the Christ they supposedly worship.
People can fool themselves all of the time by jumping up and down and shouting Hallelujah, but the truth remains: it's a celebration of the pagan, the hedonist, the consumer and the Sun God of Solstice. If I stagger into a disco and start dancing with the rest of them. well, I guess I could convince myself that I was at church. but the fact and effect remains - I'm really somewhere else.
Well, I am somewhere else. Waiting upon Jesus. And like any true servant of the Eternal Messiah -- the One who is here at all times, past and present, and doesn't need a resurrection or another so-called religion to prove itself and reappear - I am giving you my share of that wisdom. Call me old fashion, call me an atheist, and call me a heretic or a politically incorrect troublemaker but I'm not celebrating Christmas again this year.
...and the Great Snake
The original Adam and Eve were formed from the Dust of the Earth, being conceived and created out of the original substance that existed simultaneously as both Mind and Matter. This is the phenomenon that some call God.
Ages later, that same dust continues to settle anew on everything from sacrificial altar furniture to superficial garden orgies. And once again, rising from the dust clouds, comes that same old Snake of Antiquity, shedding its skin perennially with each new set of recruits.
Recently I visited the Garden, and since I'm allowed in with recording devices, I was given a spectacular view of the molting process, wherein all disguises and human artifact are thrown off for a glimpse of the true under belly.
This
vision represents the initial point of conception, wherein the wizened
Snake has convinced the naive humans to once again sacrifice their own
children in the interest of perpetuating good and evil, forcing the children
to live out that good and evil in their own flesh and blood agonies, in
order to cover up of the false judgments continually being made and denied
by their parents.
And of course the children are not privy to any of this, being lied to by the seemingly superior parents in control of them. Yet because of the Revelation buried deep within, every child knows that it is their right to throw off the false teachings and brutal wars introduced so long ago by the original parents... the sibling rivalry that was fostered on Cain and Abel, perpetuated by Moses and Pharaoh, dug into by Abraham and Ishmael, and finally being served up on a plate by the likes of Bush and Bin Laden... all a shallow mockery and illusion of the One True Spirit of which I testify.
So "Listen Up!" children... to your own heart beating. There is no need to enshroud it any further inside a temporary snake skin. Let go of it. Let it love.
Appointment: 1228 N. Noble St. (coach house) Chicago, 60622 (773 348-8536)