Gospel of Thomas: Seek and do not stop seeking until you find, .....YES!

Yeshua:

Whoever discovers what these sayings mean
Will not taste death

Seek and do not stop seeking until you find.
When you find, you will be troubled.
When you are troubled,
You will marvel and rule over all.

If your leaders tell you, "Look the kingdom is in heaven,"
then the birds of heaven will precede you.
If they tell you, "It is in the sea,"
Then fish will beat you there.

But the kingdom of heaven is in you and outside of you.
When you know yourselves, you will be known.
And will understand that you are children of the living father.
If you don't know yourselves,
You will dwell in poverty and be poverty.

You who are old in days will not hesitate
to ask a child of seven days old about
The place of Life, and you will live.
Many who are first will be last and be solitary.

Know what is in front of your face
And what is hidden from you will be disclosed.
There is nothing hidden that will not be revealed.

From the Restored New Testament,
Willis Barnstone,





an amazing book, that clues one way into the strangeness of the traditional
new testament's anti-Semitism,
and reveals all sorts of information that isn't commonly known
(letters of Paul before the Mathew, Mark, Luke, John ones written)

Baby and the Bathwater

I haven't posted a long time
in this blog much

and only a few people look at it

and who knows,
maybe it's time for more....

And
the mystical universe being what it
is
someone of high intelligence
and good
heart
crossed my path
in the night
and we talked of these things:

the baby and the bathwater of Christianity:


The bathwater
nonsense
demeaning aspects that make this fine possible religion
a burden to people's minds, hearts and souls:


ONE:
The idea of death as the "bad guy"
as if it's okay for the carrot to die
for us to eat it
and the bird to die after flying around
and glorifying the world in song
for its span on this beautiful planet
and it's okay for the summer to die into the fall die into the winter die into the spring

but
people can't die

so, you have to be afraid of it
or allow yourself to be afraid of it
or , the real thing: don't inquire about
the fear
and since "everyone" knows death is bad/ scary/ to be avoid/ the worst
people
accept,
like good sheep,
yeah, yeah, death = bad

and the essay on why be fearless and even happy
and excited at the prospect of eventual death,
that's another one

but for now,
the death as big
deal
and then the whole
pivoting of everything on Jesus' dying
as a big
deal

but, hey, folks,
death is what people do,
if Jesus wants to do the human thing,
die He must

on a cross is severe, no doubt,
and so is liver cancer and burn victim car crash
and having your head bashed in by your neighbors
during the genocide in Rwanda

death can be less pleasant than going to sleep
at night
or
it can be just the same

and I degress
a bit,
(not really, it all fits together,
just have fun with it,
let your own examinations of what "they" say,
be a source of endless amusement and freedom
for
you)

TWO, in the bathwater: BRIBERY
it's as if Christians allow themselves to be big
versions of little children
who
if they are good, and Santa knows,
yes, Santa knows,
they get presents
and if they are bad,
they get no presents

but worse, meaner awful really,
as if any God based on love and understanding
wants to send people to Hell

but anyway: this deal,
making life a big good get ticket to heaven
bad, get punished go to hell
is demeaning to what it really means to be human

and dumb
to the actuality:
when people are living out of love and the present
their lives are hell
so they don't have to wait until after death

THREE: EXCLUSIVITY,
as if God doesn't want as many avenues to Her or Him or It
as possible
and the Christian insistence that it's "my way or the highway" ( to hell,
to boot)
reduces a beautiful religion to the level of Go Seahawks, or Go Cowboys,
my team is the winning team

alas,
so
why bother:

because
"The kingdom of heaven is within"
right now

"Let he who is sinless cast the first stone"
perhaps the best spiritual story of all times

"Love your enemy"
easy to say, supposedly hard to do,
and until you and I and everyone learns it,
we are in hell

and it's not that hard,
just get real about what the un-loving is doing to your heart,
mind, guts and soul

or,
if you want some help,
jump on in with Katie:
thework.com

and you don't need the books,
but the titles get you thinking
about what a real world of God consciousness
might be:
Loving What Is



I Need Your Love: Is that true?

A Thousand Names for Joy
this the rendering by Stephen Mitchell once more of the tao ti ching, and Katie's take on what life as an awakened one/ master is about, pretty great

Loving God from India, Europe, and the whole wide world

Close to God

One may have never heard the sacred name 'Christ'
and be closer to God
than any priest
or
nun.


St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)

I Just Laugh

If I told you the
truth
about God
you might think
I was an Idiot.

If I lied to you about the Beautiful One
you might parade me through the streets saying,
"This guy's a genius!"

This world has its pants on backwards.
Most carry their values and knowledge in a
jug
what has a big opening in the bottom.

What to do?
With a clear grasp of the situation,
when asked to explain the Universe,
I just laugh.

Kabir  (c1440-1518)

What is Grace

What is grace? I asked God.

"All that happens," He replied.

"All that happens."

And then he added, when I looked perplexed:

"Could not lovers
say
that every moment in the arms
of their Beloved
was
Grace?

Existence is my arms,
though I well understand how the
heart
can turn away
from me

Until the heart
calms,
wakes up to the ease
and wisdom
that let's it know."


St. Teressa   (1515-1582)

A Hundred Objects close by


I know a cure for sadness:
Let your hands touch something
that makes your
eyes
shine

I bet there are a hundred object close by
that can do that.

Look at beauty's gift to us--
her power is so great she enlivens the
Earth, the Sky, our
Soul.




Mira (c 1498-1550)

Wherever you may look


Wisdom is so
kind and wise
that
wherever you may
look
you can learn something
about God.

Why
would not the
omnipresent
teach that
way?


St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380)

Wring Out my Clothes


Such love does the
sky
now
pour

that whenever I stand in a field

I have to
wring out my clothes
when I get
home.

St. Francis (1182-1226)

There are twelve poets.
The book is divine,
in a meaning deeper than usually
used iwith
that word.

Oh, yeah,

Hafiz (c13320-1389):

Two Giant Fat People

God
and
I
have become like two

giant
fat
people

living in a tiny boat

We keep
bumping into
each
other
and

l
a
u
g
h
i
n
g

That's a nice taste,
write a few of your own

They'll be perfect

if you think not
read the above poens
again

with your mind calm
and your heart
giggling

it's all
waiting inside
gurgling up
weather we
know it
or not

and the weather is
always
what it is:
God saying:
Hello
and
Wake up
(and maybe: treat the world
just
a tiny
bit
better,
who knows?

You listen.
what do YOU hear?

All from this book,
which you might love:








And not from here,
also amazing,
and there is only one Hafiz
in today's offering
he wrote thousands

Open our hearts to love: the sin of the idea of original sin

Let's say sin is this,
"missing the mark,"
as translation
and what's the mark?

love.

sin is that which takes us away from loving God, ourselves,
nature and others

any order is fine, that's another sin, dividing and splitting into levels,
but we'll pass that by for now

and think about the idea of
original sin

people being born "bad"

which is nonsense

look at babies
no bad
pure love

the idea of original sin is a sin
against babies
and against what we really are underneath all our conditioning

it's a control trip really

and that's the way it always is:
you can have love
or control

to see everyone as good and innocent at their core,
this is an idea with much less power to shame, and bully
and get people to cowtow before God

as if that's what God
wants
shamed and self-hating people
on their knees repentant for the sin of being alive

hooey to that:
hell is always in the moment,
when we are out of love
with now
with the joy of life
with ourselves
and others
and nature
and God

any order

and we can be in love
or we can be condemning
but not both

the sin of original sin tries to turn us into human
beings haters

bad idea
bad loving
bad living
bad medicine

and if we don't say bad:
lets  just say, not so useful

good

Page 13, Anthony De Mello's, The Way of Love

Chapter Title: The Extra Mile

Bible quote: " If anyone would sue you to take your coat, let him have your cloak as well,
and if anyone forces you to go a mile, go with him two miles."

He says, on the little page:

"If you take a look at the way you have been
put together
and the way you function,
you will find that inside your
head
there is a whole
program,
a set of demands
about
how the world should be,
how you should be,
and what you should want.

Who is responsible for this programming?
Not you.
It isn't really you who decided even
such basics
as
your wants
and desires
and so-called needs;
your values,
your tastes,
your attitudes.

It...."

That's all.
Little pages.

What's he going to say in the rest of the chapter.

My guess:
to be ourselves,
to really love,
we have to discover our programming
and stop
believing it.

Or, as Katie would say:
Who would we be
without our story?

Here's the book from Amazon,
though if we can figure how to order from Powell's so much the better:

Who they call me/ us ....wrong

The death of me

By “me” July 13, 2010

Once upon a time

Someone told me I was

Chris

Christopher

Christopher Michael Elms

And they told me I was

Good or

Bad or

Smart or

Dumb

Or

Worst of all, it seemed,

Disrespectful

And damned if I’m still not

All

Of those

Things

And none of that

Has

Anything to do with

Who

I

Am

Oh, Well

Next question:

Who am I?

=

Same answer :

Who are you?

Ah, no we’re getting

Nowhere

Which is closer to

Where

We

Really want

To

Be

Where is God?

In this remarkable book:

What Difference Do It Make?: Stories of Hope and Healing

A formerly homeless 

wise man

is annoyed at people who go to 

Bible study all the time

and

never get around to a

"Bible Do"

He asks:

"Mr. Ron, all those white folks

be invitin us

to their Bible Studies.

How come

none of 'ems
invitin
us to their Bible doins?"

Then,
like Rumi,
Who sung, roughly,
that he
looked for God
in the Mosque
and couldn't find Him
looked in the synagoge
couldn't find Him
looked in the Church,
still couldn't find
Him
then he
looked in His hearrt
and there He was
All Along

This wise formerly homeless man,
named Denver
says:
"Everybody's looking for
God
everywhere on the outside.
He ain't in no
book,
He ain't in no
preacher
He ain't in nothing or no out
outside.
You got to go inside
'cause that's where
God
is --
in the
deepest place
inside you."