God's will be done - or - Truth about who kills

‘Truth about who kills’ timothy r. gates, 10/25/2005
or
‘God’s will be done?’

Abel murdered his brother.
When confronted, he exclaimed,
‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’
John the Elder says,
‘If you hate your neighbor,
you’re a murderer already.’

‘God’s will be done,’
infamous words coming from
leaders of Hindus, Buddhists, Shiites,
Jews, Orthodox, Conservative and Reform,
Islamists, Sufi too at different levels,
who’ll not demand their Moslem warriors
to cease waging killing in the name of the God Alone,
the God that the others say is a false God.

Christians, Orthodox, Roman and Protestants,
say the same by silence, acquiescence, or national patriotism,
or by recognizing their leaders as theirs.
Few - ? - religious leaders have not openly supported war.
Most have blessed those going into war,
whether to win or to lose.
God’s will be done.

Two football teams,
praying for God’s will to be done,
kneeling in the locker room,
just before they come out to kick their brother’s behind.
Whose will be done?

How does one bless
one soul in order to
kill or be killed?
How does one curse the one they have blessed?
What nation’s patriots
are not patriots?

Pacifists,
some Theists, Christians, Deists, or Atheists
do not support the killing of others;
they have supported the cold shoulder
given to those that disagree with them,
some call it shunning, disfellowshipping, excommunication;
the Skeptics and Atheists
marginalize Believers of any ilk,
because they do not see clearly,
are not intelligent enough to reject superstition,
are not able to adequately observe phenomenon
not at first understood –
properly.
Duh?

God’s will be done.
Every group claims to be better than the other,
yes, by comparison,
by their own standards.
Who would do war
if the people refused to kill?

Kings, Presidents, Popes, Patriarchs,
Fascists, Dictators, Communists, Capitalists,
Emperors, Leaders from within known history,
herstory not told well,
have blood on their hands.
Like Pilot, it does not come off by water.
Bleach will not get to its root.
Jeremiah warns,
‘Scrub with water, soap,
you’ll not be clean.’

I alone am free to say, ‘No.’
Irish melody,
the Irish soldier given an audience before his Queen,
boldly says,
‘Aeh, I’ll not fight your battles anymore!’
His queen sheds a tear,
as she watches him taken to the guillotine.
She sees a coward with courage.
She doesn’t see the blood on her hands.
Twenty-first century CSI technology
wouldn’t make any difference.
God’s will be done.

Insidious, the hands of murderers,
not knowing when, why, and the what of their actions,
pathology into what alone must be done.
Quantum mass,
multiplied by exponential heroism,
too many hands pulling the trigger,
pushing the buttons,
blurs the innocuous question,
‘Am I my brother’s, my sister’s keeper?’
In The Garden,
who was watching the hiss’ of beguile,
but did not step in to help?
Whose will be done?

How do I pray for those that kill,
when they only know killing,
by their own hands,
or by eating the food that the killers actions give us?
How do I pray for my nation’s leader and leaders,
when every one of my nation’s leaders,
our infamous genesis,
today, still the wealthiest capital holders,
giving ‘we the people’
our just wars,
have authored war?

How do I pray…
knowing that I too do not desire every persons’ best,
if it’ll prevent my success,
what I want,
what I need,
what is God’s will for my life?

Who murdered Jesus?
Roman soldiers?
Roman Emperors and their lackeys?
The Samaritans,
half-breeds of Jesus’ day?
Jews?
Jewish Zealots?
All of the Romans?
All of the Jews?
All of the religious and political leaders?
Muslims?
There were none, oops.
Apex of ‘who done it’?
God’s will be done.

Out of my sleepwalking,
matrix of illusions
I receive a moment of sight.
‘All I know,
I was blind;
now I see,’
a new creation,
dirt in hand, mixed with spit,
is awakened.
‘I see trees walking,’
the once blind man’s illusions begins.
When he sees,
the sighted ones cannot take it,
‘Who does he think that he is?’
Does the formerly blind man
choose the moments varying illusions,
light to light through light?
Does he notice some blind people,
begging,
saying to himself,
‘I am glad that I see,’
- poor suckers?
‘The poor you have with you always,’
could be said of the blind too.
God’s will be done.

Who do I blame?
Whose will be done?
This is my genesis.

Walt Whitman

"Re-examine all that you have been told . . . dismiss that which insults your soul." --Walt Whitman


#5 pieces of 'Walt'

"Walt" (trg, 7-02-2001)how is it that a man can both love a woman, and alsoa man?or, as i've noticed, girls have often loved boys, onlylater discovering their preference of a girl;Walt was much more free than we,writing of the lovely youngman's fingers run through his beard, andthe amorous delight of kissinga luscious lady's breast and of tasting her sweet flowerson a river's bank;he was both a lady's manand a man's man, liking a brawlor a sprawl, and neverbeing ashamed when he'd ask for more -- naturally, healso was quick to reciprocate, ifone would barely request; in our timeof enlightenmenthe'd be marginalized because of his love of living, though all like to claim him'till he's read aloud, andhis intended unhidden nuances are heard,perhaps for the first time; thenthe sound of throats being cleared -- no punintended -- are the nearest to words that are heard;he seemed to understandthat the warmth of lover is betterthan a friend when one is young; yet, whenwe grow older, we desirethe pleasure of a lone friend, whethera lover or not.

‘Walt ‘ (trg, 12/20/02)
‘Come close to me,’
the aged sage teases.
An almost youth
smiles,
easily acquiesces,
really no different than ancient Rome.
His wisdom etched frame
next to his supple pink torso;
someone should have
placed them on canvas.
Classic reclining,
one runs his hands
through his mentor’s beard,
while the friend
reaches for his love’s hand.
Here I see
masculine man’s man and tender feminine
intuition wedded comfortably.
Poet strokes his pen
over his once empty page,
creating his masterwork.
Man, one without a facial hair
or years’ wrinkles
is as glad
as I for Walt’s strokes.
‘Walt III’ (trg. 9/22/03)

No lame duck here,
a pacifism without any punch.
Many young men lay under his care,
men who thought it righteous to kill their kin.
A writer who’s a nurse,
a man’s man who’s a man’s man.
He would not fare well today,
in our political correct lifestyles.
Neither his appearance nor his word craft
would be queer enough.
He knew the freedom of being who you are,
no need to measure up or down to one group or another.
He befriended soldiers, coal miners, farmers, ship captains and crew,
writers, painters, actors, women, men, the well educated and the not.
He celebrated humanity in all of its form,
from the basest to the most glorious,
evil is within our hearts by choice.
-- So is innocence.
I would take a walk with him.
Would you?
The cushion of a pail breast
and post-Raphael stomach, he appreciated.
The firmness of a young male friend he too liked.
For him, most often,
the more real the person the more amorous.
A shy confidence allures the desiring and desirable,
noise gets in the way of hearing.
You, yes - you,
come close and reveal your thighs.
Allow me to press my lips against these your shafts.
Rivers will flow, overflow,
and those that have been pent up for a time
will find it difficult to locate a bank to rest upon.
Walt was a man, a pacifist who fought for the lame.

‘I had a dream’ (trg, 4/07/2004)
I had a dream
where all people loved each other,
the Altar was barely a euphemism,
not waiting for heaven or hell; a little late then.
Eros, Agape and Cupid need no introduction or introductions.
You do know that to copulate with a dark-skinned person, once,
was to have sex outside of your species?
…Unless you too were dark-skinned.
(This is where tanning products erupted.)
I awoke with my extensive facial hair follicles drenched with love,
knowing that if this was Hell that I’d be glad to stay;
if Heaven, I’ll prostrate, the correct word here, gladly,
for eternity.
There were no nocturne contortions; my back wasn’t thrown.
There is a certain arch, even if in fantasy, that liberates,
frees the captive fears of being unspent;
here I sing the song of ‘From pent up aching rivers,’
Walt’s muse in true human experience,
gender was not his bent, such queries are useless
save for the one unwilling to look into the mirror.
He’d blow the minds of those who think
heterosexuality and homosexuality are in fact different, neither
have anything to do with gender, only species;
then he’d blow his too.
Ah, to live in a world where communion is common as choice,
a Chalice to sip the last drops from, with, licking the edge,
making sure that nothing is left wanting.
‘God,’ and ‘Lord have mercy,’ communicate,
the Moon and Earth dance all night, giving way to the dawn,
where the dew of the Rain Forrest is delightfully redundant.
Those who know this Beauty
know the egoism that is swallowed up by eroticism;
here’s the subject of the dance,
matters not whether it’s slow or faster.
You do know that to dance is to anticipate copulation, until recently
only done with the same gender?
…Unless you donned drag.
(This is where Rock & Roll was spawned.)
I awoke to find my dream eclipsed by the Sunlight.
Or, I fell asleep.

‘Walt Whitman, straight to the aid’ (trg, 6/05/04)

Straight to the aid of dying Confederates or Yankees, if need be,
no one asked him of his bedroom habits.
Women, voluptuous exquisite icons of beauty, applauded him.
He them.
Men, young lanky, tight stomached or dandies of his age, posed with him.
He them.
No one ran from being photographed with him,
believers and unbelievers both respected his character.
Words, euphemisms of the 21st century clouding one’s fear, were not thrown his way;
this man’s man could beat their butts save for his love of people.
Stand him next to our contemporary athletes,
he’d be the more masculine without their need to fit into the frame.
As a Person he spoke, as a Man he spoke, as a Creature he spoke,
as an American he sang all of our tunes,
as a Poet he observed the rhythm of creation,
freely following its natural path in the place of contrived rhymes,
rowing the streams of consciousness.
Today’s Poets might presume to edit his work away, too many words they’d say;
twenty years after their death will they or their words be remembered?
Then there are his narrative sentences, oh my God, with more than ten words,
I beg you to reconstruct them into minimalist lines;
but whose sentences would they be?
A lover of the written and spoken word,
unheard of that one would be without the other,
this lover could recline with a missive and read it aloud with a friend
or chant for others a recent traditionalist Poet of meter, applauding them both.
Pensive, not he, to be true to himself;
yes, though, if he might harm an innocent soul.
God was more real than real to him;
God as used to control people was more horrid than horrid.
Hymns sung in harmony with every creature in God’s Earth made sense.
Dirges are only appropriate for those whose collars need to be tightened.
Worship is the irony of self-indulgence;
we freely, so to speak, offer it to someone who acknowledges this wryness.
Straight to the heart and soul he cuts a path worth walking,
a godlike snowy-bearded Artist captivates my imagination.
He’d laugh at this usage of metaphors in reference to him, saying,
‘Buggers ought never be thrown accolades, they only go to their heads.’

Enigma?

‘Enigma? A Question of a Personal Nature’ (trg, 04/10/2005 updated)


Those who argue and discuss without understanding the truth are lost amid all the forms of relative knowledge, running about here and there and trying to justify their view of the substance of ego.If you realize the self in your inmost consciousness, it will appear in its purity. This is the womb of wonder, which is not the realm of those who live only by reason.Pure in its own nature and free from the categories of finite and infinite, Universal Mind is the undefiled wonder, which is wrongly apprehended by many.-Lankavatara Sutra
O monks, even if you have insight that is pure and clear but you cling to it, fondle it and treasure it, depend on it and are attached to it, then you do not understand that the teaching is like a raft that carries you across the water to the farther shore but is then to be put down and not clung to.

Enigma: The Question of a Personal Nature?’ (trg, 04/10/2005 updated)

Question(personal) below is my response to some sent regarding my usage of the word ‘enigma’ as well as, but not as often, the rest of my hotmail tag, enigma_bg53@hotmail.com:

I will try to be honest though it is unlikely (sic) that I'll be truly dispassionate in my endeavor at being honest. At the end of this little missive, oxymoronic - yes, you'll find some answers, hopefully, truly to the personal questions, 'What about your children and household(sum of the question)?'

'Enigma'? Because I am that to many people, especially those that think that they know me, for whatever reason, though have never talked with me sufficiently to know that I am always at the proverbial flux, more so, precipice, of life regarding faith, god, life, death and life. Because I choose not to be identified by gender, sex or religious expression, at least in any overt manner. Yes, I do choose to be by a gift in the communion of the Orthodox Christian Church, of whom I give her thanksgiving. I do opening affirm the Credo of the Church. And I do affirm that in knowing God I do not know God, as I might know you, or you me, as I do not know you, or you me. I do know about many things. I pray that for all of that that I do not have any, which says that I do have, pretentiousness in True knowing of God and or you, or you me.

I choose, today, to reject what I consider to be extreme prejudicial ways of expressions in all areas of life. –This sort of categorical statement, I am aware, is unlikely without exceptions in my behavior, my daily practice; as such it is a hopefully hyperbole of purpose and belief concerning my commitment of living this way.- If I hear and or see such extremes, where certain people from certain spheres of society are purported to be less spiritual, human, real, true than others, here I choose to openly reject such openly expressed opinions(Remember, literally we are all 'heretics', meaning simply to have an opinion, just as we are all sectarian at one level or another, meaning to simply to belong to one 'group' or 'sect', just as the early Christians were a 'sect', a 'cult' of the Jewish religion.).

I am probably more closely linked to 'libertarianism' as a political, economic theory by those who have heard me speak at different open mike nights, reading poetry, essays and doing standup. Amongst my 'liberal' friends I often seem to be an arch-conservative, often because I am unwilling to demonize 'fundamentalists' of any sort, mainly because most of this sort are only trying to live faithful to what they believe that they believe. This doesn't mean that I think that I don't have strong or extreme views. I do. I choose to acknowledge that the only time that I am offended by another's views, expressed or not openly, is when I take myself too seriously and or think too highly of my opinions.

By most Christians, and yes - most Orthodox Christians, especially supposedly unique 'adult converts' to the Orthodox Faith, I am seen as a liberal. Why? Because I do not affirm the historicity of the literal-historical approach to either the old or the new testaments. I believe that they are primarily 'stories', in the best sense of the word, like the 'legends' and 'myths' of classical ages gone by. These forms were literary paths to keep in tact the stories of the people and their histories. Like Jesus' 'parables', the stories were told in order to convey both the Truth of something and Truth itself, but the elements were there for the purpose of the story, not there to be the story, or the truth.

Enigma? Christian Enigma? Orthodox? Well, it seems that I still am endeavoring to be such. My apparent 'liberalism' doesn't seem to bother most Orthodox Christians save for the 'adult convert sort', especially those with Evangelical and or fundamentalist lineages. The gracious Bishop, Kalistos Ware, from Oxford, who makes his earthly home in England, could be pigeoned into a supposed 'liberal' place, if we dare allow the most conservative souls, as some like to call themselves, much different than to be Traditional, have their voices to be at the forefront of the Orthodox message to the world, whatever this means. Yet this kindly Bishop and brilliant erudite Christian, perhaps even Mystic in the best sense of this implication, has always had for his spiritual father and advisor the most 'Traditionalist' and 'Athonite' Monk, coming from the Orthodox Christian Traditionalists' Russians. I respect this sort of tension. I do not respect a smooth road. I do not respect leaders, teachers, religious or otherwise, who do not acknowledge that we know little of Truth, we merely express it by attempting to write hymns, poetry, prayers, liturgies, paintings, and the list goes on.

I do not respect the phrase, 'The Church has never erred and or the Orthodox Church has never changed and or developed.' This or any similar sentiment is just that, sentimentality. Worse, it is historically dishonest. Many an Orthodox Christian are, I believe, led astray by such hyperboles which need to be persistently challenged as only one person's opinion and nothing else or more.

Enigma? “bg53’, is the balance of my hotmail tag. I abhor the notion that God is either 'male' and or 'female'. God is neither 'he' or she', God is God. Even the word 'God' comes from pagan terms. 'Elohim', the Hebraism of Egyptian was first the title of the Pagan Pharaohs, Moses giving this plural-singular title to The I AM THAT I AM, that created 'man', 'male and female created he them.' Gender's place has to do with the finite, probably the only world that I'm well aware, though this too might be presumption. Don't misunderstand me, please. I love being a man, and you have no doubt noticed over the years that I truly love and adore women, over and above men, when speaking of Beauty, Love, Adoration, Faith, Love, Hope, amorous delights and more. This is me. I believe this is me by both a general seeming predisposition as well as choice. I have no problem with others of our species that choose, as well as seem to have a certain predisposition, to behold the same as I do, except that they do so from within their own gender of our species. For me, and I know that this is my 'opinion', thus my ‘heresy’, it matters not a bit if people choose to love each other and to care for each other in an exclusive way of living, whether supposedly heterosexual or supposedly homosexual. I believe that both terms are aptly applied to us all of our species, both biologically and metaphorically.

Pedophiles, rapists, murderers, extortionists and so on violate another's choices and or ability to Truly make choices, as do those who practice Bestiality. Some like to throw up this type of 'straw dummy' over against these pressing contemporary issues, to equate love within a consensus of choices within a species that are able to freely choose as the same as our the few from within our species that think it fine to violate animals outside of our people. Here’s a bit of the same, howbeit not so sick, logic: Those that speak loving words to plants are involved in sexual foreplay. Both are absurd. Why? Because neither have anything to do with the other, not because there might not be legitimate issues in either of these absurdities. They are not honest in doing so, either philosophically or from the point of revelation of Truth. One might disagree with another's choices, of course, and we all seem to do so with each other. When we throw stones at apples and oranges because we do not like the other's opinions, as though ours is the correct one, here we cease to be lovers of Truth and give into being lovers of our own perspective of what is right and holy. I could be wrong. Nah. I am at least more correct than most if not all on this matter. Yes. But, as I admit freely, this is my opinion, my heresy, mine, yes mine.

Enigma? I do not understand people's, Christians in particularly, need to demonize, or make to be bigger sinners than other types of sinners, groups of people relative to other groups. If one chooses, as we say, and or one may follow a certain predisposition, whatever this truly means, and they do not 'violate' another's choices and or predispositions, then why waste any time to 'correct' them because you believe their choices and or predispositions to be sinful. Examples from the past of what Christians and Jews believed to be sinful (I reject as dishonest at worse and ignorant at best the notion that Jews and Christians made our collective canons 'purely' by divine revelation. Why? Most importantly, I believe in the Incarnation, that Christ Jesus is both God and Human, Divine-Human, not one above or below the other, not 50/50% or even 100/100%, but God of God, sharing in everything that it means to be the Uncreated, and Human of Humanity, sharing in everything that it means to be the Created. With the Uncreated, stagnation never takes place because of the perpetual nature of Love, though we seem to barely know such through the windows of Iconographic Beautific visions. With Created, stagnation never takes place because we either grow from glory into glory or we degenerate and decompose back into the muck that we were first breathed life, thus giving life to others who choose to breathe and to grow.

Once woman were chattel, property, as were children, cows, dogs as well as all other possessions, slaves were appropriate and the masters was free to discipline them as property like any other property, like other animal species. -- This too was fine, to beat an animal senseless if the master, the owner chose. Or, there’s the Genesis story of Balaam’s Ass, when Balaam thought it appropriate to hit the animal between the eyes in order to get his attention. God spoke to Balaam through the beast and ever since we know that when someone fancies themselves a prophet or prophetess of God, all we need to be reminded is that God is able to speak through anyone’s ass.

Some men had more that one wife, and it was fine. Holy Kings and God-Seers , as the Church in her wisdom calls them, had wives, not merely a wife, and they had concubines, just as other Sovereigns had in their nations in those days. Siblings intermarried. Vegetarianism ruled until after the story of the flood. Then it was ok to eat meat. All human groups sacrificed living, breathing animal species other than their own, and some to their own, to their God or gods. God told his people to kill other people because they were not of their or his people, including innocents, children and otherwise. Isn’t this another means of ‘animal sacrifice’, the sacrificing of living things that have not volunteered to be cooked and consumed?

Blended fabrics were considered an abomination to the Lord under the Law. Vegetarianism=Carnivores, Omnivores=Selective meat-eaters, ie., no pork and others, later any meat, then later fast from all meat and animal by-products. Yet, and this I believe to be extremely important, there is no 'True' vegetarianism or 'True' fasting from animals and their by-products. Why? Whatever we put into our mouths has been processed through the life=death=life=death=life process, ie., every living thing exists through the sacrifice of other living things. We are unable to be anything but 'Truly' omnivores. Consider: Before the 'fall story' death already was part of the bio-chemical, eco-structure of being. We were told by God, Elohim that every plant of the earth is given to us for meat, 'seed yielding seed'.

Again, given our present day of the God-Squads, searching high and, but of course, low for unholy havers’ of sex, remember God's righteous kings had 'concubines', objects for pleasure, just like the rest of the know world's groups of people and their kings. Now, note that no place in all of the old or new testaments was this practice condemned. We Christians way too often, I believe, equivocate about all of these matters. Don't forget that it was ok to be a bigot for God as a Jew, then later as a Christian. How? The whole of the old testament story tells of the Hebrew people's story and their hope of the anticipated Messiah. And at any point that the Hebrew people repent and follow their Elohim, then their God will slay their imprisoners, either by his own hand, like all other anthropomorphisms, or via the hands of his people, his children. Jesus? He too early in his adult ministry as the Messiah of Israel told his disciple to go 'only' to the house of Israel. In both testaments of the Jewish, Christian message, the ultimate goal was and is to ‘Us’, not ‘Them’.

Both women and children had virtually no place within old testament religious life within the temple or later the synagogues. This changed under Jesus radically, upsetting regularly his most devoted disciples. Yet woman remained outside the most intimate places of worship until nearly the end of the twentieth century. Today woman do many of the same things in the Church as only men did just fifty years ago. Yes, this is true in the Orthodox Church too. A hundred years ago you would be hard pressed to find a woman singing in the Orthodox Choir save for a women's monastery. Why? Because according the practice of the Tradition in the context of a rather static gender expression in the Church only 'men' were tonsured as readers, choir directors/leaders/reader leaders, subdeacons, deacons, priests and bishops. Since a woman could not be tonsured, set apart and blessed, to these tasks, absolutely the same argument for the restriction of the Priesthood is solely for men as it is for readers and choir members, they would not have been found in the choirs of the Churches Christ.

Important: I do not necessarily believe that the older and more ancient practice to be something that we should go back to any more than I think that you and my wife and daughters should go back to wearing veils at all times, or even in the Church, or to go back to sitting on the left side of the nave, facing the Theotokos (Greek, literally, ‘God-bearer’) and the men sitting on the right side of the Church, facing the Lord Jesus. I do not believe that it would be sin necessarily to do some of these things either, just as long as all parties were truly free to choose. Otherwise, I believe, then or now, this to be a violation of personhood and being. All I am saying is that The Truth remains True whether the means and directives of all this is followed through the same ...does or does not. This is what I mean by Enigma. I guarantee that no other person has ever been subjected to my missive on the word that like, 'Enigma'.

The only other word that I like better is the Russian word, 'Podvig'.
Enigma? Truth, I do believe. Most often, I believe, we call Truth what is in Truth what we believe to be true, or more true if we'd dare say this phrase of honesty. Again, 'more true'.

My Children, Wife? I have, as you know, been married twice. I have by necessity been placed in the awkward position of being a loving Father of my Children who only 'worshipped' with me every other week. And then, to make matters worse, so to speak, I converted to the Orthodox Church's Faith when the Children from first marriage had already entered the transitions into adulthood. I shared with them what I believed was the Truth just as I have always done, and still do when we get talking about such things. St. Peter's words, inspired by a divine kick in the seat of his pants, and mine too, proving to me that, about myself and my pride, God is able to speak through any ass, rang True then, and they still do today: "God is no respecter of persons (Jews, Gentiles-lit.,Pagan, Christians or otherwise), but hears all who revere him and do righteousness."

"Oh Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who art everywhere and fillest all things; Treasurer of Blessings, Giver of Life, come and abide in us; and save our souls, oh good one." God hears 'all' who want to be heard, period. That's good enough for me. This does not mean that I have been pleased with all of my first Children's' choices in these or other matters. They haven't and are not pleased with all of mine either. These responses are mere phenomena, things that are real to us, each in our own time-space continuums. However they are not The Truth; they are responses to The Truth. Personally, if my present wife would choose other than Orthodoxy this would be her choice. I have no control, nor do I believe that I should. If our Children, one being sixteen plus now, would choose or choose elsewise, I have no idea what I would do other that I hope that I’d I pray that I'd be honest with what I do 'not' know over against what I claim to know. Of course I might yell, scream and humiliate them a bit too. This is my special way of loving my household on some days. It doesn't work well when I use this approach, but it does let them know what I feel. This, my missive proves the axiom, perhaps to my five children, two grandchildren, wife, and yes - the other one, my six Godchildren, five spiritual children in faith as their sponsor, the few spiritual children that I have been granted responsibility, given me by another wiser than any spiritual advisor I have come across in such matters, my dearly beloved friends and those not so near, as especially those who do not like or even do hate me, -- ’God can truly work through, most positively speak through any Ass, of whom I am chief. Now whether what I feel is True or not, that's an entirely different issue. UNTIL NEXT TIME XB - LOVE, INCESSANTLY timothy

-Majjhima Nikaya
“I teach them all the good I can, and recommend them to others from whom I think they will get some moral benefit. And the treasures that the wise men of old have left us in their writings I open and explore with my friends. If we come on any good thing, we extract it, and we set much store on being useful to one another.”SOCRATES
Whatever is not yours, abandon it. When you have abandoned it, that will lead to your welfare and happinesss.-Buddha, "Connected Discourses of the Buddha"
It is better to spend one day contemplating the birth and death of all things than a hundred years never contemplating beginnings and endings.
The eye of clarity is so called because it brings sight to everyone. It enables every single one to enter the uncreated and unconditioned reality, each in his own way.-Prajnaparamita

Intuition, a religious, philosophy essay

Intuition? Is it trustworthy?...

My conclusion is that Intuition, true intuition, like Faith, Hope and Love, is the Mother of every Genesis coming from our Being, flowing from the Genesis of our Being. It is more akin to a She, an intimate friend, lover, confidante or yes also confidant. She, Sophia, the Wisdom of God, is trustworthy because she is tender enough to weep with our tears, never telling us to stop because good children, or good gods, do not cry. Sophia is strong enough to birth the Uncreated in our Being, forever being both one just like us, yet forever being the one uniquely whose womb became more spacious than the heavens, containing the uncontainable God, and her Son. Intuition is like a Man too. Like the Man who gave ‘names to all the species that God gave Genesis in the Garden, and then cared for being the vice-Sovereign over the whole of the created world. Intuition sees through the glass dimly and knows safety. Intuition needs not be told that to love your neighbor here are some things that you shouldn’t do to them. Intuition knows as it is known, to love always flows from love, and from negation is impossible to impugn another in the slightest of manner. How can One Icon of God initiate harm to One other Icon of God, save if we reject intuitive creatureliness wed to the genesis of heaven’s love lived out with and in this and every world. Intuition, both in its iconographic genesis, before nakedness was traded for a clothed relationship with the Divine; and in its transfigured, recapitulated, resurrected, new day, the Lord’s Day, is trustworthy. I believe this to be the Truth. I do not know how naked I am willing to be before and in this Truth.

Note: All quotes from Christian and Jewish writings are my own translations, hopefully as literal as possible, and are therefore subject to the flaws of the translator. Wherever there is interpretive parenthesis, it is my opinion as to what would be a more correct understanding of the text, thus highly subjective. My approach to translating, not a liturgical text that is to be sung, chanted and read aloud, but one to be looked at critically from any angle, is to do the work as literal as possible, no matter how wooden or constrictive it might appear. Wherever there are definite or indefinite articles in the text of the writings I have most often placed them, even if redundant, so one is free to see the subtleties not always easily observed in our common texts of such scriptures. My style of writing is extremely prosaic, for which I make no apology in the positive or negative. This is most natural for me, the way that I happen to think, and I do believe, think most clearly. Those who are critical of this style of writing, when making their criticisms will wax verbose, leaving nothing for a passionate soul’s imagination, at the end debauching prosaic writing as too passionate, poetic, personal. I like the prophets, the prophetesses, the seers, the desert monks, mothers and fathers, even the ‘Yoda’ of the Star Wars movie series, as well as the Stylites, those individuals that spent their lives atop a platform atop a poll, the fools for Christ, rarely having a word to say to anyone, yet transforming anyone that allowed them, that have no place in our sophisticated world of bells and whistles that measure goodness by the bottom line.

'Where do we find the Kingdom of God?...’The Kingdom of God does not come by observation….The Kingdom of God is within you.' 'Repent, for the Kingdom of God is upon you.’
‘Let not your good be spoken of as evil’. Because the, ‘Kingdom of God is not of eating and drinking (that is, vegetarianism in contrast to omnivorism and drinking of wine and or alcoholic beverages in contrast to complete abstinence from such drinks, as well as keeping fasts and feasts and holy days or none, and any variations); also it is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. There is no ‘the’, definite article in the Greek text. The absence of the definite article ‘the’ prefacing ‘Holy Spirit’ might be more important than it appears at first.’ Here’s the exact order in the Greek text: ‘a Spirit Holy’ or ‘a Spirit that is a Holy one’, neither a definite article with ‘spirit’ or ‘holy’, hence not necessitating a reference The Holy Spirit, thus changing the emphasis to the life within a person being lived out freely over against a life being lived out constricted by commands from outside of our being.

How is the life of God lived out, day after day? St Paul to the Christians living at Rome, chapter eight, tells us, ‘What the Law could not do (could not do more than to make us law-keepers or law-breakers), in that it was powerless in the flesh (to give the doer the ability and joy to continue); The God, having sent his only Son, in the likeness of the sinful flesh, and in behalf of sin, judged the sin in the flesh, that the requirement of the Law should be fulfilled in us, who not according to a flesh is walking, rather according to a Spirit. Because they that are according to a flesh (keeper of the law or otherwise, in the context) do mind the things of flesh; and they (that walk) according to spirit –mind- the things of The Spirit.’ Note: The life of God, the righteousness of God, even the legal requirement found within the Law of commandments, again the Life of God is, by the Son’s death and life, fulfilled ‘in’ us, not merely ‘for’ us. The point of St Paul’s words in this chapter as well as the previous chapter is to encourage the person who finds themselves at the short end of the stick. These folk ‘miss the mark’, they ‘sin’, no matter how much they try, like the Saintly Apostle Paul, in chapter seven in the Roman letters, ‘the will is always present (to obey God), but how to perform that which is good, I find not.’ The Law, especially the whole of it, not only the ten words (Decalogue, literally, ‘ten words’, not ‘ten commandments’, which shifts the emphasis to more of a ‘guide’, rather than an anvil ready to come down upon your head when you ‘transgress’ it), will ultimately do one thing. Condemn. Why? Because it must continue to be followed, no matter how many more laws are attached. It does not, it can not ‘bring us back to The Garden.’ ‘There is NOW (my emphasis) therefore no condemnation to those in (in communion, as in chapter 6, by baptism’s transformation of death’s burial and life’s opening of it’s tomb in order to live, not just live again, but live abundantly in step with the crucified risen God) Christ Jesus, who walk not according to the a flesh (that is, the whole of the law), but according to a Spirit. For the Law of The Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from The Law of the sin and the death.’


Some things that are often construed as together are things like 'intuition' and 'trust', the kind that children may seem to have with strangers. No, I do not believe that they're the same. Children trust adults because their experience, good or bad, tells them to trust us. We adults tell them to do so. – My oldest daughter from my second marriage did not choose to sit on my father’s lap until she had reached just about four years of age. I was scolded by both family and friends, of good intentions but blind I would say, for being unloving, for refusing to ‘make’ my daughter to express this sort of love to her grandfather. Sometime after around four years of age she began to kiss, by choice, and when she chose to do so, only then, and hug my father. Guess what? She is the one closest to my father, both my true intent as well as innate intimacy for my father’s, her grandfather’s good and goodness. I am glad that I followed my intuition rather than what the constraints of the world around us, both religious and secular, whatever this means. - Intuition will tell our children and us, their parents to watch out for the person that they do not know, though their learned experience tells them that adults, Mommies, Daddies, and so on take care of little people, therefore they can be trusted. Once a friend of mine said to me, 'Yes, children seem to always like you, but children also seem to like pedophiles.' I laughed with her. Today I find the observation to be untrue. I believe that children love, period, by nature and as well intuitively express this to those they are free to love. Violators, of any sort, of children, or other trusting innocents, manipulate this purity of person for their own purposes. They betray an intuitive pure trust and betray what and who is a True Person.

I believe that intuitively we trust the Mother of our God, Jesus the Lord and Christ. (Jesus is the same name, ‘Joshua’, to get perspective. Lord, is a divine respect shown towards those in a place that expects it, like, kings, presidents, bishops and such. Christ is the Hoped for one, ‘Anointed One’, literally, again a title and or expression of respect, hope and honor. Jesus, the same name as we hear elsewhere, ‘Hosea’, ‘Jesus’, pronounced, ‘Hasus’, Yeshua, Joshua, is a the name for this person, that some also call, ‘Lord,’ and or, ‘Christ’.) When this intuition is betrayed by religious leaders, either to one extreme or the other, our innocence is betrayed no less than a rape or incestuous attack upon a true person.
Intuition blesses the children, and says, 'For such is the Kingdom of Heaven.' Violation of purity and natural intuition holds away from this Kingdom children and women coming to Christ the Anointed King of the People Israel as well as the Pagans, questions whether the non-Jews should be allowed to be part of Jesus' group and turns away those who do not measure up to their standard, even if the standard comes from God, or are said to. St. Paul reminds us in Romans chapter thirteen that 'Love fulfills the Law.' This is an intuitive life in Christ, the other, the keeping of laws and commandments, though necessary for those who choose not to love their neighbors, even especially those that hate them is merely a matter of marking time till the undertaker comes.

Intuition is connected to nature, if what we are referring to is our genesis makeup, our core being, our essence of self, whether understood personally, or collectively. Intuition is not nature, when used as a universal assumption about one thing or the other. Not all will agree with me. That’s ok. I will not agree with you if you disagree with me, just to make sure that we’re on the same page. The holiest of our Christian champions of faith seems to align intuition and nature together. At least this is the way that he sounds when he makes his, though few, thank God, arguments. ‘Does not nature teach us, or does not teach us,’ this is one of St Paul’s arguments for whatever he’s saying that does not, did not, have universal affirmation. The other one is, ‘And I do think that I do have the Holy Spirit within me.’ He said, ‘Does not nature teach you that it is a shame for a man to wear long hair?’ Actually, no it does not. But in Roman society, as well as much of the Hellenic Jewish society of his time, men did cut their hair short. Yet this was and remained an anomaly in men’s hairdressing for most of our known history. He made the same case, in context, for the women in the Church to wear veils, and for men to not cover their heads during prayer, this latter issue being contrary to the Jewish practice of our Lord as he and all other Jewish men would have followed, both in the Temple and the Synagogue. He said the same sorts of things about a woman’s role within the teaching structure of the Church, that men are the natural heads over women. But according to whose nature? And in relation to the innocence of the male-female shared image and likeness of God before their eating of the forbidden fruit or in relation to their strained desires after the ‘fall’ from this innocence into the tensions of ‘he will rule over you, and you will seek his desire – his place,’ the result of the Garden being aloof, male and female arguing about whose place is to first and now their need to not only to tend to the Earth’s welfare, but to tend through it too. Nature, according to this Saint’s words teaches us many things, but the nature that he is speaking is more akin to ‘his’ learned experience. This is not intuition. At the same time, some of his, as ours, experience may at points connect with the Truth of Intuition and not merely prove his, or my, point. To replace one law with another one is merely changing gloves. The ‘Schoolmaster’, to borrow from St Paul again, is our tutor into the liberty of living in union with the Heavenly life of Christ, Anointed One of knowing, ‘Place your affections upon those things in the heavenlies, from whence our life is lived.’ If one lives her whole life under the burden of the stake always being moved so you’re never able to consistently hit the mark, the stake, then you’ll become the beaten, abused child of love, so called, or like a mule whose attention is never gotten a hold. Do we desire to be tutored by beatings, chastisements, purifications of the Lord? If you say, ‘Yes,’ well that’s obviously your choice, yet I must ask the question to such a one, ‘Why?’ Because someone told you the this is ‘good for you’, much like the innocuous words of a parent as they’re raising their hand above your head, and rear, ready to apply some ‘instruction’, saying, ‘This is going to hurt me more than you.’ Bull shit. It only hurts the parent whose hand knows better to miss than their own pride needs to make sure that the one person unable to sufficiently fight back is adequately ‘taught a lesson.’ ‘Lord have mercy,’ I pray that I or they never need taught an eternal lesson like this one.

'We are judges of all things, yet not judge of any person.' Here’s a literal, though wooden, translation of where this passage comes from, St Paul to the Christians living at Corinth, his first letter to them chapter two, towards the end of the chapter: '...The spiritual one judges all things, though is by no one judged. Because who did know the mind of the Lord? Who shall teach him; but we, who have Christ's mind know all things.' Earlier he spoke: 'Things that eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and into the heart of man(as in mankind, not gender) came not, which God prepared for those that love him. But to us God has revealed by his Spirit. Because the Spirit searches all things even the depths of God. Because who knows the things of men save the spirit of the man which is in him. So also the things of God no one knows save the Spirit of God. In contrast we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from the God, that we might know the things God.'

The Prophet Jeremiah says, ‘The heart is wicked above all, who can know it? The Lord knows it and tries the reigns thereof.’ The Prophet is addressing the unrepentant people of the nation Israel, at the time under slavery to the Babylonian and Assyrian rule, primarily through their religious leaders, hence the need of a Prophet, not one of their elders, priests or teachers. Do not the Christian Scriptures instruct us to test all things, prove all things; hold fast onto those things that are good to hold fast to?’ Did not our Lord Jesus say, ‘It is not what goes into a person that defiles them, but that which comes out of a person?’ Why? Because ‘it is out of the overflowing of the mouth that the heart speaks.’ It is from the spirit of a person that can be said, as our Lord has, ‘Wherever your treasure is that is where your heart is also.’

Yes we have teachers. To be one’s own teacher is much like a lawyer representing themselves. The teacher, as well as the lawyer, has a fool for a teacher. St John the Beloved in his first letter to the Christians living everywhere, tells us that one who has received the ‘anointing’, the ‘sealing of the Holy Spirit’ has no need of a teacher, because the Spirit teaches one all that they need to know. Yes, true, but one must remember that St John the Evangelist is merely a man, teaching us that we have no need of a teacher. Every teacher given easily to pontificating as though they have a message from God (obviously, I am such a person) that all must hear, and not just hear, but obey, should carefully be guided by these words. The teacher is not a necessity for the one who has received the anointing, and, yes, continues in this anointing with each breath, each heart beat, ‘Lord have mercy.’

St Paul told St Timothy that the ‘Law (the old testament laws in commandments) is good for the lawless.’ St John in his first general letter to Christians says, ‘Sin is lawlessness,’ (Grk., anti-nomos, meaning: over against law, not the translated, ‘the breaking of the law,’ something entirely different and not what the Greek text says or had in mind. It is not ‘The Law’ that is difficult to keep. Frankly any person is able if they choose to keep the’ ten commandments’, or properly, ‘words’. The writer of the Proverb collections in the old testament that ‘The Law’ and or the ‘keeping of the Law’ is the beginning of Wisdom. The Proverbs also tells, ‘The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.’ How nice. Yet if the fear of the Lord is connected with the keeping of the Law, which is doable, and therefore we are not, on the minimum side, harming and showing disrespect of God or our neighbor, then it is simply a way of opening the door into the ‘more perfect law of liberty’ or as St James, the speaker of these words goes on to call, ‘the royal law of liberty.’ It is not difficult to keep ’10 restrictions upon behavior’, what is difficult is to keep all of the regulations that came along with this summation of the law of commandments that is said to have come down from a mountain from God through Moses to the people Israel. Eight-hundred plus laws, not counting all of the Talmudic laws and interpretations of the Law and the Talmudic laws and the laws upon laws upon laws, most of which had nothing to do with loving God purely and our neighbor from the same innocence centered intuition of heart. It is easy to not murder your neighbor. You don’t kill them. It is easy to not allow yourself to contemplate their end of life in this world and their present body. What’s not so easy, is to love them and to hope for their well-being, period, whether it is to our benefit or not. Yet, St John says that ‘,to want another’s demise is to hate them, and to hate your neighbor is to be a murderer; and we know that no murderer has eternal life housed within themselves.’

Can one’s mind ‘retrained’, ‘religioned’, ‘reaffirmed’, ‘recapitulated’, ‘restored’, brought back, to start with, into ‘The Garden’ be trusted? Can such an intuition still exist within each person? Is it possible for one who has lost the ability to know themselves and therefore God come to a place of innocence, to use St Paul’s words, chapter five, and to ‘know’, ‘Where there is no law, there is no sin to give account.’

The answer to the above introduction by way of a process of questions, some overt and some implied by way of the process of the narrative is transparent. It is as far as my own conclusions at this point in my walk in this life as I know it and do not know.

Please indulge this step into the expanse of God’s glory revealed to and in us, his adopted Children. St Paul in the fifteenth chapter of his letter to the Christians living at Corinth reminds us, first, of what we should already know. We are each, in our species, children from the Earth as Adam was and is (Hebrew words ‘adama’ and ‘arretz’ are play on words for what we simply translate ‘Adam’ or ‘Man’, which is in Hebrew, ‘one from the earth’ and ‘man’, not distinct from wo-man, man with a womb as goes the story, but ‘man’, as collective personage relative to the collective one God, saying, ‘Let Us make Man in Our image; male and female created he them’.). By the Gospel, the God Spell, the Good Spell, the Good Word or God Word, we have come to know the beginning of the power of the resurrection of Christ, a power that transforms life into life-giving rather than martyrdom towards the grave, back to the dust from whence we all have had our Genesis. This is still a ‘this worldly good news’, how this world returns ‘Back to the Garden’. Note that St Paul goes on to open the door of a reality akin to the Burning Bush, The Torah, The Holy of Holies, The Most Holy and ever-Virgin Theotokos (Greek, literally, ‘God-bearer’), this mere Woman through whom a New Man has come, the Heavenly Man, similar to the Man from the Earth, but something more. The Apostle Paul expands this holy mystery of the Incarnation to our potential transformation by and in union with this Heavenly Man, Christ Jesus the Lord. We not only get to go back to our Genesis, the Earth, our first Mother of being and the beginning of innocence and true intuition. Through the Heavenly Person we Persons walking in and with Him move beyond a Garden from a particular geographical location in the time-space sphere of knowing and are invited into a knowing where teachers are students and students are teachers, where God is a Person within our created species and we are each a Person in the God Family who have our being in the perpetual movement of nonknowing, nonspace, nontime, nonbeing, the being and knowing of the I AM THAT I AM, adopted into the relationship of Person as God. Hence St Athanius words, ‘God became one of our species, in our nature, that we might become God in his (nature).’

A friend of mine said something this morning, or afternoon, after Liturgy, about a trustworthy ‘intuition’. He said something like this: ‘In our being, the being that was naked in the Garden and had no need or desire to be clothed, in our Genesis, we had, and still have an intuition that is trustworthy and therefore true.’ He went on to say, ‘At any point that we no longer hide from God, that God no longer has a need to say, ‘Where are you, One from the Earth, and you One from the One from the Earth?’ – here we rediscover what was never lost. Hard to find, hard to know, hard to believe? Yes. But not truly lost, unknown, unbelievable.’ Often when we believe that we are always falling, failing to use a poorer, yet more used word, we awake out of a deep sleep to find that we are safe I bed. Yes, we truly feel like we’re falling; but the truer truth is that it is a misperception, a feeling.

Our Genesis of being is where we see our kind, our species living, walking, talking, playing, as it were, with God, with each other and with every creature within this sphere of knowledge. The potential was to be God, sharing in the Family of plurality of Love, growing into this likeness of perpetual movement, always Truth, never stagnant, the Kingdom of God superspatially exploding, making an exponential curve, even infused by a quantum leap over any and every possible domino effusion to be less dynamic than redundancy. The Story of the Serpent, the sadness of the lie, was that the One from the Earth and the One from the One from the Earth were deceived of their natural innocence and intuition. The lie was not that they could or would become God(s). The lie was that they could circumvent the movement needed to know perpetual movement within The God, becoming not only Image Bearers of The God, but Ones with The God’s Likeness, personality, as well. The other lie was that they did not already have within them, in their Genesis, the beginning of the purity of Love. The story of sin is, I believe, the story of being betrayed by the Truth, or doing the deception upon another’s God-Human Nature-Person. When I reject the reality, the Truth that there is One God, then I will ultimately not see the One Person before my face, the Icon of more than what and who the Icon appears to be. When I reject the Person of the God and or Genesis of Creation before my face I will most likely ultimately reject the uniqueness of Personality. When I reject the Multiplicity of Synergistic Truth of Being, that God is God who is One God, and God is One who is known through more than One Person, Personality, then I will most likely reject the Multiplicity of Personhood of my neighbor. Here I’ll be found making them little more than allusions, and finally illusions of some supposed reality where the Only Truth is the I, where the truth if be known is merely the ‘Me’, the whole of the illusion is ‘My’ dream, God that ‘I AM’. Collective Consciousness needs not be a code phrase for ‘,I know nothing,’ to borrow from a sixties weekly TV series. The lie of the Serpent is the lie of self-loathing, ‘I’m not good enough,’ the lie of I deserve it, ‘That’s my tree and my fruit…I take care of it,’ the lie of inclusion and care for my neighbor in order to succeed at all costs, ‘Come a eat, it tastes good, we’ll be like God(s), knowing,’ the lie of segregation and bigotry, ‘Obviously The God doesn’t think that there is anything wrong with this, otherwise The God would’ve have stopped us,’ the lie of Monism at the exclusion of Koinonia, Fellowship within community, ‘The One from the One from the earth ate of the fruit…...And she gave the fruit to the One from the Earth, and he ate the fruit,’ and the lie that ones actions, behavior, deeds are ever truly in secrete, ‘They hid from The God-Elohim, with whom they had every morning heretofore strolled through the Garden…..Naked.’

Jesus does what the First Adam from the Earth did not and could not do. Jesus the God from Heaven and the Man from the Earth, forever the God-Human Person brings us forward, not back, to The Garden. The Garden where Heaven and Earth are wed, where Intuition is reinformed, where potential likeness of being the Creator is not only possible but has be accomplished, hence the newness of this new day is already passé. But we must first be willing to be naked, as my friend said, naked before eternity, time, space, creation, creator, looking within the mirror of Truth, not merely my ‘me’ and my ‘life’ and my ‘way’, and begin to experience the metamorphosis of Truth Incarnate.

Lofty? Yes. Lofty? No. Is God knowable? Yes. Is God knowable? No. Am I, are You knowable? Yes and No. How complex is it to be naked in the Truth? As complex as we choose. How profoundly simple is it to be living naked in the Truth? It may be as simple as I or We choose to be present, sufficiently to hear the ‘still calm voice rustling in the cool breeze of Heaven’s Garden’ that I or We are ‘in movement’, like a dance through Fall’s leaves, seemingly almost haphazard, though not one soul is estranged by the other, able to leap, roll, spin, jig and sit watching, all part of the cacophony of synergistic rhapsody of The Divine, The God, The Elohim.

reindeers playground

reindeers playground

Vixens are a delight, save for their brownies that are not always made with the right stuff. Yet, eating is not what life is about; it is about what, or who you're eating. love - incessantly, Timothy

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