My Daily Prayer

“Ride out!
With gentle voice.
In name of Christ,
celebrate a whole life
with no dichotomy,
a riot of visual imagery,
to open eyes, to spiritualize.”

Jamie Coats       January 7th 2004

Posted in Poems, Prayer | Comments closed

Polish the Tortoise

Polish the tortoise
Amble in love.

Emerge out of the blue
On four legs and tail too,

Step slowly as forgiver,
Father, fitter, lover,

By balance my day foretold
On my back the world,

Daily a doable walk
In search of the lettuce stalk,

Oft idle, to rest, to turn
To stop, to learn:

From hare who forgiveness begs
Ears between his legs,

From healing in hearing
The jackal in the garden

Immediately pull in
Safe in my skin

And talk from inside
‘Til safe to confide

My inner eagle eye
Sees from on high

A compass like creature
Pointing to a green future

Resting in love’s embrace
In sleep there’s no race

At night bathe in calm
Or sleep in her arms

To awake anew
Again out of the blue

Polish the tortoise
Amble in love

Theme for 2010

Jamie Coats     February 2010

Posted in Nature, Poems, Theme for 2010, Theme for the Year | Comments closed

Unbounded Love

Hands tied
Rope cuts into flesh
Over the edge I die?

Saved by four loves:
Daughter, lover, neighbor, brothers.
Gather round,

Help me stand my ground,
Sense the change,
Warmth in my heart.

An open heart
Can be a sharp heart,
Cutting enough to be free.

A razor,
Now in my hands.
I cut the rope,

Make a length
With which to measure,
Myself.

Unbound hands
Give thanks.
I look around,

Fingers can count,
Hold a pen to write,
Touch gently, caress

Unbounded love.
I know my limits,
My joy has none.

Theme for 2009

Jamie Coats    February 2009

Posted in Poems, Theme for 2009, Theme for the Year | Comments closed

Willow Tree Man

Let your rootedness shine!

If an angel flew overhead
I’d reach up and catch her
By her Achilles heal
And wonder if I’d make her crash to earth,

Spraining or breaking an ankle, maybe worse,
Or if I could catch her and
Lower her gently for her foot
To grace the earth.

Let your rootedness shine!

If she asked me to dance I’d say, “Yes!”
I’d twirl quite beautifully on the spot
And bend, wave and move with my feet
Not leaving a foot square.

She says, “Run, jump,
Waltz across the floor.”
I smile, “I can only dance as the tree rooted
By the river of love in my life.

Let your rootedness shine!

My roots are fixed
And my body is supple
And through the seasons I will flow
Not moving from this place

The river I am near is of love,
Love for my child
Love of my neighbor
Love of the work of our saviour

Let your rootedness shine!

Where would we be
Without the trees
Who stand as testament
To the strength of life?

For sex they send seeds through the air
Pollen for bees to spread afar.
Fruit for birds to eat
And winged seeds twirling everywhere.

Let your rootedness shine!

But once the seed is in the caring earth
And feels the water ignite
The inner strength of life
It is in one spot that the tree stands upright.

I came as a seed.
I didn’t know that
I so wanted to become
The willow tree man.

Let your rootedness shine!

Angel, is it your time
To feel the earth?
To let the water of love
Ignite a strength of life in you?

That will root you
To a spot next to mine
And let our branches
For our life seasons, entwine?

Let your rootedness shine!

Jamie Coats       June 2008

Posted in Love, Nature, Poems | Comments closed

A Sonnet for 2008

Early to bed
Wake rested
Be spirit-led
Free to be tested

I love my Alexandra
I love my drama
I love my ballerina
I love my neighbor

Like a butterfly
Gentle no force
Feeling powered by
Life’s course

Make beautiful moments
The year’s monuments

Theme for 2008

Jamie Coats   February 2008

Posted in Poems, Theme for 2008, Theme for the Year | Comments closed

Stations of the Christ – Vision 8: You, God Incarnate

I find myself walking into the Church of Our Saviour, on Marathon Street in Arlington for a wedding. The church is mainly filled with angels. I take a seat half way up the aisle on the left of the church. We are sitting. The angels are a bit agitated as it is not easy for them to sit down and lean back with their wondrous wings.

At the front of the church Jesus Christ and Justice appear. They indicate that I should stand in the aisle facing them, which I nervously do; I get up and stand in the aisle. They address me, “Where our will is we will take you. Put out your left hand and in it hold the balance and in your right hand hold the sword of striking love. Know that when the balance is balanced the sword is of perfect love but when it tips either way the sword can turn to steel or glass and cut as you move it in your sway. So balance you will maintain through daily prayer and through membership of a community, a community that will help you be accountable to us. And you will be witness to our marriage.”

I return to my pew and the service begins, the marriage of Justice and Christ. I look up the aisle of the church and I see the physical man Jesus Christ and physical woman Justice bodily embrace in physical love. The voice of a man, God as Father, God as presence and at the same time the voice of a woman, God as Mother, God as Void says, “You are blessed.” The angels’ voices rise in a hosanna, and their song spreads down the pews.

I see Justice and Christ standing at the altar, kissing and married.

The angels are flowing into the church from on high and burst out into the street, singing. The whole of Marathon Street is full of human well-wishers and angels intermingled. Jesus Christ holding the hand of Justice and Justice holding the hand of Jesus walk down the aisle and onto the steps of the Church. And the people in their heart know that at last Christianity is embodied in every point in the body with not a speck of shame. Everyone proclaims, “We celebrate Christ and Justice from our toes to our heads. We bow down before them and celebrate and hold their child, the child of every one of us. All around we dedicate our lives to God.”

I nervously ask myself, “Dare I write this? The unison voice of God rings sharply in my ear “Yes.” I reply, “Does this not cross the line?” The unison voice says, “Yes, it is the threshold to opening the doors so the sense of joy in marriage when the couple step onto the steps of the church into the street, where everybody can see whatever they believe, that moment of happiness is the new dawn for our Christianity. In the same spirit we celebrate our faith, our remembrance of Jesus and his God-human partnership fully embodied on earth and here fully united and consummated with sacred feminine Justice, no longer blindfolded, with eyes of great beauty.”

The unison voice of God now commands, “This is new remembrance. Escort Christ and Justice from the church to a new bed chamber, an everlasting relationship where it will not be “to death do us part” because death is already here and the Resurrection has arrived, it is entwining in eternity, always has been, always is and always will be but was never seen until now. You will look around and in every person you will see a mother and a father, you see in them Justice and Christ. You will say to yourself “This person in front of me, I know they are born of these two, Justice and Christ.”  Justice and Christ are indivisible in the One and held before the Beginning forever.”

Two donkeys have been prepared and are waiting. Jesus and Justice get on the donkeys and are led up to Marathon Street to Massachusetts Ave, (Mass Ave), the wide four lane wide road that is the main road through the town of Arlington. Thousands of people line the road and as the donkeys turn the corner onto Mass Avenue. People start cheering.

Suddenly there is an earthquake and the ground shakes and fear spreads across every one, everybody is stopped and there is complete silence as if everyone is holding their breadth. The whole earth shakes and the voice of the presence of God, the Father speaks, “If you can not imagine this then you do not understand that the fall was that man and woman, Adam and Eve were made one. In their separation one half claimed to be the whole that is the fall. You are all whole before God. You can all hold the pain of all the world but you break from me and sin as you do not believe that my love is stronger than all the pain and all the sin in the world.” And the female voice of God, the Virgin Void continues the sentence, “And you do not believe that I hold you always, that the beginning is in every person, is with you always.”

And male voice of God says, “Those of you disturbed at this image know this, if you believe that Christ is God and it is so, then the image of Christ at the altar with Justice is no different from that moment when the angel Gabriel, in the story you already have, came to talk to Mary the Mother of Jesus. If I, God the Father, with the power of the Holy Spirit in the story can sire with Mary then Jesus, embodied as man, can sire with Justice.”

And the unison voice of God speaks, “Let the angels line the roads with trumpets for the procession. Let the flowers reign down as Jesus Christ and Justice, God and God incarnate walk down our roads and look into each other’s eyes as equals. And know that you all are children of the man-God, woman-God, unison-God to every cell, and this is true for every being to every part of the planet.”

Then in middle of Mass Ave the wedding happens all over again. “I God the Father, the Presence of God, give my son Jesus in marriage to Justice.”  “I God the Mother, the Virgin Void, give my daughter Justice in marriage to Christ.” Together they say, “And know now who your true parents are, Christ and Justice and through their union at every level you are born free to worship God with your whole being from the tip of your toes to the top of your crown tingling in every moment in exaltation around.”

Then with a booming voice full of wrath we hear, “I God the Father ask you all “Do you believe that Jesus Christ is Man and God?” People nervously and quietly say, “Yes.” And then realize that they had better say it louder and with a sense of fear they shout, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Then with a sonic booming voice, God the Father says, “Good! If God can be fully present in Man he can be fully present in Woman. Do you believe that this Woman Justice is fully Woman and fully God?”  People do not know what to say. God the Father says, “Do you believe that this Woman and this Man, a Son and Daughter of God holding hands as a man and wife will have a child, and will be your true parents?” At this point people have no idea what to say. This is so strange, so alien, and completely uncomfortable. God the Father is heard to chuckle and his voice says, “I do not know if I shall roar at you in fury at your lack of ability to believe but I give you one thing. To believe in what is handed down to you is not enough. You will let yourself let go and be imagined by God.”

The woman’s voice of God says,  “The Presence and the Void hold you. We hold you all.”

The unison voice of God says, “Beheld by the love of God, let go, fall back. We will imagine for you and you will merely have to live it.” People are nervous and do not know what to do.

A light from heaven shines down on Justice and Christ. They dismount and holding hands start to dance in the middle of the street. In between them an egg with a red cross appears and grows, then cracks and a light shines forth and everyone experiences the joy of a happy child within them.

Then they remount the donkeys that know what to do. The donkeys, feeling again like they are spring-born donkeys a month or two old they jump all four feet in the air in happiness with life. Christ and Justice hold on tight, laughing and the donkeys trot merrily up Mass Ave. A roar of joy goes up from the crowd.

And the unison voice of God smiling says, “Celebrate! Enjoy! Escort the couple who are the true parents of everyone to the place of the bedchamber where they will love one another from the tip of their toes to the top of their heads and they will have a child and that child will be you. Do not wait but prepare the world to welcome a child whose Father is Christ and Mother is Justice. Reorder your lives so that you stand proud at the time of birth.”

The donkeys trot up Mass Ave, close together so that Christ and Justice hold each other’s hands. They head to a house not owned by the church. Everyone cheers and parties.

That night is conceived a child, you.

Amen

Previous Chapter | Index >

 

Posted in Stories, The Stations of the Christ, Vision 8: You, God Incarnate | Comments closed

Stations of the Christ – Vision 7: Resurrection, Easter Egg

The voice says, “Visions have come to you in the dark, in moments prepared by ritual cleansing and with the support of the congregation of your Church community. You have created quiet places with your eyes closed. Blindness has been raised over your eyes and the presence of God has stepped forth and taken all the things that have been your thoughts, experience, bodily emotions, and sensations too and has cast them into a story and fed them back to you to open your eyes.”

A voice of God, a man’s voice of God as Father and a woman’s voice of God as the Void intermingling into a single voice of unison say to me, “We have sent you Christ. We have sent you Justice. Now we ask you to look around and see with open eyes.” A spasm of pain goes through me. The unison voice says, “Let go. Let go of yourself for us. Listen all around you. Look all around you. Know that the voices that you hear and that sights that you see and sensations that you sense and the inklings that you feel and the groundedness that you experience will never overwhelm God. Set out to create spaces of Nothingness through which the presence of God will take the gifts of everyone around and mold a living story. Create spaces to open their eyes to the parables that surround them, that surround their selves and that gather all together.”

The unison voice of God commands, “Stand in the middle of the aisle in the middle of the Church of Our Saviour.” I find myself standing in the aisle of the small Church of Our Saviour in Arlington, Massachusetts. It is more a chapel than a church, with seating for about 100 with a single aisle.  I face the doorway to the church with my back to the altar. I sense that in front of the altar the Risen Christ has appeared and is standing looking down the aisle towards the door. As I look out the open church door I see Justice, blindfolded, amazingly beautiful, dressed in black robes, carrying her sword and balance, walk up the steps and stand in the doorway.

The unison voice of God says, “We detect a nervousness in you because you know what we are about to do.” I stand still facing Justice knowing the presence of Christ stands behind me, just risen from the Cross. Two white doves fly down the street and appear above Justice. They untie Justice’s blindfold as she stands still in the doorway. I feel the presence of Christ now holding and supporting me for what is about to happen. The blindfold falls off her face to the ground. So not to look into Justice’s face my eyes follow the fall of the blindfold to the ground. I lower my eyes down to her feet daring not to look up at first. Slowly I look up. She is radiant gold and there is a light beaming so bright from her eyes that I cannot make out if she is blinded or healed. Then an image momentarily fills my mind convulsing my body in pain. I see the image of a man gouging out her eyes. The image dissolves and I am staring into the light emanating from her and I know much to my horror that now she has eyes and can see straight through me to Christ.

Slowly and gracefully she begins to walk up the aisle towards me. I can sense Christ walking down the church towards her. They can see one another but at one level they do not even see me and I know that the place where they are going to meet is exactly where I am standing. My mind shrieks, “I want to run. I want to flee. I want to get out of here. How do I get out? Where is the exit sign? Where is another door?” My heart is racing. I am panicking. “Which way to go? Do I climb over the pews? Which way do I run?” But my feet are stuck to the ground. I twist and turn my body but my feet do not move. Those boots that Christ gave me with little golden wings hold me. The golden wings have turned to golden anchors that fasten my boots firmly to the aisle floor. I cannot move. Justice is now approaching; her light is radiant; I fear her balance; I fear her sword. She stops right in front of me. Christ stops right behind me.

In unison they say, “Have no fear.” I say, “If you both step into me there will be an explosion nuclear and I will die.” They say, “You are already dead and today is the Day of Easter, the Day of the Resurrection when the only people to wait up and who had the belief and the faith were the women.” With that Justice steps and dissolves into me first, moment’s later Christ steps and dissolves into me. Before me I see a perfect white egg floating in the air at my heart’s height. Painted on the egg is a square eight point Maltese cross in red. The egg at first is the size of a chicken’s egg, now it is the size of an ostrich’s egg. I reach out and hold it. It continues to grow. Now it gets so big it is too heavy for me to hold and I set it down. It continues to grow.

The unison voice of God calmly says, “Christ and Justice is present in every person. Tell the story of the Resurrection as it happened. Ask people why did the women have faith first? Tell them that it was because they knew it from the ground up and went to meet Christ knowing when he was risen.”

The unison voice of God continues, “The egg with the red cross, the cross representing the Beatitudes, has a strong shell. Those that step inside this egg will be protected, will grow and will hatch. They will be filled with the spirit of Christ and they will carry the sword of striking love and scales of perfect balance. They will be able to listen without prejudice blindfolded. When they have heard all they need the blindfold will drop from their eyes and they will see with light. The sword and balance will still be in their hands. With their sense of balance and striking love they will scan every horizon and see everything. They will seek out those who gouge out eyes, who hide from the true light of Christ and who hide from the true story of the Resurrection. Now turn.” I turn to face the altar.  It is a normal Sunday at the Church of Our Saviour, just before the service begins. People are coming in and filling the pews. I enter a pew and sit down. I smile.

Amen.

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter >

Posted in Stories, The Stations of the Christ, Vision 7: Resurrection, Easter Egg | Comments closed

Stations of the Christ – Vision 6: Crucify Her

I have no idea where I am heading. I do not know what will emerge. I touch the soles of my feet together. I am in my feet. I ask, “Who am I to serve?” A woman’s voice replies, “Everyone.” I shift my conscious up to my genitals and ask, “Who am I to unite with, commune with?” The woman replies, “Everyone.” My consciousness moves to my stomach and I ask, “Whose pain am I to feel?” A sense of dread fills me, as I fear the answer. She says, “Everyone.”  My stomach fills with pain. I scream, “Araaaaaagh.” I writhe in agony. I scream. I scream in pain. “Araaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.” I shout at the voice, “How can I hold the pain of everyone? I can’t. I’ll die.” I scream, “Araaaaaagh.” My stomach is bloated with pain. My consciousness sticks there. Angrily I shout, “How do I hold the pain?” The woman’s voice says, “You are pregnant, you are trying to give birth to a child.” “Why is it so painful?” I demand.  The woman’s voice says, “Because every child knows the pain of everyone. That is why when we are born we disassociate from God because each one of us holds all the pain of the world and it is unbearable until we have turned our mind to God.” I want to cry, “I turn my mind to God.” I hope that if I turn to God the pain will go away. But I know it is an escape and I will have no choice but physically to birth this child and to go through the pangs. Knowing this I scream, “Araaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh.” I am in a hot bath trying to give birth to this child. A child incased in God but a child that has the power to touch the pain of the whole world. I scream, “Araaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-aaaaagh.” A spasm of pain flows down me, wracking me, my back arches up as I scream,  “Araaaaaa-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. Get this child out of me!” I shout at the voice, “How come in birth I suffer so long and yet all you can tell me is my child has the power to feel all the pain of the universe?”  The woman’s voice says, “Will your child be born alive?” I know it will. At that moment I relax, I release and all my muscles go limp. The child plops out.

A beautiful baby child is born. I pick up the child and cradle it to my breast but as I do I say,  “This won’t work. I am a man.” The voice says, “Spiritual nourishment you will give.” I cry, sob and my breasts hurt. The baby latches and I have comfort. Then I shout out, “What form of comfort is this experience? Are you transgendering me?” The woman’s voice says, “As a man you need to know what you do to me by denying my authority. It is in my body and the body of every woman to touch the pain of giving birth and immediately afterwards to give nourishment. Do you not believe in the Resurrection? After the blinding pain of giving birth the nourishment comes in and it is human. As a man you have it hard to understand this because you cannot feel your body in this way like a woman. Know this, I send you this anguished experience out of love and connection.” I cry, sob uncontrollably. “Now you know,” says the woman’s voice, “Why some women never need to climb, they already know. They are told from their feet upward through their bodies, from the ground up because life is as much a gift from earth as it is from heaven. Now you are held by the love of earth and the love of God’s presence. Sink into the heart of both and know that I, the Virgin Void of God is holding you all before the Beginning.”

I look up and sense light connecting through all seven points of my body, feet, genitals, stomach, heart, throat, head, and crown. I say, “My heart is beating with a child resting on my breast. I can feel my heart is open; my voice is clear to scream pain and I feel the joy. I am warm and bruised and my mind is open to God and earth.” The woman voice of God says, “Look at the gift of your body and the intimacy of the earth. It is a path too. Oh men I weep for you, for you know not this.” I cry.

“If you want to know,” the woman voice of God says, “Meet this blind folded woman holding a balance and a sword.” The most sensual woman appears blindfolded holding a sword and a balance. It is she, Justice. The woman voice of God booms, “If I look at Man’s handling of gender, sexuality or intimacy watch how Justice’s scales rock back and forth.” I see the scales violently rock from side to side to such an extent that Justice has to clench her fist to stop the balance from coming out of her hands. Now with anger the woman voice of God says, “On the one hand there is nothing but celibacy or barren abstinence and on the other side you grope for every piece of flesh you can get.” Now shouting she says, “Don’t you understand the balance that is the birth of a child or is the birth of a life long relationship that nurtures a child in spirituality and molds the resources of the world to its love? Whether the child is born of flesh or is the symbol of a spirit in a relationship nourished between two people it remains, always is and will be a child of God capable of feeling all the pain and all the love that you desire to afflict and give to it.”

Justice walks up to me. I ask, “Can I see your eyes?” She replies kindly, “No I am blind for a purpose. People think my eyes are beautiful.” Then her tone snaps and changes, she screams in a rage, “but the truth is they were gouged out!!!!” Before I can move she strikes me with the sword of striking love. She slices my body open from head to toe. My body falls away. I am left standing as a soul in the form of a body of shimmering gold. Angrily Justice demands in a cry, “To whom will you unite and give a spiritual birth?” My soul body shimmers changing gender depending on what Justice wants of me. Inside I ask myself, “Am I a man? Am I woman?” I know that as a spiritual body it matters not which. Justice plunges her sword into my chest up to the hilt. She cuts around the heart. She reaches into my chest and caresses my heart and she says, “To get to God you will love the earth on which you stand.” She turns my heart to the ground. Then she says, “Connect from the heart to touch your feet. From feet connect to the place of sexuality and where women give birth, two different dimensions of intimacy. From the place of sexuality and birth connect to the stomach and the place of pain. From the stomach and the place of pain connect to your heart.” She pulls her hand out of my chest leaving my heart inside me connected to the earth. She leaves the sword of striking love run through me. It absorbs into my heart and my heart grows big, my chest expands. Physically I feel the sense that I am a man, I am a warrior and I am a woman in the spirit as needed. I can fight and I can nourish with strength.

Justice says, “Give this out, one teardrop at a time. The tears will explode with power of an atom bomb of good for love as each one hits the ground. Know that when you turn your mind to God he will not come down and lift you out of your mind and carry you to some imagined heaven. No he will look over your shoulder and see everything that you have done, felt and been. He will judge your impact on every person in the world.” I look up out of my body, through my crown, the egg of light, towards heaven above. I touch my thumbs to my index fingers, forming a circle and open my palms. I interlock the thumb, index finger circle of each hand into two encircling circles. “Ah yes,” Justice says. “Now you see above you the interlocking circles of infinity. Do not think your revelations will just lift you out to God into some ecstatic place. No, they will bring you back to exactly where you are now in the present. All moments from the Beginning and all the way through to Eternity will be with you present when you die.”

At this point I rise out of my body. I find myself up above the planet earth looking down. There are others with me. We are departing from the earth. We have a perfect view of the earth and amazingly we can see right through to the earth’s core. We feel the physical universe reverberating through us. I know that God knows and feels everything, man, woman, earth and universe.

I am back in my body. Justice says, “Listen with the greatest care to what I have to say. Repair the Man inflicted wounds of Christianity. The men who crucified Christ, crucify him again, they crucify for their own power. Ask nothing for yourself because the world will give you what you need. Be present. Now awake.” My eyes are forced open. I sit up. Justice continues, “Cradle this baby that I have given you. Take it and show it to others, because they want to nurture it too.” Suddenly the baby is two babies and I say, “I gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl.” They are both suckling on my breasts. The amazing thing is that I know that this baby boy and this baby girl know what to do in the world on their own. All I have to do is to ask for the world to parent them and let go of that responsibility. So the gift of Abraham is solved. I do not offer my children as a sacrifice to some wrathful God but welcome the community of every human and say to everyone, “Help me raise these children. They contain all the beauty and pain that you do. Let us be the best parents for them and where each one of us fails know we can always invite others who will help, who will prop us up and bring us back in.”

I hold my hands palm up and open to God. I feel alone but suddenly I know that both Justice, with her eyes gouged out, blindfolded, holding the sword of striking love and the balance in her hands, is standing behind me next to Christ. Together they both overlook and over hear my shoulders and know how I treat these newborn children. Justice and Christ hold the children, born of the love of the presence of God, born of God of the Virgin Void and born of the earth that they Justice and Christ have given to me.

My focus fixes on my stomach, which with an in-breath I suck my stomach in. I turn round and face Justice and Christ. They say in unison, “You have experienced a total ring of pain. You have held it as you have walked the bridge. Build a set of guardians around you who will both protect you from yourself from within and from without people who will misunderstand you. People will look up to you, thinking they understand and will project on you authority. Other people will overstand you. They will bear down on you shouting their authority and raging at what you have said. Keep it personal. Do not talk of politics. Always talk of Christ and Justice’s children, our children. Ask people always, “If Jesus Christ is the father and Justice is the mother of this child, how will you treat this child, whether the child is now a grown person of ninety years of age or still a new born babe?” Love especially the women too because for too long they have not been able to author from the ground up, to speak straight from what they sense in their bodies. Everybody will be authors and tell their own parable. Everyone will stand with his or her feet fully embodied on the ground full of the love of God. They will be infused from the earth and infused from above. They will be infused with Christ’s spirit, be that male or female, alive in every moment. That is what you will talk about. Amen”

I see myself meeting a woman on the road. I say, “You nourish me with food and your home and still I make you worthless. Forgive me for this sin. It is pain I did not know how to connect with until today. How do I atone for this sin?” Justice and Christ say in unison, “Lift the blindfolds and blinkers from your eyes. Stop gouging out the eyes of others. Restore sight and let those with new eyes, let all their voices rise. You will think their voices will sound like a cacophony but it will sound into a glory to God. And there will be those who divide, and divide and divide. But carry on. If they strike you down by then it will be too late. Bridges will have been built across the world.  They, who will stop these voices, will be left trying to figure out what went wrong, but by then a new hosanna will rise as the song from the earth. Keep your feet on the ground, walk one step at a time, your teardrops will be like atom bombs of love, let them shimmer across the world. The teardrops of joy will wash away the suffering of every man-man-woman-woman-child-child. Your day has now begun.”

Amen.

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter >

Posted in Poems, Stories, The Stations of the Christ, Vision 6: Crucify Her | Comments closed

Stations of the Christ – Vision 5: Blind Apostles

I am standing on the beach on the island of the silver pinnacle with the stairway to heaven looking out to sea. My back is to the stairway. The whole stairway has turned golden as the pinnacle parts, the doors to heaven open. Light shines out across the sea in a golden beam. I think at first I am going to be able to walk on the beam across the sea but that is not so. I follow the line of the beam into the sea and find myself swimming.  The sea, lit by the beam, is as warm and comforting as a hot bath. Two things happen: I am relaxing perfectly in the water and at the same time I am swimming as fast as a seal with in the confines of the light warmed water heading straight for the shore of the mainland. I arrive at the mainland beach at great speed and shoot out of the water and glide through the air and then find myself standing quite still on the beach. I am bare foot, wearing swimming trunks and a towel appears and wraps around me. I feel completely refreshed. I turn around and look back across the sea. I see that the gates of heaven are open and the line of light spreads across the water to me. I realize this very moment I am looking into the heart of God as it shines on the earth. The next minute – vroom, vroom, and vroom – the women apostles arrive, shooting out of the water and gliding to gentle standing stops on the beach. They too are quite relaxed.

We are clothed in simple robes. We stand in a circle. We stretch out our arms to the center and all our hands touch. We look around and we say we are about to set off but we know where we have come from. Although we are going different ways we are all together. Suddenly in the middle of us is a golden sphere that contains a soul, not an individual soul but the soul of us as a group. We are amazed and it hovers in mid air and we stand back and look at it – we have a sense that it is smiling at us. Next we sense that we are physically far apart from one another, all spread across the globe, and yet we are all just as close standing in a circle touching the sphere that contains the soul of our group. “You’re standing in the heart of God,” says the sphere. “Your hands reach out as you stand in a circle and you touch one another’s hands as you make the sign of the peace. As you do that do not imagine that there is any form of one-to-one communication that is between you and another as you look into each other’s eyes. The peace you have when see into the color of a person’s eyes, as you look as a lover with the peace of God, is the sign of the peace that you are standing in a circle touching soul of your group entity. The soul of your group entity lives in the heart of God and bathes in the beam that stretches across the sea. The sea out of which you animals have evolved.”

As we stand, hands out stretched touching the sphere, the Christ spirit around the soul of our group, we find ourselves all blindfolded, then blind, then holding the swords of silver with the gold streak along the blade, the swords of striking love. The voice says, “It is right words that you will teach. Remember you will always be blind so you can hear from the Void, God’s love, the light, the love and the creation in others; and remember to give them nothing and to claim no authority.” At that moment the sphere dissolves into each one of our hearts and we shudder a bit as we digest what has happened. We look around and we are just normal human beings all with our sins and frailties just as we were before but with a spark of more. So we look to one another and say, “There is no point to say Goodbye because with this covenant we are committed to one another and to the love of the heart of God.”

We set out, blind. Sometimes we stub our toes and we listen all the time and we talk gently. We hear people as presence before we understand their outline. As we walk we remember the gifts that we are given; the different skills that we have, of music, of writing, of talking, of preaching, of counting of money, of a twinkle in the eye, of a joy of parenting, even for some seducing. We remember all of these things. They are now in the service of the One.

My road is barred by a large, tall figure that I can tell is an angel; he or she must be at least eight feet high. A large trumpet or horn is pushed against my chest. I say to the angel “I am blind. I cannot see the road that you block. I have a sense of your presence. What is it that you have come to say?” But the angel says nothing, pushes the giant trumpet at me hard. I say, “You’ve got to be kidding. Your trumpet is huge how can I hold it?” But as I touch it, it shrinks tiny down to the size of my palm. “Oh no!” I say, “Not that.” The angel says nothing and still blocks my way. I know that I have to practice blowing through the trumpet the glory of God. I get a sense that the angel is nodding an approving way. I warn the angel that I am tone deaf. I have a sense that the angel is chuckling. I say, “Which way shall I point it?” I get a sense of a shrug that it does not matter which way.

As I raise the palm sized trumpet to my mouth is reverts to the great trumpet of the angel and I blow with all my force a glory of God. Then as I lower the trumpet it shrinks palm-sized and turns into a cell phone. The angel laughs. I am blowing the glory of God through a cell phone. I laugh. I close the phone and put it in my pocket. From this day onwards I know that my phone is the most glorious trumpet from the largest angel I have encountered.

I walk on and I am still blind.

I bump into a wooden barrier that catches me in my stomach. From a rustling of wings I sense five or six angels guard it. I sense they have blocked my way to stop me walking over a precipice. I say, “Thank you for blocking my way, lucky I did not fall off, I am blind.” I think, “You can’t always hear a precipice.” Then ping I know that I am wrong. They brought me here to know what the sound of a precipice is like.

A voice says, “You will get some inspiration and it will get you a few steps down the road. Then you will come to a precipice.” I laugh because I know it is a void. So quickly I turn round with my back to the precipice. I open my phone. It turns into a trumpet to God. I blow the trumpet and in an instant I have a horde of people in front of me. And I hold out my left hand, palm upward and all the people go blind. I say, “First I send you blindness, a soothing darkness. Now I send you light of love. Now paint the road ahead with all your imaginations and then with worldly materials carve the new road ahead.” With huge excitement they paint in their minds, in their bodies they quake and shudder as they conceive amongst themselves and then suddenly a golden sphere encapsulating the soul of this group appears. It rolls along the road. I put my foot on it and stop it like a soccer ball. I say, “I could never have conceived of what you have conceived. This is magnificent.”

I am standing with my back to the precipice and I remain blind. I take my foot off the golden sphere. It shoots by me over the precipice and suddenly I know that a whole new road and vista has appeared. The people cheer and they surge ahead into the world that they have created through their imagination, their labor and their manifest shaping of materials in the world. They rush past me and once again I am alone. The angels remove the barrier and I walk forth. I am nervous and have trepidation because I am still blind. But the precipice is no longer there. The people have built a stairway going down. The nice thing is that they included a handrail for me, a nice thought of theirs. I get down to the end of the stairway.

As I am walking along suddenly the road gradient goes steeply up. I realize that I am walking up in a loop that bends back on itself. I walk up until I am walking upside down and then I walk down to where the loop begins.  I am caught in a loop. I pause. A voice of an angel says, “It is right to pause when you are in a loop.” Suddenly around me there is a congregation of people just pausing.

My eyes open. We gather in a large sitting room. We sit down, put our feet up, put on the TV and ignore everything. We behave like lazy slobs. We just pause. But we know as we relax something is sinking into our ground. Suddenly the sitting room floor cracks. I fall through the floor and find myself high in the sky falling through clouds fast towards earth.  A flock of angels comes along side. I fly too; I have wings on my boots.

I can see below we are coming up on a large city teaming with people. We start to fly in a lowering, tightening circle. In a crowd below I suddenly spy a person, who from above glows gold. I know that I have never met this person before. I alight in the crowd near the person, no one seems aware of my arrival as I instantly blend in. I walk up to the person and say, “Hi! We have not met before. Something tells me that you have just done something very kind and I want to thank you.” The person looks at me amazed. As I turn to leave the person says, “Hold on a minute. How did you know?” I reply, “Your heart radiated the love that you have given. You are an example to others that shines brightly. Just because you are clothed like others does not mean that your love does not show. I do not bring any blessings for you because it is obvious that you already have them. The person says, “Do you say this to everyone?” I reply, “When appropriate yes, but when I sense it would scare or not get through I don’t waste my time.” The cell phone rings and I say, “Excuse me and what you are about see.”

I take out my ringing cell phone and it expands into the angel’s giant trumpet. I listen to a voice from afar then reply as I blow a glory to God on the trumpet. The trumpet shrinks back to a cell phone that I put in my pocket. I say, “Sorry. Sometimes there is reason to interrupt when the need to blast the glory of God in a different direction is called. I don’t mean to be rude. Today we have fun tools to blast the glory of God in all directions. I hope that you’ll do the same on your cell phone too.” The conversation ends, we say goodbye.

I am blind again as I walk through this teaming urban city. I follow my nose. I head to where the smell is getting bad. God is often most needed where there is a stench. I hear some children close by.  My eyes see again. I see a young boy smiling but his body is wracked by malnourishment. I hand him my phone. His eyes spark, as he is not surprised as the phone turns into a trumpet for the glory of God. He blows the most beautiful note of God, it broadcasts across the world. Beside me I see two large sports equipment bags full of cell phone trumpets of God. I hand them to all the children around. They give the phone/trumpets to others, who blow not just music, but words and pictures transmitting across the world the voice of God. Suddenly around me angels arrive. They say, “Follow the voice the child blows to a person across the world.”

I find myself in a modest home on the other side of the world in a well-to-do-neighborhood. I am in the home a young women, I have a sense she owns it and is single. She is startled by the sound and images of the trumpet of God reaching her ears and eyes. She knows that she is human and the child is human too. She shakes off the thought and her mind fills lists of busy-ness.

Suddenly she is aware of me. I say, “What did you think?” She is annoyed, she says, “The boy is a cartoon.” I cry and it is really embarrassing because my tears drop onto her kitchen counter-top. My tears are acidic and damage the surface. I say. “I am terribly sorry.” I look into her eyes, her heart and say, “You are human too. I know you have love inside you. I do not come to condemn. I come to love you and as much as I love the others too. I know of course that I give you nothing. It is your radiant love that I know you know you have.” I say, “Goodbye” and I leave.

As I step out of the house I appear in a different neighborhood. I am on the steps of a broken house in a ruined neighborhood. I sit on the steps demoralized.  It seems so hard, so much suffering so much poverty. Then I go blind. I laugh, I know we have so much wealth and so much joy. The fun thing of this world we live in is to experience the wealth and to share its abundance through our turning to the love of God. I shout, “Let us have a blast. Have a party! Invite a few more strangers every day.” Although blind I know the landscape I am in is turning from black and white into color as wealth rolls by and comes to stay.  I wonder how this happens and then remember the exercise of blinding people before asking them to imagine. Then they could all paint in their imagination and through their brilliance they sorted it out.

I see again. A soccer ball bounces to my feet. I get up and kick it back to the kids playing in the street. I know that my success and failure is nothing as long as I love. Love accepted, love rejected, both bring me closer to unity.

I am back at the mainland beach. The apostles gather. We stand together in a circle and reach out to touch the golden sphere that contains the soul of our group and we know we are in communion. I say, “I am hungry.” We walk over to a communion table filled with food. We eat and afterwards we go off to sleep.

Amen.

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter >

Posted in Stories, The Stations of the Christ, Vision 5: Blind Apostles | Comments closed

Stations of the Christ – Vision 4: The Virgin Void

It begins. It starts this time knowing that I submit; I bow down before Christ. Suddenly I understand, there is a point of light in all seven places of my body. At the base, my feet, in my genitals, in my stomach, in my heart, in my throat, in my head, in my crown a spark of light glows in an instant and I know I must make my submission not just to Christ, but now I submit to God and I am prepared.

First I see Christ in command of every part of me, loving and then I see my body dissolve. I am in space. I am standing before the Sun and the angels are arrayed all around and Christ is by my side. We begin to walk into the Sun. As we do my body disappears. We are now traveling at speed, in the Sun. The sense of Christ’s presence is all around and moves from a human form to a sphere of gold in which I am now encased. As that happens the speed accelerates, we are going back in time, heading at an increasing pace to the Beginning. Enormous pressure begins to exert on all sides. I cannot make out if I am going forward or backward in time, whether I am expanding or collapsing. All I know is that we are heading to the Virgin Void. Things slow down dramatically, then I realize what is happening, we are slowing to the Beginning, when it stops it is over. I am presence, I know not of what shape, encased in the living gold of Christ’s entity. Now we are moving so slowly, I know when it will come to a stop. Each point in time halves each point in time, an infinitesimal loop. Mathematics goes backwards, dividing in on itself.

At this point a voice says, “Just before it stops, a place you can not go the doorways will open in all directions to new beginnings. You will fire through them and expand to the strength of the Sun. Give birth to light in your own way and out of that create virgin births, eggs of light out of which will hatch angels who will actually come into the world and beam out. You will touch others and their angels will come through their eggs of light into their worlds too and change what they do in the world material. At each place in the hierarchy down your mountain will reside Christ, in full reign whether that be in total humility or robed as a King as appropriate but never in the wrong condition. This sphere of gold that encapsulates your soul will now reside at each major point in your body and in an encapsulated form in every cell throughout your entity. Do not think that you are allowed to do anything that does not have the connection from the Beginning incased in Christ present in it. Now sit!” I sit.

I see myself sitting in the middle of the Sun, in the Egg of Light, in the Church of the mind, in the place of the throat, in the center of my heart, sitting crucified in my stomach, sitting breaking bread at communion in the place of my genitals, then at my feet on my knees washing feet. In each place Christ encases me and I am completely blind, the Christ being seeing through mine. A new chapter has begun.

The voice commands, “Stand up! Raise your hand and say, “Out of Nothing I bring a gift. It is nothing unusual. It is what any human can experience and there have been witnesses to this at all times. The secrets that have been buried are merely and simply how to welcome this out of every living person you meet, and yes it is possible to have institutions that welcome the spirit of every person but they are rare. But we do not need to fear because Nothing is present to God, to love, to light, to beginning in human form and practical ways in every moment in every day.”

“Who would like to build an institution that does this? Come to be of service to other humans next to you. Be of a deep servitude that reverences the Nothing, the God, the Love, the Light, and the beauty in every person. Think especially of those you think are nothing and turn to venerate them. If you wish to take this call come to our communion table and we will welcome all, all; all races, all faiths, all kinds, all types, all languages, and all strangers. We will break bread and serve tea. We will ask first for you to offer a vision of your pain. We will take your offerings and we will pile them around the base of the Cross so that they act as a magnifying beacon for personal suffering that you feel and identify with Jesus Christ on the Cross. Then all of us holding the keys to Heaven in our hearts will unlock the dark door. Light of the love of the heart of Christ will flow to the offering around the Cross and those points of pain will be resurrected and the resurrection light will flow through them showing those who hurt, and the hurt, healing and forgiving. And then we will step into the heart. There is a radiant love that is possessed in the heart of every person however hidden, however damaged. It is the wealth of our universe that is given to each one of us. At that point from the love of the heart, perceiving our pain, celebrating our communion and remembering our service we will speak words. We will speak them clearly, and we will connect our experience to the traditions, stories of time, that connect and we will form a greater and more powerful story that is simple and clear. Then together we will go to the house of worship and there will cry to God, “We open the doors to the Risen Christ, to God and the Virgin Void.” We welcome, so that out of Nothing the love of the unity of the whole universe, God, will shine light and create, picking up all the material world and all the colors and all the voices, all the music and all the hymns, celebrating what is beautiful of old and painting broad brush strokes, fine strokes and tender strokes anew to create a larger Church which spans across the globe. Finally we will step into the Egg of Light. As we die our tombstones will come clear and proud in our eyes and the beauty of every newborn child will be offered to the work of God. As we ascend through the cleansing fire and become a ray of light we will finally collapse in time back to the Beginning, the Virgin Void and know that it is present in every person in every moment now.”

Amen.

Previous Chapter | Index | Next Chapter >

Posted in Stories, The Stations of the Christ, Vision 4: The Virgin Void | Comments closed
  • Receive Email Updates