I stand. I am at the beach, on the shoreline and the water laps against my feet. As the coldness touches me I ask, “Whom do I give service to today? How am I to wash the feet of others?” I look at the sea and in the distance on the horizon I see a small circular island and a silver pinnacle rises out of the middle of the island.
I walk; the water rises to my knees, to my genitals, to my heart, to my chest as I push out into the sea. The island is a long way away and there is a thunderstorm. I am swimming. I am worried that I have a long way to swim to the island with the pinnacle. When I turn round and look back even the land has gone and I am in the middle of the sea. I fear of storms but part of me does not worry. I stop swimming and I know that I am not going to drown. The sea carries me out and away until I am in a place where I can see nothing in the distance, all around is just sea. I wonder, “Will I panic? Will I drown?” I let go and I lie floating on my back.
The night passes at sea and morning comes up with clouds. The current bears me inexorably towards to the island of the silver pinnacle. I can now see it has a gold staircase that reaches all the way up to God.
Funny, along comes a very small-wooden-fishing-sailing-boat with nets. On board is Jesus with Peter and another man. Peter and the other man pull me aboard. They say to Jesus, “Look what we’ve caught.” Jesus says, “Throw him overboard if you know not what you’ve caught.” Peter moves to throw me overboard. I lie still and Jesus laughs and says, “Don’t throw him overboard. Know what you’ve caught!” Peter looks quizzically at Jesus, who says, “Fool! He is from a different land and generation. I put a key around your neck. You are not meant to wear it for your own edification. Take it off and hand it to the man. Give it to him.” Peter hands me the key. I put it around my neck. I roll over board and swim, as if I am a seal, to arrive at the shore of the island of the silver pinnacle with the stairway of gold to God.
There on the beach is a group of women. I have a sense that one is Mary Magdalene and the others are women apostles too. They help me up. Someone gives me a towel as I walk up the beach. They say, “I see Christ handed you the key as he did to us too.” We look at each other and burst out laughing. “Poor Peter,” we say. “He thinks he is the only one who holds the key to this day.” We laugh.
We walk towards the silver pinnacle that must be a hundred thousand feet high, with the golden staircase all the way reaching up into the sky, out to the highest atmosphere. I ask, “Where am I?” The women reply, “You are still at your feet.” I keep thinking, “Thousands of feet to climb the stairway to God in the sky. It seems incredibly high and I worry that if I climb I will fall or fail to pass through the right places.” We arrive at the base of the silver pinnacle. We each take the large golden key that dangles round our necks and hold it in our hands as we surround the base. A woman appears in front of us, Mary, the Mother of God. She holds a red cushion and says, “Place the keys on the cushion.”
Mary says to us, “To use the keys to heaven you must release from the flesh all your being.” Up to each of us a naked person walks. We anoint them on the head, put a word of God on their lips, hold our hands over their hearts until their hearts radiate with the love of God, we gently touch their stomachs to sooth the place of pain or to nourish the new unborn babe and as we look at the place of their genitals we pause.
The person in front of us is the sex most attractive to us, attraction of the flesh is felt and at that moment the person morphs to the opposite sex and we feel uncomfortable, even revulsion, self hate, as we have imagined sex with them. And Mary says, “If you hold any hate inside you about your sexuality or hate these people in front of you for their sexual activity you will hold hate before God the Father. Your attraction and revulsion is to the flesh and not to God, if you can not let go of both before God the Father you know what his wrath will do to you.”
From the top of the silver pinnacle the words of Christ boom and echo down, “I am love and present to everything. Unless I am present in your sexual energy as it resides within you, you will experience sin of attachment to the flesh. You look on some with tingling lust and others, who have sex unlike you, with quivering revulsion. If you cannot step through the flesh gripping you and stop it spewing lust or hate you will poison the love that I give you and the keys that Mary holds for you will not unlock the gates to Heaven.”
A sense of peace pervades us all. We bow before the people in front of us and wash their feet. The people merge into us and we now stand on our own. A sense of communion is what grips us now.
Mary hands us back the keys. The angels begin to pour down the golden staircase. They are everywhere around us. They raise trumpets and blast out a glory to God. Jesus appears at the very top and begins to walk down. All the angels sing the glory of God. As he walks down a gold beam of light shines down the stairway obscuring his presence and the light strikes the ground and us. The beam of light coming straight from heaven illuminates us.
A voice says, “This is my son the Beloved and you are Beloved too. Out of the Virgin Void came God. Out of the Virgin Void came God, then light. Out of light came the Virgin Womb, the Egg of Light. Out of the Egg of Light came you. The light will lead you back up into the heart of God and up into the Virgin Void. You will feel the cleansing of your sins in the wrath of God as you enter into the unity of the beginning of creation, the ultimate of holding all God and entity.” With these words the angels blow a blast on their trumpets and the pinnacle that was in front of us becomes a huge door. The golden stairway turns to a shaft of golden light that is the opening between two silver doors moving apart that stretch from the ground to heaven. The doors pull apart, a path straight out ahead appears and a voice says, “With Christ in your hearts, the key of heaven, and with the clarity of mind to reflect the light of God from above, walk forth into the world to proclaim the joy of Christ, of God and of the beginning.” We kneel down and bow. The keys of heaven absorb into our hearts. We shudder at the moment.
As we lift our heads we realize that we are all blind. The beam of light has left us blind. We hear a voice, “You do not need to see. In the darkness of your Void hear the beginning of creation as the spirit is born in every person. Do not imagine. Do not hope. You will behold every person held up against God and God held up against the Virgin Void. The beginning will begin with God in them igniting their creation and bursting into love and love will burst out of them to you.” And night came and with morning I could see again but know I can see further when blind.
I stand on the beach with the key to Heaven around my neck with the women apostles each with a key around their necks. We stand at the base of the silver pinnacle that stretches all the way up into space with the golden staircase. We look all the way up into Heaven and we see beyond the top of the pinnacle in the sky Jesus, the Risen Christ. Behind Christ is the fireball of the Sun, the energy of God the Father, and pure love. Behind we know is the Void holding all of us, the potential to begin. Angels flow up and down the golden staircase. We fear the love as much as it loves us too. Jesus begins to descend the staircase towards us. Angels take up positions, one on either side of each step on the staircase from top to bottom. Angels fan out at regular intervals around the base of the pinnacle. All lift up trumpets and blast a glory to God. Saints gather behind Jesus and proceed down after him. A glorious procession descends the pinnacle celebrating the grace of God. We remain standing, excited, fearful and anxious.
Finally at the base of the steps Christ appears, simply dressed in white robes. He walks towards us. We immediately kneel, bow our heads, and prostrate on the ground. There is silence. Jesus comes up to us. He begs us to all rise but we get up only on our knees. He says, “I bring you the ultimate surprise; Nothing holds everything; Nothing begets God, begets love, begets you.” He touches our foreheads and we shake with the Holy Spirit. Silver light flows down our spines connecting out to our toes. Rich orange light of the warmth of the love of God fills into our flesh and bodies.
As we kneel on the beach we are holding silver swords with a gold line down them as if they are each the silver pinnacle with the gold staircase running down it. Jesus says, “With these swords, of striking love, you will cleave open people from top to toe so that their souls maybe free to connect through me to God and to the Void. And know that to do this you need Nothing. No claims of power, no claims of authority, no attachment, Nothing. When you are present with Nothing for another person then God will be present, then love, then the creation will begin and their soul will rise and rise and rise. Tell everyone that it is Nothing you can give them because it is in them that they will rise. You are my apostles.” At that moment our bodies fall away and we are just souls. We have no body, no gender, just souls.
Jesus says, “Now be clothed in the humans that you are given.” Our bodies return around us. He says, “Know this! It is the soul that begets the body and not the other way round. Stand up! Behind you I assign an angel to each one of you. Sheath your swords. Keep your minds clear and know that each one of you has the key to the kingdom of heaven in your hearts. Remember that your authority is out of Nothing. You will blaze a way and it will be for the celebration of God. You do not need to see the future nor the path in front of you because out of Nothing comes your authority. You can be blind because it is all now.” We shake as the spirit reverberates in us.
I say, “How can we trust?” and Jesus replies, “Remember, look at your feet and just take one step. The footprints that you leave will leave a cross on the ground. Take another step. Where you tread does not matter because your footprints all lead to God, they will lead to the staircase to heaven. Without your footprints how will others be able to follow to find the staircase to heaven that is here?” He waves his arm and points to the base of the staircase to heaven reaching up the silver pinnacle to the sky with an angel on every step singing the glory of God. “Take a step, a step, a step in my name. Lead the people to God.” So slowly we all look down and place one foot in front of the other. Sure enough each step we take leaves an imprint of a cross on the ground. Where we walk and where ever we go it does not matter because all our footsteps lead to the golden staircase to God. At each step we do nothing, because without need Nothing gives birth to God and to the love that begets us all.
Suddenly we begin to dance with joy. We begin to create lots of footsteps everywhere as we dance in circles and for miles and we jump in the air and create footprints even in the sky. Celebration bursts through us all and we need nothing and leave footprints to God wherever we go.
Amen.