I resist

© ChingYang Tung

I am a resister. I resist the rich, the powerful, the few who rule over the many.  I resist every imposition by violence or threat of violence.  I resist and question every person and authority which uses violence and threats to impose their will on others.

I have a gift from God, a birthright.  No one rules over me but the great mystery which is love in the world and creation.

I am told I should vote.  It is my responsibility as a citizen.  I should vote to get what I want or need from a rule making elite and system of governance who stole the land from my people and terrorized, killed and enslaved them. I am told that is best for me even if it is merely the lesser of evils.  I am told they set me free.  I am told they are better than me.  They claim superiority.  I vote only for what is good, loving, nurturing, and liberating.

I should learn to live with things as they are in this world, some voices urge.  Some say it is inevitable.  My parents wanted me to fit in and be part of the American dream.  They wanted me to be able to make a living in this world.  They wanted me to be happy and productive. They wanted me to be a good citizen.  They provided the best they could for me.

But the great mystery wanted something altogether different from what the culture and society had planned for me and made me creation’s vessel rather than the world’s.  I am an offering from creation to creator.  We who wake are creation’s conscious offering to the great mystery and exist for the well-being of the whole community of life.

We exist, and we resist all the worldly spirits and forces which dehumanize and degrade life.  We are not alone in this resistance but joined to every soul that chooses to live in love as kind, true and healing in creation.

A child born into a world does not have to remain subject to it and adapt to its values and beliefs but may choose another way.  A child may be able to discover within themselves a deeper connection to a greater mystery than the world, as it is, can conceive.  Every child born, every spirit entering the community of life, is the risen Christ, buddha in the flesh needing a safe place to grow.  Welcome dear ones.

The truth is

© Xueping Zhang

I assure whoever might be reading or hearing these words, I mean what I say.  The words might not be clear, but their source and intention are.  I speak words the holy spirit provides.  The holy spirit is the spirit of life that comes from creator.

The world we humans make is not like creation though it could be if we opened ourselves to the possibility.  The world, like everything else that has its being in time and space, is changing.  The world is in a state of change where everything we humans think, say and do affects outcomes for ourselves and life on earth.  We are at a stage in the world’s evolution where beliefs matter and manifest.  Beliefs are strongly held personal opinions about the experience and nature of reality.  What’s taking place is colored and interpreted through a lens of beliefs and framework of judgements.  We believe and react based on beliefs.

Beliefs allow us to feel as though we know something, in the presence of a great mystery, we may have not experienced.  Beliefs are reassuring but keep us from knowing the truth in all its naked beauty.  Beliefs come between us and the truth.  The truth remains true regardless of what we believe.  If we are willing, we can live with the truth.  The truth lives and flourishes where everyone can see, setting free the captives of belief’s oppression and violence.

The truth is that love set us free and comes to us whether we are deserving or not.  Love’s origin is pre-human.  Love did not begin with humans.  Love’s story is from the beginning and in the beginning is love.  A choice made by the light and confirmed and affirmed in the flesh of living beings, too numerous to count, who choose to love and become the yes of life everlasting.

This comes to you, dear reader, dear listener, courtesy of a great mystery that nurtures the impossible and improbable love that manifests of its own accord in human consciousness with an invitation to communion with creation and creator as a choice we need consider for all our well being.

In this story

© Karol Nienartowicz

My mind likes to skip around and touch many things.  It does not do it when I focus on a job, or a creative, or needed bit of work.  But, it likes to wander when I sit to meditate.  Most of the time, I just note the type of thinking that is happening and let it go while at other times, if it seems important, I make a mental note to come back to it when I am not meditating .

I like to practice being loving, open, curious and aware.

I also like having Jesus in my mind and heart.  I like having the holy ones, the buddhas and bodhisattvas, the shamans and medicine people, the prophets and lovers, helping find the way creator intends and providing me a moral and ethical compass.

I have come back to this thought that visited me while I was meditating.  I wonder if we can truly be Christians when we do not love our enemies as ourselves or see Christ in everyone.  I wonder if self-proclaimed Christians who do not love others as ourselves are pretenders making believe and perhaps mocking the creator, redeemer, sustainer of life with our emptiness and self-centeredness.  When we live with hate and blame in our hearts and minds, we do not yet know Christ or the holy ones and may never experience the living mystery in our lifetime and perhaps lose the opportunity to discover our true nature and humanity.

I like the story where the great mystery creates us to evolve and transform and change continuously while maintaining our sense of continuity, integrity and love.  The one where we are creator’s creatures and no one and nothing has prior claim to us and we are love’s body, love’s creation.  The story where all the other spirits and forces who claim power and authority over us are idols and false gods seeking to rule over and oppress us.

In this story, there is no god but God, the great mystery and lover of life, which sets us free from every form of oppression and captivity so we might choose a good and healing way to be present here and now and know we are as love intends.

abandoning violence

© Hint Pixtrang

Fear keeps us from abandoning violence as a tool and behavior.  We want to be able to defend ourselves if we feel threatened.  We want to be able to defend and protect those we love and those for whom we care and the unknown others who are being harmed and hurt, oppressed and exploited. But violence perpetuates violence and the wounds do not begin to heal until the violence ceases.

We know we cannot protect ourselves from feeling pain and suffering.  We cannot prevent the suffering we cause one another with violence.  We know the dominant powers of this man-made world can kill our bodies and damage our minds if they so desire, but they have been unable to control or eliminate our spirits.  We have no defense against their weapons and laws, but the love, wisdom and will to resist creator gives us.

This is not the first time, nor will it be the last time we are called into being to love Creator, creation and ourselves.  The gift of love’s grace is given time and time again to every generation of sentient beings.  Christ lives, Buddha lives, the ancestors live, future generations live, the holy spirit of life lives, in us, between and among us.

Not everyone can see or feel love’s presence within and around us.  Fear and dread, anxiety and depression interfere with the connection between us and the great mystery.  The man-made world changes when we change.  When we change for love the world follows.  

Have no fear, do no evil, and be love in the world as we are in creation.