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Scripture
The following passage is from an ancient Aramaic translation of Matthew 18.20. Aramaic is the language Jesus spoke, not the Greek of the New Testament or the Hebrew of the Hebrew Scripture.
Wherever two or three gather
In my name and light,
In my experience of
The vibrating, shining cosmos—
Then the “I Am” is already there
Around, among and inside them.
—Matthew Fox, One River, Many Wells
Poem
I went
Somewhere, Where
Every face looked at me
I, too; all saying
“Brother” and “Sister”
“Father” and “Mother”
“Friend”
You
There is a place
God will take you there
Where you meet someone a first time
Someone who has been with you
Always
Do you want to go there
With me?
Do you want to enter the Holy of Holies
Where this is so
Or talk before the veil that keeps you
From oneness with this Presence of Loving?
—Brian K. Wilcox
A Story
A church member came to his pastor. He said, “Pastor, persons say different things about you.” “Interesting” said the pastor, and the pastor laughed. The man spoke, “Some persons say you are a fundamentalist.” The pastor laughed. “Some say you are a conservative.” The pastor laughed. “Some say you are a moderate.” The pastor laughed. “Some say you are a liberal.” The pastor laughed. Asked the member, “Just which of these are you?” “I am not any of these things,” said the pastor, and he laughed. The confused member asked, “What do you mean?” The pastor spoke, “These are all labels. He who knows the True Self, at one with Christ, no longer needs to define himself, thus, persons define him differently, for they are confused by his freedom from defining himself. They, though religious, are confused by anyone living in Christ, not in religion, not in belief, not in a faith.” The pastor laughed, such was the freedom he enjoyed in Christ.
Comment One
God is undefined. Every name and title for “God” found in Scripture was taken from surrounding culture and mostly from other religions. God is free of your identification, my identification. God is free from the windows through which the Presence of Grace shines on all persons. God, as God, is not light, not love, not truth, not anything, for God is not a thing. How can God be anything? Possibly, the most that can be truthfully said of God as God is God is. However, most persons never speak of God as God is. They speak of God as they have been told about God. And about God is never God, and the word God is not God. And this is why the truly and deeply spiritual man or woman is a threat to many persons, a mystery to many persons, and an attraction to many persons.
Another Story
A church member asked her pastor. “Pastor, who is God?” Replied the pastor, “God is who God was before God was and who God is after God has been.”
Comment Two
Persons are either offended or frightened, or both, of the man or woman who has so entered the Cell of the Heart and lives from it, where the Spirit of Love dwells, that he or she has no need of being identified with any identification. This person is free. This person can be one with everyone and everything, for he is nothing himself, thus, he can be everything and everyone, and, yet, himself at the same time.
When the Christian sees a Christian, this person free of identification sees more. When the Muslim sees a Muslim, this person sees more. When a Jew sees a Jew, this person sees more. When the Buddhist sees a Buddhist, this person sees more. No man or woman is alien to this person, for this person is one with everyone. And since God is Love, and Christ Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God the Father and Christ Jesus, then, to see through Love means to that extent one is in Christ, for one cannot see with Love and be apart from Christ. Indeed, the Christian apart from Love is as apart from and divorced from Christ as those of another faith the Christian condemns to hell.
This free person in Jesus Christ, by the confession of the heart and life, thus, led to God the Father, through Grace, does not choose, finally, to see the way the person sees that does not see that to be in Christ is to be in Love. Rather, this man or woman has so grown to see as God sees that the person cannot see otherwise. He has new eyes, for he has moved beyond the affirmation of religious dogma and creed with the brain and mouth only, and the avowing of sundry other affirmations, to the inner meaning, or Truth, of these matters, in a transformation of heart in Christ.
So, you cannot say, “He should see differently.” He cannot, for he has grown to see as he sees. He sees from in Christ, while many other persons see from culture, doctrine, denomination, religion, inherited ideology, … and some of these gladly seek to avow a defense of a confession that they deny in thought and attitude, being persons that lack the Love that alone confirms Truth from person to person. Such seeing in Christ is as natural to the in Christ man or woman as the man or woman with eyes that see the world divided between those who are right, meaning those who are like him or her, and all the rest of the world, living, he or she thinks, in wrong. A man or woman sees as he or she is, and the free person sees freely for that person is free.
Jesus Christ spoke, throughout the Gospel of John, “I am.” He applied different objects, like “I am the light of the world.” But his remaining outside all identification evidences in “I am.” So, it is with each of us. There is that inner core, that True Self, the Cell of the Heart. There we are one with “I am.” We discover that all identifications are secondary to this True Self, and we know that even to call this True Self True Self, or anything, is just another identification. We drop that, too. We live in a world whereby we accept identifications, but we live from a world, Heaven, in which we are free from those same identifications.
What is Heaven? Heaven is that consciousness, or place within and without, in which you no longer sense another person as other than you. This is Love. War does not happen in Heaven, for you could never kill another person, for that is you. And you could never have malice toward another person, for that is you. And you could never speak evil of another person, for that is you. How you treat other persons and creatures says to all whether you live in Hell or Heaven, even now, for Hell is to live apart from Love and Heaven is to live in Love, in Christ.
Therefore, in Heaven, where one is in Christ, there is no identification. There is no Christian, no Buddhist, no Hindu; there is no Republican, no Democrat, no Independent; there is no smart person, no ignorant person; there is no male and no female; there is no person as individual, for Person speaks of unity and individual speaks of separation.
I cherish the identification of Christian as a true identification of a temporary sort, even though Christian is a word that does not mean the same thing among those who claim to be Christian. I cherish the name Christian enough not to let those who create a religiousolatry in the name of Christ take away the joy of the name Christian from me. But in God I find I am more, for in God I am in that above, transcending, and encompassing, through Christ, all identifications. This means I experience being in Christ, I am be-ing in Christ, which is more than the status of being in Christ or avowing doctrine or ecclesiology. And in God I find that I am one with all persons and all creatures. I feel the Heaven and know the Heaven that will be when no one will ever again identify me as Brian, man, Christian, pastor, … In God I am, thus, in Christ.
Another Story
A parishioner stormed into the office of her pastor. “Pastor,” she spoke, “how dare you claim that persons other than Christians are your brothers and sisters, too!” The woman continued, “How can you say something like that and defame our faith as the chosen people of God?” Replied the pastor, “I can precisely say what I did because I am a Christian, and more so because I live in and from Christ. Being a Christian means your devotion is to Christ above the faith, any faith. To be true to Christ, you would be untrue to the faith: if that situation arose. And if speaking the truth defames a faith, then, you do not defame what another calls “the faith,” rather, Truth itself exposes the untruth."
She who follows Christ needs neither to defend nor defame any faith. Truth judges all things, not you or me. And Truth never bows at the shrine of our faith or their faith.
Spiritual Reflection
Ask yourself: Who am I, really, when I drop everything I have been taught I am? Who were you before you were born? Who will you be after you die? Where did your thought of "I" derive from?
What are the labels other persons define you by? What labels do other persons use to try to control you or manipulate the esteem other persons have of you?
Have you ever experienced a time of total freedom from identification? What led you to that experience?
Take the opening Aramaic translation of Matthew 18.20 and conclude how that passage speaks to a way of seeing Christ in all things and as involved in all Creation.
Wherever two or three gather
In my name and light,
In my experience of
The vibrating, shining cosmos—
Then the “I Am” is already there
Around, among and inside them.
OneLife is an advocate of Compassion, a ministry in the name of Jesus Christ to the over 2 billion children living in poverty. Please visist www.compassion.com to learn more about Compassion.
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