JR51: Fifth Step: Keep Christmas, Toss Easter

A: So far we've talked about rescuing the soul, restoring the mystery of divine love, inviting our Mother to the table, and insisting on balance as four ways to help heal the church. What else do you have in that angelic bag of surprises you carry around?  

Christmas tree. Photo credit JAT 2012.

J: The liturgical calendar of the Church must be changed.  

A: You mean the calendar of religious events and themes and holy days that tells people what they're supposed to be celebrating when.  

J: Calendars are very important to the healthy functioning of the brain. So the Church still needs a calendar to help focus events for the year. I'm not recommending that the Church do away entirely with the idea of having a yearly cycle of events. Far from it. I'm suggesting that the Church revise the calendar and bring it into alignment with the needs of the soul.  

A: What would that mean in practical terms? 

J: It would mean you'd get to keep Christmas but you'd have to put Easter in the garbage bin.

A: Get rid of Easter? I can see the steam coming off the heads of conservative Christians already.  

J: It would be kinder, in the eyes of many Christians, for me to suggest that Holy Week be "reformed" rather than axed altogether. But Holy Week is a celebration of Pauline Christianity at its worst. The overriding theme of Holy Week is salvation -- escape -- not healing or redemption. Every year it sends the wrong message to Christians. It sends the message that the focus of their relationship with God should be the Saviour -- his death and resurrection and coming again. This was never the message I taught during my ministry as Jesus. Nor is the meaning of my time on the cross being properly taught and represented by the Church. There's no way that Holy Week can be fixed. It would be the same as asking people to celebrate "the joy" of an S.S. death camp like Auschwitz. (I say this as facetiously as possible.) There is no joy to be found in the traditional teachings of Holy Week. 

A: I've noticed a tendency among more liberal ministers to treat the "events" of Holy Week in a more symbolic way -- to de-emphasize the crucifixion and instead emphasize the themes of renewal and rebirth and regrowth in the spring.  

J: It's very helpful and hopeful to talk about the themes of renewal and rebirth. I have no problem with that per se. I have a problem with a continuing effort among theologians to attach those themes to me. I am one man, one angel, one child of God. I'm not the Fisher King. I'm not Horus. I'm not the dead and rising Sol Invictus. I'm not the resurrected Christ. I'm just a stubborn s.o.b. who won't shut up. I wasn't even crucified in the springtime. I was crucified in the fall. The early church's efforts to place the time of my crucifixion in the spring were largely centred on John's writings. John had his own reasons for wanting to place the time of my crucifixion at Passover. But John wasn't a man who cared about historicity or facts. He wrote what he wanted to write about me. It helped him sleep better at night.  

A: A minute ago you mentioned joy as if it's somehow significant or important to the healing of the church.  

J: Joy is crucial to the experience of faith.  

A: How do you define "joy"?  

J: I use the word "joy" to express the gratitude and devotion and trust that all angels feel in their relationship with God the Mother and God the Father. I don't use it as a synonym for worship or praise. I don't use it as a synonym for the excitement of being part of a large crowd (which is more like hysteria). For me, joy is a word that conveys the happiness and deep contentment we feel as angels. It's the feeling you get when you feel really, really grateful and really, really SAFE at the same time. It makes you smile from the inside out. 

A: Christians have long believed that the purpose of angels is to offer praise and worship to God. Do angels worship God?  

J: Noooooooo. You never see angels down on their knees with their heads bowed in humility. What you see is angels living their purpose of love in everything they do. As angels, we show our never-ending love and appreciation of our parents by choosing thoughts and words and actions that bring more love into Creation. We live in imitation of our parents' courage. We're not carbon copies of our divine mother and father -- that is, we all have our own unique temperaments and personalities and talents and interests -- but we're all alike in that we all choose love. There are many different minds and many different bodies in Creation, but it can be said in all truthfulness that there's only One Heart. It's the feeling of joy that comes from our choice to share One Heart that makes us feel like a big family. We all belong to one family.   

A: Where you feel safe, despite your differences in talent and temperament.  

J: Yes. This is the underlying intent of divine love. It's the choice to see another soul as, in fact, another soul -- as someone who's not you, who's not a mere extension of you. It's the choice to respect differences between individual souls, while at the same time choosing to help other souls be their best selves.  

A: Can you explain what you mean by that last statement?  

J: Here's the thing. No one soul can "do" all things or "be" all things. Every soul has unique strengths. But every soul also has unique absences of strength. Angels are always giving and receiving help within the family. An angel with a particular strength will offer that strength to help brothers and sisters who need assistance with something they're not very good at themselves. The same angel who offers a strength to another will in turn be very grateful to receive help from another soul in an area where he or she needs some help. There's no sense of shame or guilt or inadequacy among angels when they have an absence of strength. They accept who they are. They don't judge themselves or feel sorry for themselves or describe themselves as flawed or imperfect or unworthy. They gratefully and humbly ask for -- and receive -- help when there's something they don't understand or something they want to do but don't have the skills for. It's all about education, mentorship, and personal responsibility, even among God's angels. As above, so below.  

A: At the start of this conversation you said that Christians could keep the celebration of Christmas. Why? Why keep Christmas and not Easter? 

J: December 25th is a day marked by all angels in Creation. It is the day when Divine Love was born. 

 A: I thought you said we have to get rid of all the invented myths about your ministry. Isn't this one of them?  

J: I wasn't born on December 25th. I was born in the month of November. When I refer to the day when Divine Love was born, I'm talking about God the Mother and God the Father. I'm talking about the day when their Divine Love for each other first emerged in Creation. It was the day when everything -- absolutely everything -- changed. It was the day -- the actual day in the far, far distant past (before the time of the "Big Bang") -- when they made the choice to live for each other. It's the day when the Christ was born -- NOT, I'd like to reiterate, the day when I, Jesus, was born, but the day when Mother-and-Father-Together-As-Christ were born. When their new reality was born. When their new relationship was born. None of us would be here today if they hadn't made that choice.  

A: So you're saying that God the Mother and God the Father have an actual calendar of the kind we would recognize here on Planet Earth, and that the day of December 25th is marked on this calendar? This seems like too much of a coincidence. 

J: God isn't using a human calendar. Humans are using a divine calendar. God the Mother and God the Father are pretty good at math, you could say. It wasn't difficult for them to set up indications of their calendar system all over the known baryonic universe. Planet Earth runs on the same calendar system that angels use. More or less. There are cycles that can't be argued with, cycles that are fixed by astronomical and mathematical realities. Solar and lunar and galactic cycles dictate the calendar, not the other way around. Humans didn't "invent" this calendar. They simply noted its existence.  

A: Ah. The Preexistent Calendar. I'd love to see what the theologians will do with this theory!  

J: The cycles are real and meaningful to all souls. The Church liturgical calendar needs to honour and respect these cycles. Obviously there can't be too many "fixed liturgical days" because there has to be room for change in patterns depending on latitude and longitude. The time of regeneration, rebirth, and regrowth changes depending on where you live. The Church has to make allowances for these scientific realities.  

A: Any other suggestions?  

J: Yes. The Church should get rid of Holy Week entirely, including all the bells and whistles such as Lent. In its place, they should institute at a different time of year a brand new 3-day Festival of Redemption. Like Christmas, it would be a "fixed" celebration, celebrated by all Christians at the same time each year. 

A: This is an entirely new idea. What would the purpose be?  

J: The Festival of Redemption would be a time for Christians to stop their busy everyday lives and get together for workshops, seminars, and conferences on the theme of helping each other heal. Workshops could be held locally in the homes of individuals. Or they could be held in larger venues, such as university campuses. Not everyone would want to experience this festival in the same way -- and this is as it should be because souls have different needs and different learning styles. In fact, there should NOT be one particular fixed geographical location or "pilgrimage" site for this Festival. Having "special sites" would undermine the purpose of the Festival. The idea that only some sites are "sacred" or "specially blessed by God" is a human idea. Every square inch of Creation is sacred and blessed by God as far as the angels are concerned.  

A: Something tells me the Biblical idea of specific sites sanctified by God is another idea that's going to be going into the garbage can along with the Easter eggs.  

J: Hey. Don't throw out the chocolate bunnies. They're one of the only parts of Easter worth keeping. That and the big family dinners. 

A: Amen to that.

JR48: Second Step in Healing the Church: Restore the Mystery of Divine Love

A: I was rearranging a couple of my bookshelves yesterday -- actually, I was tidying up because my parents are coming over -- and I felt drawn to set aside a book I picked up last fall in the remaindered book section at Chapters. It's The Complete Idiot's Guide to Christian Mysteries by Ron Benrey (New York: Alpha-Penguin, 2008). It's not a bad little book. And it sure beats trying to wade through Jaroslav Pelikan's massive 5 volume history of church doctrine.  

Anyway, Benrey's book is divided into 4 parts and a total of 24 chapters. Part 1 is called "The Christian Mindbenders." The 6 mysteries included in Part I are "the mystery of the incarnation," "the mystery of the trinity," "the mystery of Jesus' dual natures," "the mystery of Jesus' resurrection," "the mystery of the atonement," and "the mystery of the last things." A few days ago, you said there's not enough mystery in the church.* Yet Bender has filled a whole book with Christian mysteries of various sorts -- most of which you've trashed in your discussions with me. So I'm wondering if we can return to the question of mystery in the church today. How do you envision the role of mystery in healing the church?  

J: First, it's important for church leaders to accept that people want and need mystery. If you strip away the mystery, all you really have is a secular service club devoted to charitable causes. That's not faith. Faith and mystery go hand in hand. 

“Jesus said: Images are visible to people, but the love within them is hidden in the image of the Father’s love. He will be revealed but his image is hidden by his love” (Gospel of Thomas 83). Standard translations of this saying use the word “light” where I’ve used the word “love.” But for Jesus, Divine Love — rather than hidden knowledge — was the great light that shines upon us all. There was no word in Greek, Hebrew, or Aramaic that adequately captured this concept of love, so he sometimes used the Greek word φως (phos) to try to capture the intensity and sense of life in God’s love. Strange as it may sound, mystery, and love are always associated with a sense of movement, beauty, grace, and transformation. Photo credit Image*After.

A: Why?  

J: Because faith -- as opposed to piety or fear of God -- is about relationship with God. And as soon as you start talking about relationships, you start entering the realm of mystery. 

A: That feeling of awe about somebody else's gifts and gaffes -- their amazing courage, their brilliant insights, their hilarious mistakes.  

J: Perhaps the greatest mystery of all is consciousness -- what it means to be a person. This mystery extends to the origins of our divine Mother and Father. God the Mother and God the Father are distinct consciousnesses -- two distinct people -- with vastly different talents and abilities, yet they share their journey together in the deepest love and trust and gratitude. What they create together is so much bigger than what either could create alone. There's an immense sense of wonder on the part of all angels at the richness and kindness and patience that's infused in everything our Mother and Father create together. The creations themselves are cause for much appreciation and emulation. But it's not the creations themselves (stars, moons, planets) that convey to us -- their angelic children -- the deepest sense of divine mystery. It's the love itself. The deepest mystery -- the startling mystery, the core mystery, the infinite puzzle -- is the mystery of divine love. And this is a mystery based on relationship.  

A: Some Christian theologians like to talk about the "scandal of particularity." In Christian terms, it's related to the doctrine of the incarnation -- the idea that God entered one particular, limited existence. Namely you. It's interesting that what you're describing as the mystery of divine love sounds nothing like the Christian doctrine of the incarnation, yet it sounds an awful lot like the scandal of particularity -- though not at first. You have to ponder the feeling for a while to notice the connection . . . which reminds me that I've noticed over the years that some of the doctrines Christians cling to so desperately contain an echo or a hint of something true. The doctrines have become all twisted around and knotted so we can't see the original truth anymore. But at the same time we don't want to let them go because we sense there's something important there.  

J: You've really nailed that. There IS a "scandal of particularity," but it applies to God the Mother and God the Father, not to me.  

A: I've been hanging around with you for too long.  

J: The same thing applies to the idea of the Christ archetype. I was not -- and am not --THE Christ. The original Christ archetype is held by God the Mother and God the Father TOGETHER. I seek to emulate their courage, their love, their devotion as an angel, as a child of God, and in so far as I choose to emulate their example, I am a "small-c" christ. But when angels think of Christ, we think of our divine parents. We think of God. It's a term of affection. And gratitude. It's a positive epithet. But Paul and his successors took this term of affection and turned it into a word that means power and control and hierarchy. They mutated and subverted the meaning of everything that God the Mother and God the Father stand for together as the Christ.  

Sure, there really is a Christ. And sure, regular Christians don't want to let go of the idea that there's a Christ. But they're pinning the tail on the wrong donkey. I'm not the Christ. I'm a child of Christ -- as, indeed, are all souls in Creation.  

A: When we started talking about the "scandal of particularity" a few minutes ago, I got my butt off my chair and retrieved another book -- this one called Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes, edited by Serene Jones and Paul Lakeland (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2005). In it there's an article called "God With Us in the Dust" by Karen Baker-Fletcher (pages 188-190). Baker-Fletcher says this:  

"What, then, is the difference between Jesus and other humans? It is not that we are like Jesus in the suffering we humans endure. It is the other way around; Jesus is like us, relates to us, identifies with us, having experienced the violent consequences of human sin. Jesus is like us because Jesus has been sinned against. He therefore can identify with human suffering. Jesus is like us because Jesus also feasts and rejoices with us. But we are not Christs [emphasis added]. Jesus does not sin but is sinned against. Jesus is unlike us because he is the Christ, the anointed one, one with God. God alone in Christ can promise restoration, redemption, salvation. As human beings we may participate in this activity, but we do not initiate it (page 189)." How do you respond to these thoughts?  

J: Well, she's managed rather neatly to allude to the Christian mysteries of the incarnation, the trinity, Jesus' dual natures, Jesus' resurrection, the atonement, and the last things all in one paragraph. She gets points for brevity. But she gets no points for understanding my ministry or my true relationship with God.  

A: You've said in the past that all human beings have the potential to live as Christs-in-human-form.  

J: Yes. It's a question of living your human life in imitation of Christ -- not as Paul taught the Christ, but as I and others have taught the Christ. Since I am not the Christ, there's no point living your life in imitation of me. On the other hand, since God the Mother and God the Father ARE the Christ, it's a pretty good bet that if you live your life in imitation of their love -- their courage, their devotion, their gratitude, their trust -- you're going to be "in the zone."  

A: In the Christ Zone, as you've called it before.  

J: Yes. I've called it the Christ Zone for a modern audience but 2,000 years ago I called it . . .  

A: The Kingdom of the Heavens.  

J: Same thing, different name. It's not the name that matters, after all. It's the intent. Paul's intent -- his choice of ground on which to sow the seeds of human potential -- was barren and rocky because he didn't actually want people to understand their potential to initiate the activities of healing, forgiveness, and redemption. He wanted them to feel helpless and hopeless about themselves so they would turn first and foremost to church leaders (such as himself) for authority and guidance.  

A: And you?  

J: I wanted people to feel helpful and hopeful about themselves so they would turn to God the Mother and God the Father for direct guidance.  

A: How very Protestant of you. 

* http://jesusredux.blogspot.com/2011/06/first-step-in-healing-church-rescue.html

JR25: Getting Close to God: Finding the Kingdom Within

A: Some readers are probably very surprised that a mystic and an angel are spending so much time talking about academic research and academic sources. How would you respond to that?

J: I respond the same way today as I responded 2,000 years ago. My basic attitude is a pretty tough one: you can't get close to God if you don't do the work. You can't get close to God if you separate yourself from the rest of God's Creation. You can't get close to God by snubbing everything God is saying to you in the world around you.

A: The idea that you can't get close to God if you don't do the work is a pretty universal spiritual idea. Teachers from a number of different faith traditions have said much the same thing. Various schools of Buddhism are all about teaching the correct way to do the work. But the second idea you present -- the idea that you can't get close to God if you separate yourself from the rest of God's Creation -- that's a much less common idea among spiritual teachers. Tell me more about that.

"A man said to him: Tell my brothers that they have to divide my father's possessions with me. Jesus said: Man, who made me a divider? He turned to his disciples and said to them: I am not a divider, am I" (Gospel of Thomas 72). Photo credit JAT 2014.

 J: Basically it's the idea that if you want to get close to God, you have to start with the only piece of Creation that God has given you complete control over: your own biology. Your own brain, your own body, your own body-soul nexus. This little piece of Creation is all you get. The rest belongs to other people -- to other souls and to God the Mother and God the Father. You get one little piece of Creation to command -- one little Kingdom to be in charge of -- and it's your job as a human being and as a soul to look after your little corner of Creation. It's a big job. Much bigger than most human beings realize. It takes time. It takes commitment. It takes courage. It takes knowledge. More than anything, it takes full acceptance.

A: What do you mean by "acceptance"? Do you mean people have to be resigned to their misery? Do you mean they have to accept the status quo?

J: No. I mean the exact opposite. I mean that if they want to get close to God while living here as human beings, they have to accept that God believes in them. They have to accept that they're not filled with corruption and sin. They have to accept that they're not here -- here on Planet Earth -- as some form of cosmic punishment or karmic journey. They have to stop seeing the glass as "half empty" and start seeing Creation in a positive light. This includes a commitment to seeing themselves -- their core selves, their souls -- in a positive light. They have to stop feeling so damned sorry for themselves.

A: A lot of pious people I've met -- mostly Christians, but not exclusively so -- remind me a lot of a fictional character from a science fiction/satire mini-series that ran many years ago called "The Meaning of Life, the Universe, and Everything." [Edited at 6:15 p.m.: Oops - make that "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." "Life, the Universe, and Everything" was a sequel to Douglas Adam's later "Hitchhiker" novel]. The character was Marvin the Robot. Marvin was always going around feeling sorry for himself. "Oh, poor me!" "Woe is me!" He saw himself as a victim -- victim with a capital "V." I found it hard to like Marvin, to be honest, because all he did was whine.

J: Pauline Christianity encourages people to whine. "Oh, poor me, I'm tainted with original sin, and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just a victim. It's not my fault. It's Adam's fault. If Adam hadn't screwed up and made God so angry, then I wouldn't have so many problems today. I'll do my best, Lord -- honest! -- but please don't expect too much of me, because, after all, I'm full of inner corruption and sin, and I'm doing the best I can -- honest! I promise to go to church every week so you can cleanse me of my sins, but as for the rest of the week . . . please remember that I'm just a frail, weak, ignorant human being who can't possibly resist temptation and can't possibly understand your mysteries! You've decided to make all life solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short, so who I am to argue with your wisdom?"

A: Thomas Hobbes.

J: Yes. Thomas Hobbes -- the pessimist's pessimist. Also one of the great Materialist philosophers who rejected outright the relevance of the soul to a functioning, non-chaotic society. He had it all backwards because of his own psychological dysfunction.

A: Progressive Christianity, as this new movement calls itself, is edging in the direction of a Materialist religion -- a religion founded on Newtonian science where the words "soul" and "miracle" are considered embarrassing and irrelevant.

J (smiling): Orthodox Western Christianity has in some ways always been a Materialist religion, despite the oxymoron-like quality of this phrase.

A: How so?

J: How often does Paul use the word psyche (soul) in his 7 known letters (8 if you count Colossians, as I do)?

A: Uh, hardly ever. When he does, he describes the soul in an eerie blend of Platonic and Jewish apocalyptic ways.

J: And how often does Paul talk about healing miracles? By that I mean the kind of healing miracles described several times in the Gospel of Mark.

A: Never. Paul doesn't talk about healing miracles. He talks about sin and salvation and eschatology and Spirit and chosenness for those who believe in Christ. But he doesn't talk about healing miracles.

J: What about the Roman Catholic Church's take on healing miracles?

A: Oh, they keep a tight, tight rein on miracles. Nothing can be called an "official miracle" unless the Vatican approves it according to very strict criteria.

J: What's one of the key criteria?

A: The healing had to take place after somebody prayed directly to a saint. Or a saint-to-be.

J: It's a closed shop. A closed system. The Vatican has control over all the definitions. It's not a true miracle unless it goes through the doors of the Church. Which doesn't happen very often. It therefore forces people to look at the world around them in non-miraculous ways. In Materialist ways.

A: Huh?

J: Think of it this way. Christian orthodoxy has insisted since the beginning that God is to be understood as transcendent -- far, far away from this earthly realm, detached from all emotion, detached from day to day concerns with human suffering, distant, serene, uninvolved with the petty concerns of the corrupt material world. This is actually Plato's idea, but the Church long ago embraced it, and it's officially part of Church doctrine, so the Church has to take responsibility for this choice. How does this translate for pious Christians? How does it make them feel about the world around them?

A: Well, on the one hand, they're told by Genesis that they're in charge of the world and can do whatever they like to it. It's supposed to be a "good Creation." On the other hand, they're told that God isn't actually "in" this good Creation, but is somewhere else -- far, far away in a transcendent realm of pure Mind. I suppose that idea makes it easy for people to make excuses for their behaviour when they mistreat the environment and mistreat other creatures. Something along the lines of "Oh, it's just a bunch of corrupt, material 'stuff' that doesn't matter to God, so it's okay for me to take what I want and leave a big mess behind." . . . Okay, I'm starting to see what you're getting at. This kind of anthropocentric religious thinking is a form of "state sanctioned Materialism."

J: Yes. Two thousand years ago, there was no distinction between the political state and the religious state. The two were totally intertwined. So it mattered what religious leaders said about the environment, about the Earth, about the world around us. It mattered that religious leaders told pious followers to ignore all the lessons, all the truths that were being conveyed to them through "the eyes of Nature," as it were. It mattered then, and it still matters today. God isn't transcendent. Never was, never will be. God does have feelings. And God feels everything that happens in Creation. Everything.

A: Materialists don't take God's feelings into account. They don't believe God has feelings (many of them don't even believe that God exists). They don't ask themselves how God is going to feel when they pour toxic sludge into the groundwaters. Pauline Christianity tells them they don't have to ask this question.

J: Just as Pauline Christianity tells them they don't have to take full responsibility for the care, healing, and core integrity of their own little piece of Creation: their biological body.

A: Their Kingdom. Their own Kingdom of the Heavens.

J: Only when you fully understand and respect the core integrity and the core wonder of your own Kingdom will you be able to understand and respect the core integrity of other people, other creatures, and God. That's what empathy is -- the ability to understand that your neighbour's Kingdom is different but equal to your own. The healing of the Church must begin with a complete overturning of all doctrines that repudiate or undermine the true worth of the soul.

A: The United Church of Canada doesn't even have an official doctrine of the soul, though the Articles of Faith tell us in one breath that we're responsible for all our choices (Articles 2.3 and 2.4) and in the next breath tell us that all people are born with a sinful nature (Article 2.5). Talk about a lose-lose situation!

J: My point exactly.

JR12: A Divine Love Story

A: You know, for the past two weeks I've been doing a lot of research on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and after wading through the English translations [Wise, Abegg, and Cook]* of the Essene's own teachings, I'm sick of them. Just sick of them.

Beauty. Photo credit JAT 2014.

 
J: Sick of the teachings? Or sick of the Essenes?
 
A: I'm sick of the teachings. And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want to go to dinner with anybody who believes in these teachings, either. The writings are so . . . so self-centred and narcissistic. So full of themselves. So full of hot air. They don't say anything moderate or balanced about our relationship with God. They're full of cliches and bluster and prophecy and big long strings of fancy-sounding words. But where is the love? There's no love in them -- no kind, respectful, trusting, compassionate, inclusive love. It's just narcissistic bullshit. Did I say that already? I think I said that already.
 
J: Don't forget paranoid. The teachings are also very paranoid. 
 
A: Yeah. Enough with the evil Belial, for God's sake! Enough with the final battle where the pure and virtuous Essenes will lead the armies of Light to victory! Get a life, people.
 
J: Or Pauline Christianity.
 
A: Say what?
 
J: If they don't want to get a life, they could always get some serious, heavy-duty evangelical Christianity. Evangelical Christianity doesn't say much that the Essenes didn't say within their own brand of Community Rule.
 
A: Yeah, well, I'm not feeling the love from evangelical Christianity, either. Again, lots of narcissism, not so much trust in God. I can't believe what these people are saying about God! 
 
J: Which people? The Essenes or the Pauline Christians?
 
A: Both. I'm not seeing a lot of difference between them, as you've pointed out. This is not what you've taught me about God. I don't see any resemblance at all. I don't see any resemblance between your teachings and Paul's teachings, or your teachings and John's teachings. This is crazy! How did orthodox Christianity get so far from the truth?
 
J: I hate to sound like a broken record, but, again, it's the mental health issue. My teachings have no appeal for narcissists. Or psychopaths.
 
A: Because there's no "fuel" for status addiction. Narcissists and psychopaths suffer big-time from status addiction.
 
J (nodding): And as for people suffering from psychotic illnesses . . . they're not in a position to take full control of their thoughts and feelings. They can't. The illness interferes with their thinking and feeling processes. So they're filled with fear and paranoid thoughts even before you add the religious paranoia. They can also suffer from narcissism on top of those biologically confused thoughts and feelings, as John did. But the main point is they're not mentally or emotionally well, and their writings -- if they write about spiritual or religious topics -- always reflect their inner mental state. The writings of a person suffering from a psychotic illness sound psychotic. You have to step back from their writings and ask yourself . . . would an adult human being with a clean bill of health as far as the DSM-IV is concerned -- and taking into consideration the psychopathy that the DSM-IV writers left out for bizarre reasons -- would a non-paranoid, non-manic, non-depressed, non-psychotic, non-substance-addicted person write this? Is this writing the reflection of a person in a highly stressed mental state? Is this writing the reflection of a person who understands what compassionate love is? Is this writing the reflection of a person who understands what it means to trust in God's goodness? Because let's be honest -- a person who writes all the time about the devil or Belial or whatever you want to call this imaginary evil entity is showing that he or she does not trust in God's goodness. How can anybody say they trust wholly in God, then turn around and say God is too weak to prevent the existence of a devil? You can't have it both ways.
 
A: Orthodox Western Christianity says you can. And another thing --
 
J (starting to chuckle):
 
A: Yes, I'm on a rant this morning. I'm sick of the way these writers -- the Essenes and Paul especially -- talk about women. I'm sick of the way they've just gone ahead and eradicated the Divine Feminine from everything. I'm sick of their pompous warrior-king Messiahs and I'm sick of their divinely appointed male priests and I'm sick of their testerone-soaked jockeying for the best places at the table. Me, me, me. Look at me -- I'm special! That's all these people can talk about. For religious people who claim to be serving God humbly and piously, they sure spend a lot of time bragging about their own status and putting other people down. Have you read what the Essenes say about people with physical infirmities and imperfections [IQSa]? It's just plain cruel!
 
J: The difference between humbleness and humility. You and I have talked about that a lot.
 
A: It wasn't very humble of early teachers such as Second Isaiah or the redactors of Genesis to go ahead and do a hatchet job on God the Mother -- to just slice her out of the story of Creation. Even the Greeks, for all their crazy Homeric myths, had the sense to include strong female archetypes in their pantheon. Anybody with half a heart can see that Creation -- the world of beauty and wonder and mystery all around us -- is a Love Story. It's a testament to the love shared by God the Mother and God the Father for each other, a record of their journey of love, growth, commitment, struggle, and faith. It's a gigantic love story. That's what you've taught me. That's what I feel myself. It's a painful story, but a truthful one. Everything around us talks about the importance of relationship, the importance of balance. How can religious people look at the world and see a Judeo-Christian Covenant? How can they think "it's all about them"?
 
J: Narcissists always think it's all about them. It's how they view the world -- through a very small lens of "I." Me, myself, and I. It doesn't matter whether or not they're religious. The issue isn't one of spirituality or faith or God. It's simply a matter of biological brain health. Sadly -- broken record again -- it's about the human brain and how people use the brain God gives them.
 
A: I notice that God gave women brains, too. You'd think that would count for something in the grand religious scheme of things.
 
J: Not to mention the thorny reality that 75% of the human sex chromosomes are X chromosomes -- female chromosomes, not male. I'm thinkin' that's probably an important "Post-It Note" in the biologist's Book of Creation.
 
A: I'm so glad I was raised in a family where I was taught that men and women are equal in terms of their intellectual gifts and in terms of their right to be treated with dignity, respect, and equality. Thanks, Mom and Dad!
 
J: I'll second that. I wouldn't be able to talk to you this way if your human brain hadn't developed along the lines of dignity, respect, and equality. That's what the relationship between God the Mother and God the Father is all about -- dignity and respect as the basis of their mutual love and trust, despite their respective differences in temperament and talent and size. As above, so below. When human beings live according to the values and principles of their beloved Divine Parents, they can feel the love of God coming into their daily lives. When they reject those values, their biological brains become like big pots of quivering jello -- lots of colour, lots of movement, but not much substance. It's fun to eat, but 15 minutes later, you're hungry again.
 
A: They feel empty inside when they reject the core values of the soul.
 
J: Which is all very confusing when it's their time-honoured religious traditions that insist they reject their soul's own values. They're taught by their religious leaders to reject divine notions of equality amongst all life, to reject balance, to reject symbiotic relationships -- to reject all mutuality. Then they complain because they can't feel God's love. They complain they've been abandoned by God. It's a crock. It's not God who's abandoned them. It's they who have abandoned God. They usually don't realize that this is the cause of their feeling of inner emptiness. They think their religion is helping them fill the void. But unless they have an unusually mature, unusually intuitive religious leader, their church services are just making the inner bowl of jello bigger. There's no substance because there's a lack of will, a lack of courage, to teach the truth about God.
 
A: The truth that God is the God Who Is Two, not the God Who Is One. And not the God Who Is Three, if you're a Trinitarian.
 
J: It's a simple truth, seen everywhere in Creation. There's no relationship when it's only "me, myself, and I." Relationship MUST begin with two. It can involve more than two -- and, in fact, the angelic community of God's children is so large, so much bigger than two, that I can't give you a number that's meaningful to the human brain.
 
A: Bajillions?
 
J (smiling): Yes. bajillions of angels, both male and female. But no matter how many angels exist within God's family, it's still about relationship. It's still about people -- angels -- knowing each other, respecting each other's uniqueness, respecting each other's differences, working together in a symbiotic way to make a "whole" that's much larger than the component "parts." The sense of Oneness that people long for in their relationship with God isn't a sense of losing themselves in the infinite Mind of God. It's the sense of Oneness that comes from combining your strengths with the strengths of your brothers and sisters towards a common goal. It's not Oneness of identity. It's Oneness of Purpose. It's Oneness of Commitment. It's family. It's people with differences coming together to work as a Team to create something much bigger than each could create on his or her own. That's what Divine Love feels like.
 
A: Habitat For Humanity. It feels like the charity called Habitat For Humanity. Where groups of committed people volunteer their time and their skills to help build safe, affordable housing for families.
 
J: Exactly. It feels just like that. Everybody has different talents. Some are good with plumbing. Some are good with woodworking. Some are good with designing. But all the talents are needed, and no one talent is more important than another. Everybody's got a job to do, and everybody's job is important.
 
A: Especially the guy who makes the coffee. Ya gotta have your coffee breaks while you're busting your butt to get a job done.
 
J: Even angels take coffee breaks.


*  Wise, Michael, Martin Abegg Jr., and Edward Cook, trans.  The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation.  New York: HarperCollins–HarperSanFrancisco, 2005.