The Essence of Christmas
just because it’s been hijacked again and again-tpusa being the latest egregious example...
Just because it’s been hijacked again and again- tpusa being the latest egregious example…doesn’t mean that the Real Thing doesn’t exist.
When I first encountered Scripture, it ignited a kind of recognition deep inside…
It awakened a longing, as well.
Not all of it, mind you. My insides had a knack for catching what was mistranslated and out of place, though it took me awhile to trust it.
After hearing what all the ‘authorities’ had to say, I was heartily dismayed away from the outer forms of religion with very few exceptions.
Church felt like a mockery-dangerously so as time went on…
The gifts of the Spirit are real, though I was taught that they were not for this day and age…by the people who could not access the experience…by the bishops who could confer nothing but pomp…or the forced voodoo-like extremes of some pentecostals.
If there was such a person as Jesus and the possibilities described therein, I wanted to access it and not be turned away by the church.
In quieter moments, I realized there was an inner dialogue of sorts…a guidance…a homing instinct. Something more trustworthy.
I was strongly drawn to the miracles, healing, and the Transcendent. There were stories, proverbs, emotion-provoking passages that filled in the gaps of my upbringing (my parents were post-religion young moderns). Given my starting point, the impact was generally positive.
We all have our own starting points…our own reference points…they matter!
We have the cultural overlays to deal with, as well.…
Many people were branded at birth by baptism…thus captured, indoctrinated, bullied, entranced, recruited against their will.
For many, there is a theological glass ceiling, where they feel that they have to wade through the endless thickets of men’s words (rarely women’s) in order to approach the throne.
People are too broken to attempt to reach out directly. There is damage to the psyche that calls for an intermediary…
But that’s where the real action is…the direct connection...comfortably and confidently made.
Everything that man serves up as an intermediary is an obstruction, a stumbling block, an impediment meant to keep you in your head, caught up on the endless hamster wheel of trying.
Looping and getting nowhere…and paying heavily for the experience…the theater of it all.
“Connection” is something else altogether.
It comes unbidden. It is unmistakable. Everything else pales or disintegrates before it. You KNOW it, whether or not you can put words to it. And when you meet it in someone else, it is instantly recognized.
(It tends to show up when I relax and QUIT trying…)
Go in the strength of that…
The word that is alive to you, the experience, the moment, the person, the sensing mechanism of your own body…rightly called the Temple.
Leave the rest alone.
The Connection, with its guiding and informing force, has made all the difference for me.
My life would have been nothing in comparison had I ‘done it MYYYY way,’ as the sad song goes.
But we have that option…a stance that might be ultimately self-limiting or self-defeating.
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Always, the invitation is to go for the Essence of a thing.
At one point, I accidentally found myself at home in the orthodox tradition…deeply so. But that turned out out to be my genetic heritage, of which I was still unaware, calling to me. But once again, it was not to be found in the current outward expression, but in the Essence, from which I can draw as needed. Anything more is enslavement to form…
In fact, every teacher and tradition that has helped me, even legitimately, along the way was stripped away…
I was not prepared for that piece. It’s something not talked about…
I understand it now…
This is, and must remain, lively, immediate and connected to Source..
Hold to the Essence…not the form.
The experience thus became more mobile, round-the-clock, and far-reaching.
It eventually took me into Uncharted Territory where there are fewer signposts and fewer secure footholds.
My Teachers appeared as needed…among them, Tom Robbins, Deaf Steve, Bob of The First Church of Bob (the FCOB), Psycho Taxi Boy and a colorful array of others.
https://debra152.substack.com/p/the-1st-church-of-bob
The Divine Masquerade was encountered again and again…revealing itself in so many unexpected places and ways.
I appreciate whatever speeds me along the path…
(Life, especially after 50, would be so boring otherwise)
I had somewhat of a head start when I was ‘filled with the Spirit’. It happened spontaneously…outside of church.
It broke upon me like an atomic bomb…silent, total…all encompassing POWER… pure LIGHT…that engulfed the universes.
There was nothing but God…
There was no ‘Me’… Obliterated. That was the most blessed (sorry…words fail) part…
No ego…no head full of ‘me’. I was relieved of ‘my self’.
In the stripping of the ego there was Rest…and Reality.
I have been busy finding my way Home ever since…
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What if…
Instead of being rooted to church in the usual way.…a stationary location with a stationary set of beliefs and attitudes and culture, that we imagine ourselves as bodies floating in space…
describing what we see and experience from our many vantage points….
None of us would be entirely right… or entirely wrong.
We would just be using our personal knowledge base to put into words and into perspective what we were encountering.
Now…what if we were cells in a body?
Some quite specialized cells…some more mobile than others…each with their particular intelligence and function. Each at different levels of development…
Is it really so problematic?
Can we just not all wonder at the amazing set-up that it might be?
And what if this particular whirling universe was whimsically named “The Body of Christ”?
Maybe we’re not trapped in a matrix as widely advertised….
This brings me back to the Christmas when I begged my parents for just one gift…
From the time I was little, I wanted to be a doctor and this was the perfect toy for me… That is, until I opened the box and started to work with it!
My first thoughts… Who the HECK designed this?!
It’s too this! It’s too that! Certainly very messy with it’s many undesirable aspects.
It has taken me decades to appreciate the complexity...
So too, with people…and with the world, in general. But slowly, I’m coming around.
‘Slowly’ just might be the operative word here. Much much much too slowly for me, but that’s just me..
It just might be genius timing, given the complexity of the world.
I look back over all of the curious versions of myself along the way…
Only a great love would have tolerated and worked with much of it. Only a great love would have incorporated so much humor into the mix…
It seems we are all destined to learn, whether that was our intention or not.
So there is less to worry about than I thought…
Less wrangling, less trying to sway, save or convince…
Maybe we can kick back and watch others go through the same experience of learning that we did...
Maybe we can energetically support the process…making clear here and there, affirming, giving words or voice as needed…simply finding our role in the Divine symphony.
https://debra152.substack.com/p/deeetroit-choir
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To the Great Gift of the Readers here…
The connections are simply magical!! The heartfelt interactions, the sharing of mutual understanding and experience, the recognition, the ‘iron sharpens iron’ aspects…the questions, the incredulity, the wondering…all of it! Life-giving…and Life-sustaining!
I would mention some by name, but I trust that you know who you are…💖🌟🤣 🤩
To Life in the new year… Merry Christmas…