HUMANITY IS WHAT JESUS DIED FOR

[an email I sent a Christmas]

I've just been given my Christmas present and I'm breathless with the wonder, with the overwhelming joy of it; and I want you to have it. I pray I can give it to you.

What was Jesus' humanity? WHAT WAS JESUS' HUMANITY??!?!?!!? Jesus' Humanity as He experienced it was all people born and unborn, ESPECIALLY THE LEAST OF US, ESPECIALLY "the least of these my family!!!" Do you see it? I didn't until this week. Do you feel it? I have been obsessed with it, possessed by it, but dimly without this Blessed new light of understanding. Do you feel it in your heart, what Jesus felt; what Jesus died to tell us; to give us? If you do, you will see why Jesus died for HIS humanity, with all the passion and greed that most of us die for our comfort, prestige, wealth, pleasures, stuff, superiority, systems and institutions. But he died with infinite JOY, while most of us die for ... nothing.

• Jesus' Humanity was me, you... everyone born and unborn, ESPECIALLY THE LEAST OF THESE OUR HUMAN FAMILY. Nothing else is or ever can be our Humanity.
• Our Humanity is our Life, Love, Truth. Nothing besides our Humanity is our Life, Love, Truth.
• Our Humanity ("the least of these") is "the Pearl of great price."
• Our Humanity ("the least of these") is the "Treasure" worth selling all we have for.

This is what the "rich young man" did not grasp. Jesus attempted to give him, to return to him his Humanity, "the least of these his family" that he had abandoned, forgotten and ignored. Oh my God, what a gift. "The rich young man couldn't see it. The rich young man thought he was being asked to take up a burden. No, the rich young man was being offered HIS LIFE, HIS HUMANITY, HIS FAMILY!!! The Pearl. The Treasure.

MARK 8:36: "What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his HUMANITY ("the least of these," HIS/HER BROTHERS AND SISTERS in Iraq, Iran, Palestine, New Orleans, Congo, Haiti...!?!?!?)"

What profit is there for one to gain the whole world FOR THEIR [CHILDREN OR DEAREST ONE'S] WHILE SACRIFICING THE HUMANITY OF THEIR CHILDREN OR DEAREST ONES?!?!?!!?!

Who are you NOT LOVING-with-your-actions on this Planet? THEY are your lost Humanity; the diminishment of your Humanity... YOUR INHUMANITY. Jesus showed us this, how to FIND our lost Humanity, and to REGAIN OUR LOST HUMANITY, to SAVE our Humanity, to become ALIVE in our Humanity - TO BE SAVED!!!!! For this he Joyfully died. [I hope we do to.]

Oh I am so sorry if this does not communicate to you. Forgive me.

Wishing you the Joy of CHRISTmas - regaining Humanity - yours, your children's, mine ...the World's.

Loving you infinitely, your brother, Start

ps: I expect to spend CHRISTmas with our "least of these" in-US-uniform, Iraqi and Iranian family on Capitol Hill. I pray you find as much Joy as I will on that Sacred day of Jesus birth.

pps: Pass it on.

ppps: The writeup on me at a Capitol Hill church I was asked to address this week - "Start Loving is a former corporate executive who reminds me of St. Francis of Assisi. He literally give up his safe and comfortable world to be come a prophetic witness for peace. He radiates compassion and love." [I pray it is so.]

--- follow on to the email above the next day---

My Beloved family,

I received some more of the "Gift" (yesterday's email to you) this morning going to, during and coming from church. Please let me share.[What I experience to be the entire value of the following is its absolute, entire UNIVERSAL, ALL IMPORTANT PSYCHOLOGICAL TRUTH; such truth without which it would have zero, ZERO value in my view.]

• THE GIFT (yesterday's email; explicitly what Jesus died to give us): The Gift is His Humanity. The Gift is to-become/merge with/reunite with-OUR-Humanity - "the least of these our brothers;" the "immediate family" ("least of these") around the world that our psychologically toxic environment has erased from our memory, or worse, demonized and "alien"-ated from us. No, there is nothing else to Jesus' Gift than that; if you truly had clinical amnesia, had forgotten your biological "children," "sisters," etc. and were "cured" of that amnesia - WHAT GREATER GIFT COULD YOU BE GIVEN? Hmmmm. What if those forgotten "children," "brothers," "sisters..." were poor? Diseased? "Foreign?" "Extremely needy?" "Gay?" Black? Israeli? Palestinian? Muslim...? It wouldn't matter would it? No. With the lifting of the amnesia you would have received the greatest gift possible. Truly. Right? This is the entirety of what Jesus died to give us - our 6 billion "forgotten" family members, and 30 billion yet to be born. Was this family real and worth everything to Him? He died for them with Love and Joy. We will JOYFULLY die for them if and when we are "Saved" from our "amnesia," "delusion;" purely for the Joy of it. There could be no greater Joy, personally; more or equivalent Joy would be a psychological impossibility. Jesus did not die to make us "good." Jesus died to GIVE US THAT WHICH IS !!!!!GOOD!!!!! There is no punishment from Jesus if we continue to ignore his Gift. There is only punishment OF Jesus, and of OURSELVES BY OURSELVES when we ignore his gift. (Think of when your "loved one" has ignored advice you gave that you KNOW WOULD HAVE GIVEN THEM JOY AND SAVED THEM MISERY; how did you feel? What did THEY CHEAT THEMSELVES OF?)