Jesus was speaking about the joy of transcending self I think.

https://photos.app.goo.gl/M9cDupxKfstYnMc8A

If you would lose your life for the sake of the good news that we're here for the joy of serving, you will gain it.....

https://photos.app.goo.gl/TWJzuxZ4ZLft15Mi6

 37000mi at 10/hr is 3700 hrs, or 300+ waking days 

The entire secret to following Jesus is to see that his life on Earth was the most enviable ever then or now.

 The entire secret to following Jesus is to see that his life on Earth was the most enviable ever then or now.

Because Jesus believed in the organic growth of the new society, he patiently fostered its growth, cell by cell. Every human life brought under control of the new spirit which he himself embodied and revealed was an advance of the kingdom of God. Every time.....

Because Jesus believed in the organic growth of the new society, he patiently fostered its growth, cell by cell. Every human life brought under control of the new spirit which he himself embodied and revealed was an advance of the kingdom of God. Every time..... the new thought of the Father and of the right life among men gained firmer hold of a human mind and brought it to the point of action, it meant progress. It is just as when human tissues have been broken down by disease or external force, and new tissue is silently forming under the old and weaving a new web of life. Jesus incarnated a new type of human life and he was conscious of that. By living with men and thinking and feeling in their presence, he reproduced his own life in others and they gained faith to risk this new way of living. This process of assimilation went on by the natural capacities inherent in the social organism, just as fresh blood will flow along the established arteries and capillaries. When a nucleus of likeminded men was gathered about him, the assimilating power was greatly reinforced. Jesus joyously felt that the most insignificant man in his company who shared in this new social spirit was superior to the grandest exemplification of the old era, John the Baptist (Matthew 11:11). Thus Jesus worked on individuals and through individuals, but his real end was not individualistic, but social, and in his method he employed strong social forces. He knew that a new view of life would have to be implanted before the new life could be lived and that the new society would have to nucleate around personal centers of renewal. But his end was not the new soul, but the new society; not man, but Man.

This sentence says it all. "Jesus had realized the life of God in the soul of man and the life of man in the love of God."

The prophet is always the predestined advance agent of the Kingdom of God. His religion flings him as a fighter and protester against the Kingdom of Evil. His sense of justice, compassion, and solidarity sends him into tasks which would be too perilous for others. It connects him with oppressed social classes as their leader. He bears their

The prophet is always the predestined advance agent of the Kingdom of God. His religion flings him as a fighter and protester against the Kingdom of Evil. His sense of justice, compassion, and solidarity sends him into tasks which would be too perilous for others. It connects him with oppressed social classes as their leader. He bears their..... risk and contempt. As he tries to rally the moral and religious forces of society, he encounters derelict and frozen religion, and the selfish and conservative interest of the classes which exploit religion. He tries to arouse institutional religion from the inside, or he pounds it from the outside. This puts him in the position of a heretic, a free thinker, an enemy of religion, an atheist. Probably no prophet escaped without bearing some such name. His opposition to social injustice arouses the same kind of antagonism from those who profit by it. How far these interests will go in their methods of suppressing the prophets depends on their power and their needs. I have been impressed with the fact that though Christianity began in a renascence, of [prophetism, scarcely any personality who bears the marks / of the prophet can be found in Church History between

"If it were proposed to invent some social system in which covetousness would be deliberately fostered and intensified in human nature, what system could be devised which would excel our own for this purpose? Competitive commerce exalts selfishness to the dignity of a moral principle. It pits men against one another in a gladiatorial game in which....

"If it were proposed to invent some social system in which covetousness would be deliberately fostered and intensified in human nature, what system could be devised which would excel our own for this purpose? Competitive commerce exalts selfishness to the dignity of a moral principle. It pits men against one another in a gladiatorial game in which.... there is no mercy and in which 90 percent of the combatants finally strew the arena. It makes Ishmaels of our best men and teaches them that their h

" If the Church is to have saving power, it must embody Christ. He is the revolutionary force within it. The saving qualities of the Church depend on the question whether it has translated the personal life of Jesus Christ into the social life of its group and thus brings it to....

Theology for the Social Gospel. Walter rauschenbusch's. Archive. Org free download.
" If the Church is to have saving power, it must embody Christ. He is the revolutionary force within it. The saving qualities of the Church depend on the question whether it has translated the personal life of Jesus Christ into the social life of its group and thus brings it to..... bear on the individual. If Christ is not in the Church, how does it differ from " the world " ? It will still assimilate its members, but it will not make them persons bearing the family likeness of the first-born son of God. Wherever the Church has lost the saving influence of Christ, it has lost its saltness and is a tasteless historical survival. Therewith all theological doctrines about it become untrue. Antiquity and continuity are no substitute for the vitality of the Christ-spirit. Age, instead of being a presumption in fa... 

Video log update

Video here 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/Nap8qDe1toWc7f2t7

Here's the history. Civilization has been destroyed by Christianity, by destroying what might have saved the species, the truths distilled by the man Jesus.

This is the Theologian and theology that sparked young Martin Luther King jr. back toward the pulpit having decided he was not going to follow his father there.

Tolstoy despised the church, He adored the man Jesus for what he represented and taught. Same with Jesus James.  Gandhi said, there would be no Hindus if Christians would practice their faith. And, I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians, they are so unlike your Christ.

James, why are you harping on this? For the same reason that Tolstoy did. For the same reasons that if I craved the truth about physics and yet all history had very distorted perverted contorted the discoveries of Einstein I would with my last breath try to discover, uncover, what Einstein really had to say. And also, because Christianity is a gigantic historical fact and ongoing Force. A horribly perverting force the profoundly rare exception proves the rule.  James has so often stated and written and Lived he finds the idea of reforming Christianity an ultimate death trap. He has personally seen it destroyed the most promising Souls. Wiza care deeply about the few and Humanities that can be brought to joyful life or have that choice protected, that child's likeness, we can ill afford two things, ignorance of what the moral Einstein really had to say, and Ignorance of the force, the church, that continues to pervert burry destroye cripples that.

This young turn of the century Theologian finally give James the authoritative Clarity, understanding, history of the atrocity that is the church from the beginning, along with a even much richer understanding of what it was Jesus was showing and telling us. this finally after James has spent thousands and thousands of hours with other scholarship which was helpful but not nearly so complete, historical, clear. That Einstein of morality.

"Jesus always spoke of the Kingdom of God. Only two of his reported sayings contain the word " Church," and both passages are of questionable authenticity. It is safe to say that he never thought of founding the kind 131 132 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL of institution which afterward claimed to be acting for him. Yet immediately after his death, groups of disciples joined and consolidated by inward necessity. Each local group knew that it was part of a divinely founded fellowship mysteriously spreading through humanity, and awaiting the return of the Lord and the establishing of his Kingdom. This universal Church was loved with the same religious faith and reverence with which Jesus had loved the Kingdom of God. It was the partial and earthly realization of the divine Society, and at the Parousia the Church and the Kingdom would merge. But the Kingdom was merely a hope, the Church a present reality. The chief interest and affection flowed toward the Church. Soon, through a combination of causes, the name and idea of " the Kingdom " began to be displaced by the name and idea of " the Church " in the preaching, literature, and theological thought of the Church. Augustine completed this process in his De Civitate Dei. The Kingdom of God which has, throughout human history, opposed the Kingdom of Sin, is today embodied in the Church. The millennium began when the Church was founded. This practically substituted the actual, not the ideal Church for the Kingdom of God. The beloved ideal of Jesus became a vague phrase which kept intruding from the New Testament. Like Cinderella in the kitchen, it saw the other great dogmas furbished up for the ball, but no prince of theology restored it to its rightful place. The Reformation, too, brought no renascence of the doctrine of the Kingdom; it had only eschatological value, or was defined in THE KINGDOM OF GOD 1 33 blurred phrases borrowed from the Church. The present revival of the Kingdom idea is due to the combined influence of the historical study of the Bible and of the social gospel. When the doctrine of the Kingdom of God shriveled to an undeveloped and pathetic remnant in Christian thought, this loss was bound to have far-reaching consequences. We are told that the loss of a single tooth from the arch of the mouth in childhood may spoil the symmetrical development of the skull and produce malformations affecting the mind and character. The atrophy of that idea which had occupied the chief place in the mind of Jesus, necessarily affected the conception of Christianity, the life of the Church, the progress of humanity, and the structure of theology. I shall briefly enumerate some of the consequences affecting theology. This list, however, is by no means complete. 1. Theology lost its contact with the synoptic thought of Jesus. Its problems were not at all the same which had occupied his mind. It lost his point of view and became to some extent incapable of understanding him. His ideas had to be rediscovered in our time. Traditional theology and the mind of Jesus Christ became incommensurable quantities. It claimed to regard his revelation and the substance of his thought as divine, and yet did not learn to think like him. The loss of the Kingdom idea is one key to this situation. 2. The distinctive ethical principles of Jesus were the direct outgrowth of his conception of the Kingdom of God. When the latter disappeared from theology, the 134 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL former disappeared from ethics. Only persons having the substance of the Kingdom ideal in their minds, seem to be able to get relish out of the ethics of Jesus. Only those church bodies which have been in opposition to organized society and have looked for a better city with its foundations in heaven, have taken the Sermon on the Mount seriously. 3. The Church is primarily a fellowship for worship ; the Kingdom is a fellowship of righteousness. When the latter was neglected in theology, the ethical force of Christianity was weakened; when the former was emphasized in theology, the importance of worship was exaggerated. The prophets and Jesus had cried down sacrifices and ceremonial performances, and cried up righteousness, mercy, solidarity. Theology now reversed this, and by its theoretical discussions did its best to stimulate sacramental actions and priestly importance. Thus the religious energy and enthusiasm which might have saved mankind from its great sins, were used up in hearing and endowing masses, or in maintaining competitive church organizations, while mankind is still stuck in the mud. There are nations in which the ethical condition of the masses is the reverse of the frequency of the masses in the churches. 4. When the Kingdom ceased to be the dominating religious reality, the Church moved up into the position of the supreme good. To promote the power of the Church and its control over all rival political forces was equivalent to promoting the supreme ends of Christianity. This increased the arrogance of churchmen and took the moral check off their policies. For the King- THE KINGDOM OF GOD I35 dom of God can never be promoted by lies, craft, crime or war, but the wealth and power of the Church have often been promoted by these means. The medieval ideal of the supremacy of the Church over the State was the logical consequence of making the Church the highest good with no superior ethical standard by which to test it. The medieval doctrines concerning the Church and the Papacy were the direct theological outcome of the struggles for Church supremacy, and were meant to be weapons in that struggle. 5. The Kingdom ideal is the test and corrective of the influence of the Church. When the Kingdom ideal disappeared, the conscience of the Church was muffled. It became possible for the missionary expansion of Christianity to halt for centuries without creating any sense of shortcoming. It became possible for the most unjust social conditions to fasten themselves on Christian nations without awakening any consciousness that the purpose of Christ was being defied and beaten back. The practical undertakings of the Church remained within narrow lines, and the theological thought of the Church was necessarily confined in a similar way. The claims of the Church were allowed to stand in theology with no conditions and obligations to test and balance them. If the Kingdom had stood as the purpose for which the Church exists, the Church could not have fallen into such corruption and sloth. Theology bears part of the guilt for the pride, the greed, and the ambition of the Church. 6. The Kingdom ideal contains the revolutionary force of Christianity. When this ideal faded out of 136 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL the systematic thought of the Church, it became a conservative social influence and increased the weight of the other stationary forces in society. If the Kingdom of God had remained part of the theological and Christian consciousness, the Church could not, down to our times, have been salaried by autocratic class governments to keep the democratic and economic impulses of the people under check. 7. Reversely, the movements for democracy and social justice were left without a religious backing for lack of the Kingdom idea. The Kingdom of God as the fellowship of righteousness, would be advanced by the abolition of industrial slavery and the disappearance of the slums of civilization; the Church would only indirectly gain through such social changes. Even today many Christians can not see any religious importance in social justice and fraternity because it does not increase the number of conversions nor fill the churches. Thus the practical conception of salvation, which is the effective theology of the common man and minister, has been cut back and crippled for lack of the Kingdom ideal. 8. Secular life is belittled as compared with church life. Services rendered to the Church get a higher religious rating than services rendered to the community.-^ Thus the religious value is taken out of the activities of the common man and the prophetic services to society. Wherever the Kingdom of God is a living reality in 1 After the death of Susan B. Anthony a minister commented on her life, regretting that she was not orthodox in her beliefs. In the same address he spoke glowingly about a new linoleum laid in the church kitchen. THE KINGDOM OF GOD 1 37 Christian thought, any advance of social righteousness is seen as a part of redemption and arouses inward joy and the triumphant sense of salvation. When the Church absorbs interest, a subtle asceticism creeps back into our theology and the world looks different. 9. When the doctrine of the Kingdom of God is lacking in theology, the salvation of the individual is seen in its relation to the Church and to the future life, but not in its relation to the task of saving the social order. Theology has left this important point in a condition so hazy and muddled that it has taken us almost a generation to see that the salvation of the individual and the redemption of the social order are closely related, and how. 10. Finally, theology has been deprived of the inspiration of great ideas contained in the idea of the Kingdom and in labor for it. The Kingdom of God breeds prophets; the Church breeds priests and theologians. The Church runs to tradition and dogma; the Kingdom of God rejoices in forecasts and boundless horizons. The men who have contributed the most fruitful impulses to Christian thought have been men of prophetic vision, and their theology has proved most effective for future times where it has been most concerned with past history, with present social problems, and with the future of human society. The Kingdom of God is to theology what outdoor colour and light are to art. It is impossible to estimate what inspirational impulses have been lost to theology and to the Church, because it did not develop the doctrine of the Kingdom of God and see the world and its redemption from that point of view. 138 A THEOLOGY FOR THE SOCIAL GOSPEL These are some of the historical effects which the loss of the doctrine of the Kingdom of God has inflicted on systematic theology. The chief contribution which the social gospel has made and will make to theology is to give new vitality and importance to that doctrine. In doing so it will be a reformatory force of the highest importance in the field of doctrinal theology, for any systematic conception of Christianity must be not only defective but incorrect if the idea of the Kingdom of God does not govern it. The restoration of the doctrine of the Kingdom has already made progress. Some of the ablest and most voluminous works of the old theology in their thousands of pages gave the Kingdom of God but a scanty mention, usually in connection with eschatology, and saw no connection between it and the Calvinistic doctrines of personal redemption. The newer manuals not only make constant reference to it in connection with various doctrines, but they arrange their entire subject matter so that the Kingdom of God becomes the governing idea.

"Jesus in his teachings alluded with surprising frequency to the use and abuse of intrusted wealth and power. In the...

Jesus in his teachings alluded with surprising frequency to the use and abuse of intrusted wealth and power. In the.... WHAT TO DO 381 parables of the talents and pounds ^ he evidently meant to stewardship V define all human ability and opportunity as a trust. His sWp.°^"^^" description of the head servant who is made confident by the continued absence of his master, tyrannizes over his subordinates, and fattens his paunch on his master's property, is meant to show the temptation which besets all in authority to forget the responsibility that goes with power.^ His portrayal of the tricky steward who is to be dismissed for dishonesty, but manages to make one more grand coup before his authority ends, not only shows the keen insight of Jesus into the ways of the grafter, but also shows that he regarded all men of wealth as stewards of the property they hold.' The parable of the peasants who jointly rent a vineyard and then try to do their absent owner not only out of his rent, but out of the property itself, was meant by Jesus to condense and dramatize the whole history of the ruling class in Israel.* The illustration of the fig tree which has had all possible advantages of soil and care without returning fruit, and which merely gets a year's reprieve through the hopeful pleading of the gardener, expresses the indignation of Jesus against the waste of intrusted opportunity.^ The terrible invective against the scribes and Pharisees is directed against teachers who had misused their influence to darken truth and leaders who had treated their leadership as a chance to get profit and honor for themselves.® The fact that Jesus in his diagnosis of wrong moral relations so often puts his finger on trust abused and betrayed, is proof of his penetrating social insight. Nearly all powers * Matthew 25. 14-30; Luke 19. n-27. * Matthew 21. 33-46. ' Matthew 25. 45-51. * Luke 13. 6-9. * Luke 16. 1-15. ' Matthew 23. 382 CHRISTIANITY AND THE SOCIAL CRISIS in society are essentially delegated powers. The more complex society becomes, the less will it be possible for the individual to attend to all his needs himself, and the more will he have to intrust others with specialized functions and powers. When

The religion of Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, and thousand of others in history has no name but it is LSGIABeing.com

www.lsgiabeing.com

12 sentences. THIS IS JESUS, the first I've ever seen it spoken, in all my years.

Beyond the question of economic distribution lies the question of moral relations; and beyond the moral relations to men lies the question of the religious communion with that spiritual reality in which we live and move and have our deep- est being — with God, the Father of our spirits. Jesus had V realized the life of God in the soul of man and the life of man > in the love of God. That was the real secret of his life, the well-spring of his purity, his compassion, his unwearied courage, his unquenchable idealism : he knew the Father. But if he had that greatest of all possessions, the real key to the secret of life, it was his highest social duty to share it and help others to gain what he had. He had to teach men to live as children in the presence of their Father, and no longer as slaves cringing before a despot. He had to show them that the ordinary life of selfishness and hate and anxiety and chafing ambition and covetousness is no life at all, and that they must enter into a new world of love and solidarity and inward contentment. There was no service that he could render to men which would equal that. All other help lay in concentric circles about that redemption of the spirit and flowed out from it. No comprehension of Jesus is even approximately true which fails to understand that the heart of his heart was religion. No man is a follower of Jesus in the full sense who has not through him entered into the same life with God. But on the other hand no man shares his life with God whose religion does not flow out, naturally and without ^ effort, into all relations of his life and reconstructs everything — that it touches. Whoever uncouples the religious and the social life has not understood Jesus. Whoever sets any bounds for the reconstructive power of the religious life over THE SOCIAL AIMS OF JESUS 49 the social relations and institutions of men, to that extent denies the faith of the Master.

Tolstoy's bottom line. "Understand then, all of you, that you were born neither slaves nor masters, that you are all free; but you are so only when you have observed the supreme law of life, and this law has been revealed to you. It will be sufficient for you to renounce the lies that hide it from you for you to see at once in what it consists and where your happiness lies. This law is in love, and happiness is found in its observance.......

The law of love, the law of violence. Leo Tolstoy. Short book.

From the book Martin Luther King jr. Read in  crosier Seminary, the law of love, the law of violence. Leo Tolstoy. Short book that he rushed to write before he died. Free download at this link. Chapter 18 - 19 chapters. Book Tolstoy said he had to write two years before his death near 100. Tolstoy was the Catalyst for Gandhi and Martin Luther King jr. How can you not read this deeply? The following is from the final two chapters that he ever wrote, 18 and 19. And if you read this book as you should and his others you will see that it is a Clarity, a simplification, not even found in the earlier chapters, and in the earlier books. It is as though it took even Tolstoy 100 years to rip out the cultural programming that had prevented him from seeing what is naturally inside us all.

"... Understand then, all of you, that you were born neither slaves nor masters, that you are all free; but you are so only when you have observed the supreme law of life, and this law has been revealed to you. It will be sufficient for you to renounce the lies that hide it from you for you to see at once in what it consists and where your happiness lies. This law is in love, and happiness is found in its observance..... Understand that, and you will become really free; you will acquire everything that to-day you are vainly seeking to obtain by the complicated means suggested to you by corrupted men. "Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

(Matthew, xi, 28-32.)

... You will be preserved from evil and you will acquire the real good, not by looking after your interest, not by envy, hatred, anger, ambition; not even by a sense of justice, or above all by the care of organizing the life of others; but, strange as it may seem, only by the work of your own soul, not following any outside interests, and not trying to reason with its dictates.

... Understand then, all of you, especially the young, that to want to impose an imaginary state of government on others by violence is not only a vulgar superstition, but even a criminal work. Understand that this work, far from assuring the good of men, is hypocricy, and is only a lie, a more or less unconscious always hiding the lowest passions....

.... Understand it, you, men of to-morrow, and stop looking for an illusionary happiness by participating in the administration of the state, by judicial institutions, by instruction, by all kinds of parties who have the good of the masses as an aim. Pay attention to only one thing, that which you need the most, that is the most accessible, which gives the most happiness to us and to every one: the increase of love in us by the suppression of vices and passions that keep it from manifesting itself [ and more importantly by empowering that love by carefully monitoring yourself and putting it in charge. James] ....

... Remember it, consecrate your life to this joyous work; just begin it, and you will see that it is the true work in life, and it alone determines the amelioration of the condition of everybody an end that you follow blindly by false methods. Do becoming as inevitable for us as is the  

not forget that the common bond is in the union of men, and that this union can never be attained by means of violence. It is enough that every one should observe the law of life, and this union will be realized without the need of seeking for it.

This supreme law, alone, is the same for all of us and unites us all....

.... We possess a single infallible guide and this is the Universal Spirit that lives in men as a whole, and in each one of us, which makes us aspire to what we should aspire; it is the spirit that commands the tree to grow towards the sun, the flower to throw off its seed in autumn, us to reach out towards God, and by so doing become united to each other....

.... No matter how obscured your brain may be by your authority, your wealth, no matter how badly treated you may be and how irritated by misery and humiliations, you possess and you manifest like all of us, the divine spirit, which asks you clearly to-day: Why do you martyrize yourself and make all those about you unhappy? Understand who you are, just how insignificant and infallible is that which you call "you" having understood it, your spiritual self and commence to live entirely for the accomplishment of the superior mission of your life which has been revealed to you by universal wisdom, by the doctrine of Christ, and by your own conscience.....

... Put the good of your life in the progressive freedom of your mind, freedom from all the illusions of the flesh, and in the improvement of your love for your fellow man which is, after all, the same thing. As soon as you will have begun to live thus, you will be aware of a joyous sensation full of liberty and happiness. You will be surprised to see that the same external conditions, with which you were so concerned, and which were far from realization, will not prevent the coming of the greatest possible happiness....

.... And if you are unhappy I know that you are reflect upon what has been proposed to you here, and which I have not imagined, but is the result of the thoughts and feelings of the best minds and human hearts, and which is the only way to deliver you from your unhappiness, to acquire the greatest good that you can get in this life. That is what I have wanted to say to before dying.

Jesus was only ever about one Miracle, the human heart rising from death. From the beginning, none have ever understood this.

Jesus was only ever about one Miracle, the human heart rising from death. From the beginning, none have ever understood this.

Pope reaffirms conscience as heresy debate divides church. Link

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/pope-reaffirms-conscience-as-heresy-debate-divides-church/2017/11/11/1c92e674-c6fa-11e7-9922-4151f5ca6168_story.html?sw_bypass=true&utm_term=.83d741e18081

Epiphany, for me? The best scholarship I know on the historical Jesus, Dominic crossan of the Jesus seminar, says that the central feature, the central mission, of the man Jesus was.....

Epiphany, for me? The best scholarship I know on the historical Jesus, Dominic Crossan of the Jesus seminar, says that the central feature, the central mission, of the man Jesus was to preserve the one thing that those masses being destroyed by the Roman Empire could hold onto if they chose, their community, being family to one another, regardless of how incredibly difficult the Roman Empire made that through their savagery.

The communal meal was not symbolic, it was the central Ministry. His Central message was, you must not allow this savagery to destroy that which is most sacred, your unconditional loving, your being unconditional family one to another, especially the outcast, the enemy...

I have known and been impressed by this scholarly insight for many years. But just this morning several things are colliding in my mind, the fact that more than half of this country now lives in objective material poverty, the fact that the most joyous larger community that I have ever personally witnessed lived in considerable material misery at Standing Rock for months , that the most joyful body of people of any huge size that ever was on this continent were the Native Americans before Columbus arrived, and this recollection of Jesus teaching.

When 15 years ago I left a $300,000 a year career in Industry and became an elementary school guidance counselor in one of the country's largest and neediest elementary schools, Chester Pennsylvania , I was aware of a problem that I never adequately solved at the time, what did I want for these children, these materially poor children, did I want them to become part of the sick society that created them? I now have a much better understanding of the answer.

The answer is hinted at in a vision that I shared some days ago, ( please see Link in comments below).

When, as I hope occurs, I soon resume my travels across the country I expect to add to my itinerary places like Detroit where I think there may be some fertile ground for sewing/cultivating this seed, for helping the materially poor in cities and places like that to possibly see that their opportunity is not to seek the faux-Heaven, the actual hell, that Mammon tells us looks like the capitalist society, but the heaven that Jesus spoke of, from each according to their ability, to each according to their need. The world Gandhi hinted at, a world that has enough for everyone's need, but not enough for anyone's greed.

Everyone wants to be a Christian. No one wants to be Christ-like.

Everyone wants to be a Christian. No one wants to be Christ-like.

Standing Rock update: "My father is good. My father does not therefore allow me to cooperate with your father who is evil. You have no jurisdiction over me. As your brother I am forbidden.....

Standing Rock update: "My father is good. My father does not therefore allow me to cooperate with your father who is evil. You have no jurisdiction over me. As your brother I am forbidden to help you do evil." Other than my name and birthdate and my residence which is oceti sakowin, I suspect that these words are all I will be able to utter to my sisters and brothers in uniform, and the court system, and prison.... I do not think this will please them. But I can see no option for me. I do not anticipate a moral requirement to  physically resist their savagery,  their brutality.  I see no way that I can cooperate with whatever forms and procedures they direct me to follow.  I do not suspect that this will go well for me physically.  At some level I think, I hope, that I am finding myself accepting that I am already physically crucified,  dead.  Unfortunately I do not expect to be completely  dead to the psychological and physical torture that I expect they will zealously inflection on me,  but often, all too alive to it. Maybe these words come to me because they are similar to the words of Jesus at his crucifixion. But I think they come to me because I have worked my entire adulthood to become a decent soul, I am a decent soul, and these words,  this truth, this reality, this clarity would occur to a decent Soul at the time of their crucifixion.

Our creator, Who Art in our deepest Soul, holy is your name. Thy kingdom comes as thy Loving is done on Earth as.....

Our creator, Who Art in our deepest Soul, holy is your name. Thy kingdom comes as thy Loving is done on Earth as we would do  if we had no earthly fear.  Give us all this day our daily bread, that is, our vision for this day of how to best serve our neediest on Earth. Lead us not into self-centeredness, but Deliver us into solidarity with the neediest. For loving is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.