4.04.2007
WHAT ARE YOU DYING FOR?
We are all dying for something, every minute, every day.
Most of us, just like me most of my life (death) was dying for a bigger house, better car, better college for the biolocal kids, dinner out, more sex, more safety, more security....
Now I'm dying to save Darfur, and to save the world, and to save you.
We cannot escape dying for something. It is an inescapable fact of human existance.
We are free to choose what we are dying for. Everything - Heaven and Hell - depend on the choice you make.
Most of us, just like me most of my life (death) was dying for a bigger house, better car, better college for the biolocal kids, dinner out, more sex, more safety, more security....
Now I'm dying to save Darfur, and to save the world, and to save you.
We cannot escape dying for something. It is an inescapable fact of human existance.
We are free to choose what we are dying for. Everything - Heaven and Hell - depend on the choice you make.
Jesus was dying to save the world. Me too. You?
At various points in my life I have "died" for everything imaginable. I am the greediest person you will ever meet. Seriously.
Dying to save Darfur? Dying to Save the world? These are so superior, so overwhelmingly exciting and worth dying for, if you ever surrender to your Heart / God / Love you will simply, out of greed, you will simply not be able to resist the temptation.
I swear to God.
Dying to save Darfur? Dying to Save the world? These are so superior, so overwhelmingly exciting and worth dying for, if you ever surrender to your Heart / God / Love you will simply, out of greed, you will simply not be able to resist the temptation.
I swear to God.
Activism today is a COMPLETE MORAL FAILURE
A better formatted version of this important post is at: Darfur: US activism a COMPLETE MORAL FAILURE. Although this post is Darfur specific, the ideas hold exactly for the activists working on Iraq, Palestine, Guatemala, Haiti, Congo, World Hunger, saving the "Church"....
Darfur Hunger Strike to the Death or Complete Resolution by June 30; Day 34 water only.
What is wrong with this nasty, angry man! Some of my brothers and sisters in the activist community must be wondering. The rest have simply written me off.
Imagine the three people in the world you love the very most. Remember how much you love them. Do it. Ok. Now imagine that 4 years ago an all powerful entity, God, came and disguised these loved ones as Darfuries beyond any hope of recognition and placed them in Darfur; and further told you that if you told anyone that your loved ones would die immediately. You are told that the only way you can save them is to stop the genocide and restore Darfuries to their lives. WOULD YOU BE ACTING ANY DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU ARE NOW?!??!?!?!?!!?!?!?!??!? You sure as hell would.
Here is the other way that I look at it. Another one of tests of accountability I hold myself to in my personal actions is to imagine myself in Heaven after I die in front of my Darfur brothers and sisters explaining what I did or did not do. I think I'll do all right in these conversations. In similar conversations with my Cambodian, Rwandan, Balkan... brothers and sisters the behaviors of mine I describe will leave me shamed and without a shred of humanity.
I apply the same test when considering the behavior of my brothers and sisters in the "Save Darfur Movement (SDM)." I envision the conversation going something like this:
SDM: "Yes, we knew it was 4 years. Yes we knew 450,000 exterminated. Yes we knew 2.5 million in concentration camps of forced starvation, rape, mutilation, murder and disease. We in the US agonized for you our Darfur brothers and sisters. We had meetings, and more meetings. We fasted from luxuries for one whole day per year. ONE ENTIRE DAY - WE ABSTAINED FROM ONE OF OUR LUXURIES! On another day we formed a human chain. On another day we sent postcards. POSTCARDS! In all there were one million! We divested our Colleges and States. Sure the real money came from China but it helped a little and it gave us great connections and enhanced our resumes too! Two different sunny afternoons we went to parks for demonstrations, and we even listened to some of the speakers! Wow, we really pulled out all the stops! I mean, what else would you have wanted??!?!?!
DARFUR: "We wanted you to treat us as you would your immediate family, which before God, we are. "Do unto others, ALL that you would have done unto you." We were raped every day. Our children were starved every day. Our men were shot every day. Our women were mutilated every day. YOU DID NOTHING."
The lesson of the holocaust was entirely: IN THE FACE OF GENOCIDE THE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD IMMEDIATELY LAY DOWN THEIR VERY LIVES UNTIL IT STOPS. Eric Reeves, Brian Steidle and who else has laid down their lives for Darfur?
The great desecration of the Holocaust didn't happen last month in Iran; it has been happening in the most Holocaust educated in the world, the US, for the last 4 years as we have risked nothing, suffered nothing, sacrificed nothing. We have done nothing.
Now we repent and vote immediately with our lives, WITH OUR LIVES giving Bush an iron clad, unmistakable mandate to end this, or we are Damned, and Darfur is dead.
Original, bad thinking? Strikingly parallel to what Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel had to say in 1938, possibly the most relevant prophetic, moral writing I've ever seen. (PLEASE READ THE MEANING OF THIS HOUR, ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL) For example:
* "We have trifled with the name of God. We have taken the ideals in vain. We have called for the Lord. He came. And was ignored. We have preached but eluded Him. We have praised but defied Him. Now we reap the fruits of our failure. Through centuries His voice cried in the wilderness. How skillfully it was trapped and imprisoned in the temples! How often it was drowned or distorted! Now we behold how it gradually withdraws, abandoning one people after another, departing from their souls, despising their wisdom. The taste for the good has all but gone from the earth. Men heap spite upon cruelty, malice upon atrocity."
* "Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service; that there are things more valuable than life; that the world is not a vacuum. Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. "
* "The Almighty has not created the universe that we may have opportunities to satisfy our greed, envy and ambition. We have not survived that we may waste our years in vulgar vanities. The martyrdom of millions demands that we consecrate ourselves to the fulfillment of God’s dream of salvation. Israel did not accept the Torah of their own free will. When Israel approached Sinai, God lifted up the mountain and held it over their heads, saying: “Either you accept the Torah or be crushed beneath the mountain.
”The mountain of history is over our heads again. Shall we renew the covenant with God?"
Darfur Hunger Strike to the Death or Complete Resolution by June 30; Day 34 water only.
What is wrong with this nasty, angry man! Some of my brothers and sisters in the activist community must be wondering. The rest have simply written me off.
Imagine the three people in the world you love the very most. Remember how much you love them. Do it. Ok. Now imagine that 4 years ago an all powerful entity, God, came and disguised these loved ones as Darfuries beyond any hope of recognition and placed them in Darfur; and further told you that if you told anyone that your loved ones would die immediately. You are told that the only way you can save them is to stop the genocide and restore Darfuries to their lives. WOULD YOU BE ACTING ANY DIFFERENTLY THAN YOU ARE NOW?!??!?!?!?!!?!?!?!??!? You sure as hell would.
Here is the other way that I look at it. Another one of tests of accountability I hold myself to in my personal actions is to imagine myself in Heaven after I die in front of my Darfur brothers and sisters explaining what I did or did not do. I think I'll do all right in these conversations. In similar conversations with my Cambodian, Rwandan, Balkan... brothers and sisters the behaviors of mine I describe will leave me shamed and without a shred of humanity.
I apply the same test when considering the behavior of my brothers and sisters in the "Save Darfur Movement (SDM)." I envision the conversation going something like this:
SDM: "Yes, we knew it was 4 years. Yes we knew 450,000 exterminated. Yes we knew 2.5 million in concentration camps of forced starvation, rape, mutilation, murder and disease. We in the US agonized for you our Darfur brothers and sisters. We had meetings, and more meetings. We fasted from luxuries for one whole day per year. ONE ENTIRE DAY - WE ABSTAINED FROM ONE OF OUR LUXURIES! On another day we formed a human chain. On another day we sent postcards. POSTCARDS! In all there were one million! We divested our Colleges and States. Sure the real money came from China but it helped a little and it gave us great connections and enhanced our resumes too! Two different sunny afternoons we went to parks for demonstrations, and we even listened to some of the speakers! Wow, we really pulled out all the stops! I mean, what else would you have wanted??!?!?!
DARFUR: "We wanted you to treat us as you would your immediate family, which before God, we are. "Do unto others, ALL that you would have done unto you." We were raped every day. Our children were starved every day. Our men were shot every day. Our women were mutilated every day. YOU DID NOTHING."
The lesson of the holocaust was entirely: IN THE FACE OF GENOCIDE THE CITIZENS OF THE WORLD IMMEDIATELY LAY DOWN THEIR VERY LIVES UNTIL IT STOPS. Eric Reeves, Brian Steidle and who else has laid down their lives for Darfur?
The great desecration of the Holocaust didn't happen last month in Iran; it has been happening in the most Holocaust educated in the world, the US, for the last 4 years as we have risked nothing, suffered nothing, sacrificed nothing. We have done nothing.
Now we repent and vote immediately with our lives, WITH OUR LIVES giving Bush an iron clad, unmistakable mandate to end this, or we are Damned, and Darfur is dead.
Original, bad thinking? Strikingly parallel to what Rabbi Abraham J. Heschel had to say in 1938, possibly the most relevant prophetic, moral writing I've ever seen. (PLEASE READ THE MEANING OF THIS HOUR, ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL) For example:
* "We have trifled with the name of God. We have taken the ideals in vain. We have called for the Lord. He came. And was ignored. We have preached but eluded Him. We have praised but defied Him. Now we reap the fruits of our failure. Through centuries His voice cried in the wilderness. How skillfully it was trapped and imprisoned in the temples! How often it was drowned or distorted! Now we behold how it gradually withdraws, abandoning one people after another, departing from their souls, despising their wisdom. The taste for the good has all but gone from the earth. Men heap spite upon cruelty, malice upon atrocity."
* "Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service; that there are things more valuable than life; that the world is not a vacuum. Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. "
* "The Almighty has not created the universe that we may have opportunities to satisfy our greed, envy and ambition. We have not survived that we may waste our years in vulgar vanities. The martyrdom of millions demands that we consecrate ourselves to the fulfillment of God’s dream of salvation. Israel did not accept the Torah of their own free will. When Israel approached Sinai, God lifted up the mountain and held it over their heads, saying: “Either you accept the Torah or be crushed beneath the mountain.
”The mountain of history is over our heads again. Shall we renew the covenant with God?"
Dying for loving ends how? Miracles are hard to predict.
When was Gandhi going to die? How?
When was Dr. King going to die? How?
When was Dianne Wilson going to die? How?
When is any soldier going to die? How?
When was Dr. King going to die? How?
When was Dianne Wilson going to die? How?
When is any soldier going to die? How?
Stop a soldier of Revolutionary Brotherhood? Killed him.
"Do not be afraid of that which can kill your body. Be afraid of that which can kill your body and your soul," Jesus.
Final Star Wars Movie: Luke was dying to save Darth. Remember?
I never realized it till last week as I was in prayer.
This is a fabulous Salvation, Redemption example. I'm talking about the scene at the end when Luke, instead of killing his father, LAYS DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FATHER. Luke throws down his light sabre in effect saying to his father, "your life is more valuable to me than mine. Kill me if you will but I will not kill you."
At this point the emperor steps in to kill Luke.
Darth's selfishness has been destroyed by Luke's unconditional, brotherly, self-sacrificial love. Darth's heart has at last been awakened. Darth has been saved.
Darth gives his life to save him from the Emperor.
Finally, "Father, I must save you." "My son, you already have." Darth leaves his body.
This is exactly how it is done. This is the only way it is done.
"A man has no greater love than to lay down his life for his fellow man," Jesus.
One can imagine that until his dying day this moment of redeeming his father's life will be that moment that Luke remembers as that which was most ALive, Divine, Heavenly, Joyful, Perfect.
This is a fabulous Salvation, Redemption example. I'm talking about the scene at the end when Luke, instead of killing his father, LAYS DOWN HIS LIFE FOR HIS FATHER. Luke throws down his light sabre in effect saying to his father, "your life is more valuable to me than mine. Kill me if you will but I will not kill you."
At this point the emperor steps in to kill Luke.
Darth's selfishness has been destroyed by Luke's unconditional, brotherly, self-sacrificial love. Darth's heart has at last been awakened. Darth has been saved.
Darth gives his life to save him from the Emperor.
Finally, "Father, I must save you." "My son, you already have." Darth leaves his body.
This is exactly how it is done. This is the only way it is done.
"A man has no greater love than to lay down his life for his fellow man," Jesus.
One can imagine that until his dying day this moment of redeeming his father's life will be that moment that Luke remembers as that which was most ALive, Divine, Heavenly, Joyful, Perfect.
The final Lord of the Rings movie? We are Denathor.
These movie writers and directors are our prophets, poets and oracles. It is their calling and their job to show us the Truth. We ignore them at our peril.
Denethor, the father that out of selfishness twice sent his son to his death, feasted while his subjects suffered, abandoned his subjects out of self pitty, cared nothing for others.... Look in the mirror and you will see what I see. Denethor is us.
David Dellinger regarding WWII: "Few people chose war. They chose selfishness and the result was war (sons coming home in body bags)."
It is "game over" unless we die en masse for brotherly love
Jesus led us all exactly and precisely to the cross - to lay down our lives for the "least of these our brothers."
THE MEANING OF THIS HOUR, ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL (PLEASE READ THIS ESSAY): " Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service; that there are things more valuable than life; that the world is not a vacuum. Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. There can be no neutrality. Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil."
THE MEANING OF THIS HOUR, ABRAHAM J. HESCHEL (PLEASE READ THIS ESSAY): " Soldiers in the horror of battle offer solemn testimony that life is not a hunt for pleasure, but an engagement for service; that there are things more valuable than life; that the world is not a vacuum. Either we make it an altar for God or it is invaded by demons. There can be no neutrality. Either we are ministers of the sacred or slaves of evil."
HUNGER STRIKE. THE WEAPON OF MASS CONSTRUCTION OF HEAVEN
I am now unshakably convinced that for Darfur, Palestine, Iraq, Congo, Haiti... Hunger Strike by brothers for brothers is the Weapon of Mass Construction for Heaven on earth.
Millions of us. Few of us will have to die. All of us will Live. We will save human kind. There is much I would like to write on this but Thich Nhat Hanh has written enough for now. PLEASE READ these excerpts:
LOVE IN ACTION, Thich Nhat Hanh
Millions of us. Few of us will have to die. All of us will Live. We will save human kind. There is much I would like to write on this but Thich Nhat Hanh has written enough for now. PLEASE READ these excerpts:
LOVE IN ACTION, Thich Nhat Hanh
I am but one of 50 billion cells in my body.
Now it would simply be a lie if I said anything else. When I feel my body I feel the cell called Start and you, and Darfuries, and the walking dead of the military industrial complex, and the suffering in Congo, my family in Palestine, my Hitleresque Israelis....
This is how it is for Jesus. This is how it is for your Heart. You will know if you start dwelling in your Heart. It is simply all that the Heart knows. The "Head" finds this notion absurd and will never experience it.
The body of Christ.
"We are all cells in the same body," Peace Pilgrim.
This is how it is for Jesus. This is how it is for your Heart. You will know if you start dwelling in your Heart. It is simply all that the Heart knows. The "Head" finds this notion absurd and will never experience it.
The body of Christ.
"We are all cells in the same body," Peace Pilgrim.
Redeeming the world's heart: our movies are full of it
Polyanna
Captain's Courageous
Les Mis: Jean Val Jean twice gives his life for Javer. Javer's selfishness is murdered.
Les Mis: The Bishop of Dis (?) lays down his life (gives his entire wealth out of love) to the thief Jean. Jean selfishness is murdered and a Divine Heart rules Jean for all his days - leading the Salvation and Redemption of many.
The Green Mile
Cry Freedom
Dry White Season
Sunday in the Park with George
Don Quixote
John Q
etc
etc
etc
Captain's Courageous
Les Mis: Jean Val Jean twice gives his life for Javer. Javer's selfishness is murdered.
Les Mis: The Bishop of Dis (?) lays down his life (gives his entire wealth out of love) to the thief Jean. Jean selfishness is murdered and a Divine Heart rules Jean for all his days - leading the Salvation and Redemption of many.
The Green Mile
Cry Freedom
Dry White Season
Sunday in the Park with George
Don Quixote
John Q
etc
etc
etc
The only hope? Dying for brotherly love to prevail on earth
If you saw as I do, as Jesus did that Heaven on Earth absolutely was within our grasp, do you think you or anyone could resist giving your life for it, dying for it? Of course not.
Purity not Duration is the objective measure of Life
Who had more life, more of a life, and better life, a more desirable life:
Adolf Hitler? Dietrich Bonhoeffer?
Jesus? The Scribes and Pharisees?
The Zionists? Rachel Corrie?
Jay McGinley drinking beer and watching women? The students at Kent State fighting to end the genocide waged by the US on Vietnam?
Adolf Hitler? Dietrich Bonhoeffer?
Jesus? The Scribes and Pharisees?
The Zionists? Rachel Corrie?
Jay McGinley drinking beer and watching women? The students at Kent State fighting to end the genocide waged by the US on Vietnam?
Did we deify Jesus just to avoid following Him?
Oh there is so much I want to write about this but the following will have to suffice:
What do you get when you take the "God" out of Jesus? Gandhi is the answer.
Jesus died to be followed. He would die again if he knew he instead was being worshiped.
In fact, by belief is that what has happended is by plan, one well intended but deathly wrong, the other evil:
1. The Appostles didn't get it, or rather they didn't really get it. They thought success was in numbers of bodies rather than number of people going to the Cross. So they made up all the crap about miracles, resurection, ties to prophacy in the Old Testament to be able to better "sell" new converts. In the pricess they fatally diluted the saving psychology and social engineering that was Jesus saving gift of Life to us.
2. At Nicea the "Church" (today's anti-Christ) explicitly promised Constantine that in return for not being exterminated but instead bankrolled they would extinguish the actual "practice" of what Jesus taught. That they would turn the "way" into ritual and dogma that enslaved people as loyal subjects of not the Kingdom but the state.
There has not been a "Church" for 1800 years.
If we had done the same to Eistein there would be no bomb; Lister, there would be regular death from infection after operations....
What do you get when you take the "God" out of Jesus? Gandhi is the answer.
Jesus died to be followed. He would die again if he knew he instead was being worshiped.
In fact, by belief is that what has happended is by plan, one well intended but deathly wrong, the other evil:
1. The Appostles didn't get it, or rather they didn't really get it. They thought success was in numbers of bodies rather than number of people going to the Cross. So they made up all the crap about miracles, resurection, ties to prophacy in the Old Testament to be able to better "sell" new converts. In the pricess they fatally diluted the saving psychology and social engineering that was Jesus saving gift of Life to us.
2. At Nicea the "Church" (today's anti-Christ) explicitly promised Constantine that in return for not being exterminated but instead bankrolled they would extinguish the actual "practice" of what Jesus taught. That they would turn the "way" into ritual and dogma that enslaved people as loyal subjects of not the Kingdom but the state.
There has not been a "Church" for 1800 years.
If we had done the same to Eistein there would be no bomb; Lister, there would be regular death from infection after operations....
3.23.2007
Who asks, "Are you saved?" is not. Beware.
A full elementary school just suffered a roof collapse crushing the children inside. A "Christian" outside is asking you, "Are you saved?" Jesus of course would be hauling boulders off of "His" children. Well the world today is one big caved-in-Elementary School. In the time it took you to read this short post more than 10 children starved to death. Anyone with the time to ask such hideous questions as "Are you Saved?" is divorced from Jesus family, and that is the state of Sin; and that is Hell. You don't want to go there. Beware.
THE PEACE IS INEXPRESSIBLE
The Peace is so complete it is almost impossible to breathe. Ecstasy. Oh my beloved, I have done my best for you all. I believe I will continue to do so until my last breath. I hope some day, if not already, you feel the peace that I do. Do you remember in the movie "Contact" when Jody Foster becomes the AWE of the Cosmos toward the end? That is exactly what I am experiencing.
Oh my God.
Oh my God.
Define: Atom. Gravity. God.
The point?
We can all define Atom.
Only psychotics, snake oil salesmen, sharks, and wolves can define Gravity or God. They are both forces, we know that. We couldn't live without those forces. But no one in their right mind yet knows what either of them is.
As to God, we probably never will know for sure. I'm satisfied that God is essentially Love / Heart - the royal road to both our inate neorological goodness AND th 90% of our brain that we can't consciously access OR CONTROL!
Our only choice is to ignore God, or to be controled by him / her.
We can all define Atom.
Only psychotics, snake oil salesmen, sharks, and wolves can define Gravity or God. They are both forces, we know that. We couldn't live without those forces. But no one in their right mind yet knows what either of them is.
As to God, we probably never will know for sure. I'm satisfied that God is essentially Love / Heart - the royal road to both our inate neorological goodness AND th 90% of our brain that we can't consciously access OR CONTROL!
Our only choice is to ignore God, or to be controled by him / her.
Amusing: My dying on the cross may spare the next Start Loving
:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) :-)
Truly I find it amusing. Finally, when enough Steven Beko's had died, the next one was not allowed to by his/her friends, associates, society... even the "enemy" (sick brother).
But a lot of Steve Beko's had to die before those remaining woke up.
Ah, the luck of the draw!
:-) :-) :-) :-)
Aside from amused I am extremely excited that our Father chose me to help us come Alive; and I can see beyond all question that I am doing a lot of good. I am humbled, honored and deeply rejoicing for the opportunity. Oh, thank you Father. Some others will have to die on the Cross after me. I'll not be enough.
But I am praying that we wake up soon after I'm gone. Why? Because we are way out of time. A few seconds of overtime is all the human race has to turn this game around. I hope we have a few seconds left.
Truly I find it amusing. Finally, when enough Steven Beko's had died, the next one was not allowed to by his/her friends, associates, society... even the "enemy" (sick brother).
But a lot of Steve Beko's had to die before those remaining woke up.
Ah, the luck of the draw!
:-) :-) :-) :-)
Aside from amused I am extremely excited that our Father chose me to help us come Alive; and I can see beyond all question that I am doing a lot of good. I am humbled, honored and deeply rejoicing for the opportunity. Oh, thank you Father. Some others will have to die on the Cross after me. I'll not be enough.
But I am praying that we wake up soon after I'm gone. Why? Because we are way out of time. A few seconds of overtime is all the human race has to turn this game around. I hope we have a few seconds left.
Please articulate to our Father who is NOT your "immediate family."
For God's sake, for your "immediate family's" sake, do it. Now.
Denomination or religion crucial to you? Not Christian.
They will know you by how you love one another[, how you show your love to everyone.]
Anyone focused with any significance on any other issue be it religion, denomination, sexual orientation - IS NOT FOLLOWING JESUS.
IS THAT CLEAR? Can you imagine any of the folks that Jesus will certainly recognize - King, Gandhi, Mandella, Teresa... being concerned significantly except for the suffering of her/his brothers and sisters worldwide?
Anyone focused with any significance on any other issue be it religion, denomination, sexual orientation - IS NOT FOLLOWING JESUS.
IS THAT CLEAR? Can you imagine any of the folks that Jesus will certainly recognize - King, Gandhi, Mandella, Teresa... being concerned significantly except for the suffering of her/his brothers and sisters worldwide?
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