Betrayal

I was taught to accept the example of Jesus’ ways;

Jesus often felt betrayed, in his last few days.

Those who turned against me, I soon forgave,

While I continue to be the one considered most depraved.

I have long been persecuted for the manner of my ways.

How long am I to bear what was, for Jesus, only three days?

It has been too many years that I have taken the punishment

For the sins of those who had no pressure to repent.

I’ve stood between many abusers and their intended prey,

Only to be told that I’m the one who should be put away.

I am tired of living in this world of such hypocrisy

I often ask myself if dying is the only way I’ll ever be free.

It seems to have worked for Jesus, as he died physically,

Leaving behind the essence of his great spirituality.

Those who admit that my strength emboldened them,

May, after my death, feel that I was truly their friend.

I never sought to conquer, only to be a part of a team,

But this is clearly not the message that most of them gleaned.

I am too strong for most to feel comfortable taking the lead,

But I can no longer pretend that I’m willing to have no need.

What would Jesus have done if Peter had stayed awake,

And convinced Judas, his betrayal plan, to forsake?

Would this have produced another generation of saviors,

Children of Jesus, with exemplary human behaviors?

  

I believe that, in many ways, Jesus got off rather easy,

Though his route of death makes most feel quite queasy.

There are many things that, I believe, are worse than death.

Solidarity in professed values is what would give me rest.

Who am I to expect this degree of loyalty,

When even Jesus was betrayed while in his misery?

I am a simple human, not born to his superior ancestry;

I am doing the best I can in what I was sent to be.

I have been repeatedly told that I should disappear

Before I negate the memories of those who held me dear.

I am ready to die, but it appears not my time;

I must now descend, so that others I love can climb.

Is this the reason Jesus assented to be crucified;

He knew that others would not have even tried?

If they continued to depend on his greater strength,

They’d ignore the missions on which they had been sent.

Where is my cross? Where is my tomb?

Even my mother cursed me from her womb.

I wish not to live with no mother, father or friend.

My chosen family’s betrayal has become my end.

Un-killing Christ

As a six-year-old child, I knelt in front of the Nativity scene sobbing because I had been told that my sins helped kill Jesus, the Christ. I had a baby brother that I deeply loved, and knew that I'd never purposely hurt him, but how could I un-kill Jesus?

In preparation for my First Holy Communion, I had to learn about how God had made His Only Begotten Son to have him killed as a sacrifice to Himself to atone for the sins committed by all the people God had put on earth, prior to the death of Jesus. While I still wasn't clear on how we could un-kill Jesus, I was taught how sinful I was, and how there was really nothing I could do to become saved, except be scared of God as a form of humble worship. This did make some sense to me, as this was how my parents and other authority figures imposed order.

Physical punishment, and fear of it, were the common ways to train up children and treat those deemed less worthy than yourself, like servants, the non-Catholics, and the handicapped. The Roman Catholic Church, we were taught, had the only power to get you past eternal suffering in hell. Even our unborn baby sibling would never see God because he/she wasn't able to be baptized by a Roman Catholic priest.

Our mother felt no need to be with us, as we were the responsibility of God through the fathers, sisters, and mothers of our mother the church. Our father was away on business most of the time. Whenever he returned, his job was to administer justice, according to the commands of the church, as accepted by our mother. All mothers who gave their wombs over to creating Soldiers of Christ were considered beyond reproach. This only encouraged our mother in her neglect of her family as she ministered to strangers.

At the same time, it encouraged all manner of depraved individual to prey on the feral children of the unprotected mother and the absent father. Sadly, this included several of our "spiritual fathers and mothers" in the garb of the priests and other "consecrated" and "anointed" people of  religious orders and the clergy.

While I continue to grieve for the pain of all born into humanity, I no longer feel guilty for any offenses that I cannot make right. I continue to feel the pain of others as they make choices that cause them to suffer, as did Jesus, but I no longer believe he had no choice with God than to die. I do believe he chose this path to prove his devotion to his mission of saving us on earth. I also hurt for all parents who, with great pain, both physical and spiritual, make the choice to bring up babies in the way that The Sacred Spirit offers to all on earth.

I refuse to believe in the rape of a virgin by a God who forces Himself on others. I refuse to believe that Jesus had any more grace than what was handed down to him by his ancestors and his teachers on earth. To believe in either is to make excuses for why we can't follow in the footsteps of this most Joyful Jew, Jesus.

Welcome, Baby Jesus. I still love you as my most sacred baby brother.

Embracing Our Eternity

I long to give my loved ones much deserved rest,
Knowing they are weary from trying their best.
But they act as if my love makes them weak,
Refusing, my sheltering arms, to seek.

Why does my strength make them afraid?
Isn't sheltering the task for which I was made?
Is it that many trees are feared in the storm,
Rather than being seen as shelters from harm?

Must all shelter be as solid as a rock cave?
In earthquakes, these don't, many lives, save.
Our nation has become a nation of fear,
Distrusting compassion that I hold most dear.

We have turned our society into animals
Who, with family and tribal mistrust, are full.

We have drawn ever further into isolation,

Protecting our own, as the greatest creations.

Fear serves the purpose of controlling behavior,
As long as animals believe in a strong savior.
To say that religions promoting fear are true
Is to deny what Jesus said that humans should do.

To say that The Sacred isn't, on earth, manifest,
Is to say that Genesis should not be professed.
It is easier to invent faces and names for gods
Than to honor The Sacred on this earth we trod.

When we bow to The Sacred Spirit in each other,
We acknowledge The Spirit as "father" and "mother".
Only through male and female sacred sexual energy
Has The Spirit become manifest in what we've come to be.

The complexity of the manifestations continues to evolve,
As mysteries of not-knowing are constantly resolved.
Perhaps it is the plight of each civilization to metamorphose
Into new gestation chambers for The Holy Ghost.

Perhaps physical manifestations will not be needed
When the imperative of harmony on earth is heeded.
I embrace the thought that the energy manifest in me
Will one day be part of energy that is limit free.

The Curse of the Universe?

Do not give up my sisters whose mothers suckled me at their breasts;
I am an example of the strength to which their loving lives did attest.
I have been abused as one not fitting into my ancestral community;
Can I help but cleave to the loving spirits that were offered to me?

The womb that bore me was jealous when her breasts were dry;
She became more incensed the more my surrogate mothers tried.
Where was her understanding of Christianity as loving example,
In which the responsible compassion of our nannies was ample?

My mother had been brainwashed into a despotic religion,
Into which the example of Jesus simply led to more division.
The Roman examples of leadership came to bear on faith;
The life of joy by Jesus soon came, to his example, erase.

Generations of family values are handed down as sacred,
In which each family member stands completely naked.
The strengths of one may be seen as weakness by others,
Until the use for each talent is put to use by their mothers.

This may be the way that western civilizations have evolved.
Until all earthly problems have, by humans, been solved,
We must continue to treat all human insight as sacred scripture,
Without confining our books of the divine to traditional strictures.

There is no beginning and no end to understanding of eternity;
Those who attempt to explain are as limited as any of we.
The secret to peace on our shared planet in the vast universe
Is to look for commonalities in religions that have been given birth.

When we find the common thread that defines our humanity,
Perhaps we will succeed in creating a world that is war free.
The question imposed on our lives of constant challenging change,
Would you find peace on our earth to be unbearably strange?

Perhaps we could decrease the fear of an eternity of boredom
If we start to honor the message from which peace on earth did come.
What if we all bonded on what we each want to do in eternity?
Would we all be freed of the limits to what we all can eternally be?

What if we believed all sacred energy is shown in manifestations
In all life, including humans of all times, all colors, and all nations?
What if we believed that salvation was the ultimate universal unity
Combining again all  manifestations of The Scared Spirit of Eternity?

I believe we could preserve rituals that appeal to diverse groups
Without finding fault with the various paths to eternal truths.
Any who have parented know that the path to each child's soul
Doesn't unequivocally deny the understandings of society as a whole.

Can we agree to celebrate responsible human compassion
No matter the politics or religious rituals that are in fashion?
The earth upon which we live may be a beacon for the universe;
I, for one, don't want to be part of a civilization that was a curse.

When I Was One

I am not sure how they remained so nice:
The women of color who, their sons, sacrifice,
To continue the sacred lines of their ancestors,
Knowing that whites think we're their betters.

Isn't it time that we stop trying to "pass"
For people who ruled with fear in our pasts?
My heritage has been so hidden from me
That "white" is all that other people see.

As an elder said, while in sacred circle,
We're all indigenous; that's the miracle.
I spent my life feeling African and Jew,
But I have shared this with only a few.

Is it my ancestors reaching out to me,
Or is it their strength that I clearly see?
I can't walk on ground that I don't know,
So to bond to the people of today I go.

There were some mothers of color there,
Who, their pain for their children, did share.
In their countries of origin, children are raped;
We slaughter their youth, in The United States.

We say we all hunger when they are starving.
What action do these impassioned words bring?
We could form a society of "other mothers"
To share resources with our dark sisters and brothers.

My children are grown, but I have the will,
To share my power and self, justice to instill.
I will be an avenging angel to another's son,
As my brown mother was to me at the age of one.

After Alchemy - A Focused Female Fight

Can we continue the conversations, brought up from the depths of our souls,
Or will we carry on at home as if, each in isolation, can be whole?
How I long for a circle with my strongest friends,
To continue in Alchemy, as the conference now ends.

I felt more in tune with the women admitting they are warriors;
Praying while in action is the way that I approach any cause.
There are many women warriors fighting only through prayer;
Do they have no action toward which to direct the rage that we share?

While we are admitting that our world is in emergency,
It seems, now is not the time to be seeking sweet serenity.
I was not trained for woman's circle, which caused some discomfort.
My old patterns of conversation, and relationships, may have hurt.

I was called down, more than once, for my obvious anger.
Did those calling me down feel that they were in danger?
Righteous anger is killing us, when it's internalized;
It is a potent fuel for action, when it's realized.

When a woman feels her family is about to be attacked,
A protective, outraged mother can stop a bear in it's tracks.
It doesn't escalate to violence, in most cases of threats,
The angrier she is, the bigger her aura gets.

We must stop licking our own wounds; the pain will not disappear.
We must channel our pain and anger to protect what we hold dear.
Who will be our leaders, uniting all the peaceful clans?
Who will be our warriors to do the work the battle demands?

Who will feed our community? Food holds us all together.
Who will hold the babies and keep the youngsters on their tethers?
Who will tend to our dying and elderly as their spirits return to the universe?
These are the topics around which I'm desperate to converse.

How much longer do we women have to hold our passions in check?
An impenetrable circle is the way to, our communities, protect.
If each woman's circle connected their talents for action with every other,
We could change the world with the strong chain of earth mothers.

Each woman must proclaim and offer her one greatest power;
No one person can hold more than one position in the eleventh hour.
We must celebrate and trust the committed competence of each other;
The earth can't resist the pressure of a singly focused chain of mothers.

At Alchemy Sunday at 6:00a.m.

Wars are often started by only one word,
Misunderstood by the one who heard.
Few words bear universal meaning;
There is no method for absolute screening.

I came here to learn and also to teach;
Now tired of explaining the words that I speak.
Frustration is natural in explaining;
We must protect against anger remaining.

There are many who will walk away;
Few who will take the time to stay.
Relationships are not easily formed;
Words can do them irreparable harm.

We so often shy away from confrontation,
Putting salve over our wounds and frustration.
But the energy expanded in clarification
Is the only method for healing our nations.