Promise of Pentecost

I believe that humanity has been taught that we can't be fully human with accepting the dogma of others about what defines religion or a deity to be believed. I simply don't believe that anyone on earth, at any time in human history, has been able to grasp the entirety of the awesome that encompasses the universe. I do believe that there is evidence of a mystery, inconceivable to the minds of humans, in everyday manifestations of the physical universe.

Scientists and spiritualists are two sides of the same coin; they both attempt to put words and easily assimilated visions of what is wondrous into words around which we can wrap our finite minds. We will never find the end of the loop because there is no beginning or end. They are both the same, as in a Möbius strip. Inside and outside never end; they only continue in the paths of each other.

I choose not to limit my manifestations of The Sacred Spirit by what others tell me it looks (looked) like to them in their worldviews. I refuse to believe that The Sacred Spirit was only revealed to males. I refuse to believe that The Sacred Spirit stopped "speaking" almost two thousand years ago.

I believe in the Promise of Pentecost. All who want to be sacred can grab themselves some of The Sacred Spirit, either directly or through contact with those who glow with this grace and are willing to be touched by others in need.

Pentecost and Pondering

The day that counts the most in my spirituality
Is the day that The Sacred Spirit, was finally set free.
For centuries the Breath of the Universe was captured
By those who, by only what they saw, were enraptured.

To people of the Pentecost who continue to wait
For The Second coming, I simply can't relate.
The message of this great day is very clear to me;
The Sacred Spirit has always manifested in eternity.

Generation, by generation, tribe by tribe,
Each species awakened to reasons we're alive.
Why do we continue to insist that the way is back?
When Pentecost played out, there was nothing that we lacked.

We must stop listening to those who promote fear;
That they are also afraid, should be most clear.
We don't need to follow those who are, themselves, afraid
When the path that Jesus walked was so carefully laid.

Each human has the capacity to join the family of faith
In the great capacity of community in the human race.
Those who set us against each other are to be scorned,
Stripped of the status with which they've been adorned.

The ways of The Sacred are that we feel most alive
When with those who only wish for The Spirit to thrive.
We must shield ourselves from naysayers until we are strong;
They, and their fearful followers, are the ones in the wrong.

The ways of the fearful boast, ridicule, and bully others;
I don't understand how they attract sisters and brothers.
Those who walk the path of joy and, in others, belief
Seem to be the one's in life who are most subject to grief.

I cannot, any longer, be made to feel afraid
Now that my children's adult paths have been laid.
It was only for them that I held my wrath back;
The bullies will always, the most vulnerable, attack.

My words have been honed and carefully sharpened;
They are the weapons on which I most depend.
Nobody has the answer to the great mysteries of life;
What we experience in our totality will have to suffice.

I will not stay silent when a child is ridiculed
Because he or she sees "God" in a rippling pool.
I'll not be party to those saying babies are born in sin;
This only allows the fearful charlatans to come in.

There is no space in The Sacred Spirit's life for fear;
There is only awe for all that we naturally hold most dear.
We must stop expecting that we'll ever fully understand;
That, to me, is the beauty of being simply human.

To each person is given a small piece to the whole puzzle;
Without all the pieces, the picture won't be full.
It matters not in what generation all the answers are given;
The cooperation in the puzzle is how we create earthly heaven.

Perhaps, when we complete the puzzle, the world will end;
Meanwhile, I hope to make many more eternal friends.
Have you ever done a puzzle where all pieces are black or white?
This is the world vision that we continue to fight.

All the pieces fit in some version of the puzzle's whole.
All the religions of the earth have parts of truth told.
Just like a map of the earth and maps of the universe,
The shapes only give us points on which to converse.

We're meant to attempts at common language, to be sure;
Though all the universe can only be described in metaphor.
Awe is only possible when we don't fully understand.
Pondering mystery is the greatest gift of being human.

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.