Pagan Gods of Punishment vs Eternal Energy

Pagans believe in gods of punishment and gods for all other occurrences;
This seems to me the problem with referring to The Sacred Spirit as God.
The testaments that we accept today are filled with mistaken perceptions,
Based on the beliefs that homo sapiens held in less capable of reasoning brains.

While the psalms sing of the beauty of The Sacred Spirit in life,
Many, like Cain and Abraham, turned back to gods of fear.
Moses took the time to review the rabble and find a common code,
One that bridged the gap between fear of gods and full humanity.

How foolish it was for the Israelites to attempt to define boundaries
Based, not on shared values for living, but on the dirt of the earth.
Will we humans ever stop fighting to create a universal place of peace
Until we understand that we're the earthly embodiment of all the gods?

Only we have been given the ability to grow beyond our animal instincts,
And to bond with all physical species in an effort to bond the entire universe.
Every insult, every bomb, every destructive action on our earth
Serves to turn our full human community back into Cain and Abraham's chaos.

I do not seek to dishonor our Biblical patriarchs in our religious ancestry;
I do believe it is important to acknowledge their mistakes and their triumphs.
We must stop defining our parents as good without grievous mistakes,
Or we're doomed to eternity in the hells of their, and their parents', making.

Abraham was a woman and child abuser; we still pay the price in enmity.
How many generations of our children will die because of his mistakes?
Is it not time that we all use our better judgement about the earth
And accept defeat on the parts of all who came before our generation?

It is incumbent upon all humanity to begin with a clean earthly slate,
Realizing that all our former rules were based on ancestral animal fears.
Our deceased fathers and mothers harmed our ancestral sisters and brothers,
But we must all reach across war zones the embrace each other in peace.

We must seek to redefine ways to recognize The Sacred Spirit on earth.
Can we agree that all of what is truly sacred leads to balance and peace?
All power promoting fear or pain as punishment should be disqualified
As entities to which human beings should bow or inflict on others on earth.

I sing the songs of The Sacred Spirit that I see all around me every day;
I'm told I'm destined for the hell created by the gods of fear and punishment.
I care not about this far-away heaven because every smile brings a bit of joy;
In the eternal energy of each who embraces my aura, I will live in eternity.

Blessing the Beyond

I wonder what it's like to feel so powerful that your prayer influences the actions of God.
It seems to me that only our earthly actions influence anything in universal eternity.
So many say that we must fear God, at the same time as they say God is love.
How can rational beings possibly believe both simultaneously about the same being?
I have no fear of those who love me, though I have deep respect for alienation.
I seek to understand those who love me, and attempt to expose my inner self to them.

Fear cancels love, growth, and faith; fear of a Father God is simply slavery.
As the seeds of humanity are planted and nurtured, so grow the children of earth.
While the feelings of full communication are awe-inspiring and sometimes overwhelming,
The need to step back, process, and internalize them isn't a sign of rejection.
I don't spend my life begging to be accepted by those in whose love I trust,
But we are taught to beg for the favor of The Sacred Spirit that lives in all.

I simply don't understand how this promise, petition, and otherworldly gratitude works.

Why send energy to a heavenly god that can be better utilized here on our own earth?
I'd rather spend my life looking with love into another's eyes that on my knees in worship.

It seems to me we'd be incapable of fear or hatred, if we saw our every action as a prayer.

Baptism in water comes first in the womb; the The Sacred Spirit comes through shared love.

Can we ever become fully human when deprived of the true foods of The Sacred Spirit?

Entering into each other gives our own bit of The Sacred Spirit true eternal life;
It is in the ebb and flow of this sharing that we consecrate each other's lives.
This begins with the birth of a baby opening eyes to pure parental devotion,
And is carried forward to be shared with all the child encounters on the earth.
How sad it is for those babies born into the eyes of hatred and fear,
As their parents curse the very breath and blood in their small bodies.

The act of impregnation can be either an act of Sacred Energy and communion,
Or it can be the planting of new seeds of loathing for The Sacred Spirit on earth.
Will we ever stop hatred in humanity until we stop forcing women to breed?
Can The Sacred Spirit be resuscitated in a soul so scarred by a curse at birth?
Only those with open ears and eyes to love completely and fiercely
Have a hope of overcoming the deficits of hope, and heal human society.

Hearing, seeing, feeding, holding, wiping away tears and calming fears;
These are actions that infuse The Sacred Spirit into any animal on earth.
When we persecute others, we pervert the power of The Sacred Spirit;
No amount of prayers will rescue us from this hell of our own creation.
Help heal the earth by seeing someone in pain, and looking the person in the eyes,
Offering nothing but your open soul to absorb and transform pain to peace.

Even death won't frighten those who know their energy lives in another,
Whether they absorbed another's heaven or hell while physically on earth.
The cycle of The Sacred Spirit will eventually balance in eternity,
If we each concentrate on actions of healing communion with the universe.
Hold the hands of those who are fearful, allowing them the chance to speak;
With eyes, ears and heart, assure that you carry forward The Sacred Spirit of their lives.

Failing Faith

The greatest failing I have found in what we call "Christianity" is the inability of those in community to confront one another's actions with responsible compassion for the person and the full community. There is a difference between judgement of a person's character or morality and confrontation for actions which are harmful to the community. It is this lack of definition that I believe continues the cycles of abuse even in the most religious "Christian" cultures.

Our bodies are born as animals with the ability to embrace a higher level of life. The Sacred Spirit enables us to rise above our animal instincts. The purpose of Jesus' life seems to me to show humans how to act in the spirit of a community, creating a heaven on earth through fellowship as families of intention. The trend to create huge church "families" is, in my opinion, harmful to the intimacy required to have responsibly compassionate communities. We must open ourselves up completely to interact on a spiritual basis. Unfortunately, hiding one's most vulnerable self and hypocrisy seem to be the norm in the mega church environments.

Real families have rules, and they confront each other when behaviors are harming anyone in the community, including harming of oneself. Lying, cheating, and bullying behaviors harm the full family. They break trust. When people gather to witness weddings or baby blessings, they are supposed to be signing on to help in supporting the inclusion in the boundaries of the family and greater community entered into with the rituals. How many take the rituals as including oneself in the support network for those being blessed by the church community?

I believe we have lost the meaning behind the rituals and have abandoned the true meaning of church family. We are simply a bunch of strangers mindlessly mouthing scriptures that have no bearing on how we live our lives as committed community. For this reason, many people have turned away from religion and are seeking The Sacred Spirit in their own neighborhoods and networks of friends.

Three-Year-Olds Define Divinity

Anyone saying he or she speaks for any one god
Is both a great liar and a horribly corrupt thief.
They are guilty of ultimate earthly arrogance,
And the killing of innocents' hope and belief.

Why do we believe in visions of hope and love
From any child older than the magic age of three?
These are The Sacred Spirit's bodies on earth
That still clearly see our full family's unity.

Why do we, as frightened adults, spend time
Teaching them that their visions are wrong?
We stop them from telling their hope-filled stories
And convince them to stop singing their pure songs.

We then fill their innocent spirits with our own pain,
Teaching them to subject themselves to our fears.
How do we continue justifying teaching of untruths,
That, in so many places and times, have been made clear?

When will humans stop reversing ourselves
On our hard-earned and honored knowledge gained?
It was not the new insight of humanity that was wrong;
Perhaps the loss of community wasn't worth what remained.

God is simply the awe in every creature able to think;
It is wrong for shamans, witches and priests create fear.
All energy that is beyond our own capacity is awesome;
This is the only belief in divine otherness that I hold dear.

How Horribly Hypocrisy Hurts

How horribly it hurts me to continue to challenge my best friends and family,
But until they understand their own prejudices, they will not the truth be able to see.
The strongest religious beliefs present all others as less worthy than themselves.
Until they put a loved one's face on condemnation, these beliefs, in their hearts, dwell.

My mother died believing that her children were mostly condemned to hell;
I ask myself how any mother could believe in those who, these horrible lies, tell.
If a child is born of my body and blood through the sacrament of shared sacred,
How could anyone support the notion that, without religious ritual, they are foresaked?

It may be true that these rituals were to bond many not of the same parental blood,
But the chosen sacred family has long been abandoned for the greedy church's good.
Empty promises to protect and participate in the spiritual lives of many others
Has created a closed society of only unthinking, passive sisters and brothers.

Like sheep led to their slaughters, communities follow the loudest voices,
They leave no time for thoughtful discussion, in order to make their own choices.
Religions and churches that once were centers of descent from greed and genocide
Have become temples of money changers in which the most cowardly humans hide.

I am a self-avowed heretic, in the truest meaning of this death-penalty word.
I shout out and reject hypocrisy wherever, through religion, it is, by me, heard.
Anyone or any group assigning, to The Sacred Spirit, demands of human sacrifice
Is not a group that is promoting the sacramental in a joyful earthly life.

Priests are the hands of inflicting mortal pain as punishment to humans,
As if this is what The Eternal, Universal  Sacred Spirit, from us, demands.
I refuse to believe that any of us are entered into earth to suffer and perish,
Without ample opportunity to create memories and energy to be cherished.

It is up to each of us to decide to embrace life or to promote eternal death;
I have been asked repeatedly, and to this prejudice, I am freely willing to confess:
Unless others are willing to give themselves totally to bonding with others,
Our species will continue to be a pack of competitive, feral animal sisters and brothers.

Any religion that promotes itself as the only path to full eternal divinity
Is continuing the wars that keep us from acting as interdependent humanity.
I have no fear of physical death; my spirit long ago died with religion's words,
Telling me that only the children's voices of my own religion were heard.

I knew that they were lies; I also knew that my soul would be saved
If I lied about my beliefs, if asked about them, by those who are depraved.
How foolish was the God whom so many religious presented to me,
That no matter what I said, The Sacred Spirit couldn't, my intentions, see.

I suppose I will die without many like-minded friends of my own,
Because so many want to save me and bring me to their God's home.
I am not interested in entering their faith or their eternal life's heaven;
I honestly believe that heaven on earth is where I've, most of my life, been.

This is because I believe what we sow on earth, our loved one's and theirs reap;
"On earth as it is in heaven" is the promise I try, with the whole earth, to keep.
It is for this reason that I continually walk away from my family's confusion;
Only with my physical absence will the good memories of me be a sacred infusion.

The Problem with Prayers

I never believed in prayers of supplication because they always felt wrong to me;
Good weather for my wedding paled in light of a farmer's need for a crop's rain.
As I became older, I understood the problem in a different light of logic.
I could not trust a divine entity that allowed others to influence his decisions.

I do not understand those who believe they have power over Providence.
What if two prayer warriors pray at cross purposes to the same god?
There may be some at the bedside of the sick praying for continued life,
While others are praying as fervently for the invalid's release from life's pain.

People have said that they daily pray for me; for what they pray I don't know.
The problem with their prayers seems to be that they pray to the wrong entity.
I do not want the favor of the god of Adam, nor the god of Abraham;
This god is full of vengeance and demands fear from his most faithful progeny.

My only prayer throughout my life is that I be able to handle all my pain,
But I now know that pain placed on me by others is not a fire that cleanses.
I still pray for stoic acceptance of pain that is part of rebirth of myself and others,
But I no longer silently, sweetly tolerate agony inflicted to cause my spiritual death.

Forgiveness of seventy times seven may serve to heal old memories,
But it should not grant permission to others to continue harming me.
There are only two cheeks to turn in any altercation between combatants;
Once they are both broken or bruised, it is time to seek solace in separation.

From the beginning of humanity, we've brought destruction on ourselves,
Constantly insisting that life is about competition and winning over others.
It seems to matter not how many generations have already poisoned themselves;
Our religions teach that only a few will ever be favored by their one and only god.

This is why I wish that those who love me would not pray for me;
I would rather that they accept their own chairs in the heaven of their divine entity.
I do not want to live for eternity in a place where we will look for infinite salvation
On the pain and despair of those who spent their lives being, by god, crucified.

I have no use for any entity that takes pleasure in the pain of his progeny;
Much less is my affection for one who creates children for him to destroy.
I do believe in the examples of life attributed to the Joyful Jew Jesus;
I accept the path he is said to have walked as a path that, if followed, promotes peace.

Comfort and Cowardice

It has been such a huge disappointment in my life
To recognize my most passionate friends as cowards.
They justify the fact that they don't blow whistles
On the excuse that they need to support their families.

I have waited for decades on their families to grow;
They have still not changed their allegiances.
How many more generations will it take
Before those who betrayed me will stand up as friends?

The only efforts worth dying for are those about values;
It hurts me to realize that most would prefer to fit in.
My life has come down to a pretense at friendship,
Based on what we eat and what people we both know.

How I had hoped that my children would accept
That we each can choose family of faithful beliefs.
Unfortunately my children have chosen paths
That give them comfort at the expense of cowardice.

I'm considered mentally deranged because I refuse to fold,
In a world where the majority wishes to return to war.
How is peaceful engagement considered the ill to overcome?
Aren't humans more than worshipers of gods who require blood?

I cannot fight the masses who are content to live in fear.
Does only a true fool continue to believe in miracles?
I have seen the future of  our earth with human hubris,
And I am happy that my grandchildren are enjoying today.

There will be no future as long as we continue to hurry,
And impose competition on all we human beings touch.
Only accessing quiet and humble acquiescence to nature
Gives humans the template for saving something for our young.

None of us have to compete with other human beings;
We can compete with ourselves in learning life lessons.
When we ask only what are our own gifts and life goals,
We will stop destroying earth, and to eternity be blessings.