Merry Christmas, from this little elf on the shelf! (I hope you are laughing.) Sometimes I do feel somewhat like this, like this mythical creature who has landed here to watch over humans. It isn’t for the sake of judging naughty or nice though, it is more to gauge the degree to which we are getting “The Message.” And I do mean we, because while I do feel alien at times, something always comes along to whack me right back into the reality of my own humanity. In my moments of observation, I often find myself looking out at humanity thinking, “What in the hell are you doing???” Then the whack comes and I have to turn the question inward to, “What in the hell am I doing???” So it goes. As I look into that question I remember, it is always the being underneath the doing that is in need of attention.
In honor of Christmas, I’d like to have a heart to heart about who we are being. That is my signal to slow down and get centered before we move on. Get comfortable. Take a few deep breaths. Do whatever you need to do to know deep within yourself that you are safe. We are going to get uncomfortable. Yet at a time when we so often hear people complaining that we need to “put the Christ back in Christmas,” I think it is time we have an open, raw, real discussion about the elf in the room. (That was your comic relief!)
To begin, I have to again confess that I am not a Christian. In part this is to say that I was not raised a Christian. I am not a Christian by default. My parents insisted, in my Mom’s own words, that my brother and I “come to our own conclusions about God.” So I wasn’t raised in any religious tradition, and I have never adopted one. Furthermore, we didn’t discuss God in our household one way or the other. This is to say I wasn’t raised an atheist either. I truly was given free reign over my own beliefs. I will forever be grateful to my parents for that decision. The result was that I have always enjoyed a natural and direct relationship with God.
It helped, of course, that I had a direct encounter with the Divine right out of the gate. That established a relationship that continued onward such that I have never not known God. Nor have I ever questioned the existence of God. That doesn’t mean that I have not questioned God, because believe you me I have! Let me describe a little more about how our relationship functions. First off, I have never envisioned God to be an old, white, bearded male. I have never envisioned God in any form of embodiment. When I visualize God, what I see is pure white light. That’s it. God does, however, have a voice. So my communication with God has always been primarily in the form of a conversation. That conversation happens through my own internal voice. I don’t hear dead people, or deities for that matter. Yet it is a distinct voice.
Not that God always answers to my whining and bitching and questioning. When I get into that mode, I know God is listening and that the response is going to be to just let me play myself out. For example, I have given God considerable grief over my lifetime about whether or not humanity was the best design They could come up with. What can I say, I am an architect! I know the answers to such questioning at this point, but that will have to wait for a future post. What I want you to hear now is that my relationship with God is nothing special. Not at all. This is the relationship we are all meant to have. God also speaks to me through the world. They might speak to me through a series of events. They might speak to me through you. No matter what the mode of communication, I hear when I have the ears to hear… which is not always.
That is my relationship with God in a nutshell. Now for my relationship with Jesus Christ. I don’t really have one. I know that probably makes a whole lot of Christians sad right out of the gate. I’ll ask you not to be, for reasons that I am about to explain. The deeper reason I am not a Christian is that I am not by choice. I have never been in need of a mediary between me and God. That is why I have never adopted any religion or guru. Please understand that this is in no way an act of disrespect or a prescription. As a case in point, it might make you feel better to know that I wholeheartedly believe in Jesus Christ. Although I am sure I have now confused a great many of you, so more explanation is in order.
I believe that Jesus Christ was exactly who he said he was. I believe that Christ was God. No question. Of course I believe that there is nothing but God, so how could I not? Yet I also do consider Jesus to be an enlightened master, in the same way that I consider Krishna, Buddha, Moses and Muhammed to be enlightened masters (among others). Now some Christians are going to be mad at me again, because that seems like I am demoting him. I am not. I am simply promoting everyone else. Hang in there. Breathe. Let’s talk about what an enlightened master is. In the way that I use the designation, an enlightened master is somebody who has completely and utterly removed all boundaries of self to realize that he/she/they is in actuality The All That Is. In short, enlightened masters have truly realized that they are God, and they furthermore abide in that knowingness. This is Christ Consciousness.
So I can buy into all aspects of Jesus’s life story. When one lives beyond the veil of separation, one is not bound by the rules of separation. Yet not adopting Jesus as my Savior and my Way disqualifies me from being a Christian as Christianity has defined it. I do not accept that Christianity is the only way to “reunite” with God. I do, however, accept it as one way. I further do not accept Christianity’s adoption of the story that humans are inherently sinners and that only Jesus sacrificing his life for us would save us from ourselves. I don’t buy that. Take a lot of really deep breaths now. Maybe get up and stretch. Pour yourself something warm. Calm your heart. We are all gonna be o.k.
The reason that I don’t buy the story that Jesus had to sacrifice his life for us and that the only way to God is through that sacrifice is because I don’t believe that is what Jesus actually intended. To be more direct, I believe that interpretation of the story to be antithetical to The Message that Jesus came to deliver. And let’s make no mistake about it. Jesus’s mission was one of the most, if not the most, daring, ambitious, moonshot attempts ever made to deliver The Message to humanity. It was also, for sure, the most excruciating, exacting, sacrificial, and ultimately brutal in the attempt. It wasn’t these latter things by necessity. It was that way by our own choosing. We chose to do to Jesus what we have done to each and every one who has ever attempted to deliver The Message. We crucified him (literally, in this case).
Now of course Jesus was warned that this would be his fate. That doesn’t mean that he just accepted it. He questioned God in the exact same way that any human who is being honest has, “Why have you forsaken me?” That is to say that Jesus was every bit as human as the rest of us. He wouldn’t dispute this. Why? Because Jesus ultimately came to know beyond the shadow of a doubt (although it took some strife) that there is nothing but God. Therefore he would never, and did never, place himself above anything else. To do so would be to place himself (God) above God. It doesn’t work. That we have placed him above us is the result of us not yet having the ears to hear the very Message that he came to deliver.
This is not what he wanted for us, I would say. To be more specific, the world we have henceforth created is not what he wanted for us. Here’s the thing. When Jesus said I am the beggar at your door, He. Was. Not. Speaking. Metaphorically. He was simply stating the literal truth: there is nothing but God. We are all that. Yes, Christ = God. Christ knew that. He also knew that as God he was all of it. Literally. I can’t stress that enough. The irony here is that we have managed to turn things meant to be taken literally into metaphors and things meant to be metaphors into things to be taken literally. We got it all backwards. Why? Because we haven’t yet had the ears to hear.
To accept The Message is deeply terrifying. It is terrifying for us individually on multiple levels. On the surface level, to make such a declaration means facing the crucifixion by our fellow humans that is sure to follow. No thanks. On a deeper level, to accept that we are God means that we have to accept responsibility. Ugh. You mean I have to take responsibility for this disaster of an area that we have made? Yes. On a collective level, the powers that be can’t have us all going around believing that we are God. How on earth would they maintain power and control if we knew that? All hell would surely break loose. We honestly believe that. The irony here is that the exact opposite is true. When we all realize that we are God, all heaven will break loose. This, my friends, is what Jesus intended for us. Heaven on Earth.
When I think about Jesus, I can only imagine him in a facepalm. Of course I can only imagine him from my own perspective. I would be pissed as all get out if my name had been used to wage wars, kill, oppress, enslave, hoard, other, separate, withhold, hate, etc. I would be wondering to myself, “What did I do wrong??? Didn’t I tell them and show them and demonstrate to them that there is nothing but God?! Didn’t I prove to them that death is an illusion? Didn’t I lift the veil so that they would understand that they too are God? And what is God, if not Love? How are they not getting it????” That would be me as Jesus right about now. Then again, I am not looking at it from the perspective of an enlightened master, because I am not one. The enlightened master knows that it is just a matter of time, and we have all of the time in the Universe.
And then we don’t. Not in this world. Really, folks, we don’t. Not this go around anyway. We will have infinite chances for sure. But this one is almost up. In the short 2,000 plus years since Jesus’s great attempt to deliver The Message, we can now only view it as a great Hail Mary pass. Will we catch it? Or will we drop it? It truly was a moonshot given where we now stand. It is with this in mind that I will now make my grownup Christmas wish. Here it is:
If anybody- I mean anyone– should walk up to you and ask the question, “Who am I?,” I wish every human to be able to wholeheartedly respond beyond the shadow of a doubt, “You are Christ.” No matter the circumstance! We will know we have it when we do so without hesitation, or judgement, or disbelief. I further wish that every human be able to look themselves in the mirror, look directly into their own eyes, and be able to say, “I am Christ” without flinching or shrinking for fear that a lightening bolt might strike us down. When we are able to do that, we will know that we have gotten The Message. Finally. Then we can actually get to the work of turning this thing around.
For those of you who are not Christian, simply replace “Christ” with the enlightened master of your own choosing. For those of you who are spiritual/not religious, simply replace “Christ” with “God” or “The All That Is.” For those of you who are atheist, simply replace “Christ” with “Everything.” It really matters not which direction you come from, as there is only one destination- and it is Oneness. We will arrive when we realize that is what we are. This, fellow humans that I love so much, is The Message. It is time for us to have the ears to hear. We cannot wait any longer. Our survival depends upon us getting it.
As I always do, I honor Christ on this celebration of his birth, for his daring attempt to deliver to us the most important Message of all time, whereby, yes, we will be delivered if only we can hear it. For those of you who celebrate the deliverance of The Message by one of the many others who have also attempted to deliver it, Happy Hanukkah, Joyous Kwanzaa, Happy Holidays, and Seasons Greetings. Let’s celebrate the season together by doing our best to recognize and abide in who we truly are. What we need to do will become clear from there. Much Love to you all and Godspeed.