Why am I writing Bible Stories?\u00a0 Like any good Jew, I answer a question with a question!<\/p>\n
Have you ever had a dream where you were naked?<\/p>\n
For myself, those dreams were usually in the context of school.\u00a0 I was participating in class, then I happen to look down and BAM! I suddenly realize that I forgot to get dressed!\u00a0 I’m sure everyone has had at least one dream like this in their life.\u00a0 I could never really understand this type of dream.\u00a0 The idea of forgetting always seemed to be at the forefront, and I would wake up with thoughts like, “How could I forget to do something so simple as get dressed?”\u00a0 Yet forgetting didn’t completely make sense because usually it is only when one looks at themselves they realize they were naked.\u00a0 Any reaction by the people in the dream, if at all, comes after the fact of realizing.<\/p>\n
In mid-August of 2010, I experienced the first of several kundalini openings in my spine.\u00a0 These openings in the core of my being have continued almost like clockwork, every two months since, always occurring in the middle part of every alternating month.\u00a0 The first opening came from the sacrum, moving into the heart.\u00a0 The next came from the heart, moving through the neck, approaching the crown, and so on.<\/p>\n
There are many ways to try and describe what is happening, they are mostly metaphorical.\u00a0 The experience is that my soul is much more tightly integrated with my body.\u00a0 The most dramatic, literally, affect of this change has been a radical connecting of my voice and my true self.\u00a0 Put simply, I found my voice and whatsoever is true and sincere of me comes out – for good or for ill.<\/p>\n
Luke 12 contains the following portion:<\/p>\n
“There is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. What you have whispered … will be proclaimed from the rooftops.” <\/em><\/p>\n What if your soul came through your own voice and you had no ability to “turn it off” anymore?\u00a0 These expressions are like a double-edged sword: on one hand celebratory and inspirational integrating that of the soul into everyday living.\u00a0 One the other hand, they reveal that which is of weakness and of shadow within me all the more readily. \u00a0 In other words, in an emotional and spiritual sense my nakedness was somehow made permanent: I can’t help but be who I am and have no desire to “clothe” it in any other way.<\/p>\n One of the epistles states:<\/p>\n Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ\u2019s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ\u2019s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”- 2 Corinthians 12:9,10<\/em><\/p>\n I’ve never really been a lover of the Bible.\u00a0 Like most people, I mostly despised the hypocrisies contained therein and the high-and-mighty way that people use the Bible to put each other down at best and commit genocide at worst. True to the way of the scribe, I can’t help but rewrite the above passage in way that is true of me:<\/p>\n Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so the power of the soul may live through me.\u00a0 As a living soul I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. The warm winds of rebuke feel like food to my soul.\u00a0 The hot fire of failure fuels the light of my soul.\u00a0 For when I fail, then I am strong in spirit and walk through its open door to redemption. Therefore I sing the song of my soul without fear, that when my mouth closeth I finally know complete rest in the the kind of silence that is one with the Father within. If this isn’t radical nakedness, I don’t know what is.\u00a0 In choosing this way of life described above, both the incredible love of who I am and the shadows I carry are perhaps equally proclaimed by the rooftops of my own expressions. In the story of Adam and Eve, the dynamic duo are depicted as happily naked in their original state, and only “clothed themselves” after being influenced by however way one would interpret the fall of man.<\/p>\n Nakedness.\u00a0 I have finally found a metaphor that I can connect 100% with my life.\u00a0 Amazingly, this metaphor is also in the Bible.<\/p>\n Radical Self-Disclosure.\u00a0 Hmm… perhaps this is a step towards Christ-consciousness. It certainly forces one to grow faster!!!\u00a0 If I can’t hide my nakedness anymore, if my heart is constantly being shouted from the rooftops of my own voice – I’d better just busy accepting it and doing the work required to make that which can no longer be hidden become functionally integrated just as well!\u00a0 Amazingly, this metaphor is also in the Bible.<\/p>\n Acceptance.\u00a0 Acceptance and loving myself for who I am.\u00a0 What a gift that is!!\u00a0 The greatest gift of shouting what’s hidden in the heart continuously is the gift of, perhaps for the first time, finding love for all that is good and all that is bad within oneself.<\/p>\n In the process of being unable to not speak my own heart, radical honesty is thus elicited from others as well – and just like my own it is not always kind.\u00a0 One of the most challenging accusations that have come back is that I must have some kind of messianic complex to be speaking, acting and writing the way I do.\u00a0 I’m continually reflecting on this accusation, and the fruits of those reflections in part are the reason for writing this story.<\/p>\n Each morning beckons like the rising sun, accepting myself as I am & finding greater ability to express love more deeply and fully.\u00a0 Perhaps in accepting myself more fully, it is only natural to more fully accept and love other people as well. Sometimes I feel so hopelessly in love with everyone I see, I can’t help but smile like an idiot!!\u00a0 I call this my “friendly face meditation.”\u00a0 But what happens when my ability to love others exceeds their ability to love themselves?<\/p>\n What is a messiah?\u00a0 What if the one who was known as Yeshua simply was just an incredibly loving, truthful man and no one could really handle it?\u00a0 If this was true then it would make sense that half the people who couldn’t handle it wanted to worship him and the other half wanted to destroy and silence him.\u00a0 What if all Yeshua wanted was for people to love themselves they way he loved himself and others?\u00a0 What if those healed by faith were those few lucky ones simply able to find naked compassion for themselves?<\/p>\n What if the story of the Bible is simply a story of awakening available to anyone?\u00a0 What if the Bible were simply a celebration of what it means to be a human being?\u00a0 What if worshiping anyone or anything were simply an obstacle to getting on with the business of becoming divine? \u00a0\u00a0 What if those moments of shadow were simply a forgetting to love myself and others?\u00a0 Such a love simply needs to be given first place above all that seeking to be born out of the abundance of my heart!\u00a0 If those are both true, then naked compassion for oneself and others could never be evidence of forgetfulness, but rather evidence of remembrance.<\/p>\n What if?\u00a0 What if? These kinds of questions, combined with my experiences in dreams metaphorically applied to my living, have resulted in this quest which I have named “The Book of Redemption.” Questions are so amazing!<\/p>\n If knowing that you do you not know is the beginning of wisdom, then questions are like an open door to a new world.\u00a0 The Quest is contained in the question. The question is a journey for which destinations are only temporary. Its complete answer can never arrive, but only deepen in unfolding like another signpost on the way.<\/p>\n This is the essential antidote to any doubts.\u00a0 Questions are “anti-doubts” because when one asks anything with a sincere and open heart, the door is opened and the answer comes not by grasping some kind of answer, pulling it from the other side,\u00a0 but by walking through the door yourself!<\/p>\n Good questions are the doors to eternity!!!\u00a0 Can a “good priest,” a “good Rabbi, a “good Jew,” “good Christian,” “good Muslim,” “good American,” “good man or woman” or a “good consultant” ever celebrate the fruits of not-knowing?\u00a0 Certainly any “good Messiah” wouldn’t be entitled!! In what context can good questions really be celebrated for what they are?<\/p>\n Related to the Bible, I believe there is no document more grossly misused or misunderstood.\u00a0 What a perfect source of spiritual nutrition to exercise the art of good questions!!!\u00a0 This story is the fruit born from walking through one such door after another.<\/p>\n To the question of messianic complex, I answer with a prayer:\u00a0 “May all who dare to live fully in love be neither worshiped nor destroyed.”<\/p>\n To you I extend an invitation through an open door.\u00a0 I invite you, not into an answer, but into a journey – the journey of good questions. The answers will never come to you.\u00a0 You must yourself go through the door and see what you have become.<\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Why am I writing Bible Stories?\u00a0 Like any good Jew, I answer a question with a question! Have you ever had a dream where you were naked? For myself, those dreams were usually in the context of school.\u00a0 I was participating in class, then I happen to look down and BAM! I suddenly realize that … Continue reading Naked Compassion<\/span>
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