The Master's Ladder Step by Step
Step Seven
Mat 5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
I wrote this first with many references from the Holy Fathers, about reconciling the inner man with the outer man. Reconciling the heart and mind, etc. How true peace is an inner struggle and happens only when a man becomes reconciled with God. How, when a man has become so reconciled he naturally tries to effect this reconciliation with others. There is always allusions to greater and grander negotiation and peace making, dialog and understanding.
All the time the images of fake peace haunting my thoughts. This is the huge tradition of the Fathers with many references, and it is NOT wrong, it is easily referenced so I don't what to merely repeat what is common knowledge. This is one of those subject that has exhaustive writing, Christian as Peacemaker. In all of these references, in the English translations the word, “peacemaker” and "peacemakers" is continually employed, as it if has some holy and spiritual significance. I want to take a slightly different approach.
How could Jesus say, “Blessed are the peacemakers” and “I came not to bring peace but a sword.” Is one statement more important than the other? Some would have you believe that "peacemaking" is an outer function and taking up the sword has merely an interior function, sort of like the Muslim apologists try to convince you that Jihad is an "interior spiritual struggle." Jesus also said, “he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one.” I suggest that peacemaking and taking up the sword have both an interior and exterior reality. Let us look further.
We have an example of peaceful “Christian Society” in an admonishment by Saint Paul to the “people of the way” the Thessalonians, instructing them to “be at peace,” and it directly ties to these steps.
1Th 5:12ff And we request of you, brothers, to recognize those who labor among you, and are over you in the Lord and instruct you, and to regard them beyond all measure in love, because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brothers, admonish the disorderly, encourage the discouraged, be supportive of the weak, be patient toward all. See that no one pays back evil for evil to anyone, but always pursue that which is good, both for one another and for all. Rejoice always! Pray without ceasing!
Let me further deconstruct the common interpretation of this proposition, “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Do you know that “peacemaker” is an English word, created for use in the King James Bible with no antecedent in English literature and no etymology springing from another language. A totally invented word. I think there are some languages, some Northern European languages where they squeeze this verse into “Blessed are the pacifists” - words having equal meaning in their language. I know this is the way the Coptics use this verse, as if all force is violence.
Dutch, vredestichters, means peace keepers, those who by reason and force, keep the peace.
If we translated the verse literally it would be, Blessed are the (ειρηνοποιός from the root word ειρηνευτής - pacifier) pacificatory, i.e. those who have been pacified. What does pacification mean. Any army officer can tell you, creating a state of non-hostilities in country. In this case the country is our own selves, our own hearts, our own psyches. The pacification of the interior is the absence of psycho-pathos. The suffering soul ceases to suffer. So it would be correct to translate the words as "blessed are the peaceable." Or better those who keep the peace. Who are the peaceable but those who are “at peace.” How does one become “at peace”? By the spiritual discipline outlined in these steps. In this instance what is described as “peaceable” has as much in common with social and political pacifism, as being meek has in common with being weak.
The word peace traces its meaning from the Anglo-French pes, and the Old French pais, meaning "peace, reconciliation, silence, agreement." This going back to the 11th century. We see in those definitions words that fits the lessons of these steps.
Reconciliation, where the heart-mind becomes totally reconciled with God.
Silence, where the chaos of the mind is silenced, so that communication with God can be and ultimately is restored, without the roar of Luciferian static.
This word “pes” “pais” came to us from the Latin pax, meaning "compact or agreement or treaty of non-hostilities” a legal term. Pax Romana - Roman Peace, proves that violence of Empire can be mistaken for a time for peace. Even the great church father, a foundation of Orthodoxy who fought the brave fight against heresy like few others in our history, observed this sort of nominal peace saying, "Through the Roman's instrumentality, the world is at peace, and we walk on the highways without fear and sail where we will. _ Irenaeus AD 180.
This holds little in common with the concept of peace we wish to highlight here. Pacts of Peace, or peace generated at the point of a gun or edge of a sword, are always agreements of slavery. Even if totally equitable, which means both sides compromised to evil, or the damage caused by evil, it represents at the VERY best, remission of a disease that is hell bent on destruction. I'm not speaking of anarchy here. There ARE lesser and greater degrees of just governance. Yet, we place this proposition, “Blessed are the peacemakers” into the paradigm of making peace agreements with evil, so that in our time we read, Blessed are those who make agreements of peace.
I propose and I know that what is true, can never make peace with what is lie.
I propose and I know that what is pure can never make peace with what is corrupted.
I propose and I know that what is life-engendering can never make peace with Satan that ole destroyer, whose very symbol in Paleo-Hebrew is the symbol of sharp toothed jaws chewing up a human being, meaning, he who destroys mankind. There is no peace to make with this evil.
Those whose spiritual reality has become LIFE-engendering, whose very presence has become LIFE-engendering, the psalmist described this way – (note - remember the Kingdom of God is within, the “house of God” is our hearts, if we so make it):
Psa 84:4 Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will be still praising thee. Selah. Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee; in whose heart are the ways of them. Who passing through the valley of Baca make it a well; the rain also filleth the pools. They go from strength to strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.
When you have established “praying without ceasing” “rejoicing always” that is, the prayer of the heart, where the heart-mind has awakened and is in continual communion with God, where communication via the power of the Holy Spirit is continual . . . I'm not talking about endless verbalization, although to quiet the mind of its chaos, the Hesychast discipline of the Jesus Prayer (Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner) is a powerful tool repeated thousands of times a day, which has the power to overcome the fantasy laden and fantasy producing brain, to train it to silence while the heart prays . . . the Jesus Prayer is a tool not the goal; “communion empowered by the Holy Spirit” is the goal.
And by communion, I'm describing something more like the digital “ping” of a fiber-optic line. When communications is cleared, there is an open direct line between the heart and the All Mighty, the heart every few seconds pings the Lord and the Lord says, “Here I am.” The Lord pings the Heart, and the Heart-mind says “Here I am.” A standing open communications line, so that when information has to pass, it is faster than the speed of light, faster than our natural thought process, feeding us the synergistic wisdom of the Holy Spirit, timely and to the point, functioning above our own rationalizing, an intuitive knowledge that is at every instance, a weapon of healing/salvation.
The process is so natural, those next to you cannot perceive anything different about you, except that they sense there is at your core a rock they cannot move, using their normal hypnotic means. They cannot fool you. They cannot influence you. The most tempting plot they (evil) can arrange cannot find a place in your heart, your heart having become enlivened by something more than mortality. There best psychological weapons pass through to no effect and no damage.
Lao Tsu said, speaking of those who had taken hold of real life, “I have heard it said that one who excels in safe-guarding his own life does not meet the rhinoceros or tiger when traveling on land nor is he touched by weapons when charging into an army. There is nowhere for the rhinoceros to pitch its horn; there is nowhere for the tiger to place its claws; there is nowhere for the weapon to lodge its blade. Why is this so? Because for him there is no realm of death.”
There is no Satanic defense against a Heart that is broken by prayer, against a spirit that is contrite before Holy Wisdom. “Break your heart open with prayer . . . so that the power of the devil may be completely broken away from your heart by perfection . . Just as a man fears to take hold of a fiery and sparking iron, so the devil fears the breaking of a heart. For the breaking of the heart breaks his cunning completely. However, In the relaxed and unbroken heart, as soon as it is confronted with the devil's fantasy, the heart accepts it at once and is deeply impressed by the idea of the fantasy. Where there is contrition of heart all satanic evil is put to flight and every demonic action is set ablaze. Break your heart with prayer so that sin may be broken away from your heart . . ” Anonymous Hesychast monk: Neptiki theoria, p 171-174 (in Greek).
We know, as the master's of hypnosis/propaganda know, that the subconscious mind records everything it sees and hears, without filter, without discrimination. This “recording” becomes part of the person, feeding fantasy and fear. A broken heart on a very, very, deep level takes control of that process, where even the subconscious mind becomes discriminatory, guards itself, aware of the hypnotic assaults. Aware that his enemies of are those of his own household.
I used the King James version of the psalm above about the strength of one who has come to peace. (Walking through the valley of Baca) In the Septuagint, the oldest extant version of that Psalm it has a pretty significant departure, (actually it is the King James that departs from it) but it paints a clear picture as to how someone comes to possess this LIFE-engendering power of peace. Remember God's house is our hearts. It says, “Psa 84:4ff Blessed are they that dwell in thy house: they will praise thee evermore. Pause. Blessed is the man whose help is of thee, O Lord; in his heart he has purposed to go up into the valley of weeping, to the place which he has appointed, for there the law-giver will grant blessings. They shall go from strength to strength: the God of gods shall be seen in Sion . . . Behold, O God our defender, and look upon the face of thine anointed.”
UP into the valley of weeping. (greek) “ascends” the valley of weeping not descends into. This is HOLY dejection, the hospital of Holy Healing, not the pit of despair. Intelligent therapy, not mindless clawing at wounds. This is “purposed” by the actor, not experienced by mere happenstance. It is a rational meeting with the law-giver, not a sentimental spiritual or nebulous experience or feeling. Blessedness is bestowed there, creating a warrior perfectly at peace within himself. So that, that warrior can turn back to the lawgiver and say, “Behold, O God our defender, look (in me) upon the face of thine anointed.” Who is the anointed one? Christ himself. If that soul can turn to the Almighty, and in warlike fashion and say, Behold my defender, the face of YOUR anointed. What possible power does Satan have against him? Is it any wonder that demons go screaming away? Is it any wonder that Satan then has to resort to less subtle and more corporal means of war?
Blessed are the peaceable, does not mean those who make treaty with evil, but those who have come to peace with God, who can with knowledge observe the plans and actions of Satan and blunt them, dodge them, halt them, expose them.
Peace, true peace comes from reconciliation, from restoring what was broken. It cannot come to exist where rebellions remains.
Reconciliation and Rebellion cannot make peace.
There is no treaty ever written that could make that possible.
Such treaties codify evil, create illusion while evil insidiously continues its destruction.
Islam uses false peace as a weapon of conquest through civilization Jihad.
The Luciferians of the New World Order use treaties of peace for conquest, economic rape, occupation and even genocide.
Look at the absurdity of the warmongering Obama, who with his alliance with the Muslim Brotherhood has created both Muslim and Christian genocide, and he holds a Nobel Peace Prize. Could that prize ever again have any meaning, except to the deluded? It cannot have meaning to even the Northern European Protestant mindset that reduced this proposition to “Blessed are the pacifists.”
In fact, Jesus explained this graphically using the text from Micah which says not to place trust your closest companion or government. That your enemies will be of your own household and what he describes is WAR and not false peace. Those who teach that the “reconciliation” this proposition suggests is reconciliation with evil, to simply create the absence of conflict, at all cost, at the sacrifice of the innocent, which is the pacifists' delusion, they are false teachers.
(I will spare you the picture, but go to Google Images, and punch in dead children and name the country in conflict - WAKE UP! You cannot make peace by the sacrifice of children to Moloch.)
There is no theological grounds in Christianity for the abandonment of the innocent into the hands of evil for their destruction for the purpose of avoiding conflict. If there were then Jesus' words, “what you do to the least of these, you do also to me” would have no meaning. Abandoning the innocent, is abandoning Jesus Christ. No he says rather, be at peace and stand and fight, and don't worry there is no place for Satan to lodge his horn.
IF, it is true, as we described in the previous steps, that one may become prey merely by dropping out of the evil of the Culture, we should see witness to this now. And we do. We see this happening in our culture, where those who merely separate themselves from the evil culture, create no harm or threat, become prey (Waco, Ruby Ridge, the attacks on the survivalist movement – off the grid and you are an immediate suspect.) How much more an enemy is one who overcomes the delusions of the culture, reconciles with the All Mighty and remains in the culture, exposing the cultural lies, blunting them, destroying the hypnotic spell, sabotaging the schemes, causing them to stumble by their own snares.
These peaceable ones are dangerous. Their hearts literally has the power to open up “the way” for others. “in whose heart are the ways for them.” Actually, “Blessed is the man whose strength is in thee, --they, in whose heart are the highways.” Do you want to talk about REAL evangelism. These ones, whose psyches have been filled with life become so filled with life that when they pour themselves our it creates opportunities for healing, stated as wells and pools for the thirsty and highways for those who have lost their way. THESE are the peaceable ones and they are dangerous.
What is the reality of the false peacemakers? Jer 6:14ff And they have healed the breach of my people lightly, saying, Peace, peace! when there is no peace. Are they ashamed that they have committed abomination? Nay, they are not at all ashamed, neither know they what it is to blush.”
Fake peace is reconciliation with evil. If you doubt what I'm saying listen to the Sufi Mystic Rumi teach it.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field.
I'll meet you there."
Many caught in eastern religions who have come to the knowledge of “centering” of gathering the scattered self, of making the outside like the inside, and those bound by the pseudo-sciences of psychology and psychiatry, suffer the same, by reconciling with evil. “I'm Gay and I'm PROUD.” The young woman who says, “I've slept with hundreds of guys. So what? Who are you to judge?” This kind of psychological reconciliation is just learning to sin boldly. To accept the fake peace, to pretend destruction of the psyche is healthy, to be unashamed they have committed abomination, having numbed their conscience, now unable blush. In the next sentence God actually gives them some very sound psychological advice; “Thus saith Jehovah: Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the ancient paths, which is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls.”
So the ancient good way, wherein we may walk and find rest for our suffering soul, our psycho-pathos, is what we are teaching, and not some colors of Eastern Religion, or false peace of modern psychology/psychiatry – hypnosis and drugs. We are not speaking about making peace with what is false, what is evil, but coming to reconcile our deepest self with TRUTH and CONQUERING IT.
Addictions and other fetishes find empowerment in the paradigm of false peace. Come to a meeting name your addiction and claim it. Admit there is no cure. Reconcile to be locked into struggle for the rest of our life, without relief from the craving, accept that there is no conquest of demonic evil. Make uncomfortable peace with your demon, struggle valiantly, relapse on a regular basis, months apart or years a part, but gosh take another meeting.
You see, this is only where did we start. Father John Romanides of Blessed Memory, who was well known for teaching the psycho-therapeutic discipline of the Holy Fathers, described where we start as, "One is dealing with a neurobiological sickness which produces fantasies in the human imagination and distorts one's vision of reality . . . “ We started a psycho-pathos, a suffering soul, having lost the accurate perception of “the good,” blind to the presence of God, having experienced myriad assorted misuses of Material Being, having our mindset formed within a sea of distortions, purposeful distortions common in the culture, which together distorted our powers of observation and reason.
Walking “The Way” away from the neurobiological sickness, our psycho-pathos, first, we began to realizes our own poverty. We reached to God and begin our walk on The Way. Again, “The Way” is the earliest name used of physical/spiritual Christian therapeutic life. It was understood that "The Way" was a physical/spiritual Christian therapeutic LIFE, a liturgy of living (work) and not religion, not a theory, but a physical/spiritual process of healing. The Way is the process of allowing the "reign" of God to come into our hearts, so that when we enter our heart-mind we enter HIS House, a place where HE abides. Where is TENTS among us.
The person "coming into the Kingdom of God" begins to see with spiritual eyes for the first time and the view is frightening and grief engendering. The view creates both tears of remorse towards the waste of one's own life, but grief looking at the waste of others also, and anger and frustration looking at the sad state of things as they appear to be. And to this spiritual vision comes the comfort of degrees of God's Wisdom. God's Wisdom is an uncreated energy of God, it is "Ha Hagia Sopia," the Holy Wisdom, the Holy Spirit. So participation in the "kingdom-reign of God" is participation in His uncreated energies, which is the substance of NEW LIFE, a substance actually created for us by Jesus Christ, upon the Cross. “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood you have no life in you.” It is the Divine/Human substance of Jesus himself, into which we are being imbued here and now, with incorruption and immortality.
Jesus was speaking on the personal level and on the societal level, on the physical level and on the spiritual level when he said:
“Mat 10:32ff Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.”
Correction – this actually says in the Greek, Whosoever shall confess IN me, before men.” Do you see the confirmation of what I am teaching you? Confession of Jesus Christ, saying “Lord, Lord” has no meaning. Many, when pressed including Satan and his demon will make confession "of" Jesus.
Mat_7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Mat_7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Luk_6:46 And why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?
Well, I've always believed in Jesus Christ!
So has Satan.
Well, I've always believed in the Bible!
So has Satan.
Well, I've always confess that Jesus Christ is my, Lord.
So has Satan.
You can confess the name of Jesus Christ, constantly until the end of days and it will accomplish you nothing, for even the demons call him Lord, Lord, and believe. No one can TRULY Confess IN the LORD, except by the Holy Spirit. That power has to become established in you.
Until you Confess Jesus Christ IN HIM, your confession is prideful hubris, it is a hypocritical claim to something you DO NO possess.
And there is only one way to become possessed of him. That is do the work to make your heart his true abode. And in that you cannot stand with pride, holding closely your passions, harboring a heart filled with garbage and that confession have any meaning whatsoever.
“But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven. Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man's foes shall be they of his own household.”
Again, so we can affirm that we are theologizing and not theorizing, I want to related this story about the power of REAL peacemaking, an actual event I recorded a few years ago.
A Season of Peace
(Written February 1977)
The story of an unexplainable reign of peace in Georgia's most violent state prisons, the state's official disciplinary prison, where the most violent are housed.
It is a place the public rarely sees. It is nestled in a valley in the Georgia Mountains. It is out of sight and out of mind for most Georgians. It is a place you have to mean to find, to go there. There is not a home or business in sight of it. A narrow two lane road leads off the highway winding through low hills, then at the crest of one of the hills the prison looms into view, sprawling across and covering the entire valley floor. It is a daunting sight: 12 ft fences and razor wire, a perimeter road a mile and a half around and 80 foot tall guard towers and cell-blocks housing one-thousand-four-hundred men. Dogs in cages bay in the distance and at times the air is punctuated with the sound of the firing range some hundreds of yards away. Here is the place where the state prison system sends its disciplinary problems. It houses some of the worst of the worst.
I was asked by a friend of a friend to visit a man at the prison. The chief chaplain had been solicitous of help and asked if there was a possibility that I could come maybe once a month and say Mass. That afternoon I really didn't know what to expect. Several inmates gathered for Mass. The service began and all went well. During the sermon in a way that was hard for me to understand, I found myself declaring a reign of peace,
saying:
"Few of you realize the power of inviting Christ into an institution in the special way we do in the Mass. Whether you believe in the real presence in the Bread and Wine or not, I will tell you 'it has power.' This isn't a revival service this is the physical presence of the Almighty. It is not the magical changing of the element into flesh and blood as the Roman doctrine proclaims. That is a three dollar definition of a billion dollar mystery. But it is real none-the-less and we in Orthodoxy call it "The Mystery of the Eucharist." I can't explain it, but I know it is true. And that TRUTH has power to effect these surroundings. The power of Christ's real presence in the Divine Eucharist is not limited to this room and to you men, but has the power to effect this entire institution. Do you want to see change in this violent place?"
A few nodded their approval.
"Then be faithful to this service and invite others to participate. But whether others participate or not the presence of this service will be felt throughout this institution."
As soon as these words were spoken I shrank from them, and questioned my sanity. I took a hard look at the men in the room, strangers all. But from reputation and information in orientation, I knew that they were serious men. I mentally kicked myself angry that my "ego" had gotten the best of me and that I had made "claims" that I should not have made. My animal mind told me what a fool I would appear. In those moments I understood failure. I had failed and I knew it. There was nothing I could do to bring peace to that prison. The thought of it was ridiculous. Then in the presence of "The Presence" as in fact the All Mighty's presence filled that chapel, I felt an assurance that removed all doubt. It had huge humor to me. I knew that peace was going to blanket that place, that it was unreasonable, irrational and still it had more reality to me than stone, than my own nose, than my own broken heart.
That peace in that dangerous place and the knowledge of that peace in a place of violence and pain was a feeling of strength I had never felt before. Somehow there was the certain knowledge that even in this place God was in charge. My imagination rushed to the idea of what it would take to bring calm to a maximum security prison filled with robbers, rapists, murderers and thieves. Violence was a way of life here, all many of these men knew; all some of them had ever experienced from birth. What could possibly bring a season of peace? And why would the Lord choose to show such a sign in this prison, now? Repeatedly in the months ahead I found myself making statements about peace and the power of the Presence of Christ in the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist.
A SUDDEN DROP IN THE LEVEL OF VIOLENCE:
Prison professionals know the sick feeling of quiet before the storm. Experience has taught them that when a place filled with violent men suddenly becomes quiet there can only be one reason, "They are plotting and planning something." There grew an uneasy calm that lasted months. The officers and staff were nervous. They stepped up eavesdropping, listening in on the activities of the inmates. Many boring hours were spent listen to the gambling and horse play that are standard realities of the prison life. Finally after months of listening they had something. Seven inmates were meeting regularly in the exercise yard of one of the cell blocks and were talking about seeking revenge on the Warden for some of his strict policies. However, in fact, it had been six months of non-violence, and no real rebellion brewing.
A DAY OF VIOLENCE:
It was a warm day. At dawn the collective Tactical squads of several prisons "invaded" the prison. They goose-stepped onto the parade ground and clicked their heels. They were clad only in black and wore Kevlar masks. On the signal they sprang into action carrying out a violent and grueling "shake-down."
Every inmate in the institution was stripped naked and forced to lay belly down on the concrete with his legs crossed and his hands crossed behind him. For propriety sake and good taste I will not go into the details of the severity of this "raid and shake-down" but I will say that I have seen shock. And even days and weeks after the shakedown there were inmates and staff still showing the symptoms of shock. It was not until this point that I became aware that the previous months had been so peaceful. (note: I personally saw bloody beatings, that day. They hauled the most injured away via bus, and had to call out the camp fire department to hose off the tarmac where the buses were running blood. - I did not include these details and more, because I wrote this for the camp's inmates and guards, wardens, and staff.)
What a reward for a period of peace! It was absurd on the face of it. Yet who was I to second guess. The men who run Georgia's prisons are trained and capable. Many have years of experience and have seen all there is to see in the prison setting. I was "out of my element" inside a maximum security prison. I didn't know the prisoner's "lingo" or the rule by which inmates and officers lived. But on the face of it, it seemed like the worse kind of counter-productive act. It "appeared" that the message that was sent was, "behave, and do as you are
supposed to do and we will reward you with a violent shakedown."
EXPECTING REPRISALS:
I assumed that after the shakedown, especially since it was an unjust assault where even cooperative inmates were beaten there would be reprisals. I assumed that the violence level would increase. But it didn't. Months passed and nine months into the reign of peace, the institution broke the all time state record for the most peaceful institution in the state. And now, as of this writing in 13 months into this reign of peace, each day that rolls by creates a new record. The contrast is shown clearly in the statistics for the month of December last year and this past December which is an emotionally difficult month and tends to be a volatile time. In December last the Disciplinary Reports (D.R.s) numbered 137. That is 4.42 reports a day. This December the Disciplinary Reports numbered 8. That is (point -25) .25 reports a day, A NINETY-FIVE PERCENT DECREASE IN VIOLENCE.
THE PEACE THAT PASSES ALL RATIONAL UNDERSTANDING:
By any rational model this strange event cannot be explained. One cynical captain told me that it was just "screwing with statistics to impress the people in Atlanta." He said that many of the reports that would have been filed were being settled without filing them. He estimated that a "realistic figure" for the D.R.s in December 1996 "should have been around 35." I smiled realizing that he could not face the truth of it. And even if his cynicism were true, that would still be a decrease of about 75 percent. 75% or 95% I will not quibble. But I know one thing. God has created a reign of peace in a violent place as only God can. And in that time of peace we have seen many wonders of healing. "Praise God from whom all blessing flow. Praise him ye creatures here below Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen."
We have never allowed ourselves to imagine the reality of God's peace, the "irrational" reality of that Peace. We have never thrown ourselves on His Peace, and with warrior like resolve “let it be.” But the story above is repeated in families and neighborhoods, and communities, and cities, many times more than we know. We have bought Satan's brainwashing scheme thinking we cannot conquer evil here, now. Without God's faithful peaceful ones present in the violence culture, being the leaven in the dough, this planet would be a singular living hell and would not long exist.
All one has to do to view the miracle of God's Peace, is to look at the last fifty years and the presence of the power of the human race to exterminate itself many times over. Yet, walking to the brink of nuclear war three time with tens of thousands of possible errors that could have created holocaust, the uneasy peace remains. Whatever peace we have, is the peace we possess. Whatever peace or holocaust that is to come is also from the very same base of reality. Who WE are.
Thank God that many who may have no idea of the Steps of the Master, have intuitively found them, and intrinsically functioned in the synergistic life of the Holy Spirit of Life and Peace and become peacemakers.
His peace is real and springs from relationship with him in a mystery we can experience but cannot explain. That real Peace, Peace which is beyond "understanding" is available in the Singular Orthodox Spirituality Christ creates in the Church and the Synergistic working of the Holy Spirit of ALL LIFE, everywhere in actions beyond our comprehension. Many who do not have the slightest idea what that "Singular Orthodox Spirituality" is have found it, in various compromised and corrupted forms, but none the less have found it. In ignorance they may think that the various "sicknesses of religion" they have accepted are the source, but even in that compromise to the sickness of religion, the Holy Spirit is not absence and is working around the "obstacles" one clings to, and He is leading, teaching and drawing. There is a "short cut to peace" which is not a short cut at all but is instead the "Work of Our Lives" which will bring His Peace. It is the Orthodox Faith of the New Testament-Apostolic Church, the ancient Christian Faith still present, still alive, still real.
(End of February 1997 Article.)
I have to admit, that these eighteen years later there was consistent truth in what I wrote then and what I'm writing now. It would take a book to tell of the healing effect of those years that reign of peace is still producing, directly traceable to that event. We have to stop playing Satan's game on Satan's turf, we have to play God's game on Satan's, and BE the Church Militant, starting with the turf of our own hearts. Ridding it of it Satanic baggage, preparing it for warfare that is to come.
Excuse the well known saying, but how very apropos:
IF NOT US, WHO THEN?
IF NOT NOW, WHEN?
The Master's Ladder, Step by Step
Step Six
Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God.
Hermes, a righteous pagan, prayed very sincerely about his children who had become bound in pleasures and dulled of mind, easily the victim of those who would use them and abuse them. (We are enslaved literally by our passions.) He reported that the Shepherd of Mankind, appeared to him from the throne of the father and said that God had been listening to his prayers and had sent him to answer any question Hermes had. Hermes discovered he did not have a question while standing in the glory of the Good Shepherd, but only one request, he said, “I want to know God and things as they are.” I've shared this beautiful picture with many Protestants and some of them would correct me and say, “He needed to stop at, 'I want to know God”' their creation rejecting taint of Gnosticism exposed.
Saint Basil the Great said, “Brethren, think of the kingdom of heaven and just this, a genuine contemplation of realities."
It is very common to paint a false picture, as if what we see now in shadow and what we will see in the heavenly realm, as something removed from this plane of living here and now. It is not so removed and cannot be.
I ask your forgiveness for the first person story used in this Step. You see, when we speak of "seeing God" it is not an abstraction or a promise of time to come. It is lived bodily, in Christ incarnationally, so that my experience, even through all the twists and turns of my life, is living theology, not abstract theory. Oh for sure, I at times lost my way; not holding a map of God's Kingdom, but just a clear and real childhood experience of it, which set me on my journey that crisscrossed "The Way" ever with true LIFE in sight even walking in the valley of the shadows; in every instance, taking that chance that I might lose my way, it was REAL for me.
Like the first Christians having heard bits and pieces of the writings we have collected and called "The Bible" which none of them possessed, took hold of the reality of God's Incarnational Presence in Jesus Christ, in the comfort and instruction of the Holy Spirit and lived their theology totally, bodily, in their shared experience that became to Evangelistarion and the Praxapostolos called the New Testament and the Holy Fathers. Many walked, some stumbled, many erred, many gained correction, many crisscrossed "The Way" few ended in ruin, all lived in hope.
IF I did not have lived experience to share, what would be the purpose of writing at all? Should I simply quote scriptures, make a recitation of the Holy Fathers, which is so much the custom? Theology is NOT letters on a page. We cannot create theology by writing our ideas on a page. The raw material I have to use to conceptualize, to intellectualize, to truncate into human language and reduce to mere words on paper has to be experienced, and has to be my experience of it or I am, theorizing and not theologizing.
"This is what the inspired Scriptures call blessedness: for 'the kingdom of heaven is within you.'"
In a previous step I shared how following tragedies experienced at a very early age, in a certain sense childhood was over. And that what had "saved me" what gave me strength and will to live, was a vision of the Beauty of God's creation. I want to expand on that here.
As a boy, in the Autumn of the year when the dried Johnson Grass was a beautiful golden color, I would flatten a few square feet of it, like a nesting bird does and sit for hours watching the symphony of light and color that was the beautiful place we call Georgia. The wild rabbits leaned not to be fearful, and would come just out of arms reach and watch me. Quail nested thickly in that grass and they too would sometimes walk by me as if I were a stump. The golden grass was so high I could sit hidden in it, on the hillside of my father's farm and look across the way to the pine thicket swaying against the cobalt-blue shy. (Sadly a sky this generation has never seen because of chemical dumping.) The clouds would drift by. I didn't need T.V. or games.
We didn't have a T.V., I know this was a great blessing of formative years. I witnessed early the blinding effect, the artificial personalities of classmates, each parroting the same wit or mythology, proudly role playing thinking it their own personality. I would learn the origin of the common thought processes being picked to play a character whose origin was from T.V. This wasn't an analysis of a young boy too nascent to think such thoughts, but an organic conclusion by merely being a boy trying to make sense of the society that was school and play. It was in my fifth decade before I owned a small color T.V. Previously, most of the time, I kept a tiny black and white T.V. for news.
I cannot imagine the fog of images, the screaming noise, that floods the mind of a young person today, were that child to try to simply still the mind, to hold complete focus on God. Today the mind from the first cognition is locked in an artificial paradigm stimulated by a Luciferian mechanism, cranking out human capital. It is a great slavery to masters of technology and it is only going to get worse and the Luciferians are bragging about it. How, in a mere decade all human consciousness will be completely controlled, completely artificial. here in this insanity is the Reign of Satan. It is pressing the Vision of God into deeper and darker jungles of obscurity. Yet, it is still possible to step out of the chaos, right here and right now.
Here is the Kingdom of God. Not some far away shore. Here is the Kingdom of God not a foretaste "of glory divine," not a foretaste of something that will come to be, but actual participation in what IS now, to the degree possible while in the body of corruptible flesh; flesh that strains to absorbed into incorruption, immortality forming, growing, taking dominion over mortality even now.
1Co 15:53ff For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible should put on incorruption, and this mortal should put on immortality, then will come to pass the word which was written: "Death was swallowed up in victory." "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?"
Note, "put on" in this scripture is the Greek word "ENDOE" which means, absorbed into - not merely like putting on an outward suit. The word comes to us in the English word ENDUE, to endow with some quality or characteristic. The quality and characteristic is REAL LIFE, and with it TRUE vision where God is not hidden, where his Glory permeates the meanest of things, the lowest of things.
As a child I consciously touched that Kingdom in extremely simple faith. He was real, I loved him, I knew he loved me and loved everything and everyone I saw. I knew what it was I was seeing, that Kingdom of God in the chilly air with the sun shining as I would still the mind, and be at peace, totally at peace. Like a Yogi, I would sit for hours being totally aware of the Presence of the Holy Spirit of All Life in everything I saw. It was four decades before I heard that prayer, "O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, Thou art everywhere present and fillest all things, Treasury of blessings and Giver of LIFE: come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One!
Holy God! Holy Mighty! Holy Immortal! have mercy on us."
In my nascence, I did not realize the depth of this spiritual sight. At the time, in my young innocence I assumed that it was what everyone saw or at least what they could see if they stopped, if they listened, if they opened to the beauty that was so very, very obvious. So then, like a watchful Pagan of old, in my ignorance, I found God.
Romans 1:19ff "For what can be known of God is clearly visible in the things that are created"
In church I found the beginning of "conceptualizing theology," but in the field of God's beauty I found communion with Him. I could not understand the abstract arguments about religion, arguments for the existence of God, for me it was self-evident, obvious except to the obtuse. Nothing I saw, nothing I experienced of him, matched the angry picture of God I heard often related. I could not reconcile the creator Being, who created such great beauty and variety of beauty, such animation and life with the earth rejecting God of my birth tradition. I could not understand why my Mother would become so thrilled when suddenly she realized the Spirit of God was near. The idea was foreign to my psyche, because I had seem him 'in the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead." I saw God, in the air, in the light, in the colors, in the music of the wind and the song of the birds, in the warmth of the sun and the shade of the clouds, in the golden grass, in the bright red bushes and in the song that vibrated in my heart/mind. In my young innocence, struggling with the passions wasn't so much. I would sit for hours so my soul could commune with the All Mighty. It was not fantasy, it was communion.
It wasn't until years later that I learned that Paul had said,"For all that may be known of God by men lies plain before their eyes; indeed God himself has disclosed it to them. His invisible attributes, that is to say his everlasting power and deity, have been visible, ever since the world began, to the eye of reason, in the things he has made." Buddha came to the same understanding, he said,"it can be seen as something invisible, the permanence in the samsara." Lao Tsu said, "It is what makes the ground firm, the air subtle, the water liquid." David said, by many different word that worlds form by his power.
And someone very early did a very good job of teaching me who Jesus was. When I shared with a neighbor who was a Bible College teacher, that I could see God everywhere, she did not argue, she told me I was seeing his glory and asked me to learn this verse from Hebrews, which besides the Lord's Prayer, John 3:16, and the 23rd Psalm, is the only scripture I have committed to memory to this date.
"Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; - Heb_1:3
And thousands of time in my life, to center my mind, I have turned to Hebrews and read:
Heb 1:1ff God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high; Being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.
David, Buddha, Lao Tsu and Paul's statements hold differing degrees of identical meaning. Well, a young boy, came to know this wisdom, years before he learned the words.
"The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you." So no. Look all you want, you are not going to see the Kingdom of God in a tree or bush, unless his spirit if firing your vision, enlightening your mind.
Those experiences as a child, in that field with vision of God's Kingdom, became a golden thread, thin and sometimes barely visible to me that held reality, when all else was shaken, including me, and I could hear the gates of hell rattling. Later after much struggle and grief, having had the Holy Spirit pull the religious idols and religious crutches from my life, I sat in much physical pain recovering from a railroad head-on collision. For years the thought of the clutter of plants in the house was unacceptable. I had painted myself into a very sterile corner. Simplicity was the rule. I slept on a bed role, I could not stand a normal bed. I owned few clothes, only what I absolutely needed. I ate a simple diet, etc., etc., and to a great extent I was dead. At the time, my children were the sole, living, breathing thing to me. I can't imagine those days without them. But, all the beauty I had witnessed and enjoyed in my youth was far removed from me, the world had become brutal, vulgar and sterile. Behind my many, many smiles I grieved knowing that the innocence of my children were threatened by it. There was no way to protect them from it. They must be made strong to face it. The brutality of those days was oppressive, home an oasis. I had endure four teenagers killed by the train I was driving, totally their fault, but still, blood and gore, the shock, waste, and insanity of it. At the coroner's inquest, I discovered from their friends, four car loads of them, they had been playing chicken with the train. I could write a book about these years, three as a nursing home administrator and seven as a railroad engineer. Suffice it to say, the experience had made me brittle and I had become almost, that is an important almost, a philosophical humanist.
But in physical pain recovering from that collision, I looked around at the white walls (they had to be white because I could not stand the complexity of colors) and realized that minimalist ascetic was death. It was something I had adopted that was life rejecting. Somehow in psycho-pathos I had taken on the lie that I was not supposed to enjoy life. I was supposed to spiritually conquer it. In those days recovering, I rebelled against the nihilism I had accepted, though I did not realize it was nihilism wounding me. I instructed my wife to go buy many plants. "How many" she asked. "As many as we can afford." Huge tropical plants were on sale in front of Kmart, most were ten gallon pots; she bought twenty of them! Next I sent her for birds . . . I sat surrounded in the beauty of God's goodness again totally aware of its force, the permanence in the Samsara. And I healed, refused partial disability and recovered through much struggle.
Again, in that struggle I discovered anew and with more force, God in everything. What the theologians call God's Immanence. I discovered anew the meaning and significance of those hours, days and years, on my Father's hillside, sitting on my Father's golden grass, breathing my Father's air, enjoying my Father's beauty, being bathed in my Father's sunshine, listening to my Father's music in the songs of the birds and the wind. But, this time, it took a long time and a lot of struggle before I began to see God also in EVERYONE.
Listen again, "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God." How can a pure heart help but see God, since purification creates vision and here we sit, completely surrounded by God? The ancient Asvesta, the sacred text of the Zoroasterans has Zoroaster saying, "He who sees God in himself, sees God in everything." Sadly a great many Christians get stuck in spiritual adolescence, or come to some system of legal abstractions that are memorized, rehearsed and recited but rarely lived, or come to the Church and find only the Institution. These things are NOT the Kingdom of God!
Our Heavenly Father: Let us not be caught in the fear of servile religion; keep Tradition out of ignorance and offering our correctness as a sign of righteous enlightenment.
Let us not be caught in the tyranny of our rational minds, which creates innovations upon the faith, which leads us to hold prideful theologies that diminish God to the level of our understanding, or worse, which deny Him altogether.
Let us not be caught by the tyranny of our emotions, mistaking our soul's phantasy producing powers for the working of the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of LIFE.
Let us not be caught in the mere form of the visible church, but in the LIFE of it, who is Jesus Christ, the Living Word of God, present to all that truly seek Him.
Let our keeping of Tradition spring from our living experience of it, not because it was handed down to us, but because we experience LIFE in it. Fill us with the warmth of your LOVE, so our keeping of Tradition for the sake of generations next, springs from that Love, from hearts that seek continual repentance, from broken (poor) spirits, and broken and contrite hearts, you will not despise. Amen.
The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
Luk 17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within
But IF one sees God's mercy and grace at work in himself, he has to witness the same spirit at work IN the world, coursing LIFE into animation, and BEING into existence nano-second by nano-second.
There is no vision of God, as in the New Age movement and certain mind sciences, where one sees ones own self AS God, sees matter as evil, even sees matter as an attack on God, something into which God would never enter, something we must escape.
There is no vision of God in Christianism, which tainted by Gnosticism is life rejecting and merely marks time as an obstacle to God.
When we realize that Jesus Christ is God revealed to Humankind, and that Truth is a "person and God," then coming to see God is coming likewise to see Truth. And the "view" of God in time and space is so much more than the appreciation of the reality of God's creative energy in the creation, but it is the key to seeing God in the new creation being formed by Jesus Christ, in us and in those around us. In other words it is the vision of the Kingdom Saint Basil spoke of, it is also His Body - "the Church."
Such a view of God creates true "learning" i.e. Wisdom. Such a view is the opposite of spiritual blindness. Purification and vision having a direct correlation, without purification we are blind. In our impure state, the Holy Spirit has to work around our blindness, draw us to the Father, through the jungle of our psychopathology. Just to remind us, this blindness is received in our "education," our "philosophy," our "personal mythology," our "culture," our "lusts," our "passions," etc., etc. The Holy Spirit has to work around the obstacles in this jungle to draw us to the "truth." I'm not saying it does not happen, but what a pitiful, weak and irrational path!The Holy Spirit does, amazingly, what would seem intellectually an impossible task. All of our so-called "epiphanies" or "theophanies" are the work of purification/illumination, little strings of truth that have a habit of turning into unbreakable lifelines when the sea churns and the vision of hell roars . . if we are experiencing these enlightenments and not just "conceptualizing them." As we are purified we gain sight.
Coming out of the legalism of Western though into the organic reality of the True Catholic Church was not easy. It happened slowly as in the degrees that I could heal. And by no means do I claim any sort of compete healing, but the witness of enough of it that my sight, my perceptions are now, more like that of my boyhood days, having come full circle to the simplicity of God and things as they are. "Unless you become as a little child you cannot enter the Kingdom of God" But in that process when I was stuck, my spiritual father and confessor said to me, “Do you realize that perception of Truth is primarily a product of character.”
“What?” He was talking about “spiritual things” and now he was talking about “character.” Isn't that the great divide, the fact that people exercise spiritual gifts, while being terrible people? How many "ministries" have to implode in vulgarity, depravity and financial scandal before those great "faith" ministries are recognized for what they are. When they say, "But I cast out demons and healed the sick and even raised the dead in your name" . . . Jesus doesn't say, "You are lying." No he said, "You worker of iniquity, depart from me I NEVER KNEW YOU."
The exercise of Spiritual Gifts, just like the exercise of the "appearance" of Mercy, have not meaning outside the reality of His Kingdom that is bonded together by HIS blood in, in HIS love. Love and Character are IDENTICAL.
My confessor said, “Character is the reality of who you really are, of what you would do were there absolutely no restraint on you and you could do anything your heart desired. If you had absolute power, you would become corrupted absolutely." I had been struggling with a particular temptation and I knew, that if I truly thought I could get away with it I would do it.
It was a particular large sum of money a widow with only one living relative, whom she hated, was trying to give the prison ministry, what it did not need. I met her through an inmate. I knew her hatred blocked her proper action. With her grand son in prison for life without parole, that was her grand daughter's inheritance. I knew that I had no right to it, but my state of heart, my character was that if I could have taken the money without her daughter's knowledge I may have. Well, no, I would have. I realized in that moment, that just like my friend who saved the man from the burning car, simply out of his own stubborn pride, "he wasn't going to have a man burn to death in HIS presence, even if the guy was a worthless drunk." The ONLY reason that I did not take that money was out of pride. I didn't want to give the grand daughter an opportunity to accuse me of any impropriety. WHEN I should have been repulsed by the evil idea, out of love for the grand daughter, who I knew through her brother, the inmate.
Could you take someone's inheritance who you loved and cared about? Could you rob from anyone, IF you understood you were not only robbing them but GOD. "What you do to the least of these, you do also to me." David having murdered a man, said, "Against you, and you only Lord, have I sinned and done this evil in your sight." All our sins, no matter the what carnage we leave in our wake, are against HIM. I told my confessor about it. He said, “There is your character. Stop pretending! You are a thief!” Yes, but I was a very religious one; that should make all the difference, right? Some people seem to think so, but they are very WRONG.
A most difficult idea to accept by the "ordinary good person" is the reality of their spiritual blindness. They do not realize that their own goodness is just another illusion and blindness. Jesus even called such goodness, "filthy rags." (And I believe the reference was to menstrual waste -pretty graphic talk).
We see demonstrated before us every day in the economy of philosophy and politics the fact that most people sincerely believe truth to be "relative." The most hellish things can be "justified in context" and "explained away." The assault on the foundations of truth is the history of the last two centuries. It is interesting that "rational philosophy" has in these deconstructionist times "disproved itself." In this they are correct and have only proved the groundlessness of rational philosophy. Truth and rationality do not walk in lock step. So we see sets of circumstances presented and the talking-head commentators all "spinning" the facts according to the truth their puppet masters require. It is not different in "so-called" objective sciences, the same "spinning" to preconceived notions and political agenda is clearly present, clearly documented. When we speak of things, REALLY as they are, we are speaking of sight on a clearly different plane of vision than is “common to this world.”
Can a person blinded by passions comprehend what he/she reads, sees, hears? No! Absolutely NOT! They can be draw to something better, but their vision is defused through the Idols of their passions, like light through a prism, it may create in their mind a beautiful colleague of colors and pattern, a wealth of perception but you can't find a usable and true image in it.
Objectivity (the contemplation of realities) is not foun
d within the compass of reason alone. Reason is influenced by our corrupted wills and passions. (impurity) While it may be impossible to individually be completely objective, and only the greatest of saints can apprehend meaning in its fullest and proper context (the rest of us will always project nuances of distorted meaning), getting at the basic ontological realm of reality is possible for those who are open and desire it --not an elite group (like the gnostics), but anyone who is willing to endure in humility the humiliation of purification – contrition and reform growth and healing in the Life, IN Christ's body, the Church.
Objectivity and reason used rigorously and most fully lies within character, not merely the intellect. Therefore, the discovery of truth (synonymous with uncorrupted meaning, i.e. a contemplation of realities) to a great and maybe the greatest extent depends upon the condition of the mind/heart of the discoverer. AND there are two roles to be played in the act of communication, speaking in truth and being able to hear and comprehend truth. Those unwilling to hear will not hear, when they speak it will have no basis.
Ever seeking, but never finding - think of the library of books about Jesus, the Fathers, Church History, types of theology etc., etc., One has to ask, where is TRUTH?
Does every spiritually shriveled person dragging a razor's edge agenda across the life-pulse of sacred/theology and church history receive the truth of it? Hardly. Whether truth (which does not change and is not subjective) is received is not completely contingent upon the author or his cultural/political situation in history. Rather, it also depends upon the purity of the speaker and hearer's character. This is always the case.
Sometimes the distortions of vision, skewed by character are so blatantly obvious they become a caricature of the person offering the “truth.” Since Jesus the Person is Truth, let us use some graphic examples about "Him."
Let us set up the idea by:"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."
Good enough and True. Those pure in heart see God - the fullness of the Godhead Bodily - when they see Jesus.
Cursed are the Psychopathic sinners who are the impure of heart, for they see only their own distortion, but they do not realize it."
To Wit:
For the sodomite, Jesus was a sodomite and had a boy lover, named John. The sodomite sees sodomy.
For the womanizer, Mary Magdalene was Jesus' lover. The womanizer see womanizing.
For the bi-sexual, both of the above. The bi-sexual see bi-sexuality.
For the person fearful of the moral demands and responsibilities of Christ's REAL PRESENCE in the Apostolic Church – they are blinded by spiritual anarchy, they see spiritual anarchy. You know the meme, the Church has never really existed except in the chaos of spiritual anarchy.
For the pacifist, Jesus was a pacifist. The pacifist sees pacifism.
For the Marxist, Jesus was a "liberation theologian." The New Testament Church was the original Communist Community. The Marxist sees Marxism.
For the revolutionary, Jesus was a radical revolutionary. The revolutionary sees revolution.
For the feminist, Jesus was a feminist. In the woman at the well, the woman taken in adultery, and the fact that women played a very important part of Jesus' Ministry - the feminist sees feminism.
For the religious fundamentalist, Jesus was a fire breathing, bible thump preacher. The fundamentalist sees fundamentalist culturalism.
For the moralist, he was a moralist.
For the Rosicrusian, Mason and Kaballist, New Ager, Buddhist, Hindu, Theosophist, and pure Luciferian, Jesus was a mystic -even though they have to gut the Gospels like Thomas Jefferson did in the Jeffersonian Bible to make him such. (The mystic sees a mystic)
The bending of truth to fit the agenda is too obvious to be easily ignored even by those blinded by their own agenda. They ought to at least see the distortions in the agendas of others and they often do. Remember from the last lesson how clearly the anti-Solipsists was able to see the distortions of Solipsism? AND, how the Solipsists looked at the anti-solipsist and sees he is just a baseless reactionary. (Mote in your brother's eye, etc)
Okay here comes the hard part:
Listen carefully,
"Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God"
in the Moslem,
in the sex offender
in the dictator
in the storm trooper
in the Savage
in the saint,
in the whore,
in the healer,
in the killer,
in the Catholic,
in the Buddhist,
in the Baptist
in the drug addict,
in the unfaithful wife,
in the drunken husband,
in the A.I.D.S. baby,
in the homosexual,
in the left wing politician,
in the right wing politician,
in the immoral president,
in a cheating wife,
in a philandering husband,
in the lesbian,
in the snake,
in black skin,
in white skin,
in yellow skin,
in red skin,
in the nose of a Jew,
in the drum beat of the savage, in the symphony of Bartok . . . " etc, etc, etc.
To whatever degree you cannot see God in the Samsara, you are impure of heart. We are not suggesting "indifferentism" here, as in "it's all good man!" quite the opposite, but the view WITH Judgement RESTORED, able to separate the sin and sinful damage from the creature of God.
A saint who sees only evil and the work of Satan in this world, is no saint, at all.
Clear vision reveals the work of Satan, it most certainly does and in levels and degrees of complexity, that such vision in one unprepared would create brittle cynicism and increase their chance of suicide or heart failure. We live in the era where because of the increased pain in the society, a lot of people are looking deeply into the chaos, and unprepared they are destroying themselves in the process.
An Orthodox Father speaking of the "idea of theology" said, "Being a theologian is first and foremost to be a specialist in the ways of the Devil. Illumination and especially glorification convey the charisma of the discernment of spirits for outwitting the Devil, especially when he resorts to teaching theology and spirituality to those slipping from his grip."
The FIRST STEP on The Way is Purification, and Purification and Illumination work in tandem and only the pure in heart see God. The humiliation and pain of taking these steps cannot be avoided, any more than a festering wound can be healed without lancing, flushing, irrigating with healing medicine and guarding it so it does not become contaminated and fester again.
When we lance, flush and heal our own wounds, that experience can make us a healer, if we let it.
An Example:I met a very beautiful woman who just discovered her husband's gay secret life. He was very wealthy and gave her five million dollars to just shut up and entertain herself while she reconciled herself to her new reality as his "cover." She was shattered. She contacted me about helping her set up a new Arts Alliance in a suburb, which would have visual arts and a concert performance hall. I was surprised to find myself not enjoying the role, although I was paid as a consultant. I did not know her story and only knew she was wealthy and tossing around a lot of money.
She naturally assumed that I would be enthused about the project, since several years earlier we had talked about the need for just this thing.
Noting that I was phoning it in, so to speak she said to me, "I though you of all people would really enjoy this. Yet you seem distracted maybe even sad."
I was distracted, I was sad, so I just told here the truth. "It is getting to where I dread answering the phone. You see, about thirty percent of my client base are Gay men, and they are dying like flies. The total waste of it is hard to watch. I would like to run and hide, but instead I end up spend all the time I can spare talking with them, praying when they ask. It is a great suffering sight that haunts me right now. It has certainly washed the luster off this project for me."
I saw here turn steely cold, she said through clinched teeth, "Do you know my husband is gay?" I assured her I didn't but I don't think she trusted my answer. I silently cursed myself for letting my guard down. I did not hear from her for quite a while, a few years, and when I saw next she had greatly aged.
She took her sizable divorce settlement, bought a huge old Victorian house, and set about taking in AIDS babies. Some of them died in the early days, some of them are grown, HIV positive and no sign of AIDS. She saw the doctors were killing them with treatment, hounded her ex-husband for information, studied nutrition and natural anti-virals, and raised a second family, some nine or ten, who call her mother. In the early days, I would, when I could, drop in and just hold whichever one who seemed to suffer the most. I saw her go from being a dull-eyed blond-haired, beautiful trophy wife, living an empty and fake marriage with a drag queen, to the gray-haired very tired looking woman, with eyes that can shine through you. In the dark early days I said to her, “I don't know how you do it.” She said much to my surprise, words that thrilled me to my core, because I did not know she found faith. “Don't you see God when you look at them?” I could not speak without looking the blubbering idiot. She saw my smile but white hot tears running down my face and she said, “What you do to the least of these, you do also to me.”
The vision of God in suffering humanity is not mean thing, because without this vision people perish. (Proverbs 29:18)
The least of these are not just the babies and the naturally innocent, but every creature of God, deformed by sins. (Reference incomplete list above). “But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
“ Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repenteth.”
God's enlightenment (the primary Grace of Being, our existence in this realm) rests in the power of cognition of every human being walking this planet. Those eyes have been blinded by sin, and although they can see material being, they can no longer see God. WE have to show them GOD in a form they can relate, IN US.
Luk 1:78ff Through the tender mercy of our God; whereby the dayspring from on high hath visited us,
To give light to them that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.
This is the next lesson, the way of peace, what it is? where is it? how does it work?
Now speaking of Jesus:
Joh 1:9ff That was the true Light which enlightens every man coming into the world. He was in the world, and the world came to be through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, He gave them the authority to become children of God, to those who believe in His name; who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.
If you have to any degree, taken the time to do the work of repentance/purification, (which never ends in this life time and must be continual) then you know that without this work faith becomes DEAD, religion becomes SICKNESS. Such a one cannot look at this world with self-righteous disdain, but rather must see through the eyes with which God loved the world so very, very much that he sent his only begotten son . . .
Blessed are the pure in Heart, for they shall see God.
