The narrow gate

To believe in Christ's words and deeds is easy, for it only involves believing in our hearts and confessing with our tongues. But the test of the truth of our faith is by our deeds and behavior. After faith comes the "narrow gate" and the hard way, which everyone who has believed in Christ must go through. The narrow gate is the critical point at which one crosses from the wide way, which leads to destruction, to the hard way, which leads to life. It is where the heart and conscience are examined in the light of the cross.

The worst enemies hidden within a believer are hatred, feuding, anger, judgment—including judging others without judging oneself—defaming others, and trying to remove the speck out of their eyes while ignoring the log fixed in the pupil of one's own eye (cf. Matthew 7:3).

Unfortunately, there are those who find these sins insignificant and are oblivious to them. They are unaware that these sins have become part of their nature. They practice them shamelessly as if Scripture and the Day of Judgment did not exist—as if there were no narrow gate in front of them.

Faith to them will be of no use, because those who behave in such a way have trampled on love, despising and abusing it.

Love is God. It is the testimony to the true Faith and its effectiveness. Christ's teachings will always remain on a higher plane than that which the human race will ever attain to, even by its utmost efforts, in order that humanity may ever remain penitent before God and Christ, and therefore, hold fast to Divine Grace.

— Matthew the Poor

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

To the Word, co-eternal

To the Word, co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit,
born of the Virgin for our salvation,
let us, the faithful, give praise and worship.
For he willed to be lifted up on the cross in the flesh,
to suffer death and raise the dead
by his glorious resurrection.
—Ton Synanarchon Logon, Resurrectional Apolytikion, Tone 5

First of all, the bible is not technically God’s Word.
Christ, the Divine Logos, is God’s Word.
That’s what Logos means, as everyone knows.

Second, the bible is the written icon (or image) of the Word of God.
It no more fell out of the sky from God’s lips than did Jesus.
Jesus had to be born into the human world
as a man through a woman’s body.
The bible had to enter the human mind
as a body of literature written by a multitude of seers.
You already know this too.
I’m just organizing the thoughts.

Third, every limitation voluntarily accepted by the Christ
when He incarnated as a man is applicable
in its own frame of reference
to the written icon of the Word of God.
Both suffer a diminution or reduction in the process
of being translated from heaven to earth.
In neither case does this veiling of glory
diminish or dilute the absolute Truth of the Word of God in any way.

Fourth, the bible is infallible in its unity and infallible in its parts,
but the application of this infallibility always depends
on the intervention of the Holy Spirit,
who alone knows how, when and where to apply it.
Without the intervention of the Holy Spirit,
the bible cannot be known as infallible,
indeed cannot be known at all for what it is.

A medicine may be infallibly effective,
but if it is not applied or ingested in the right way,
at the right time, and in the right place,
it can have even the opposite effect, possibly becoming lethal.
Only the physician knows how to apply it in every case.

The Holy Spirit lives in the Church,
and the Church lives in the Word of God.

And what of the use of proof texts and the like,
which can be applied in sometimes disastrous ways
by persons who have not ingested the whole of scripture
by constantly and daily feeding upon it without mixing it,
but who rather begin to teach their partial understandings
(some of which may be wholly true, others wholly false)
without being first built upon the sure foundation of faith?

It is not how educated and learned one is
that qualifies one for understanding and interpreting
the written icon of the Word, nor is chronological age a criterion.
Spiritual maturity rather than chronological age,
practical application, even incarnation, of the scripture’s tenets
rather than academic prowess or a prodigious memory,
these are what put a man in the place where the Word of God
can employ him as an agent of divine Truth.

Remember who the Word of God is,
and do not trifle with the arguing spirits.
Rather apply yourself to knowing and living the Word,
who is alive and active,
and in so doing demonstrate on the battlefield of your own body
the victory of Christ, who is Truth come unto His own in you,
and by thus receiving Him,
receive also the power to become
the son or daughter of the Most High.

Originally posted June 3, 2009.

Το ευαγγέλιον αιώνιον

Και ειδον αλλον αγγελον πετόμενον εν μεσουρανήματι, εχοντα ευαγγέλιον αιώνιον ευαγγελίσαι επι τους καθημένους επι της γης και επι παν εθνος και φυλην και γλωσσαν και λαόν,
λέγων εν φωνη μεγάλη, Φοβήθητε τον Κύριον και δότε αυτω δόξαν, οτι ηλθεν η ωρα της κρίσεως αυτου, και προσκυνήσατε τω ποιήσαντι τον ουρανον και την γην και την θάλασσαν και πηγας υδάτων.

וארא מלאך אחר מעופף במרום הרקיע אשר היה לו בשורת עולם לבשר את ישבי הארץ ואת כל גוי ומשפחה ולשון ועם׃

ויאמר בקול גדול יראו את האלהים והבו לו כבוד כי באה עת משפטו והשתחוו לעשה שמים וארץ את הים ומעינות המים׃

Va’ére mal’ákh ’achér me‘ôphéph bimrôm ha-raqí‘a ’asher hayáh-lô besôrat ‘ôlám l’vassér ’et-yosh’véy ha-’áretz v’et-kol-gôy ûmishpacháh v’lashôn va’ám:
Vayyomer b’qôl gadôl yer’û ’et-’Elohîm v’havû-lô kavód kî va’áh ‘ét mishpatô v’hishtachavû la‘oseh shamàyim va’áretz ’et-hayyám ûma‘yenôt hammáyim:

Then I saw another angel, flying high overhead, sent to announce the Eternal Gospel to all who live on the earth, every nation, race, language and tribe. He was calling, “Fear God and praise Him, because the time has come for Him to sit in judgment; worship the Maker of heaven and earth and sea and every water spring.”
Revelation 14:6-7

The Good News, the Gospel, the Evangélion, there is only one, but because it is the Word that contains all that is, was and is to come, the seen as well as the unseen, the expressible in human language and the inexpressible, we find it described in the Holy Scriptures in various ways, we see its contents never fully but pieces of it here and there. Why? Because the Good News is the life of Christ, the Gospel is our lives in Him, the Evangélion is the summation of all things, all being in Him Who Is. Sounds mystical? Well, it is the Mystery, the Mystírion, the meeting of God and man, of God as Man, and of man in God, but as for it being mystical, no, it is not, at least not in the way that people think.

There is only one Good News (cf. Galatians 1:7), and though it reaches us in various times and places (cf. Hebrews 1:1-4), expressed in parts, all of these parts form a single whole (cf. Ephesians 4:16), which clothe the soul gradually, dressing us up in what becomes our wedding garment (cf. 2 Corinthians 5:3), eventually clothing us in the Bridegroom Himself (cf. Galatians 3:27), as the Bride is enfolded by Him and folds into Him. Again, it is the Mystery. ‘My Beloved is mine, and I am His. He pastures His flock among the lilies’(Song of Songs 2:16).

The first words of the Good News are spoken by an angel standing on the earth (cf. Luke 1:26-38) before the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David (cf. Revelation 5:5) is sown in the fruitful field of the Virgin Daughter of Israel, and they are spoken to her alone. The last words of the Good News are spoken by an angel ‘flying high overhead’ before the Day of Judgment begins for the whole world, and they are spoken to everyone who lives on earth, ‘every nation, race, language and tribe’ (Revelation 14:6).

Between the words ‘Rejoice, so highly favored!’ and ‘Fear God and praise Him’ the door to heaven has been flung open, the gates of paradise have been unlocked, ‘the blind see again, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the Good News is proclaimed to the poor’ (Luke 7:22). This is the Day of Redemption, the Day of the Good News, the acceptable Day of the Lord. Why? Because between the first and last words the Eternal Gospel, we have been granted this time to enter into the Living Word.

Brethren, let us enter into the Living Word and, casting aside all worldly cares, receive and be received by the King of All. The ikons are scenes from the book of Revelation painted in the portico of Dionysíou Monastery on Mount Athos. To see more of them, as well as other interesting posts, photos and videos of the Holy Mountain, visit the Athos - Agion Oros blog.

All on the same side

I found this discourse a while back, written by my son Jacob, on my FaceBook home page, growing out of an initial discussion about ‘prayer cubes,’ something that I had never heard of before, but the discussion went far beyond them…

Someone just asked if we sold prayer cubes. A prayer cube is actually a prayer ‘die’ [plural: dice] with a prayer on each side that is ‘cast.’ It brings to mind the distinction made between hazard vs. chance. Since it is modeled on a game of hazard (a game that believes in distinctive randomness without significant attachments to context and environment) the folks who sell these items make a point of quoting the casting of lots to determined the new twelfth apostle—an act that is far closer to the cosmological view that views chance with optimism: where you have explicit local randomness, and shrouded universal significance, combined—the significance drawn from the context: time, tempo and timbre as it were.

Here is an interesting discussion of this idea of the different types of approaches to chance or gambling.

A caveat—the wisdom literature model extended what little physical observations were known, to create a distinct belief in a multi-dimensional space that kept the mechanical aspects of the universe intact, but provided a frightening option for the arbitrary, based on the personality that the universe had, and the sense that the universe had of its own self-preservation.

The shortest root to this is, if you are in the ancient world and you believe the sky is a crystalline dome holding back the waters of the flood, and that the sun is not a body but an opening through which life and light flow into this world as substances that feed the earth, and through which God ‘looks down’ upon the earth from a life-generating abode... well, the next abstraction is to believe this presence is brought to earth in the form of the temple, where the lights of the temple are symbolically serving the same purpose. Up until Aristotle you had a wide belief that the eye was associated with fire, and that a person saw because light was cast out from the eye, bounced off the object like sonar and returned.

And yet once you see the temple itself fail, you return to a deeper abstraction which states that there is a world that possessed the tree of life, and that from the rivers of this tree (could be water, or limbs, or both) you had the source of life and abode of God and that in violating the laws of this world one was cast out as a matter of self-preservation, the door once again guarded by Uriel the fiery sword (‘light of god’ as a very solar image). And that this world co-exists in a shrouded way with the one that we see. The hope being that in being found worthy of this world, one might be called to the door and enter.

On the flip side, this provided the ancient world with an arbitrary aspect to the universe that the 18th century lacked, in that there was nothing stopping this trans-dimensional world from spilling over into the unworthy outside world. This was that nature and notion of grace, and in many ways this world was seen as interactively participating and shaping the visible world. So for example, souls of children came from here. Love itself, as a source of regeneration, life, resurrection, etc., flowed from here. There is a lot more to this area of discussion obviously, and many of the ideas here are either outmoded or refined in the modern era—but the fear of ‘God as a distant entity,’ and the ‘plan of the almighty’ was not the source of fear for the ancient world—it was the secondary reality of the unseen that cut in and out of the world they experienced, in ways that they did not understand. In the dark ages, with all the disease and death, the confidence in the beneficial aspects of this unseen world gave way to the possibility that there was a far more sinister hidden element that had controlled the world.

This is when gambling became a sort of collusion with the dark invisible elements and witchcraft became more than merely worship of foreign deities or necromancy. Prior to this period, casting lots had a far more favorable view—yielding personal will to the invisible hand of the wider world—which, despite many losses, seemed to cradle those who were faithful to certain principles.

The collection of wisdom, in particular, was bent on gaming this system and finding the cradle—the bosom of Abraham, as it were—where one could experience the embrace of heaven while here on earth. The contribution of Jesus within this system was illustrating that the embrace of this world could overwhelm the chasm of death and allow one to leap back from that realm in an elevated physical state. The common notion of heaven, hell and death being on the same side of the universe is, from a scriptural point of view, thoroughly flawed. It is a selective reading that would be entirely nonsensical to the apostles—the modern notion suggests that death is a department store with heaven in the attic and hell in the basement.

The ancient notion is that heaven is present in this world, but hides from us in order to protect itself and its contents, opens itself to those who are worthy of entry, and waits for those who are resurrected for evaluation and entry. Hell is the result of the laws of the universe outside of heaven (and the energy required to sustain them) being withdrawn—all elements allowed to resume their natural chaotic state. The suggestion is that this retraction of natural laws will not occur until all the souls have been resurrected and judged.

The interesting thing about all of this—well, the Judahite obsession with death—because the kingdom of God, and Eden itself, was on this side of death, it meant that once you crossed into Hades you were effectively locked out of any possibility of communion with God—not to say you were in hell exactly, but you were in a completely different space from God.

So you have lots of kids, hoping that one day your lineage would experience the inheritance, etc., etc.

This is the nonsense to the Greeks (who had a very different view of the afterlife) and is also why Paul is very focused on ‘how the Exodus works.’ Based on the revelation he received, the exodus combined with Jesus' example taught how one was either trapped in death, or was able to resurrect and escape it. This was the hard part of the journey—once you were properly clothed (i.e., resurrected), entry into the kingdom was as easy as being able to love—‘love one another as I have loved you’ period.

In other words, when Paul talks about those who won’t enter into the kingdom of God, it is not because of the quality of their sins by themselves—it is the problems their sins will pose when the distractions experienced in death overwhelm the interest one has in the resurrection. This is why certain sins are grouped together—because each group of sins played on the same human vulnerability. People then got ‘stuck’ in death, while those who follow Christ and seek the resurrection are ‘unstuck’—and likewise, the stories of Christ ‘unsticking’ others from death are part of the whole crucifixion narrative.

If you do not believe that heaven and hell are on this side of the life/death barrier, then you want death—you strive towards it—you will fly airplanes into buildings to achieve it. That is how serious the cosmological difference is. But those who are drawn to life in its purist form will be drawn towards the source of life—regardless of their stated beliefs. And I have found them to be able allies—regardless of their stated affiliations. These are folks who avoid the taste of death, as it were. They don’t wait for death to build them a comfortable house, with a big easy chair, and lots of servants all over the place catering to their every whim, and then wonder when—all of a sudden if they actually want to get out—they cannot find the door where they came in. Pluto wasn’t the Greek god of wealth for nothing—this aspect of death being a source of wealth and therefore enticing the soul to transition from regular sleep to permanent death—was not just a Judahite notion.

Death is a bribe that you accept, from this point of view. This scene from The Matrix [1] illustrated the concept flawlessly—far too well to go into here.

Those who truly love life are all on the same side—they struggle together.

— Jacob Aaron Gorny

To be happy

God wants us to be happy. Yes, you heard me right. God desires our happiness. Call it happiness, call it joy, even call it blessedness, they’re all facets of a single thing, a sole state of affairs, what theologians and poets often name ‘Paradise.’ Yes, and the tourist bureaus too, even when they call Tahiti or the Caymans, or Bali, ‘Paradise,’ except that for them, they’re actually offering a limited and temporary visit to an approximation of that elusive location.

But God wants us to be happy. He is glad when we have not only our basic necessities but even our luxuries, happy when we are hard at work doing something that fulfills us, and pleased when we find pleasure in those exalted gifts that He prepares for us—love, music, literature, and all the ‘fine’ arts, adventure and, yes, even entertainments. How could God, our loving Father, not want us to be happy? Even we want that for our children, don’t we?

It seems that what separates religious people from the non-religious is their attitude toward human happiness. Often the religious take it for granted that ‘this world is in the power of the evil one,’ and therefore any pleasures we take in it are automatically somehow sinful and need to be extinguished. And what do they offer as a replacement? Well, there are religious services, revival meetings, bible study and prayer, sometimes even charity work.

To the non-religious, this seems a sorry substitute for what they think will make them happy. We all know what that is. Well, I mean, whether we’re religious or non-religious we know what makes us ‘happy.’ Again, it’s only our core beliefs or indifference that divide us. Carnivores will enjoy a tasty steak and be happy to eat it, but some of the religious will choose a vegan salad over the steak if it’s Friday. How they regard the carnivore seated across the table is the real divide.

God wants us to be happy. He wants us to be able to live our lives without fear of violence. He wants us to be well-fed, clothed and housed. He wants us to have and to be good neighbors. He wants us to be healthy, physically, emotionally, spiritually. He wants us to know love, to be able to experience ‘the joy of sex.’ He wants us to be literate, avid participants in the cultures in which we live. He wants us to be creative on every level. He wants us to be free.

The religious, when they read what I just wrote, will immediately raise objections, or at least want to attach stipulations. Yes, I am one of them, but I will bide my time. The non-religious, reading my list of what makes God happy, will possibly agree with me, except that they might say, ‘Well, right, but then, who needs God?’ Some of them will have had their mindset shaped by the lyrics of the song ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon,

                    Imagine there's no heaven,
                    It's easy if you try.
                    No hell below us,
                    Above us only sky.
                    Imagine all the people
                    Living for today.

It used to grill me when I heard those words, even though something about the song rang true. I just couldn’t stand the thought of ‘all the people living for today’ because I have seen them doing exactly that—living for today, and leaving God out of the picture. Actually, this still does rub me the wrong way. I want people to give thanks and praise to God for all the good things they enjoy. When they don’t, it pushes me involuntarily toward resentment.

But I don’t have to defend God, only love Him, and show Him, if I can, to anyone who wants to see.

God wants us to be happy. Christianity has continued for two thousand years, trying over and over in many different ways to deliver that happiness to the human race, because deep down, everyone knows that it’s not wrong to be happy, whether there is a God or not. Now that we’re at the threshold of a ‘brave, new world,’ unexpectedly emerging from a mechanical to an information age, Christianity is in the best position to know itself and to transform society.

‘The world is in the power of the evil one.’ It still is, isn’t it? Certainly, as anyone can find out by exploring the internet, for with an increase in freedom comes an increase in sin, incontrovertible proof of our race’s urge to self-annihilation. But through the same freedom comes an almost supernatural transparency fulfilling a prophecy of Christ, who says, ‘there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and nothing secret that will not be made known.’

This transparency makes available to anyone who wishes to see, what are the mistakes of Christianity and all other religions and social structures, and forces everyone, religious and non-religious, to come to an honest and rational recognition of what really is good, for the individual and for the race, and how what makes God happy can be realized on earth. This planet is not only the place where ‘God became man’ but also where man, at last, becomes God.

Now, after choking on that last statement—I am addressing both the religious and the non-religious—I have finished biding my time and want to close with this thought. God wants us to be happy. What this means is, He wants our relationship restored to what it was ‘in the Garden.’ No religion, just relationship. No sin and death, just one will and life. To recognize Him in us and in all things, to give thanks and praise, and to follow His commandment, to love one another.

How can God help us?

Constantly, each day, each hour, God is sending us people, circumstances, tasks, which should mark the beginning of our renewal; yet we pay them no attention, and thus continually we resist God's will for us. Indeed, how can God help us? Only by sending us in our daily life certain people, and certain coincidences of circumstance. If we accepted every hour of our life as the hour of God's will for us, as the decisive, most important, unique hour of our life -- what sources of joy, love, strength, as yet hidden from us, would spring from the depths of our soul! Let us then be serious in our attitude towards each person we meet in our life, towards every opportunity of performing a good deed; be sure that you will then fulfill God's will for you in these very circumstances, on that very day, in that very hour.

Alexander Elchaninov

The Diary of a Russian Priest

“Remember who your teachers were…”
2 Timothy 3:14

Evening confession

For the most part, my experiences as a blog writer have been very positive. I have tried to stay away from topics that would incite controversy, but not always with complete success. Sometimes I've expressed ideas that I thought might draw down criticism or judgment, and I received none. Sometimes I've written what I thought could not possibly draw me into an argument, and yet it did. Even when countered, I've tried very hard not to let my blogs become arenas for verbal battles. I was not always this way.

I first started blogging as a parallel testimony to what I was doing on the street, which was reading the Word of God aloud publicly. I wanted to document what happened when I did this. Surprisingly, I rarely encountered any opposition or aggression when reading the Bible publicly unlike others who, preaching their own message while waving around a black leather-bound book, often drew crowds of mockers. I tried to follow what Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, to be strong when the Word is strong, to be weak when it is weak.

What my experience taught me about this was, you can't force Jesus down people's throats, especially when you've got Him sandwiched between slices of your denominational philosophy. Though my mission on the street was carried on in this pacific way, sometimes in the blog world I was not quite so harmless. Sometimes I criticised, even blasted, people and systems that I have a problem with. In my comments on the blogs of others, I also pressed what I thought was my advantage. This was, to be sure, quite wrong of me, that is, if I really were a follower of Jesus.

How little we see, sometimes, when we hide Him from view by our smoggy intentions. Smog, mind you, not smoke, not the smoke of the Presence, which surrounds Him alone, but smog, the unhealthy byproduct of our anxieties. Yet we mistake the one for the other. We hide ourselves from God when He comes calling, and then complain that He hides Himself from us, when we call. This is the ground floor of the human condition, which I share with everyone I meet, and our experience together is that only One can raise us from this degradation, yet we try to raise ourselves by lowering others.

My blog was once visited by a woman who implied that she is the Woman mentioned in the book of Revelation. When I followed back the link to a web page that she provided in her comment, I couldn't believe my eyes. Rarely does one encounter another human being whose audacity is so glaring. Yes, I've labored under the delusion that something I might say or do could help save someone. This is a common delusion, especially of those who would like to teach others. Myself, I know there is only One Teacher, the Messiah, and at my best I am only repeating what has been handed over to me.

I deleted her comment, which was harmless enough, though it carried a sectarian overtone and a premonition of higher knowledge, so that no one who came here might be confused or tantalised by the claims she makes in her web page. But it still astounds me, and startles me that such a person could exist. We hear of public figures like the Puerto Rican reincarnation of Paul the Apostle who later was divinely upgraded to being both the second coming of Jesus Christ, and the Antichrist, all at the same time. He tells us that sin is no more, and that he comes to rule the earth. Well, he did anyway, before death claimed him with cirrhosis of the liver.

Such impositions on the mortal mind stagger my imagination. Again, because audacity seems to outdo itself with every new messiah, once only male but now female too. What Bible verse cannot be twisted by our imaginations to serve our glorification? I think back on my own life and shudder with shame, for I am no different in kind, only in degree. How simple the story is, that God has revealed through Jesus Christ His Son, and how believable it is, once we admit the truth about ourselves, which we must admit before we can ever admit the Truth about Him.

Enigma—that is what life is, and we ourselves, all enigmas awaiting resolution. Everything partial, all things opaque to us except ourselves, and yet we cannot even see ourselves clearly. My favorite poet writing his 'Song of Myself,' how luxuriant, how confident his pronouncements. I love his Leaves of Grass, not because they are true the same way that Christ is True, but because he reveals in them the truth about himself and about us, even about me, who for all our wonderful beauty, life, energy, darkness, pain, and weakness, remain asleep and dead, until He bids us, 'Rise!'

Evening confession. Outpourings of a blind old Greek with a Jew's heart, rich in his poverty, owning nothing but his own sinfulness, seeking no one but the Eternal, even knowing that finding Him is the losing of himself. The end of all things is nigh, but not as prophesied by bibliolators or boasted by Sabine women clothed in the sun who use the moon as a swing. The dragon that seeks to swallow the Man Child is not the same as the dragon whose year in Chinese tradition comes round once in twelve, that harmless creature who carries the Son of Heaven home when his mandate is foreclosed.

Infinite Mercy stands waiting, hidden behind our walls, to reveal Himself, at every moment knowing exactly where we need Him most, and why we are in need. He does not wait as we wait. He is ready when we call, echoing unknowingly His calling us. His forgiveness covers even our audacity in believing we are God, that we do not need Him, that our freedom originates in ourselves. His salvation in bathing us does not drown us in the process, but makes us clean again, forgetting our uncleanness forever.

Yes, and the Woman clothed with the sun, yes, we will find out exactly who She is.

Trophy-bearers of the holy fire

Then Jesus cried out, “Whoever believes in me does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. The one who looks at me is seeing the one who sent me. I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world. There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; the very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day. For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. 
I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.”
John 12:44-50 NIV

No matter how you cut it up, the fourth gospel is loaded with meaning, with truth, in each and every utterance of Christ which the evangelist records. We call him John the theologian because we can sense the presence of man’s struggle with God in every line, man wanting and not wanting to be what God has created him to be, and God firmly insisting that there’s no other option. Eternal life is open and free, but only to those who really want to live.

People call church teachings and philosophy ‘theology’ and they say that they go to school and ‘read theology’ eventually becoming ‘masters.’ Nothing could be further from the truth, but there is some value in learning the signs this way, so that when real theology happens to us, we will recognize it for what it is, and not shrug it off as ‘just what happens.’ Theology is struggle, and Christ came to persuade us to take it on and to show us its purpose.

The same words of Jesus can ignite the fires of theology and of hell. ‘I have come to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were blazing already’ (Luke 12:49 JB). This is no mythological Prometheus who will steal fire from the heaven of the gods and then be eternally tortured for it, though even in the myth the fire-thieving Titan is said to have created man from clay and then sacrificed himself for their benefit, for the divine fire is the agent of transformation both in myth and in reality.

Curious that the makers of religion can slip through the inferno that Christ provides, and erect towers of their own wisdom to raise them above the flames. All the while, far below them, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, those fire-sifters, the true theologians tread the flames with the Son of God, who cools the fires of their flesh and blows upon the fire of their spirits, transforming them into images of Himself and, like Him, trophy-bearers of the holy fire.

‘The Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken. I know that his command leads to eternal life,’ says Jesus, who not only tells us exactly what is in the Father’s mind, but shows us even what the Father looks like. And, far from using threats or force, far from exalting himself over us as our judge—though as the Son of God He has every right—He tells us that not He, but the words He has spoken, will judge us on the last day, making us write our own sentences.

In the gospel, not just according to John but in all four gospels, we have been told and shown everything we need to know about ourselves, where we come from, where we are going. We are even released from religious bondage and fear, not as the atheist imagines himself free by denying Reason and its Source, but by acknowledging Reason in a form we can recognize, a man just like us, who came not once but comes forever, to bestow upon His race the power of words.

The way of innocence

This seems a cheerful world, Donatus, when I view it from this fair garden, under the shadow of these vines. But if I climbed some great mountain and looked out over the wide lands, you know very well what I would see—brigands on the high roads, pirates on the seas; in the amphitheaters men murdered to please applauding crowds; under all roofs misery and selfishness. It is really a bad world, Donatus, an incredibly bad world. Yet in the midst of it I have found a quiet and holy people. They have discovered a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasures of this sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care not. They have overcome the world. These people, Donatus, are the Christians—and I am one of them.
…

If you keep the way of innocence, the way of righteousness,
if you walk with a firm and steady step,
if, depending on God with your whole strength
and with your whole heart,
you only ‘be’ what you have begun to be,
then liberty and power to do is given you
in proportion to the increase of your spiritual grace.

For there is not, as in the case with earthly benefits,
any measure of stint in the dispensing of the heavenly gift.

The Spirit freely flowing forth is restrained by no limits,
is checked by no closed barriers within certain bounded spaces,
He flows perpetually, He is exuberant in His affluence.

Let our hearts only be athirst, and be ready to receive:
in the degree in which we bring to Him a capacious faith,
in that measure we draw from Him an overflowing grace.

— Cyprian of Carthage (AD 208~258)

ορατων τε παντων και αορατων

…ορατων τε παντων και αορατων, oratón de pándon ke a-oráton, all things seen and unseen, visible and invisible. Thus the first confession of the universal Church forced out of it by the Christian emperor in pursuit of a difficult vision of one empire under one God and of one faith—an impossible dream then as now. Yet it shows that Christianity was, and still is, a faith with intellect, despite what its detractors and its fanatics believe. The Creator that we believe in made everything that is, both things we can see and those we cannot. We're not here speaking of such speculative entities as angels and devils, heaven and hell, and the like, but of things that we know for sure really are there, even though we cannot, at least without special instruments or frames of reference, see them. Of course, we are also using sight as a placeholder for any number of senses, not merely vision. We will never see an atomic particle, but our instruments tell us they are there, and tell us some of their characteristics. The early Christians may not have known about such things, but they did know about other things just as invisible yet incontrovertibly real.

Thus arises another idea, that of the real and the unreal. Obviously, we cannot say that the Creator who made everything there is made the real and the unreal. At least, I don't think so. Philosophy can ponder such things, being and non-being, and there is a long tradition of such speculation, stronger in Judaism and some other religions than in Christianity. But it is not God who made the unreal. It is we ourselves. And what is or are the unreal? Isn't it at least what we may call, the world of ideas? Yet, this world too, when God is thinking it, is a real world. God's ideas are real, even if ours are not. In fact, the universe we live in, along with ourselves and all other life, are in some sense God's ideas. But in our case, though made in God's image and thus capable of creating ideas, our fall can be defined by the fact that many if not most of our ideas are not real. They are unreal, though they are not powerless to trap us and drag us into themselves. The linguistic continuum of idea > ideal > idol is no accident. Where stop our wills along this continuum determines our trajectory into being or non-being.

There are many things that we believe or accept as real that are not, and yet believing is beneficial, at least, serves some good purpose. Other unreal things we believe have the opposite effect. We may laugh at such things as papal infallibility or unscientific creationism, yet they have an effect on those who believe in them, and that impacts us. Others may laugh at the concepts of human rights, individual liberty, or free market economy, also invisible and not incontrovertibly real, but these ideas, even ideals, have an effect in the real world, shaping it and us. I believe that there is money in my bank account, but rationally I know it is just numbers. Those numbers, though, can buy me many real things. If I believe that those numbers are real and make them my prime directive, I will fail to notice that my real life is draining away while I chase after what is actually nothing. Thus the world of the unreal, made not by God but by us, even by me, is always around us, outside and, if we're not vigilant, inside us, an invisible ulcer bleeding us to death. As scripture says, 'Greed shrivels the soul,' and this need not be about money.

What exists, and what does not exist, 'to be, or not to be,' yes, that is the question, and for reasons we cannot know, He who made us gave us the power of choice, to follow Him into full reality, into real being, or not. It is not a question of opposites. There is only One, and nothing else. How can we hesitate?

Made ready and fitted

If the whole of your life has passed smoothly and without care,
weep for yourself.
For both the Gospel and human experience
assert with one voice that no one has,
without great sufferings and trials,
left behind him any great work on earth
or been glorified in heaven.
If your earthly road has been bathed in sweat and tears
for the attaining of righteousness and truth,
rejoice and be glad,
for your reward will indeed be great in heaven.

Never entertain the foolish thought
that God has forsaken you.
God knows exactly how much you can bear,
and measures your sufferings and trials accordingly.
‘When men know,’ says St. Nil Sorsky,
‘how much weight a horse can carry, or a donkey or a camel,
and load them according to their strength;
when a potter knows how long to leave the clay in the kiln
for it to be neither shattered nor under-cooked,
how could God not know
how much temptation a soul can bear
to make it ready and fitted
for the Kingdom of Heaven?’

— Prologue from Ochrid, July 4

If we abandon our own desires and opinions, 

and endeavor to fulfill God's wishes and understanding,
we will save ourselves,
no matter what our position,
no matter what our circumstance.
But, if we cling to our own desires and opinions,
neither position nor circumstance will be of help.

Even in Paradise, Eve transgressed God's commandment,
and life with the Savior Himself
brought the unfortunate Judas no good.
As we read in the Holy Gospels,
we require patience and an inclination to pious living.

— Fr Ambrose of Optina monastery, Russia

Christian mysticism

You must live your whole life according to the Christ you have received—Jesus the Lord; you must be rooted in Him and built on Him and held firm by the faith you have been taught, and full of thanksgiving. Make sure no one traps you and deprives you of your freedom by some secondhand, empty, rational philosophy based on the principles of this world instead of on Christ.
Colossians 2:6-8 Jerusalem Bible

Do not be taken in by people who like grovelling to angels and worshipping them; people like that are always going on about some vision they have had, inflating themselves to a false importance with their worldly outlook.
Colossians 2:18 JB

Mysticism, what is it? People who are called mystical seem to be a kind of religious elite, whether Christian or non-Christian. They seem to be more in touch with God than the rest of us. Some of them actually claim to be. Some even claim that they are one with God. Can the term ‘mysticism’ even have a legitimate meaning anymore, especially for Christians, when all this confusion abounds?

Perhaps the answer is yes. To grasp the true meaning of Christian mysticism, one must study the earliest Church mystics carefully, for it is in the light of their experience that later deviations can be properly evaluated. There were some aberrations among even them, of course, but nothing to be compared with the false and impious mixtures found in Europe during the Middle Ages.

The mystics of the early Church included the Church Fathers, for in those days the theologians were among the most spiritual of Christians, and the phenomena of mystical life was evident in all social strata—clergy, monastics, and ordinary believers of all classes.

Visions were practically non-existent in the mystical life of the early Church. Distractions to prayer, whether voluntary or involuntary, were deplored and dismissed whenever possible. Visions and ecstasies were considered to be involuntary distractions to prayer. Those very experiences which later Christian ‘mystics’ sought after and prized so highly were considered by the earlier Christians as little more than nuisances to be suspiciously examined and barely tolerated.

Contemplation consisted not merely in negation and renunciation (as in later Roman Catholicism), but in a deifying union with God’s Spirit in an experience of spiritual illumination after all intellectual activity had ceased. This deification, or in Greek, théosis, had many definite and practical applications in everyday life. ‘If it were possible for me to find a leper,’ said Abba Agathon, ‘and to give him my body and to take his, I would gladly do it, for this is perfect love.’ Such was the true nature of théosis, or deification.

All of the mystics of the early Church believed that the supreme spiritual experience would be to see the Divine and Uncreated Light, which was identical to what the Jews call the Shekhináh—it is the light witnessed by the three disciples which surrounded Jesus on Mount Tabor at His Metamórphosis. Because “God is light” (1 John 1:5), the experience of His energies was said to take the form of light. This is not mere created light, but the Light of the Godhead Itself. Even though this Light is not a sensible or material light, it can be seen by a man whose senses as well as his soul have undergone a metamorphosis of their own.

The Platonic view of man as a soul imprisoned in a body was for a time incorporated into Christian thought, through the writings of Evagrios of Pontus, and Origen of Alexandria, but it was later rejected in favor of the Hebraic view of man as an animated body. The difference between considering man as an animated body (like Adam for whom God first created a body out of dust and then breathed life into him) or an imprisoned soul (as taught by the Greek philosophers who followed Plato) has a subtle but important influence on one's understanding of redemption, and even of prayer.

Abba Makarios of Egypt in his homilies reestablished the more biblical emphasis on the whole man. Whereas the Greek philosophical view made prayer an activity of the mind and the intellect, Hebrew tradition made prayer a function of the whole man—mind, emotions, will, and body. Whereas Evagrios and Origen used the word mind, Makarios used the word heart, which was not only more biblical but also more in keeping with a true understanding of the human being.

Bishop Basil of Καισάρεια/Kaisáreia wrote…

Silence is the beginning of the purification of the soul. A mind undistracted by external things and not dispersed through the senses among worldly things, returns to itself. As the Lord dwells not in temples built by human hands, neither does He dwell in any imaginings or mental structures, fantasies which present themselves to the attention and surround the corrupt soul like a wall, so that it is powerless to look at the Truth directly, but continues to cling to such things as mirrors and fortune-telling.

It seems to me that much of the so-called mysticism we find in the world and, alas, in the Church today may be of the type warned against by the apostle Paul, ‘grovelling to angels and worshipping them,’ and by Basil the Great, ‘powerless to look at the Truth directly,’ and is a reversion to the superstitious attitudes of the Middle Ages, which for both Paul and Basil were far in the future, but for us a lingering and seductive past.

‘Mirrors and fortune-telling’ are Basil's words for what to us may take slightly different forms, cloaked under a pious disguise, but it is the same spiritual cheat nonetheless.

So, what is mysticism, then? Is it anything other than what happens to us when we give all for all, abandoning ourselves gladly to the Lord our God, our Savior, our Brother, our Lover and greatest Friend?

As the bride asks in the Song of Solomon, ‘Tell me then, You whom my heart loves: Where will You lead Your flock to graze, where will You rest it at noon? That I may no more wander like a vagabond beside the flocks of Your companions,’ so comes the answer, ‘If you do not know this, O loveliest of women, follow the tracks of the flock, and take your kids to graze close by the shepherds’ tents.’ (Song of Solomon 1:7-8 JB)

Originally posted as And what is mysticism? on July 6, 2009.

Freedom costs

Psalms for the 4th Day 19 20 21 22 23

Psalm 22
The sufferings and hope of the virtuous man

Elí, Elí, lamá azavtáni, rachók mishu’atí divréy sha’agatí…

My God, my God, why have You deserted me?

How far from saving me, the words I groan!

I call all day, my God, but You never answer,

all night long I call and cannot rest.

Yet, Holy One, You who make your home

in the praises of Israel,

in You our fathers put their trust,

they trusted and You rescued them;

they called to you for help and they were saved,

they never trusted You in vain.

Yet here am I, now more worm than man,

scorn of mankind, jest of the people,

all who see me jeer at me,

they toss their heathen heads and sneer,

‘He relied on Yahweh, let Yahweh save him!

If Yahweh is his friend, let Him rescue him!’

Yet You drew me out of the womb,

You entrusted me to my mother's breasts;

placed on your lap from my birth,

from my mother's womb You have been my God.

Do not stand aside: trouble is near,

I have no one to help me!

A herd of bulls surrounds me,

stong bulls of Bashan close in on me;

their jaws are agape for me,

like lions tearing and roaring.

I am like water draining away,

my bones are all disjointed,

my heart is like wax,

melting inside me;

my palate is drier than a potsherd

and my tongue is stuck to my jaw.

A pack of dogs surrounds me,

a gang of villains closes me in;

they tie me hand and foot

and leave me lying in the dust of death.

I can count every one of my bones,

and there they glare at me, gloating;

they divide my garments among them

and cast lots for my clothes.

Do not stand aside, Yahweh.

O my strength, come quickly to my help;

rescue my soul from the sword,

my dear life from the paw of the dog,

save me from the lion's mouth,

my poor soul from the wild bulls' horns!

Then I shall proclaim Your Name to my brothers,

praise You in full assembly:

you who fear Yahweh, praise Him!

Entire race of Jacob, glorify Him!

Entire race of Israel, revere Him!

For He has not despised

or disdained the poor man in his poverty,

has not hidden His face from him,

but has answered him when he called.

You are the theme of my praise in the Great Assembly,

I perform my vows in the presence of those who fear Him.

The poor will receive as much as they want to eat.

Those who seek Yahweh will praise Him.

Long life to their hearts!

The whole earth, from end to end,

will remember and come back to Yahweh;

all the families of the nations will bow down before Him.

For Yahweh reigns, the ruler of nations!

Before Him all the prosperous of the earth will bow down,

before Him will bow all who go down to the dust.

And my soul will live for Him,

my children will serve Him;

men will proclaim the Lord to generations still to come,

His righteousness to a people yet unborn.

All this He has done.

…Yavó’u v’yagídu tsidkató, l’am nolád ki asáh.

Today is not only the 4th day… it is the 4th of July.

Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence?

Five signers were captured by the British as traitors, and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army; another had two sons captured. Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.

What kind of men were they?

Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners, men of means, well-educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.

Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the British Navy. He sold his home and properties to pay his debts, and died in rags. Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British that he was forced to move his family almost constantly. He served in the Congress without pay, and his family was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him, and poverty was his reward. Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer, Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton. At the battle of Yorktown, Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed, and Nelson died bankrupt. Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed. The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months. John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying. Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his children vanished. Some of us take these liberties so much for granted, but we shouldn't.

So, pause a while, take selah, and silently thank these patriots. It's not too much to ask for the price they paid.

Remember: Freedom is never free.

Is there any need to say more? … These were men who through faith conquered kingdoms, did what is right and earned the promises. They could keep a lion's mouth shut, put out blazing fires and emerge unscathed from battle. They were weak people who were given strength, to be brave in war and drive back foreign invaders. Some came back to their wives from the dead, by resurrection; and others submitted to torture, refusing release so that they would rise again to a better life. Some had to bear being pilloried and flogged, or even chained up in prison. They were stoned or sawn in half, or beheaded; they were homeless, and dressed in the skins of sheep and goats; they were penniless and were given nothing but ill-treatment…

These words from the letter to the Hebrews (ch. 11, vv. 32-37) are referring, of course, to the prophets and saints of old, to Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel and the prophets. But as I was thinking of the heroic men who signed the Declaration of Independence, I was reminded of this passage.

I had never noticed, also, or made the connexion between our American revolutionary struggle and the psalm that Christ prayed from the cross, which was almost His last prayer to the Father. Most people read the words, ‘Elí, Elí, lamá sabachthaní…’ which Jesus spoke from the cross, the first line of Psalm 22 in Aramaic, and think that it represents somehow Christ's experience of utter abandonment by God, so deep was His self-emptying, His kénosis.

This may be a worthy interpretation. But according to the Jewish religion which Jesus practiced, He was praying the psalm, saying only the first line out loud, and the rest silently, which was how Jews prayed. Who knows if He had enough strength to finish the psalm right to the end. But it was significant that He prayed this psalm, because the psalm itself is a prophecy of the ultimate and eventual surrender of rebel man to his Creator God and Father.

‘The whole earth, from end to end,
will remember and come back to Yahweh;
all the families of the nations will bow down before Him.
For Yahweh reigns, the ruler of nations!’

And one more thing that I noticed. Who do you think these ‘people yet unborn’ are that the psalm prophesies?

‘…men will proclaim the Lord to generations still to come,
His righteousness to a people yet unborn.’

But Christ died on the cross uttering His total trust in the Father, and in the victory that was about to occur, praying…

‘All this He has done.’

“It is finished!”

The Declaration of Independence

Except for the Bible itself, whose words when read and understood and acted upon are death to the world system but life to mankind, what follows, taken from the Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen United States, is to be feared by all persons or governments that would be God on earth, from Pharaoh to the tyrants of today's world, whether outside or inside the borders of these now Fifty United States. I am no patriot of this nation only, but of the ideas that framing it still speak to every human heart, forging all into one humanity, not under men but under God, whose word, whose law is awaited by all the islands of the earth, praying ‘Thy Kingdom come.’

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Excerpted from The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America, in Congress, July 4, 1776.

Although I am an Orthodox Christian, that does not stop me from loving and respecting not only other Christians, but those of other faiths, or no faith. Although I am an American, my patriotism is not limited to the geographical or the cultural fifty United States, but upholds every land and culture of humanity, not as a citizen-worshipper of the 'one world' but as a member of the Kingdom of God, the only domain where men are truly free, truly equal, and truly brothers.

The spirit of all real revolutions comes from That Place, and leads us thither, and when the King of kings of kings returns, the One whom some call 'the Revolutionary', we will know for certain that He was behind this Declaration, as well as behind all true struggles waged since the beginning of time against unlawful authority, against Pharaoh in all its forms.

Happy Fourth of July, to all who know and love what is worth dying for, for God Himself did not back away from the Sacrifice.

Ramadan رمضان

Ramadan 2014 began Saturday, June 28
and ends Monday, July 28.

Ramadan (Arabic: رمضان) is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, and the month in which Muslims believe the Qur’an was revealed.

Fasting during the month of Ramadan is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. The month is spent by Muslims fasting during the daylight hours from dawn to sunset. Muslims believe that the Qur'an was sent down to the lowest heaven during this month, thus being prepared for gradual revelation by the angel Jibra'il (Gabriel) to the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Furthermore, Muhammad told his followers that the gates of Heaven would be open all the month and the gates of Hell (Jahannam) would be closed.

This is exactly how religion works. There are laws to be followed. There are acts of self-denial to be performed. There are unprovable—maybe even improbable—beliefs to be accepted, explanations of ‘why things are the way they are.’ Finally, there are promises—in reality a variety of perks, again unprovable—that give the average believer a motivation to follow the laws and perform the ceremonies and customs that will ensure him a better existence in whatever happens after physical death.

It's always about death, and the fear of it. Sometimes it's also about sex. Indeed, sexual instincts and death seem to be intertwined somehow, defying reason by insurmountable paradox. Maybe because sexual activity procreates, keeps living beings from extinction, preserves them from permanent death, as a species. So religion, like the funeral industry, has an inescapable relevance to humans everywhere, and the former usually incorporates the latter in every culture. That's religion for you, pacifying unanswerable need.

Whether or not the Word of God (that unwritten eternal Book, that incarnated in Jesus son of Mary) came down to man's level, or very close to it, by being revealed to Muhammad, Gabriel may know. I don't. To me it seems slightly less credible than what happened in the Incarnation, but both claims must seem like nonsense to the believing Jew. Everyone knows that there is only one YHWH, and therefore only one real religion, the one that was revealed to Moses at Sinai. Even Jesus son of Mary followed it.

Real religion—if there is such a thing—doesn't so much need to be in accord with man's power of reason, as to not offend common sense, which is not always the same thing. Laying down laws and making promises just for their own sake, now that is what we expect religions to do, at least the ones we've had to deal with so far. Adding a good dose of supernatural fantasy is also on the agenda. After all, if there is something or Someone ‘up there,’ they will have to keep our interest. Makers of religions know their stuff.

But I find plenty of assurances of Divine mercy, plenty of revelations of what and Who really exist in the pages of the Bible, starting with the Old Testament. There's nothing old about what I find there, except in the sense of  ‘always being the same from before time was.’ If I had to start with that Book, and no other, I would be at a loss to create a religion for myself or for others. There's just something too real, too immediate, about that Book. Yet people use its text to erect religious towers, fortresses, armies, and banks.

Religion has a certain characteristic to it. It is almost always predictable. It will be rich in stories and legends. It will be colorful, even beautiful and seductive to the senses. It can be expected to mobilise people and employ them in tasks that have no earthly object. It always holds out a better tomorrow or hereafter. I doesn't have to limit itself, though, to the future life. The most pungent religions are those that completely take your life over, and use you for anything from sheep to be fleeced to soldiers to be sacrificed.

Heaven is the goal. Earth is just a waiting room, a school, a place of preparation, a ‘foyer leading into the world to come.’ Yes, I know. I believe some of these things too. No, actually, I believe all of them. Earth is temporary, but I still need to take it seriously. Why? Because it is my chance—possibly my only chance—to acquire a truly higher education. Knowing the curriculum, knowing what those lectures and labs should look like, helps me to stay away from schools that are not only unaccredited, but dangerous.

Well, what is it then? Religion or no religion? I believe in three facts that are unprovable, just as unprovable—and maybe just as improbable—as the stories one hears told of the founders and saints of mankind's religions. These three are, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, and the Ascension. People have founded religions on these three, and yet what they found themselves saddled with seems inconsistent, indeed often seems completely unrelated, to these three facts. How can this be? What is belief? Even mine?

Religions have to be maintained, cared for, in order to continue. They have no life in themselves, only what people give them. Just as the idols in a temple have to be washed, dressed and ‘fed’ daily, religions need us. The fact of God's becoming a human being in Jesus of Nazareth, the fact that He lives beyond His historical identity and still moves among us, the fact that He has opened paradise—not some ‘pie in the sky’ magical place where we can be rewarded after a life of unnecessary toil—that transcends religion.

We can recognize the door only when we have tried them all and found which one really opens and is not just a picture of a door. We can distinguish the truth only when we have listened to all the stories and found which one really lives and is not just a fairy tale. We can embark on the way only when we have walked our chosen path long enough to see that it leads nowhere, that it dead ends, and that beside us has been walking He who is the way we sought but could not find. Religion ends at His feet, and relationship begins.

There is no Ramadan, no fasting, no revelations, no religion where we find ourselves when we meet Him, and no paradise except Him who is, and in His presence is peace.