Death for Dinner

As should be expected during Lent or any other time of a special push toward holiness, the Divider has appeared to challenge me. You know him, the Diabolo, the spirit-guy who assigned himself, or was assigned, to mislead and trip those on the path to the land of immortality, lest riffraff be allowed into Kingdom Come.

As my beloved mom would say, “you know it’s not always happy-happy.” Well it sure ain’t happy now. I have been pushed away by someone I want most to be united with because I unintentionally offended her. I have been caste into outer darkness. I am dumbfounded because what I saw as small, she sees as huge. What I would laugh off, she is using as a hot twirling sword to cut me off. So now I am in hell during Lent.

If the Orthodox theologians have it right, there are no parties in hell. All the faithless people who like to imagine physical death to be either an eternal dreamless sleep or a big party in a hot place, all those people should make some room in their equations for the saintly prophesized probability that a non-stop severe loneliness is behind the curtain they have chosen. Hell is being cut off from others, especially those we love, and now I get to feel what that is like. Sometimes I want to weep and sometimes gnash my teeth but mostly I weep!

One thing I should know is to stop eating what el Diabolo is feeding me for dinner. This is Lent; I am supposed to be fasting, so why do I gorge myself on thoughts of the pain of separation. Worse yet, why do I chew and chew, taking these thoughts to fantastic hellish conclusions or relating them to past tumultuous nightmares like a kid picks at an old scab until it starts bleeding again, a fresh new wound to inflict upon myself as if the enemy wasn’t bad enough. With fervor, I join el Diabolo to pierce the heart of Evangeline and watch her slowly bleed to death.

Silly child, it is time to stop wolfing down the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of evil and cling to God for life.

The film Forrest Gump was rich in symbolism. My favorite scene was when legless Lieutenant Dan shimmied up the pole in Forrest’s shrimp boat and was yelling at God in the storm. He clung to that pole for dear life. Poor Dan had confused life with death and death with life, clinging to a dead pole yelling at Life to be damned. It’s a normal mistake.

Life is union with God because he is the Creator of Life! In or out of this fleshiness, death is nothing more than separation from God. Love is union with others made in His image and likeness which is why most everyone wants love so much and why we pursue it in any old form. Life = love = union. God unites, the devil separates.

Ah math and philosophy help me feel better!

The pain of rejection is a dinner of death and as if I was starving I am eating it.

The only way to fight the divider, el Diabolo and fight I must, wimp that I am, is to cling to God like Lt. Dan clung to the pole in the storm.

The only way to cling to God is to think and behave like Him. Go the second mile, love my enemies, unite whenever possible rather than divide further.

Oh geez, I am having such a craving for an ice cream cone right now. That was a bad joke. It means to fast from food, especially during this volatile period of the Great and Holy Lent, is effective if it can make me strong enough to fast from death in all of its familiar diabolical forms.

It is not in my power to bring my beloved back. I can’t control her heart. There must be something about this separation that comforts her. So instead I should reject that death sandwich and focus on loving God, then perhaps He will grant my wish and bring my beloved back to me, because He can control her heart. This is a difficult challenge but our God won’t have wimps in Kingdom Come.

The LaGuardia Lesson about the Inner Kingdom

There is one thing I want to know. Is it possible to go to the inner kingdom of God while sitting in an airport? I would so much rather be there than here. If I can go there at all, now would be a perfect time to figure out how. Maybe that is why I missed my flight and landed in LaGuardia for this wait. My Boss wanted me to see if I could go there when I hate where I am at the moment. Maybe I am usually too comfortable to go to the inner kingdom of God.

Usually I try to go to the inner kingdom of God in the middle of the night when I am in my comfy cozy bed and I can’t sleep. Since I have pretty much decided thanks to Mr. Freud that I can’t go there with my mind, I try to clear the room of my mind or I think about how wonderful God is, and pray hoping that I will somehow stumble upon the door and walk in. Unfortunately, I end up in a pool of random thoughts, or I fall asleep.

Now I am in a room filled with loud chatty people. On two sides glass walls separate us from a dense fog. It is so foggy that it looks like we are on an airplane travelling through clouds or waiting for the Judgment Seat. Here, I am not alone in my desire to be elsewhere. I am surrounded by hundreds of people who also want to go somewhere else, some want to go to Dayton, others to Syracuse. Wouldn’t it be fabulous if the lady announced that the next flight will take us to the inner kingdom of God! All aboard! I am jealous. At least these other people will end up where they want to be. Not me. Not by plane through the fog at least.

It looks like I am being shown all the ways how NOT to reach the inner kingdom of God. It’s apophatic! Apophatic reasoning is used to know God by what He is not because it is impossible to know God by what He is because He is so immense. God is not mean, or a liar, or small. And, I can’t reach the inner kingdom of God through my mind, in a sleepless bed, or by airplane.

Jesus said that the kingdom of God is within and I believe Him. It would have been very helpful had He given us an idea of how to get there. Instead He described the kingdom of God in many oblique ways like the valuable pearl. Did He call it a pearl because it is born within? How beautiful.

Ahaa! I just thought of something. One reason why I am having such a hard time is that I am not trying to go to the kingdom of Evangeline, but that is where I always end up.

To go to God's kingdom, I must be invited even if that kingdom dwells inside of me. This reminds me of my pro-life argument. For the same reason that the inner baby should not be extinguished at the will of the outer mama, the inner kingdom of God is not beholden to the whim or will of the outer person.

Like the baby and the mama, God and I share this body. His kingdom within is a royal palace. I can clear my mind for hours, or I could praise and worship but if I am not invited in, I am as if stuck at the airport.

Lord, may I visit Your kingdom within me someday soon?

Hear iT

This whole journey of exploration to the inner kingdom of God started after Eastertime when my Boss had given me the assignment to liken Lent to the Exodus of the Jews from Egypt to the Promise Land. Only the chosen people would be aspiring immortals traveling from the Crucifixion to the new earth as described in Revelations, the place we will go to when Jesus returns for us where even our bodies will be new and immortal.

Even though it seemed pretty backwards to start Lent with the Crucifixion, I was settled by two good reasons. The first one was that it made so much sense since the death of the son of Pharaoh was the big dismissal bell that rang so the Jews could leave slavery just as the death of the Son of God was the dismissal bell that rang for aspiring immortals to leave sin and death. And secondly, I was relieved that so many saintly immortals made the same comparison which my Boss kindly showed me in The Great Lent by aspiring immortal, Alexander Schmemman.

So, I started Lent with the Crucifixion and through my beloved characters Ben, Asa, and Zeporah I made my way to the new earth! Landing on the new earth after that long and sometimes grueling journey was such a thrill that I hated being forced to return to this old earth with its old conflicts and all the blind and deaf people who are not even aspiring immortals acting so arrogant and the obstacle course that keeps throwing most of us back so many miles in our real Exodus journey to the new earth.

Then, I read in Gospler Luke’s booklet that Jesus said the kingdom of God is within! Of course I had known that for as long as I can remember but this biting yearning to be there seemed relieved by the possibility that I could be there now! Right now, right here and now! So I wrote a couple of fanciful pieces where I was going there to the kingdom of God inside. They were fun, especially the piece about meeting my mother which I wrote on Mother’s Day to honor her.

My Boss would not let me stay on that path because it wasn’t totally truthful (no fairies). He insists on Truth and I agree with Him. Our deal is that I can be creative but I must always be truthful. Since I am always afraid of getting fired, I had to find my way back without embarrassing myself too much. I was lucky to be sent to Scotland where I could be given a real live glimpse of a land where light is abundant and people few just as in the real kingdom of God. I deeply appreciated this dose of reality, especially at this time when I am truly looking for the real live kingdom of God within that is not a figment of my imagination.

I know the kingdom of God within is real and True because my Boss lives there and He talks to me, and He does me terrific favors that often involve amazing timing or coincidences. One such event was when we had arrived at the Edinburgh airport and took our sweet time getting the luggage because we were so fascinated by all the different whiskies and cookies along the way. A little voice told me to speed it up and when I reached the baggage claim a man was putting my luggage on his cart to take back to his office! If I had been a minute later I would have had to wander around the face of the airport wasting precious Scottish time.

Because this is just a blog, and not another book I must stop writing now. I leave you with the promise that we will explore the kingdom of God within aspiring immortals like you and me but that it will be all true...even if it is presented in a fanciful way. I know that because I hear it with my heart which is very real.

World Hopping

No sooner did I begin to explore the kingdom of God within than my Boss assigned me to go on a journey to the northern ends of this old and gorgeous earth, that is the Orkney islands of Scotland.

So, here I am walking and riding beneath a gigantic umbrella of a sky decorated with an ever-changing cloud display, listening to angels hearts gush out songs, mesmerized by the views of mine eyes. I am here reminded why most people have no room within for other kingdoms.

To love this earth and these flowers and these people so much, and to contain the place of the eternal refuge from death is to need long legs. Long and muscular legs. Legs that can leap from planet to planet, that sometimes touch down on both together. Who but a gymnast would aim for such fancy dancing?

While here I read that saintly Celtic gymnasts from eras long forgotten considered time to be a gift of God, like beloved nature.

A gift! I wondered, thanking them for the seed of thought. I considered time to be a shrewd criminal, even an enemy that gives, then steals precious moments, holy moments and situations, that rips apart lovers, especially babies and toddlers from those who adore them. Which justifies such felonies with an occasional healing.

A gift you say o brother and sister of old? a gift? Out of respect I shall tiptoe behind your eyes to catch a glimpse of your gift.

Time is an element of nature, brother says. It is all a gift from the busy spider-weaving webs to clusters of blubells that ring silent songs while swinging from their long green stems and sipping life from large luscious leaves.

Nature, every ounce of it, every dark and light, moving, breathing, flying, fighting, loving, majestic, humble ounce of it so entertains us, so consumes us that the other kingdom hides as hard to find, hard

to believe, hard to live in,

demanding kingdom,

timeless kingdom,

natureless gorgeous kingdom,

breathless kingdom,

deathless kingdom.

What kind of explorer would forsake home for this unknown? Are we aspiring immortals brave or are we lunatics? Ha-ha! We could also ask ourselves if nature's  death is worth conquering.

Journeys offer what parlors and cozy beds never can.

Thank You for the shimmering, amorphous gift of Time, and all that it carries in its zillion pockets, but thank You more for an explorer's heart and the sparsely populated, lumnious, peaceful kingdom of God. How the Orkneys and my Shapinsay try to show me eternity with its long light days, spacious, barely populated, peaceful, watery ends of the old earth. Yes, I could live here forever.

Kingdoms and Cities

Aspiring immortals want more than things that money can buy, even trips to Timbuktu, mansions and Maseraties , to go to the world where there is no longer any sickness, sorrow, or sighing...and that place to be forever and ever and ever. Such a place exists and will exist, but it takes ‘aspiring’ to be there and to go there.

I heard that if a person is not there, probably (s)he will never be able to find it. The directions defy even Garmen and Google. That’s why it is so important to be there now. Of course it doesn’t make sense to aspire to be where you are already...unless you either have no inner kingdom or you are not aware it.

Aspiring immortals serve ourselves best when we aspire to be aware of the place where the lack of sickness, sorrow, and sighing exists here-and-now as well as there-and-forever, that is in the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God has everything Good but clocks. Since there is no time in this kingdom, unlike in New York and Amsterdam, the kingdom is of course always Now. It would be ridiculous, impossible in fact, to have a place that exists only in the future that has no time.

Spinning around the sun makes time happen which is why all the places Garmen and Google direct us to have pasts, presents, and futures. The kingdom that is here-and-now, always-and-forever, without yesterday or tomorrow, is hidden from the sun and hidden from time.

This timeless kingdom enters a person via Holy Spirit filled water through the pores of the skin. Once inside, the aspiring immortal must tend it like any place must be tended even a room or a garden. The Second Law of Thermodynamics which says that anything if left to itself atrophies is as true for the timeless inner kingdom as it is for anything in Moscow or Mauritania. A higher force needs to step in to keep every little thing from going bad. I suppose that is also why aspiring immortals must aspire to what we already have. That is, because if we don’t we could lose it in a heartbeat.

To tend the timeless inner kingdom, the first step is to go there. Since the kingdom is in our very own hearts and souls, but away from the light of day, travelling there is very convenient. Going to the kingdom is simply a matter of not going someplace else for a little while every day.

Aspiring immortals who harbor the kingdom inside know not sickness for the same reason that real martyrs don’t really care when the enemy wants to chop off their heads or even when Jesus was hanging by his wrists on purpose. These people deny that small part of their fleshy selves to protect the kingdom and keep it inviolable. And they don’t know sorrow or sadness, well not really because who can be sad when all things bad are so damned powerless. And who can sigh when there’s so much to do to prepare for the purging.

Another difference between kingdoms and cities is the government. Aspiring immortals live in a God governing country even when those in the cities let us vote now and then.