"Tonight I wish to tell you the story of the cross," said Story Teller.
The community settled in around the nightly fire, putting themselves in listening mode.
"When Yahweh decided to enter the world as Yeshua and create a new relationship with humans, he chose a particular time and place. Part of that choice was the mode of execution at the time.
"He did not choose the time of the electric chair nor the time of lethal injection. In which case some followers of Yeshua would be wearing tiny electric chairs or needles on chains around their neck. No. He chose the time of the cross.
"What does the cross mean? Some see it as a symbol of suffering. And it is. But it is more than that.
"The cross is a symbol of the human condition. We are nailed to the cross of space and time. X marks our spot. We exist in the midst of above and below, the past and the future. This causes continuous difficulty, anger and despair, confusion and pain.
"We are nailed in our consciousness to viewing ourselves and others in the vertical realm of superior and inferior. Some of us see ourselves as superior and others as inferior. Others of us go the opposite way. Yahweh came as Yeshua to shift this perverted way of thinking and experiencing. Neither way works. Superior either falls or hardens into a cyst of self-worship. Inferior takes solace wherever it can find it, often in feeling superior.
"In the horizontal realm of time, we experience ourselves as both past and of an uncertain future. We forget to live in this Now. We torture ourselves with regrets and imagined apocalypses..
"These are the two arms of our cross.
The children were snoozing in their parent's arms. The adults were wide awake, each listening in accord with the amount of capaciousness they allowed.
"The good news is that Yeshua did not stay on the cross. We do not have to either."
"How do we get off the cross, Story Teller?" asked a young man.
"Through a shift in consciousness," said Story Teller. "Through Love."
"When we open our hearts to ourselves and each other and to all that exists, we get off the cross. Rather than staying in a state of separation, experiencing ourselves as an isolated protoplasmic blob, no matter how grand our blobness, we open to the cosmic interflow of grace and love.
"Yeshua said 'Take up your cross and follow me.' That means get off that thing, pull it up from the ground and throw it down so no one else will climb up on it. Then follow the example of Yeshua. He leaped into the cosmos and merged.
"Do the same. Claim your merge-inty. "
People smiled.
"It's all about Love," said Story Teller. "First, love yourself. Then love everyone else. If you don't do the first, you can't do the other. You can tell if you truly love yourself. If you don't love everyone else then you don't."
The community settled in around the nightly fire, putting themselves in listening mode.
"When Yahweh decided to enter the world as Yeshua and create a new relationship with humans, he chose a particular time and place. Part of that choice was the mode of execution at the time.
"He did not choose the time of the electric chair nor the time of lethal injection. In which case some followers of Yeshua would be wearing tiny electric chairs or needles on chains around their neck. No. He chose the time of the cross.
"What does the cross mean? Some see it as a symbol of suffering. And it is. But it is more than that.
"The cross is a symbol of the human condition. We are nailed to the cross of space and time. X marks our spot. We exist in the midst of above and below, the past and the future. This causes continuous difficulty, anger and despair, confusion and pain.
"We are nailed in our consciousness to viewing ourselves and others in the vertical realm of superior and inferior. Some of us see ourselves as superior and others as inferior. Others of us go the opposite way. Yahweh came as Yeshua to shift this perverted way of thinking and experiencing. Neither way works. Superior either falls or hardens into a cyst of self-worship. Inferior takes solace wherever it can find it, often in feeling superior.
"In the horizontal realm of time, we experience ourselves as both past and of an uncertain future. We forget to live in this Now. We torture ourselves with regrets and imagined apocalypses..
"These are the two arms of our cross.
The children were snoozing in their parent's arms. The adults were wide awake, each listening in accord with the amount of capaciousness they allowed.
"The good news is that Yeshua did not stay on the cross. We do not have to either."
"How do we get off the cross, Story Teller?" asked a young man.
"Through a shift in consciousness," said Story Teller. "Through Love."
"When we open our hearts to ourselves and each other and to all that exists, we get off the cross. Rather than staying in a state of separation, experiencing ourselves as an isolated protoplasmic blob, no matter how grand our blobness, we open to the cosmic interflow of grace and love.
"Yeshua said 'Take up your cross and follow me.' That means get off that thing, pull it up from the ground and throw it down so no one else will climb up on it. Then follow the example of Yeshua. He leaped into the cosmos and merged.
"Do the same. Claim your merge-inty. "
People smiled.
"It's all about Love," said Story Teller. "First, love yourself. Then love everyone else. If you don't do the first, you can't do the other. You can tell if you truly love yourself. If you don't love everyone else then you don't."
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