Six years on – this cultural” Christian” is still wandering around in the dark (but with a better sense of direction perhaps than six years ago)

Just because man invented the concept of god, (it) does mean that god does not exist.

After six years of this blog I have many times, in describing my perceptions of things, that in terms of people trying to find some spiritual satisfaction in the old religions, I am content to report that they, along with myself included, have many times come away empty from this search.

That many times these old religions are obsolete because the god and or gods on which these old religions are based – the god-base is obsolete as well. Obscure gods giving obscure directions to even obscurer and or dim-witted souls (“humans”).

Obsolete because they, she, he, it, do not presently fully integrate with the new definitions needed to co-exist with the new virtual global reality. Clear vision for the faithful - reading the myth once more to remain in perfect harmony with the “sacred” message born out of the ancient oral sounds and or written text? Yeah right.

I have stated many times that the old definition of god ( in the context of my cultural corner of the universe) in this modern global culture needs a new definition to be relevant in the repeating of the myth - for the ten trillionth and one time.

Today – I believe that not only the definition of god is obsolete but for sake of a better thing to say – god too is obsolete as well in our growing robot dependent culture.  Obsolete - and irrelevant as well? (God, or its new definition, is a thing evolving that we now at present do not recognize and I fear - is right in front of us as well.)

Man as a monkey evolved with hands to make tools and make daily bread / food and or shelter. God at some points of the timeline got defined by the monkeys. GOD of the future is presently being designed (redesigned?) and is I think, by true definition, literally a logarithm?

Today, technology and toys are the tools not to create anything real, but dependency, so much a virtual stop gap measure, but something shiny to occupy the monkey masses while the robots, ATMs, credit cards, I-pods, I-phones, goog-L-glasses, games etc. take hold invading the ancient body politic, home, culture. The old hand of power slipping silently, gently into a newer glove of power?

Does that make me an atheist – at least for one day? No. Not really. It all depends on what your definition of atheist is – is.

And quite frankly what I see of all these I.V. league dis-educated trust fund elite types on both sides of the English speaking pond - all shouting at each other in alpha male posturing to be the head of the heap of this new atheist religion thing masquerading as an anti-religion/anti-god thing – I don’t see much. A corner street fight, not a major world religion contender.

Nothing in a major way from that side of the court except for a few small voices drowned out in that local street fight thing for power on a small turf thing but one with the ability to grow and franchise, cashing in on the new “None” of the above religious beliefs – Nones – and their growing footprint of - by default “religious” and or “non-religious” POVs.

Replacing god and or religion with your new non-definitions or more accurately, these non-definitions of god and religion are many times mixed with secular politics. In a way, and for some time, the ruling elites like the atheist Koch Brothers / George Soros types have been maneuvering within their greedy anti-human capitalism religion to downgrade the old Christ religion in favor of the new Capitalist religion – where the magic hands of high priests of capitalism make the magic bread of a “perfect” (man-made) economic model.  “Perfect” is god. Therefore capitalism must be “god”. Etc.

Whatever.

That dependence on electricity, clean water, calories, fossil fuel based heat and energy, communication electronics, games, entertainment, time killing drugs, drone office cubicle “work” etc. The old religions are dead. The old gods are dead. The new religion, the new god, is injected into the dependent veins of the present race addicted to convenience and the ignorance tagged along with it.

The old economics are dead as well but let’s not go there. The forensics of dissecting that dead old economic dinosaur of ages past is beyond my mere blogging spot. LMAO

I can well imagine myself being a Roman in the last days of Rome and not believing in the old gods and here comes along the mean desert god male army penis religion of Constantine to tell me what to believe and when to march and when to worship the emperor etc. = Constantine’s “Christ”-inanity.

The story of Constantine’s Roman “Christ” myth as the basis of his new Roman Empire State Religion have been told a couple of trillion of times by now on the timeline of human history and a couple hundred thousand times in my personal timeline at least as well.

A lie told once is still a lie. A lie and or myth told a trillion times is still a lie and or a myth - and or the basic cultural myth (shit mixed with dirt at our feet) of all - like it or not...

That there are those minor conflicts of the myth of original Jewish rabbi “Jesus” (“Jesus Christ minus the Constantine Christ) – conflicts many times within the dumbed down media exercise to kill intelligence (old time) and more importantly kill time as the clock runs out toward the designed future of the minority elites living in space (bubble) pods here and on other planets and the voids of space off-planet.

More and more the extremes in politics and its many masks (in and of religion and or economics) - reminds me of religious and or satanic cults of the past = brainwashing by any other name = not reality by my personal definition of it.

And so it goes. 

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Consensus Avenue - Global Town Square

Main Street America - circa 1918

Old time religion was about a cohesive social unit. It was not particularly political. The rural past of America and going back to the middle ages centered around the local church building. Families were neighbors and also members of the community church.

The local town square, if the town was big enough for such a thing, was on the secular end of the same avenue facing the local church. Sacred or secular decisions for the community got discussed, a consensus found and decided on Main Street USA.

It is the main street in the Disney theme parks that harkens back to the idealized late nineteenth century era and up until WWI American world. Here, the separation of church and state, more or less worked as a blueprint for the stabilization of the community and the nation. We all have a fixed idea in memory of an ideal setting from youth. Walt obviously had his too.

What does the global town square (G.T.S.) look and feel like? It is as varied and diverse as the Internet is right now. What it stabilizes into, is recognized as, gels into universal perception as, will slowly happen in the next decade or two or three. It will depend on the flow of culture and history in that as yet unpainted future.

The global culture idea is at this moment, and in my opinion, about bogus “global village” concepts, decades old, that put ideas out on the airwaves and onto the Internet. That old time touch me, look me in the eyes, and trade me your horse, town square sense of cohesion is missing or has gaps in it.

Before we in America get to the future, we should more fully understand who we are, consider where we have been and where we are going. We need consensus. We also in many ways need compromise. If we do not know or try to understand our neighbors locally or globally, then we fail as Christians and we fail our community as well.

“We” is the important part of the preceding statement. Nationality may disappear in the next decades in some corners of the globe but geography and local-ness will not.

We either as a group become more local and or more universal. Whatever factor dominates our future thinking needs a balanced approach to dealing with reality. If the local culture is important, then the universal global culture has to be recognized and respected but not necessarily served blindly.

The globalists have to recognize and respect local customs – period! Culture in the global age has to be a two way street.

I may sound more secular than cultural with my Christianity here but look at the world of Jesus. You had the Romans and Herod and the Temple Priests and their politico crony parties. You had the dispossessed in the new Romanization of the Holy Land. It was a global situation and after the time of Jesus, it failed. It failed miserably.

Jesus coped with and inspired a local flock that included all levels of that local and global community. The words, teachings and message of Jesus are now as important as ever. I believe that he among the many facets of his unique character and mission – I believe that he truly was one of the first to act locally and think globally. Turn your cheek, go the extra distance, love you neighbor (even if he is a Roman).

Communication and consensus in local matters and looking over your shoulder at that global thing coming at us is something I as a cultural Christian give consideration to everyday. I hope we all, of many belief systems, are doing the same.

- mm 17/06/08

http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2008/06/consensus-avenue-global-town-square.html

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Religion in America - A Beast - A Monster - Ready to Destroy Us

If anything the recent SB1062 in Arizona aimed at Gays would have been used on Jews, Muslims, Mexicans etc.

Religion is big business in America, a tax-free pest ready to consume us all unless tamed or roped in with changes in the tax codes.

Religious scruples belong in your home, in your neighborhood and your community. I do not know where any so-called "Sacred Scripture" where hating your neighborhood is a virtue but such is life in confusing Global Culture America where corporations are our new gods and the God of our youth is a distant memory to most of us old geezers.

Spreadsheetization of The Bible in the Global Culture to Support the Corporate Political Base

Spreadsheet Plus Bible Equals Numbers and or Creationism

Spreadsheeting the Bible Leads to Creationism and other political superstitious delusions.

People generally roll their eyes when I try to extrapolate how I see the whole new Global Culture thing as of and by the Corporate Spreadsheet.

They ignore me when I say that the Corporate Global Spreadsheet has reduced everything and everybody on this planet to commodity status and commodity value. 

That in many instances humanity has little or no cash value in the quest for obscene corporate profits and greed. 

That I assign a label as the Wharton Global Spreadsheet to the contamination and or destruction of our local culture(s) at the expense of this new corporate global money hegemony thing.

That as such, many people think they can ignore the present economics of humanity and still separately and equally apply old fashioned cultural or religious standards to things.

As such, I see on the right the usurpation of religion by politics to win elections and to take human rights and living wages away from humanity.

That the growth of ignorance in religion in my lifetime has I think grown exponentially and with no doubt help from the global corporate hegemony, directly or indirectly.  

That I truly believe that the current growth of fundamentalism and creationism and turning the black on white words of the bible into a commodity to be used for political and economic reasons rather than spiritual growth is due to the Spreadsheet-ization of the Bible into statistics and delusional facts to support the political base. 



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Halloween - Global Culture - Day of the Dead

There are traditions that transcend cultures. There are traditions that are adopted. There are traditions that get recycled through time.

The ancient Celtic New Year used to fall on November the first. There are ancient Celtic customs related to the harvest and coinciding with this date.

A Celtic celebration called Samhain used to center around the building of a bonfire on the Celtic New Year’s Eve on October 31. The people of a village would extinguish all fires in the village and take fire from the community bonfire to bring a new light from fire into the new year.

With the Celtic or Irish disaspora to America in the middle of the nineteenth century came the tradition of dressing up on Halloween first in religious costumes and later in monster chic.

The Brits, who have been greatly Americanized in these past decades, have found and adopted the “American” (Irish American) custom of Halloween and trick or treat. Many purists over there are disturbed that their traditional harvest festival bonfire thing on November 5 of Guy Fawkes Day has somehow been corrupted by yet another thing American.

Which came first? The religious holidays of All Saints day on November 1st and All Souls day on November 2 or the ancient pagan rituals associated with the Celtic New Year.

As in a grinding merger of cultures, it is hard to tell the truth of any given custom or tradition. In a way, globalization and driving toward a global culture have been ongoing for millennium.

I think we have the Celts first and then the Christian era trying to dominate and own dates on a calendar.

People of the Meso-American cultures of Mexico and Central America have their Dia de los Muertos – Day of the Dead customs around November 1 and 2. November 1 is for memory of babies and small children – angels – saints. November 2 is for memory of dead adult relatives - souls.

While the symbols of this holiday and its festivities are far from the Victorian or Puritanical customs of mourning, Meso-American culture treats respect and memory of the dead along with the needs and celebrations of the living. Families meet, clean up a relative’s gravesite, have a picnic there, tell family stories or even keep vigil through the night with candles and musica.

The human skull as symbol of death is not a feared symbol but a reminder of death which is part of a cycle of life perspective. The skull in Meso-American culture had been around for centuries before the Spanish and their imposed religion. In many ways I think that western culture and or Christian culture is a culture that greatly fears death and has great self-doubts about its mission statement. The conquered give lip service to their new masters and ancient customs such as Dia de los Muertos and Halloween go on and on.

I have spent the last thirty odd years practicing my own form of pagan respect, not ancestor worship. I light a candle before sunset on Halloween in honor of the Samhain custom and help the New Year in with new light. I also light a candle in my home on November 2 to remember long gone friends and relatives. I also in true Irish tradition and variation thereof have a shot or two of tequila in their honor.

(October 30, 2009)

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Doctor Riley Writes Her Second Essay – Is Fined Again for Whatever? – Licensing of Bricklayers, Doctors and Other Professionals in Utah

I have to apologize a bit here. I have, since the inconvenience of the recent government shutdown on a federal level, been researching many things related to the anger in the Republic against big government and the reality of the “less government” crowd who really mean less government for you but "more government" and contracts for us (and cronies) kind of scenario.

I see from public documents that Doctor Riley is finished with Maryland so to speak and that now Utah wants a second grade-school essay from Doctor Riley. Nicola Riley is no saint. Just read the SL Tribune or Deseret news to get that certain PC POV toward her. Public Square in Utah is many times Temple Square btw. 

Whatever.

Stephen Fry - BBC "Out There" - Human Dignity - Gay RIghts

Ran into this video over at Bill Lindsey’s Bilgrimage and his eternal campaign for human rights and human dignity – all human dignity. 

Very interesting video of Stephen Fry. I have to admit that the same video word for word from an American openly gay actor produced by PBS would not have the same impact on myself. Something about the mother tongue and the mother culture that on some level has true stage presence in the documentary side of English speaking common cultures.

Dunkin’ Donuts Sells Racism with the Morning Cup of Joe in Thailand

Nothing like a little bit of off-shore non-compliance to sell shitty coffee and say it is okay to perceive another race, the African race, in an Asian race country as some kind of decorative object.

The new global culture should try and spread tolerance and not sell intolerance for the mere sake of the increase of CEO Nigel Davis' annual bonus.

Do-Da!

http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-dunkin-donuts-apologizes-blackface-ad-campaign-20130830,0,2640320.story

Dunkin' Donuts on Friday apologized and will pull an advertising campaign running in Thailand that features a model in blackface makeup offering a chocolate doughnut.

Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand had come under fire Friday for an ad that the Human Rights Watch said was racist.

The ad in question was for Dunkin's "charcoal donut" and it features a model wearing blackface makeup and bright pink lipstick holding up a bitten doughnut. The translated Thai slogan reads: "Break every rule of deliciousness."

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Hitler Chic – Nazi Chic - Asian Subcultural Reaction to the Visuals and Branded Evil of a Western European Imposed New Global Culture?

KFC, Kentucky Fried Chicken is suing some hole in the wall fry shop in Bangkok for supposedly stealing copyright imaging stuff by supposedly turning Colonel Sanders into Hitler.

I guess to the Asians “all white people look alike”. Hitler, Colonel Sanders, Ronald McDonald, Teletubby etc.

The new global culture in some ways is on some sort of visual “mute” button regarding the images that attract the Asian Cultures to the designs of the Third Reich?

Though with Thailand, center of the sex trade tourism from the west, maybe the evil of the west as branded as evil in the demonizing of Adolph Hitler is little different than the evil these sex tourists from Europe and America bring with them with their tourist dollars and euros?

“Nazi chic” is a term that describes the use of Nazi imagery, paraphernalia or fashion either for the exhilaration of breaking taboos or for sensational shock value, but not for the express purpose of sympathizing with the ideology of Nazism.Cosplay is a popular phenomenon in Asia where practitioners dress up as characters from their favorite manga, video games and anime. However, while rare, cosplay in the style ofNazi Germany military personnel has become somewhat prevalent and has been documented as early as 2000.

http://www.chinasmack.com/2011/pictures/nazi-chic-cosplay-chinese-netizen-reactions.html

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/07/08/kfc-is-not-amused-by-hitler-fried-chicken/?hpt=hp_t3

Lenin Chic? – Wrong Blog

Cheney / Obama Nation – Torture and Drones, Culture of Fear and Death - versus the “Nobodys” of the world, the Great Souls like Bradley Manning

At this stage of the coming Global Culture, in its ongoing development, you have those who now have the upper hand, the “people” who do not care about People - and the People who do care about other People.

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Beast Afoot in Watertown Mass.

From what I hear about these two bomber suspects, they were hanging around, blending in at MIT.

They got dropped off the moon and were sent here to kill.  The fact that they had little cash and had to rob a 7/11 says a lot about their handlers.

America has been lucky so far in terms of the imported traveling in kind of terrorists. It is hard to get hold of explosives here.  Not like you can transport that stuff over the mountains on the backs of mules or camels.

But there is another thing too. People from afar only see the surface of America and do not truly feel what we natives see and feel. 

Matter of perception. 

So simple and yet so very complex in reality.

Whose reality is the problem I think.

It is what I always saw looking around the icons of New York and realizing that foreigners don’t know how to pick the right targets to hurt us symbolically.  

They do not understand us. Thank God for that.

They could only take aim at the bigger things around in terms of icons but not truly mainstream America as far as I am concerned – the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001 as an example. (nothing close to our hearts)

That aside.  The emerging global culture is going both ways and right now that two way thing seems very violent.

The suspects had a shootout at the 7/11 killing a cop and then carjacked a SUV. So much like an American TV show. The chase. The shootout in Watertown. The door or door manhunt.

Life imitates art. American art – TV? 

Oh well. It is a start of sorts. They want to destroy us. They want to understand us. They want to imitate us. They want to be us. But yet they don’t want Mickey D’s on Main Street, Dirt Street, wherever, their-ever. 

Our sense of Local, like our God, not their sense of Local or like their God. How strange.

Strange dance of mutual attractions. Whatever.

“And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?”

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New York Yankee Fans Sing “Sweet Caroline” to a Wounded Boston with Love From New York City

New York City Loves Boston

Yankee Stadium - NYC

Fenway Park - Boston - Home of the Red Sox

As a writer in a global culture I begin to realize how discounted all words are these days even within our own local cultures.

As such I begin to think that symbols and gestures as in differing cultures trying to communicate is the best way to address some issues.

In the case of the tragic bombing in Boston and Boston losing its cherry regarding the global violence of a global culture’s possible birthing pains, the fans in Yankee Stadium New York sang Boston Fenway Park’s favorite song “Sweet Caroline” in solidarity by way of the Red Sox and paying respects to the people and victims in Boston. 

Well stated New Yorkers and Yankee fans.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/mlb-big-league-stew/york-yankees-honor-boston-playing-sweet-caroline-211539619--mlb.html

The Brooklyn Academy of Music

I never went to any Diamond concert but here I go with my story about Neil Diamond. I used to start work at 7AM in Rockefeller Center. On some days I would get off the express bus and walk over to 48th to a particular deli “Scott’s” that served a very tasty and cheap bacon and egg sandwich to go. This was in I think July 2001. Well anyway Scott’s is just off NBC’s glass front on the street for the Today Show. Well on this day at 6:30 the plaza was packed with 1,000 people and Neil was doing a warmup for the Today show at 7 AM. The crowd was absolutely on top of every music note and lyric, screaming, clapping, jumping. I stood across the street and listened for a bit and then sadly had to get to work three blocks away.

I remember walking along dark streets and hearing echoes of “Cracklin Rosie” bouncing off the walls of skyscrapers and remember it because it happened a couple of weeks before 911. I remember Neil Diamond with not only a fondness for his music but the memory I have of him in NYC before NYC changed on 911. Whatever. 

~~ My Facebook Page, May 21, 2011

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All Politics, Economics and God(s) are Local in the New Global Cultural Paradigm

I am refining a thought I threw out into the town square / forum some time back about how the one God worshipped by the Jews Christians and Muslims is not the one and same God.  (Yet)

http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2011/04/all-religion-is-politics-all-religion.html

I now see by some present examples how with politics, economics and gods, how they are a totally local thing.

The economic crisis in Europe and the domination of the Deutsch Central Bank of the EU is not unlike the Federal Reserve Bank calling all economic shots in the US. 

Of course the German Central Bank cannot print money or manipulate it, the Euro, its value of currency based solely like the American Dollar has placed itself over time at the center of standard world trade value. But it would if it could in the European situation.

In fact, regarding the locals, the lessers, the Germans do not want to bail out Greece and or Cyprus, two very small states that it is convenient in which to impose bully rules and blood interest to make an example to the larger players in the EU.

All money is local and monetary policy that might only benefit the east and west coasts of the United States by its central bank, at the expense of the economic life of the heartland or fly over country, is little different than with Germany at this present time. 

Germany, not having won WWII, but is now in control on the continent of Europe. By hook or by crook. 

I now understand twenty years later, having worked in a German Bank Branch in NYC why the Germans I worked with had no sense of losing WWII. They only in their minds lost a battle and not the war to dominate Europe.

So too, this recent Pope Francis thing and the humble thing may be genuine in his mind, as the Head of the Vatican City State. 

His acts and his gestures are not so much for the poor I think but more a hope of a stimulus and setting an example, a new beginning in hope of a reboot, to the recently decades long out of control curia, sacred and answerable to no one it would seem, in the Vatican which does not practice what it preaches.

That they, like, are more worshiping themselves, their penises(?), an ancient cult(?), and their priest class as the end all of all their religious mythology and traditions. 

Down the fork of a fork of a fork of a fork in a road mistakenly traveled since Father Martin Luther, who in honest and good faith tried to sell them an accurate map.

That the teachings of Jesus, in that particular Christian sect, are irrelevant in a modern global secular age and that money and power in dozens of little turfdoms within the Vatican are strangling any hope of a viable sect church to survive abuse from above and its trickle down immorality.

I see in a distant Brit Uber-Catholic blog that the unknown Dolan, a god of sorts perhaps, has revived hope of a short lived Francis by his, the Dolan’s hideous inhumane, non-human remarks on Easter Sunday of all days to desecrate the hope of the living on. By his telling that Jesus died and rose only for the some, the special, the many(?) but not the all. 

That this local American (tin) god, unknown until recently to the Britains and Europeans is no longer a local god in Manhattan anymore, or anymore merely worshiped and supported as a tool by the oligarchs there as their “great white hope” in global banking.

Pope Timothy I ? 

Another 27 year reign of a JPII ? coming down the pike boys???

He is now a superstar in waiting and unchallenged by the media in the depth of his capacity for inhumanity dished out with Easter ham. 

I suppose Francis is good for at least 34 days in his reign. Two weeks more to go for that record.

Lest the masses see a pattern in the death of popes that want to abolish the Vatican Bank, interfering with sacred global trade, and dare I say it, causing a return to the true teachings of Jesus aka the Christ. 

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Praise Ye The Father - Chinese - It is becoming a global culture every day.

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Devotional by M. McShea – Inspired by Artwork “The Passion Series” by F. Douglas Blanchard

Disclaimer:

The devotional passages below each work of art/image, by the artist F. Douglas Blanchard, reflects my own and not the artist’s written point of view or theological beliefs.

(I see this modern Jesus as an every modern day common man set against what appears to be the current high tech fascist state of the new global culture which says so much to me and in line with the theme of this blog. That overlaid with the standard Jesus story and or myth of history.)

The Passion Series

Devotional by M. McShea

Inspired by Artwork “The Passion Series” 

by F. Douglas Blanchard

  

One (1) – The Son of Man

The purpose of man has always been the myth of man.

The story of man has always been about his potential.

The man, the seed, plants the tree of the future.

The tree of man bears many fruits and abundance.

The family, the tribe, the myth binds the whole.

The whole is the definition of the (us) All.

Two (2) – Jesus Enters the City

The heart of Rome is her cities, her town square,

Her forum speaks the thoughts, feels of the people.

If I have the word and am the word then I must

Speak to the heart of the empire to change what

Is wrong into what is right and spread love of

The word and truth to all culture and peoples.

Three (3) – Jesus Drives out the Money Changers.

I went to pray in the house of stone.

I wanted to meditate on myself and my Deity.

I sought refuge from the outside world of strife.

All I found was the loud clank of chump change

Of priests emptying offering boxes.

I sought refuge and found none. Oh God!

Four (4) – Jesus Preaches in the Temple

The crowd grew hot and sweaty as I spoke.

I told of my dreams, shared fractions of light.

The stir of emotions on long dead stares

Lit up into the eyesight of vision and possibility.

The crowd became too large to carry one voice.

For an exit sign I searched and finally eyed.

Five (5) – The Last Supper

The warmth of the gathering, friends, strangers,

Family distant from the outside weather and

Negative political elements revives soul(s).

The food was cheap and from a warehouse

Doled meagerly to the poor. The spirit was rich

And mellow and full of human life, purpose.

Six (6) – Jesus Prays Alone

Alone I pray, meditate, gather my thoughts.

Focus. Focus on mean possibilities.

Things are harder to do than once I thought.

If I die, who will continue my cause

Who will bring down the temples and chains

Of oppression? Who among them can do it?

Seven (7) – Jesus is Arrested

In a dark city street a group of men descend

From squad cars and on foot. The helicopter

Overhead throws its accusing beam on me.

This was not a random act. This was done

With a heart in service to the evil in men at

Expense of the many without voice or hope.

Eight (8) – Jesus Before the Priests

How dare you think that God listens to you.

Your words, of a country fool, an abomination.

We in the city understand strength, power and

God’s purpose (to serve only us of the cloth).

You have made your last trouble. Too late

To go back. You have made too many enemies.

Nine (9) – Jesus Before the Magistrate

There was a riot in the house of prayer when

You spilled the money changers' tables.

There were deaths in the riot, Rome to our

Rescue. You are to blame. No need for trial.

Emergency powers to protect our freedom.

Death is to you, your poor silly fate.

Ten (10) – Jesus Before the People

The curious have gathered, opposite the square,

From the Hall of Justice. The crowd stares and

Enjoys too I think. They are full of rage towards

The State and they blame me for my failure to

Save them. They scream hate as I am driven

Off, handcuffed in the back of a paddy wagon.

Eleven (11) – Jesus Before the Soldiers

These soldiers are pigs. No rules or dignity

To any prisoners. Mocking. Slapping.

Down on your knees. Kicking. Spitting.

Obscene nursery rhymes. The taste of blood

From broken teeth pours out of my mouth.

Knives scrap and pull and cut. Pain. Pain.

Twelve (12) – Jesus is Beaten

Dachau. Abu Ghraib. Administrative Detention.

Hands bound and numb tied, held above.

Whips. Lashes. Broom handle’s thrust

Into ribs and private places. No life left

To protect. The State begins to sign off on,  

Decommissioning, a failed citizen of the State.

Thirteen (13) – Jesus Goes to His Execution

The long dark corridor from cell block A to B

Seem miles apart, full of regret, pain and numbness.

The greater vision lost in the smell of blood,

Sweat, urine, breath.  A momentary pause.

Turn the corner. Unlock a new door. Further

Along closer to death and final relief – release.

Fourteen (14) – Jesus is Nailed to the Cross

The execution is televised. A traitor will die.

Strapped to a piece of wood. A needle, piercing

steel set in place, hands and feet bound. A

signal given. Death takes its time to flow from

from head to toe. How strange. They can kill me.

I conquer life in death. Vision fades to black.

Fifteen (15) – Jesus Dies

A roar unheard from the couch potato audience.

Time for a new round of Pepsi, corn chips and

Don’t forget to flush. Commentary talking heads

Continue. Active crowds outside the prison gates.

And among the many a few – who did for Jesus

Cry that day a grand but simple tear.

Sixteen (16) – Jesus is Buried

The criminal’s body is the property of the State.

A bribe to inquire whom of many else to bride

In the coroner’s office to release a dead body.

No time to clean the body or do rituals, prayers.

A rich donor has bestowed the bribe money and

Quick burial before the State can change its mind.

Seventeen (17) – Jesus Among the Dead

On the new global spreadsheet I am nothing,

Not even a true number, even as a commodity

I only have a temporary value, mere slave of

Market place whim, taste, greed and profit.

As a whisper in my mind I have value.

I am (was) a Man. I am (was) a Human Being!

Eighteen (18) – Jesus Rises

The light within doth shine. The maker of me

Does not hide from me. I am thought and love.

I am not animal but man. The thought of me,

The essence of me was brought out by my

Creator. I cannot die. I live. I breathe. I love.

I am. I am who am. I am all mankind.

Nineteen (19) – Jesus Appears to Mary

With distant love I beheld you and wanted

Your aching, grasping, loving arms to embrace.

I had another purpose and I flew from your

Desire. Desire in me was no less but desire for

All others created such stress. Your fulfillment

In me goes beyond a body of me, (we are) soul.

Twenty (20) – Jesus Appears at Emmaus

The real me perhaps never really sat down

With you. I was another person with another

Face, another fate other than some mate you

Meet with over coffee.  My regrets of not

Being a simple man are now satisfied. I am

Grateful that you see the real me in me.

Twenty One (21) – Jesus Appears to his Friends

A symphony of relief. A cloud of grief

Is lifted. I went beyond the veil and return

For a while till I fade from simple view and

Memory. Touch me. See my wounds of life,

Scars of death. It was all a dream but really

Not a dream. More like some Greek tragedy.

Twenty Two (22) – Jesus Returns to God

Cannot linger. I from beyond the veil must

Remain behind the veil. Otherwise effort

Is lost without the purpose of searching.

Life is a search, a quest. And in the end

It all drowns away into silence, warmth,

Love. Returning to the womb of God.

Twenty Three (23) – The Holy Spirit Arrives

Purpose. Purpose. My sword of light is

Focus and flight among the weak who

Cannot travel by foot, or see with eyes

Or think beyond the grunge of day to

Day living. Arise. Awake. See. See as

He saw. Be of like mind and purpose.

Twenty Four (24) – The Trinity

Before purpose and energy and light of

Creation I was and still am. I remain the

Same. Where there is life, there is God.

Spark and breath, heartbeat of Creation,

Of and with purpose and flow in union

w/Sacred Wisdom’s milk, energy, life...

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