God is no laughing matter

God, I have become like

two giant fat people living

in a tiny boat. We keep

bumping into each other

and laughing.

Hafiz - Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

If you were to read the Bible you would often conclude that the God of the bible is a God to be feared. There are accounts in the Old testament in which God tells the Isrelites to slay men, woman and children of other tribes.

What to make of this? This isn`t a God one would want to get on the wrong side of. What do you do if you believe that every word of the bible is the word of God? How do you reconcile the above instruction with the commandment Thou shalt not kill?

You reconcile it by recognising that the bible is a mystical document that charts the evolution of human consiousness. The God to be feared is the God of the early stage of human development. It is a God of projection of the human mind and not the experience of God as revelation.

In later developmens God is not a God to be feared but bceomes not a God of Love but God is Love. This statement "God is Love" is the revelation at the heart of Creation and at the heart of the teachings of Jesus Christ. It makes God a laughing matter. This is why you see a lot of statues of the Buddha laughing. When you awaken to Christ Consiousness it truly is a laughing matter.

You end up as two fat people in a boat laughting not as the picture above shows of the poor fisherman who looks hungry and has his back to the woman gathering flowers and new life as symbolised by the baby.

The instruction to fear God is dead. Long live the new instruction "God is Love."

Sinner YES or NO

When I was young I was advised by those in authority that I was what was called, " a sinner." My heart and my head rebelled. Along with this revelation (if that is what it could be called) was the implicit idea that I ought to feel somehow wrong and should feel guilty about this fact.

Fourty five years later do I still feel this way. The answer is a very definite, "No I do not." If you were to ask me, "Are you a sinner Tony?" the answer would be "Yes I am and no I am not." In order to understand this pardoxical answer you would need to know my personal definition of what the word sin means.

To say you are a sinner is to say that you feel separate. There is no need for you to feel guilty about this. You belong to a collective called humanity. This is a fact. Human beings think themselves as being in a body that is born, lives in time and space and then comes to an end when the body dies. This for most people is not something they doubt or even ever question. This, however, is what is sin. In this respect, you are a sinner just as I am a sinner.

I don`t feel guilty about this. For me it is a fact of living on this planet. Except that I long for more. I have a holy longing to feel beyond this sense of separateness which makes me feel distant from that source of Love given many names. One of which is God. This is in no way some kind of punishment. It is the evolution of consiousness in form.

To move beyond being a sinner one atones. One becomes AT ONE MENT.

This is a spiritual experience that Jesus Christ invites one into here and now. It isn`t intended that you feel guilty. It is intended that you claim your birthright of joy. You don`t do this through beating yourself up in anyway. This only adds to the sense of separateness that you feel you already are. Guilt will not take you into the higher reaches of consiousness. It will lock the door to the Kingdom that Jesus Christ invites you into living, not when you die, but right now.

Welcome from one Believer in Exile

This blog will be the recording of a journey. It is hoped that this journey will be a return from exile. I am what can be termed a believer in exile from the invitation from Christ. The title of this blog is taken from two sources.

The blog title "Believer in Exile" is taken from the title of the book by John Shelby Spong "Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile. In this blog I will be examining ways in which this exile can be made into a homecoming.

The beautiful painting opposite is by Holman Hunt and is entitled Light of the World. The door that is being knocked on late into the day is the door of the heart.