Divine Thunder

Service is to Sonship as Thunder is to Lightening

As the thundering clouds above strike fear and dread in the hearts of those that hear them, let the divine thunder of our loving and unselfish service strike hope and joy in the hearts of all that perceive it!

Moving Forward

Oh, children of the Earth,

How long will you suffer War?

Why do you give men the power to make war?

Why do you allow men to rule over you

That believe in violence?

How long will you entertain the delusion

That you can build

The Kingdom of Peace

Using the weapons of War?

What vile experience must you endure

To make you realise the revolting nature of war?

What horrific scourging

Need you suffer

To make you lose your taste for

Steal, blood, and terror?

Men of violence,

Who see enemies everywhere,

Are not fit to run a school

Let alone a nation.

Let us no more learn to make war!

When will be begin to learn to make Peace?!

Let us no more learn of war,

Let it become a bad memory,

A terror of the night season,

Whereupon awaking

We discover

The world of beauty, harmony, light, and life.

Let us transform our means of destruction

Into a means of creation,

Our means of inflicting harm

Into a means of creating healing.

Let us put an end to mourning

Let us no more hear the sound of mothers weeping

Let us stop the tears bought with terror.

Instead, let laughter peal through our streets like thunder.

Instead of screams

Let music fill the air

Instead of the bitter parting,

With fear that they will never return,

Let there be joyful welcoming

With the peace that knows they will never go to that place again

With joy let us move forward

Into the light of the truth of love and brotherhood

Knowing that we have once, for all, and forever,

Put the darkness of hatred and enmity behind us

Let forgiveness break the chains of hatred

That hold us fast in the darkness of the past

Let faith reveal the

Brighter worlds and better days ahead

If we are to give our lives

Then let us give them

With Love to Beauty, Truth, and Goodness

The Lord of Life

Happiness consists not in what you have but in what you are, not in what you can get but in what you can give. You can make this world a better place. You can enrich it and the lives of your fellows. You can be a source of healing and beauty, love and joy, justice and strength. You can increase the value and worth of all you touch. You can be such a being of light and life. Or you can choose the ways of darkness and death.

You can inflict hurt and horror, fear and despair, corruption and weakness. You can diminish and desecrate everything around you. You can be a Devouring Darkness. The Master well said, ‘if the light that is in you is turned to darkness, how great is that darkness!?’

We are all given five talents: a body, a mind, a spirit, a personality, and an endowment of time, to do with as we wish. If we invest these gifts wisely, in such a way as to honour the Lord of Life that bestowed such gifts upon us, then when the time of reckoning comes the Lord of Life may look favourably upon our service and invest yet more in us.

But if we are wicked and slothful stewards of the Lord’s investment; if we take his gifts and use them to destroy and diminish what already is – instead of building and enhancing, if we will gratuitously squander these gifts in the gratification of selfish amusements then when the reckoning comes the Lord of Life will seize and reclaim these gifts and no more will the souls of the wicked stain the Kingdom of the Living.

There are ways that seems wise to the wicked but the ends thereof are death; therefore should the wicked watch their step. Mark you well: you that would trade fire for gold, ancient forests for new money, who foolishly believe that oppression and injustice offer solid foundations whereon to build, who would with malice of forethought plunder the wealth of widows, orphans, and the elderly, you do grievously err. For the True Scales are in the hands of the Lord of Life and when all the tears, suffering, prayers and supplications are finally measured, all that you have and are will not be sufficient to balance the Scales. Thus will the Lord of Life call upon his abundance and Balance the Scales and all that you have and are will be consumed and those that knew you will be astonished for your place in the Kingdom of the Living will no more be found.

Less is more

I heard a a saying while back that went: if you are not happy with what you have how could you be happy with more? It got me thinking: ‘if you’re not happy with what you have then maybe you need less’? Less bullshit, less drama, less ego. Maybe you need to let go of a certain way of looking at things, or give up an approach to things that no longer works: give up your bad attitude, give up complaining, whinging and moaning about your lot; give up expecting the world to conform to your hopes and wishes. Maybe you need to look at what you can give and not what you can get, at what you are more than at what you have. When it comes to affairs of the Spirit less really is more.

The Divine Romance

The sage of old declared: of all the things a person can pursue in life WISDOM is of greatest value. We are taught that: Wisdom is the principle thing, in all your getting get wisdom; in her right hand is to be found long life and her left riches and honour; her paths are peace and her profit greater than silver, greater even than fine gold. She is more precious than jewels; nothing can be compared to her. Therefore, pursue wisdom. These words have stirred my soul for years and after decades I pursuit I can finally say few are the joys more sublime than the pursuit of this Handmaiden of the Soul – a divine romance to be treasured throughout all eternity.

I was first turned onto wisdom by the story of King Solomon. After inheriting the throne from his father, King David, he was overwhelmed by the prospects of rulership and so he prayed and after he prayed he dreamed. He didn’t pray for fame or riches but for the wherewithal to rule wisely and his prayer was pleasing to the Lord; and as the maxim goes, ‘pursue the substance and the shadow will be included,’ so it was for good King Solomon, in pursuing the substance that is wisdom the shadow of fame and riches followed.

Fame and riches are only prized by material minded men and women – the children of this world; but the wise understand that wealth cannot atone for foolishness or selfishness. It cannot buy peace, love, hope, forgiveness, loyalty, friendship, nobility, grace, maturity, trust, character, or salvation. What must it cost us before we learn that an ounce of sense is of greater value than a ton of gold - even several tons? and lest this be not obvious to you remember: a fool and his money are easily parted.

The values and priorities of the post-modern world are mixed up, even toxically so. Alas, our culture is all we have to pass onto our children and they find out, too late, that it is spiritually bankrupt. We teach our children that the ends justify the means and encourage them into the blind pursuit of wealth, power, influence, and fame. The spiritual and moral bankruptcy of our ambitions is ravishing the earth even today, let alone what future generations will have to suffer due to our poverty of true values.

The forward march of civilisation is into the unending quest for higher and ever truer values but the very mixed up nature of the values that guide us at present has us going in endlessly repeating circles of social, environmental, political, and economic chaos and calamity. True it is that many will not enter the Kin-dom except through great tribulation!

Wisdom understands that a person may be happy by accident but they can never stay happy by accident. Your portion of happiness, peace, contentment, joy is almost directly proportional to your quotient of spiritual wisdom and directly upon how effectively you can harmonise your life with the fundamental laws, intelligence, and purposes that shapes and governs reality.

When a nation fails to affirm and overtly promote the pursuit of wisdom as the first goal and primary duty of every citizen it is, by default, covertly and implicitly dedicated to promoting the pursuit of folly, thereby do nations, peoples, and individuals court social, cultural, economic and political disaster.

When are we going to grow up and place the pursuit of wisdom as the number one priority of mortal life?

http://culliganbarry.wix.com/3rdtemple

The Pursuit of Wisdom

The multiplication of knowledge and unceasing technological innovation is not equivalent to the multiplication of wisdom. Indeed the rapid changes in technology, and its corollary of increased complexity in human civilisation, means that our old maps to personal fulfilment and happiness stand in need of radical re-visioning.

The ability to gratify every material want will not, in and of itself, generate happiness. Such purely material achievements cannot satisfy the souls’ deep need for truth, beauty, goodness, meaning, value, love, hope, unity, belonging, peace, to mention but a few of her necessities. We need to learn anew to ‘Seek first the Kin-dom’ - to discover the Great WHY – to discover for ourselves, by ourselves and within ourselves, the reality of the Father and His unending love. All other things are merely husks.

Any nation that fails to affirm and overtly promote the pursuit of wisdom as one of the first goals and primary duties of every citizen is, by default, covertly dedicated to promoting the pursuit of folly, thereby do nations and peoples court social, cultural, economic and political disaster.

We are a ‘hard-headed and stiff-necked’ people. Such stubbornness and pride can have only one outcome, tragedy. By refusing to hear the words of the wise we invite unimaginable suffering into our lives; in the greatness of our folly we explore every path and thereby garner for ourselves every pain, suffer every heartache, and so agony – the great enemy of apathy - will drive us in search of that peace which is the flower of enlightenment. Thus do we see that it is ‘only through much tribulation that many will enter the Kin-dom’. Consequently, I am left pondering – is world-wide tragedy a precursor to world-wide enlightenment? Is world war a preliminary to world peace? Is injustice, executed on a global level a pre-requisite to the realisation of global justice? Do we really have to go that far before we realise our folly? Do we really have to foist that much suffering on the heads of our unsuspecting children? Must they suffer the consequence of our selfishness, ignorance, and foolishness? How long must we wait before the ‘people will no longer say, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, but the children's teeth have been set on edge.’’ Jer. 31:29. 

The God of Reflections

The God of Reflections

I recently posted an article on a Christian forum looking to form a fellowship of people for who recognise that the spiritual roots of the ideals of brotherhood run far deeper than tradition. Unsurprisingly, this article attracted all manner of turbulent souls whose whole purpose seems to be dedicated to being Trolls for Jesus. The thread was dragged down into the dark deeps of acrimony, self righteous assertions, theological arrogance, and the sort of holier-than-thou bull that I was looking to avoid. To be fair, after a couple of posts folks didn’t bother reading the original message. They responded with gusto to comments made by others and derailed the thread. I expected this but I did secretly hope that the unexpected might occur.

This got me thinking about religion, about tradition versus experience; about the different types of knowing God, the theoretical and the experiential.

I can write here about a kiss, a dinner, a sunset, a flower. I can write about a cure for an ailment or hot sex, about a car, or swimming. I can, through writing, create reflections of that about which I write but no matter how well I write the reflection will never, ever, ever, be the object reflected. I can write a mouth watering review of a fabulous meal that I enjoyed but it will not fill your belly. I can tell you about my beautiful home but it will not keep you warm or the rain from over your head. And no matter what I write, no matter how well I write it, what I write will never be more than a reflection, it will always lack that most irreplaceable of all dimensions, the actual experience that was the inspiration from whence the reflection was contrived.

We write about our experiences. We reflect on our insights and values but the things that we write are not co-incidental with the object of our inquiry. The same holds for religious or spiritual experience. I can write about God but that which I write is not God, it is only a reflection – even one seen ‘as through a glass, darkly’. I can write about Jesus but that creation is merely a reflection and a reflection is never a flawless or replete portrayal, it always lacks; it is always so much less than. I can take a photo of my friend but the photo is not my friend. The significance of this fact seems lost on many religionists.

At best a reflection will possess the aroma of truth, in Christian parlance, will be quickened by the spirit of truth and this spiritual presence of truth is what lends authenticity to a reflection. However, theoretical experts confuse reflections with the objects reflected; confound the photo with the friend. They think that the spirit of truth has somehow become imprisoned in the forms. Consequently, these manmade creations - these reflections – are seen to be invested with divine attributes [like infallibility] – in essence they become totems and the worshippers of these totems, whether they realise it or not, are idolaters. They are idolaters because they worship, fight for, and would even sacrifice their fellows to preserve this manmade object of their devotion.

Tradition can never be more than the object and the experience that inspired it. Tradition can never be more than a reflection. It may be more or less blessed with the spirit of truth, depending largely on the spiritual genius of the diarists. But in the hands of the spiritually blind it is no more than a weapon that divides. The children of God are peace makers, are forgiving, tolerant, and humble. They strive not with their fellows and look only to establish unity, for they know: God is unity.

It has always seemed to me that it’s better to have God and no tradition than to have tradition and no God. The personal experience of knowing God - experiential knowledge - is infinitely more to be preferred than mere knowledge about God - theoretical knowledge. It is an astounding spiritual tragedy that there are people that are experts in tradition but don’t actually know God. While on the other hand, marvel of marvels, there are people that actually know God but don’t know jack about tradition.

This parable best illustrates my point. There was once two people that grew up in the same town but, as circumstances would have it had never encountered one another. The years fly by and both end up travelling the world. As Fate would have it the two ended up in a town on the far side of the world. While out with friends one evening one overhears the conversation of the other and is electrified with the recognition of ‘HOME’ and strikes up a conversation. They quickly learn that they used frequent the same places but at slightly different times. They know the same schools and stores; have heard of the same local heroes. They have never met but they recognise that they both come from the same place and are heartened to meet a friendly face at the far side of the world.

Also in the bar, is another person; one that has never visited the land from whence our two heroes hail. He, likewise, overhears their conversation and interrupts them saying that he is also familiar with the place they are from but his accent isn’t the same. He’s heard of the diners and restaurants but he’s never actually eaten in them. He couldn’t describe the smell as you walk in the door or the feel of the carpet under your feet or the familiar smile of greeting the restaurant owner always beams when he welcomes his ‘favourite regulars’. When the two new found friends dare to correct this self proclaimed expert he takes offense. He objects: but I have read it, it says so here and here. You gentlemen must be wrong. You have been away from your home a long time and your memories must be rusty. Consequently, before long, the two chaps find a way of departing from this man’s company.

God is a place wherein some grow up and the people that have grown in God always recognise one another regardless of other incidental factors like traditions, customs, nationality, gender, or race. They recognise the accent; their personal familiarity with the nuances of the terrain; the hard knocks doled out by the town teachers. But there are others and the only God they know is the God of Reflections, and anyone that has had the experience of living in God can recognise these people instantly.