Saturday, November 24, 2012
Chapter 61: By The Eternal Word
in Him
all in
all things
hold together
from nothing
word
father
glory of God
manifestation
man
fully alive
Eucharist
presence priest
sacrament worship
summit alter
world of miracles
host to flesh
wine to blood
world of doubt
flesh to image
blood to blood
transubstantiation
source sanctification sign
of unity
bond
of charity
initiation completion
thanksgiving
spirit source
every good giver
creator
cooperative hand
pure heart spiritual
life to sinners
Friday, July 6, 2012
Chapter 60: Priority of Suffering
To gaze upon an image of a man who was tortured and crucified is to be faced with the wretched darkness that resides in the soul of mankind.
How tiring life can be. How exhausting the toll taken from all the loss, pain, and suffering. Perhaps our anguish, the impossible loss, the tortured times we endure, spring from a misguided priority of suffering, one of the human-made kind.
We make our own strife and sorrow every time we project onto the sacrifices Christ made for us, the sacrifices we in turn must make for Him.
Suffering and sacrificing ourselves for Him is different than depending on Him...on His grace and on His abundant blessings and no other, including our seemingly undeniable self.
The complete surrender of Christ to His father's will is immortalized on the image on the Shroud. The mystery of total dependency on God is animated in this image that has no explanation.
It is ironic whenever we prioritize our worldly suffering as a way of maintaining ego control, rather than surrendering our independence to God and fine tuning our lives to His will. Our suffering is His entrance into us. Why shroud ourselves in the protective cocoon of the human ego?
In obeying ourselves as master, we inflict true pain and suffering on ourselves and those around us. Whereas, in depending solely on God, we enter into a place of obedience and sacrifice that, while it may require a lot from us, does not take its toll on us in the same exhausting, debilitating way. For we are fed from within the will of God, as opposed to any short term accomplishment or accolade we earn through egotism and self reliance.
That grace, that power is a gift we ourselves cannot initiate in and of ourselves. For to do so only leads to acts of kindness and charity that we tend to boast about and use as an excuse to reconcile our own inner demons. Our ego is clever enough to steal the spotlight.
Jesus was dependent only on the Father. Whatever pain, torture, suffering He endured, he was able to do so through total surrender and obedience to God's will.
Christ's total surrender results in an image so faint and yet so multi-dimensional and holographic in nature that it at once captures both the fragility and depth of all existence.
We depend on science to solve the mystery of the image. We put all our eggs in the basket of fact...proof..empirical review...evidence. Where is our dependence on God for explanation, meaning, mystery and marvel?
In depending on science for answers, we form hypothesis, theories, conduct experiments, and do a lot of arguing about who is right and wrong.
The swelling of our ego is the diminishing of holiness. God initiates the reflection of His glory in us, through us and all that surrounds us. But we ignore His surrounding glory because we think we understand it, deserve it, are it.
But what would it look like to depend only on God for solving the mystery of the image? What does it mean for us to wait, listen, surrender, and obey where this image is concerned?
It is much easier on us to entangle ourselves in the tangible theories we entertain than to hover in the faint, tenuous unknown that supports each particle, each fibril of what is beyond our limitations.
Are we being guided to the science or are we superimposing it? Do we glom on to certain theories only because they better encapsulate our views and beliefs, thus enabling us to exist in a context we find safe and comfortable?
The image on the Shroud beckons us to consider that salvation is initiated outside us and is realized in us only through Christ.
We are not in charge as to when, how or even if God will call us. Acts of grace are bestowed upon us and are not necessarily dependent upon our belief in Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
Squared in by convictions and controversies, God invites us to both faith and skepticism. We all serve God, even when we are not trying to or are actively and adamantly denying Him. Perhaps this is why skeptics and believers alike continue to strive in vain to test and prove that the Shroud is not/is Christ's burial cloth. Perhaps believing and not believing are nothing more than independent reactions to the image.
The Shroud has called us all to pro and con. One cannot be without the other.
the gift of doubt balances the gift of faith
the gift of faith balances the gift of doubt
sin cannot be without salvation
salvation cannot be without sin
We can only perceive His glory if He lets us. The image on the Shroud is His tactical invitation. He initiates the conversation. The mystery of His entering into our lives is the mystery of the image. If we said yes to God, to depending solely on Him for guidance and answers, where might He lead us?
When you weigh the amount of energy in the world spent on the self, the ego, against the amount spent on God...imagine if all that energy went towards serving and praising God.
Do all our questions spring forth from God's eternal baptismal fountain? The beauty of our inquiries as to the origin of the image is that we can look at the totality of creation for answers.
Is the image:
A prayer?
A road map?
An answer?
A way in – to God's will rather than our own?
A way out of our own ego?
The cradle of Christ?
Our opportunity to walk with Him?
Surmountable suffering?
A passing Passion pain?
A testament to the power of surrendering our pain and existence to God?
What if the image only has mass as it is creating mass, thus rendering it a “living” entity?
What if it forms, solidifies, and then bursts open into new particles of mass?
What if, within that process of creation, its mass is undetectable?
Is this, perhaps, how the “God Particle” (Higgs boson) functions?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many types of relationships have an understood reciprocity of love, yet how one sided we are with our love of self. The irony – we do not love ourselves enough to remedy our suffering.
Why is it so difficult for us to look at our own image and remind ourselves of the simple truth that belies each one of us:
it's not
all about me
in fact
it's not
about me at all
How tiring life can be. How exhausting the toll taken from all the loss, pain, and suffering. Perhaps our anguish, the impossible loss, the tortured times we endure, spring from a misguided priority of suffering, one of the human-made kind.
We make our own strife and sorrow every time we project onto the sacrifices Christ made for us, the sacrifices we in turn must make for Him.
Suffering and sacrificing ourselves for Him is different than depending on Him...on His grace and on His abundant blessings and no other, including our seemingly undeniable self.
The complete surrender of Christ to His father's will is immortalized on the image on the Shroud. The mystery of total dependency on God is animated in this image that has no explanation.
It is ironic whenever we prioritize our worldly suffering as a way of maintaining ego control, rather than surrendering our independence to God and fine tuning our lives to His will. Our suffering is His entrance into us. Why shroud ourselves in the protective cocoon of the human ego?
In obeying ourselves as master, we inflict true pain and suffering on ourselves and those around us. Whereas, in depending solely on God, we enter into a place of obedience and sacrifice that, while it may require a lot from us, does not take its toll on us in the same exhausting, debilitating way. For we are fed from within the will of God, as opposed to any short term accomplishment or accolade we earn through egotism and self reliance.
That grace, that power is a gift we ourselves cannot initiate in and of ourselves. For to do so only leads to acts of kindness and charity that we tend to boast about and use as an excuse to reconcile our own inner demons. Our ego is clever enough to steal the spotlight.
Jesus was dependent only on the Father. Whatever pain, torture, suffering He endured, he was able to do so through total surrender and obedience to God's will.
Christ's total surrender results in an image so faint and yet so multi-dimensional and holographic in nature that it at once captures both the fragility and depth of all existence.
We depend on science to solve the mystery of the image. We put all our eggs in the basket of fact...proof..empirical review...evidence. Where is our dependence on God for explanation, meaning, mystery and marvel?
In depending on science for answers, we form hypothesis, theories, conduct experiments, and do a lot of arguing about who is right and wrong.
The swelling of our ego is the diminishing of holiness. God initiates the reflection of His glory in us, through us and all that surrounds us. But we ignore His surrounding glory because we think we understand it, deserve it, are it.
But what would it look like to depend only on God for solving the mystery of the image? What does it mean for us to wait, listen, surrender, and obey where this image is concerned?
It is much easier on us to entangle ourselves in the tangible theories we entertain than to hover in the faint, tenuous unknown that supports each particle, each fibril of what is beyond our limitations.
Are we being guided to the science or are we superimposing it? Do we glom on to certain theories only because they better encapsulate our views and beliefs, thus enabling us to exist in a context we find safe and comfortable?
The image on the Shroud beckons us to consider that salvation is initiated outside us and is realized in us only through Christ.
We are not in charge as to when, how or even if God will call us. Acts of grace are bestowed upon us and are not necessarily dependent upon our belief in Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.
Squared in by convictions and controversies, God invites us to both faith and skepticism. We all serve God, even when we are not trying to or are actively and adamantly denying Him. Perhaps this is why skeptics and believers alike continue to strive in vain to test and prove that the Shroud is not/is Christ's burial cloth. Perhaps believing and not believing are nothing more than independent reactions to the image.
The Shroud has called us all to pro and con. One cannot be without the other.
the gift of doubt balances the gift of faith
the gift of faith balances the gift of doubt
sin cannot be without salvation
salvation cannot be without sin
We can only perceive His glory if He lets us. The image on the Shroud is His tactical invitation. He initiates the conversation. The mystery of His entering into our lives is the mystery of the image. If we said yes to God, to depending solely on Him for guidance and answers, where might He lead us?
When you weigh the amount of energy in the world spent on the self, the ego, against the amount spent on God...imagine if all that energy went towards serving and praising God.
Do all our questions spring forth from God's eternal baptismal fountain? The beauty of our inquiries as to the origin of the image is that we can look at the totality of creation for answers.
Is the image:
A prayer?
A road map?
An answer?
A way in – to God's will rather than our own?
A way out of our own ego?
The cradle of Christ?
Our opportunity to walk with Him?
Surmountable suffering?
A passing Passion pain?
A testament to the power of surrendering our pain and existence to God?
What if the image only has mass as it is creating mass, thus rendering it a “living” entity?
What if it forms, solidifies, and then bursts open into new particles of mass?
What if, within that process of creation, its mass is undetectable?
Is this, perhaps, how the “God Particle” (Higgs boson) functions?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Many types of relationships have an understood reciprocity of love, yet how one sided we are with our love of self. The irony – we do not love ourselves enough to remedy our suffering.
Why is it so difficult for us to look at our own image and remind ourselves of the simple truth that belies each one of us:
it's not
all about me
in fact
it's not
about me at all
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Chapter 59: Water Wind Spirit Light
[John 3:1-21; 7:45-51; and 19:39-42]
If we believe what the Scriptures testify – that God reveals His plans and works through His people to accomplish His purposes – then it stands to reason that, wherever Scripture meets Shroud might contain clues about the image.
We know that Joseph of Arimethea provided the linen cloth. But Nicodemus is also mentioned as being involved in the burial. Why him?
Nicodemus first came to Jesus in the dark, likely to avoid being seen with Him. He affirms to Jesus that he believes:
“...thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”
The mention of miracles.
Jesus responds:
“...Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus asks how a man can be born again and Jesus explains:
“Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God... that which is born of the flesh is flesh;
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit...”
Born of water... as in an image born from some dehydration process? Is the clear, watery substance on the Shroud that flowed from the spear wound symbolic evidence of this water? Are the water stains more than just a result of extinguishing fire?
Nicodemus, still marveling, requests further explanation – as to how being born again is possible. Jesus uses an analogy:
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
Wind...air...as in the result of some oxidation process?
Born of the spirit... as in an incorporeal consciousness that communicates to us through an image, the origin of which no one can define?
Explanation of the invisible miracle.
But Nicodemus still has trouble understanding the “how” of it.
Jesus defers to Scripture to give him the clarification he seeks:
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Moses' bronze serpent, lifted on a pole, becomes the foreshadowing of the cross as the remedy for the curse of human sin. All that any Israelite who had been bitten by the serpent of death had to do was look up at the bronze serpent of life on the pole in order to be saved. We have only to look to the cross for our salvation.
It all comes down to believing...in the rising of Christ...and in His image on the Shroud.
What Jesus said next – to Nicodemus of all people – is the essence of Christianity:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believith in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
God, working through Jesus, accomplishes His purpose – our salvation.
Jesus then warns Nicodemus of the consequences for those who do not believe that the world can be saved through the son of God.
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.
For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”
Light...as in a short, intense burst of VUV radiation? As in an image that cannot be seen in transmitted light because the transmission of the light waves does not occur (is not absorbed) because the frequencies of the light waves match the natural frequencies of vibration of the image? Light that, like the wind, cannot be tied to any particular plane rotation or source of direction?
Living by truth brings us into the light. Living by truth is what enables the light of God to be seen through us.
Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, out of human darkness, believing somewhat in, yet also questioning Jesus. Nicodemus is gradually and methodically drawn to the light of Christ and undergoes a transformation. But that transformation happens incrementally, not all at once (just as it tends to happen to us).
Nicodemus is only mentioned two other times (again by John). Once, at the Feast of Tabernacles, when he comes to Jesus' defense by stating the law concerning Jesus' arrest:
“Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him
to find out what he has been doing?”
Nicodemus, the Pharisee, ruler of the Jews, member of the Sanhedrin bends his authority to defer to Jesus' truth.
Nicodemus is mentioned one last time (& most significantly regarding the Shroud), as having assisted Joseph of Arimethea at Christ's burial.
“And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.
Then they took the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes with spices,
as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never a man yet laid.
There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.”
Certainly it is no accident that, of all people who could be present at the burial, Nicodemus (whose name means "Victory of the People") was the person there assisting Joseph of Arimethea.
This man, who tentatively approached Jesus in the darkness of doubt and disbelief, was perhaps predestined to be transfigured into a believer in the light of Christ. This man anointed the dead body of flesh of the Son of God, the first one to be reborn of water and spirit and to rise to sanctify all humankind by His light.
Is Nicodemus' presence at the burial Christ's way of reassuring us that the image on the Shroud is indeed proof of the water and spirit womb where Jesus is born again?
Should we not take Jesus' word for it? Word that is revealed to us in the Scriptures during his encounter with Nicodemus. Word that explains the resurrection process. Word that establishes God as working through Jesus for our salvation. Word where God can work through us so we can reflect His truth just by believing...
darkness and light
Nicodemus by night
water wind
spirit flight
If we believe what the Scriptures testify – that God reveals His plans and works through His people to accomplish His purposes – then it stands to reason that, wherever Scripture meets Shroud might contain clues about the image.
We know that Joseph of Arimethea provided the linen cloth. But Nicodemus is also mentioned as being involved in the burial. Why him?
Nicodemus first came to Jesus in the dark, likely to avoid being seen with Him. He affirms to Jesus that he believes:
“...thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”
The mention of miracles.
Jesus responds:
“...Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus asks how a man can be born again and Jesus explains:
“Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God... that which is born of the flesh is flesh;
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit...”
Born of water... as in an image born from some dehydration process? Is the clear, watery substance on the Shroud that flowed from the spear wound symbolic evidence of this water? Are the water stains more than just a result of extinguishing fire?
Nicodemus, still marveling, requests further explanation – as to how being born again is possible. Jesus uses an analogy:
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”
Wind...air...as in the result of some oxidation process?
Born of the spirit... as in an incorporeal consciousness that communicates to us through an image, the origin of which no one can define?
Explanation of the invisible miracle.
But Nicodemus still has trouble understanding the “how” of it.
Jesus defers to Scripture to give him the clarification he seeks:
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life.”
Moses' bronze serpent, lifted on a pole, becomes the foreshadowing of the cross as the remedy for the curse of human sin. All that any Israelite who had been bitten by the serpent of death had to do was look up at the bronze serpent of life on the pole in order to be saved. We have only to look to the cross for our salvation.
It all comes down to believing...in the rising of Christ...and in His image on the Shroud.
What Jesus said next – to Nicodemus of all people – is the essence of Christianity:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believith in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”
God, working through Jesus, accomplishes His purpose – our salvation.
Jesus then warns Nicodemus of the consequences for those who do not believe that the world can be saved through the son of God.
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.
For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”
Light...as in a short, intense burst of VUV radiation? As in an image that cannot be seen in transmitted light because the transmission of the light waves does not occur (is not absorbed) because the frequencies of the light waves match the natural frequencies of vibration of the image? Light that, like the wind, cannot be tied to any particular plane rotation or source of direction?
Living by truth brings us into the light. Living by truth is what enables the light of God to be seen through us.
Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, out of human darkness, believing somewhat in, yet also questioning Jesus. Nicodemus is gradually and methodically drawn to the light of Christ and undergoes a transformation. But that transformation happens incrementally, not all at once (just as it tends to happen to us).
Nicodemus is only mentioned two other times (again by John). Once, at the Feast of Tabernacles, when he comes to Jesus' defense by stating the law concerning Jesus' arrest:
“Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him
to find out what he has been doing?”
Nicodemus, the Pharisee, ruler of the Jews, member of the Sanhedrin bends his authority to defer to Jesus' truth.
Nicodemus is mentioned one last time (& most significantly regarding the Shroud), as having assisted Joseph of Arimethea at Christ's burial.
“And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.
Then they took the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes with spices,
as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never a man yet laid.
There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.”
Certainly it is no accident that, of all people who could be present at the burial, Nicodemus (whose name means "Victory of the People") was the person there assisting Joseph of Arimethea.
This man, who tentatively approached Jesus in the darkness of doubt and disbelief, was perhaps predestined to be transfigured into a believer in the light of Christ. This man anointed the dead body of flesh of the Son of God, the first one to be reborn of water and spirit and to rise to sanctify all humankind by His light.
Is Nicodemus' presence at the burial Christ's way of reassuring us that the image on the Shroud is indeed proof of the water and spirit womb where Jesus is born again?
Should we not take Jesus' word for it? Word that is revealed to us in the Scriptures during his encounter with Nicodemus. Word that explains the resurrection process. Word that establishes God as working through Jesus for our salvation. Word where God can work through us so we can reflect His truth just by believing...
darkness and light
Nicodemus by night
water wind
spirit flight
Friday, February 24, 2012
Chapter 58: Opt In and Rise
A Zen kōan posits:
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
The faint image on the Shroud whispers a paradox of its own:
“Suffering is inevitable. Salvation is optional.”
By voluntarily opting in to suffering, Christ covers us under the blanket of His forgiveness.
By rising in each of us, our suffering transmutes into His inevitable promise of salvation.
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”
The faint image on the Shroud whispers a paradox of its own:
“Suffering is inevitable. Salvation is optional.”
By voluntarily opting in to suffering, Christ covers us under the blanket of His forgiveness.
By rising in each of us, our suffering transmutes into His inevitable promise of salvation.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Chapter 57: Image of Assimilation
We all sin. And even if, with maturity and some modicum of wisdom, we sin less and less as our lives progress, still we sin.
The image on the Shroud is our “insurance policy” to protect us from ourselves. It embodies the reassurance that, buried beneath the burden of our sins, a blueprint of redemption is already in place.
The Shroud image holds Christ's eternal and internal residing presence. In and beyond time, He loves and forgives us by enduring human suffering and dying a human death.
Through His image, Christ unifies, releases, and sustains the vibrant and continuous dance of the particles of sin and shame and their anti-particles of sacrifice and love.
His manifestation of both the evil of sin and His loving remedy for that evil is a place of equanimity. A place where we are made whole, to be a new creation, to live in perfect unity with ourselves, each other, and God.
His image frees us to never deny our sinfulness nor our goodness, because in doing either we compound His ongoing suffering on the cross.
By accepting ourselves, we coexist in the serenity of His image. Our flaws and failures, as well as our goodness... all are assimilated by the gifts of His grace.
No more fear. No more death. Just His holy design, the original blueprint for the forever creation of humanity.
The image on the Shroud is our “insurance policy” to protect us from ourselves. It embodies the reassurance that, buried beneath the burden of our sins, a blueprint of redemption is already in place.
The Shroud image holds Christ's eternal and internal residing presence. In and beyond time, He loves and forgives us by enduring human suffering and dying a human death.
Through His image, Christ unifies, releases, and sustains the vibrant and continuous dance of the particles of sin and shame and their anti-particles of sacrifice and love.
His manifestation of both the evil of sin and His loving remedy for that evil is a place of equanimity. A place where we are made whole, to be a new creation, to live in perfect unity with ourselves, each other, and God.
His image frees us to never deny our sinfulness nor our goodness, because in doing either we compound His ongoing suffering on the cross.
By accepting ourselves, we coexist in the serenity of His image. Our flaws and failures, as well as our goodness... all are assimilated by the gifts of His grace.
No more fear. No more death. Just His holy design, the original blueprint for the forever creation of humanity.
Saturday, February 4, 2012
Chapter 56: Just Beyond Violet
the word Jerusalem
lives in our lexicon like a cave
a safe place where we return
again and again
to a larger and unified event
our foundation
the heart of a world of completeness
whole and sound
guiding pillar of vision
protection of the righteous
rain of peace of Lamb of God of salvation
exalted above the hills
the Lord shall see
~~~~~
If I could place myself anywhere back in time it would be in the sacred cave, the tomb where death became holy.
I imagine the walls of this cave, orthorhomic crystals of travertine aragonite deposited from springs. Magnetizable metallic iron oxidizing in the moisture, occurring naturally in the blood of Christ. Evaporation forms while soft, silvery white strontium oxidizes and ignites spontaneously in air, turning yellow.
I would yearn to wander just beyond violet in the visible spectrum, ending at the beginning of X-rays, where space time curls up and a range of invisible radiation wave lengths hovers in this sacred vacuum cave, protecting itself from being absorbed by air.
There I envision the physical body of Christ, lying covered on both sides by the Shroud, His blood spilling onto the cloth. I conceptualize that, in His mystery He becomes something akin to a human semiconductor. An atomic lattice of three dimensional quantum dots, tuned beyond visible light into the infrared or ultraviolet, a polymer backbone of cross linking, self-assembled nanocrystals.
I fancy the cave to be some kind of Casimir cavity, a relativistic environment wherein the plates, rather than made of metal, are wafers of cloth with no charge. The two layers of cloth, the cloth above and below the corpse, are perhaps acting as thin slices of semiconductor material formed from a crystalline substance, imprinting His image through some process akin to photolithographic patterning.
Here, inside the vacuum cave and wafers of cloth, I picture Christ's body becoming a gap, an area of lower radiation due to its limits on wavelength. I dare to perceive that, as this gap, He could render that space between the taut layers of cloth empty of matter, with zero point energy.
In this quantized field, I envisage that the net attractive force between objects in the vacuum cave, caused by quantum mechanical vacuum wave fluctuations, would create radiation pressure, thereby pushing (from the outside) the wafers of cloth towards the body of Christ. Here His atoms stick together, creating friction in the nanoworld, and He becomes the force that attracts because the radiation pressure of the field outside the cloth is greater than the pressure inside the gap.
At this point, I imagine the Casimir-like cavity has negative energy density. Now acceleration in the cave is reduced on the spatial axis because space time is bending in the opposite direction, thereby accelerating time (relative to us) and perhaps accelerating the linen aging process of the Shroud.
In my mind I see in the Casimir-like cavity that the wafers now define an abrupt boundary that breaks the isotropy of space time. The cavity now creates a depletion zone, thereby producing acceleration in a method opposite to an event horizon.
But then... I frame a picture of everything reversing.
The Casimir-like force now switches from attracting to repelling. It becomes a force that is due neither to electrical charge nor to gravity, but to fluctuations in the all pervasive energy fields in the intervening empty space between objects. Here I behold Christ's body becoming the vacuum, a force that pushes the wafers of cloth and the cave (which is now the gap) away from Him, rendering Him friction free and holding His molecules aloft to levitate and rise.
And so goes His light...
I wonder if His body produced vacuum fluctuations that started an amplified spontaneous emission where the luminescence went in all spatial directions. I imagine this isotropic scattering to be with identical, uniform physical properties that radiate the same intensity of light in all directions, thereby instantly and evenly imprinting His image on the cloth. Then, like an X-ray where scatter is relevant, the intensity of the two dimensional image contains three dimensional information about the body.
I conjure up a picture of His body hovering in parallel between the top and bottom of the cloth with no trace of gravity. Acting as an interface, he designs an exact relationship between the gradient of the image and the distance between body and cloth. Perhaps he transposed His image through electron quantum holography – nanoscale writing in electron wavelengths. And perhaps now, by dividing space time, the information in the nanoparticles He imprinted between the two sides of the cloth cannot communicate.
I try to grasp that His message has no measure of lost information. That it is fully transmitted onto the cloth, without the help of gravity but with the help of something far more brilliant. Perhaps gap and vacuum fuse and time collapses to absolute zero time.
Perhaps cryptographer and message become one.
But what is the message? It seems to me that there was something else inside that cave, namely the totality of the past, present and future sins of humanity. The Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world by both dying and rising. But in the cave, before rising, what happens to the infinitesimal energy and information of all that sin?
Perhaps the entropy of sin reverses and Christ's alchemy of faith causes the isolated system of evil to collapse.
I contemplate the idea of a singularity emerging and new patterns of information taking hold, information that is not tethered to time or space. This information is living in the nanoscale on the Shroud. Arriving to us from the future of the forever Resurrection, the waves of a free communication of information that transcends light. Living waves, that can linger without threats from field or force or space or time.
Building castles in the air, I wonder if the image we see of His blessed corpse, locked in time on the cloth, is perhaps not locked at all but is alive with the impulses of a larger, unified event. Perhaps it is His body continuously and directly controlling matter on the atomic scale. A body that has already burst through the boundary of the space time singularity. A body already risen beyond the cave, already exalted above the hills...
I imagine the Resurrection process creating a new gap, a singularity that can both attract and repel simultaneously because it is both contained in and free of the isolated system. A fusion of the two event horizons, perhaps it sparks with a completely original duality regarding time and space.
In this duality, a whole and synchronized blasting of space spreads its powerful information field, while simultaneously the continuation singularity of time thaws, recovers, and encodes the image on the Shroud. Thus the image is both frozen, recorded in time, and is continuously rebooting into living impulses of the Resurrection.
Perhaps the sacred tomb is the place where the heartbeat of death does not negate creation, nor does the heartbeat of creation negate death.
~~~~~
perhaps the Shroud is a lens
through which we can at last see
the invisible and undisturbed river
Christ's everlasting and marvelous light waves
flowing around the cold stone of our sins
that are so disturbingly visible
in His image of suffering and death
lives in our lexicon like a cave
a safe place where we return
again and again
to a larger and unified event
our foundation
the heart of a world of completeness
whole and sound
guiding pillar of vision
protection of the righteous
rain of peace of Lamb of God of salvation
exalted above the hills
the Lord shall see
~~~~~
If I could place myself anywhere back in time it would be in the sacred cave, the tomb where death became holy.
I imagine the walls of this cave, orthorhomic crystals of travertine aragonite deposited from springs. Magnetizable metallic iron oxidizing in the moisture, occurring naturally in the blood of Christ. Evaporation forms while soft, silvery white strontium oxidizes and ignites spontaneously in air, turning yellow.
I would yearn to wander just beyond violet in the visible spectrum, ending at the beginning of X-rays, where space time curls up and a range of invisible radiation wave lengths hovers in this sacred vacuum cave, protecting itself from being absorbed by air.
There I envision the physical body of Christ, lying covered on both sides by the Shroud, His blood spilling onto the cloth. I conceptualize that, in His mystery He becomes something akin to a human semiconductor. An atomic lattice of three dimensional quantum dots, tuned beyond visible light into the infrared or ultraviolet, a polymer backbone of cross linking, self-assembled nanocrystals.
I fancy the cave to be some kind of Casimir cavity, a relativistic environment wherein the plates, rather than made of metal, are wafers of cloth with no charge. The two layers of cloth, the cloth above and below the corpse, are perhaps acting as thin slices of semiconductor material formed from a crystalline substance, imprinting His image through some process akin to photolithographic patterning.
Here, inside the vacuum cave and wafers of cloth, I picture Christ's body becoming a gap, an area of lower radiation due to its limits on wavelength. I dare to perceive that, as this gap, He could render that space between the taut layers of cloth empty of matter, with zero point energy.
In this quantized field, I envisage that the net attractive force between objects in the vacuum cave, caused by quantum mechanical vacuum wave fluctuations, would create radiation pressure, thereby pushing (from the outside) the wafers of cloth towards the body of Christ. Here His atoms stick together, creating friction in the nanoworld, and He becomes the force that attracts because the radiation pressure of the field outside the cloth is greater than the pressure inside the gap.
At this point, I imagine the Casimir-like cavity has negative energy density. Now acceleration in the cave is reduced on the spatial axis because space time is bending in the opposite direction, thereby accelerating time (relative to us) and perhaps accelerating the linen aging process of the Shroud.
In my mind I see in the Casimir-like cavity that the wafers now define an abrupt boundary that breaks the isotropy of space time. The cavity now creates a depletion zone, thereby producing acceleration in a method opposite to an event horizon.
But then... I frame a picture of everything reversing.
The Casimir-like force now switches from attracting to repelling. It becomes a force that is due neither to electrical charge nor to gravity, but to fluctuations in the all pervasive energy fields in the intervening empty space between objects. Here I behold Christ's body becoming the vacuum, a force that pushes the wafers of cloth and the cave (which is now the gap) away from Him, rendering Him friction free and holding His molecules aloft to levitate and rise.
And so goes His light...
I wonder if His body produced vacuum fluctuations that started an amplified spontaneous emission where the luminescence went in all spatial directions. I imagine this isotropic scattering to be with identical, uniform physical properties that radiate the same intensity of light in all directions, thereby instantly and evenly imprinting His image on the cloth. Then, like an X-ray where scatter is relevant, the intensity of the two dimensional image contains three dimensional information about the body.
I conjure up a picture of His body hovering in parallel between the top and bottom of the cloth with no trace of gravity. Acting as an interface, he designs an exact relationship between the gradient of the image and the distance between body and cloth. Perhaps he transposed His image through electron quantum holography – nanoscale writing in electron wavelengths. And perhaps now, by dividing space time, the information in the nanoparticles He imprinted between the two sides of the cloth cannot communicate.
I try to grasp that His message has no measure of lost information. That it is fully transmitted onto the cloth, without the help of gravity but with the help of something far more brilliant. Perhaps gap and vacuum fuse and time collapses to absolute zero time.
Perhaps cryptographer and message become one.
But what is the message? It seems to me that there was something else inside that cave, namely the totality of the past, present and future sins of humanity. The Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world by both dying and rising. But in the cave, before rising, what happens to the infinitesimal energy and information of all that sin?
Perhaps the entropy of sin reverses and Christ's alchemy of faith causes the isolated system of evil to collapse.
I contemplate the idea of a singularity emerging and new patterns of information taking hold, information that is not tethered to time or space. This information is living in the nanoscale on the Shroud. Arriving to us from the future of the forever Resurrection, the waves of a free communication of information that transcends light. Living waves, that can linger without threats from field or force or space or time.
Building castles in the air, I wonder if the image we see of His blessed corpse, locked in time on the cloth, is perhaps not locked at all but is alive with the impulses of a larger, unified event. Perhaps it is His body continuously and directly controlling matter on the atomic scale. A body that has already burst through the boundary of the space time singularity. A body already risen beyond the cave, already exalted above the hills...
I imagine the Resurrection process creating a new gap, a singularity that can both attract and repel simultaneously because it is both contained in and free of the isolated system. A fusion of the two event horizons, perhaps it sparks with a completely original duality regarding time and space.
In this duality, a whole and synchronized blasting of space spreads its powerful information field, while simultaneously the continuation singularity of time thaws, recovers, and encodes the image on the Shroud. Thus the image is both frozen, recorded in time, and is continuously rebooting into living impulses of the Resurrection.
Perhaps the sacred tomb is the place where the heartbeat of death does not negate creation, nor does the heartbeat of creation negate death.
~~~~~
perhaps the Shroud is a lens
through which we can at last see
the invisible and undisturbed river
Christ's everlasting and marvelous light waves
flowing around the cold stone of our sins
that are so disturbingly visible
in His image of suffering and death
Thursday, November 24, 2011
Chapter 55: Gratitude
sent by your father
you came here
to be more like us
so that you could teach us
to be more like you
through your Passion
you demonstrate a remedy
for us
an opportunity
to have great compassion
for your suffering
folded on a shroud
the reflection of all human pain
an ethereal hovering
of an image ascending
father
sacrificing son
son
human holy
holy
spirit mystery
you came here
to be more like us
so that you could teach us
to be more like you
through your Passion
you demonstrate a remedy
for us
an opportunity
to have great compassion
for your suffering
folded on a shroud
the reflection of all human pain
an ethereal hovering
of an image ascending
father
sacrificing son
son
human holy
holy
spirit mystery
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Chapter 54: Chutes and Ladders
Which comes first – forgiveness or sacrifice? Is it because of forgiveness that Christ sacrificed Himself and died for our sins or is it because He made this sacrifice that we are forgiven? Or both?
As of late, I am more and more cognizant of the controversy of the Shroud. If there is only one truth... there is only one truth. Likely none of us fully knows it.
When we entangle ourselves in the morality game of chutes and ladders, striving to climb above each other's understanding and knowing, claiming our way is what is true...down the chute we go.
Your way, my way, every way the highway. There is only one way, God's way, and when we profess to know it, take ownership over it, leverage it for our own purposes...I'm guessing we are just being ridiculous.
God's truth is at once singular and abundant. Our interpretations of it are many and we each tend towards claiming ours is the only answer. But there is no need to function in scarcity where truth is concerned if the one truth is the abundance of God's love.
All this wrangling over the image on the Shroud and how it got there and if it is real or fake is our wrangling. Nothing in any of it poses any genuine threat because we cannot render threats against the Almighty, no matter how powerful we think we are.
The questions I ask come out of the freedom to explore that the fiction of my existence affords. Perhaps we are all fictitious characters in God's story of the truth about the Shroud. Perhaps He created the Shroud as a storyboard upon which we can sketch out our doubts and fears about suffering, forgiveness, salvation and the unknown.
How apropos that the Shroud should induce so much doubt. Even those who believe it is real possibly, at some point, have had moments of doubt and fear that they will be proven wrong.
To fully trust the love of God, perhaps we need this cloth as a place to reconcile our doubts and fears. The level playing field is the mystery – the fact that no one knows for certain how the image got onto the cloth.
Those who say it is a fake are perhaps so doubtful and fearful of the perfect love of God that the Shroud becomes their crutch of disbelief, their desired “I told you so” with which they can challenge the faith of those who believe it is real.
It may be that, for all of us, the cloth evokes our deepest fears regarding the possibility of suffering as punishment. But if God's perfect love is abundant, then Christ's suffering drives away any doubts we may harbor about forgiveness and any fears that haunt us where suffering and death are concerned.
Perhaps in the serene suffering and sacrifice recorded on the image on the Shroud we witness God's perfect love.
As of late, I am more and more cognizant of the controversy of the Shroud. If there is only one truth... there is only one truth. Likely none of us fully knows it.
When we entangle ourselves in the morality game of chutes and ladders, striving to climb above each other's understanding and knowing, claiming our way is what is true...down the chute we go.
Your way, my way, every way the highway. There is only one way, God's way, and when we profess to know it, take ownership over it, leverage it for our own purposes...I'm guessing we are just being ridiculous.
God's truth is at once singular and abundant. Our interpretations of it are many and we each tend towards claiming ours is the only answer. But there is no need to function in scarcity where truth is concerned if the one truth is the abundance of God's love.
All this wrangling over the image on the Shroud and how it got there and if it is real or fake is our wrangling. Nothing in any of it poses any genuine threat because we cannot render threats against the Almighty, no matter how powerful we think we are.
The questions I ask come out of the freedom to explore that the fiction of my existence affords. Perhaps we are all fictitious characters in God's story of the truth about the Shroud. Perhaps He created the Shroud as a storyboard upon which we can sketch out our doubts and fears about suffering, forgiveness, salvation and the unknown.
How apropos that the Shroud should induce so much doubt. Even those who believe it is real possibly, at some point, have had moments of doubt and fear that they will be proven wrong.
To fully trust the love of God, perhaps we need this cloth as a place to reconcile our doubts and fears. The level playing field is the mystery – the fact that no one knows for certain how the image got onto the cloth.
Those who say it is a fake are perhaps so doubtful and fearful of the perfect love of God that the Shroud becomes their crutch of disbelief, their desired “I told you so” with which they can challenge the faith of those who believe it is real.
It may be that, for all of us, the cloth evokes our deepest fears regarding the possibility of suffering as punishment. But if God's perfect love is abundant, then Christ's suffering drives away any doubts we may harbor about forgiveness and any fears that haunt us where suffering and death are concerned.
Perhaps in the serene suffering and sacrifice recorded on the image on the Shroud we witness God's perfect love.
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Chapter 53: Alpha and Omega
“I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
Revelation 1:8
Recently physicists have discovered evidence that possibly points to undermining the speed of light as the universal speed, our cosmic constant of “nothing travels faster.”
According to the theory of relativity, it takes an infinite amount of energy to make anything go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But now evidence exists which seems to prove that neutrinos arrive 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light when traveling though a vacuum.
If proven true:
Do different dimensions exist?
Would cause and effect be rendered ambiguous?
What would become of E = mc²?
Would time travel be possible?
Can Christ's image, like neutrinos, pass through everything undetected, thereby vanishing and mysteriously appearing at will as matter in the photographic negative of the Shroud?
Could the resurrected Christ capture and hold still enough neutrinos to create His image on the Shroud?
Do neutrinos capture and reflect the light of Christ?
If the sun moves light towards us and neutrinos move towards us, away from us, and through us faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, then is the resurrection that vacuum?
The image on the Shroud = resurrection matter?
~~~~~~~~~~
Science tells us that neutrinos are particles that are produced when high energy cosmic rays collide with matter. The most common particles in the universe, neutrinos originate from radioactive interactions such as nuclear reactions, solar fusion, radioactive decay, supernovae, and cosmic rays colliding with the Earth's atmosphere.
Neutrinos are ghostly, with a non-zero yet vanishingly small mass, and they can pass through matter undetected.
Did Jesus' image on the Shroud originate from the high energy rays of the sun and radioactive disintegration?
If the image on the Shroud could be weighed, would it have a minuscule mass?
Is the image comprised of neutrinos that, for some reason, we are able to detect?
Does the image have trillions of neutrinos passing through its mass every second (just like they pass through each of our bodies every second)?
Is the image on the Shroud residual evidence of neutrinos colliding with matter?
~~~~~~~~~~
A neutrino is a fermion, because it has half-integer spin. The three types of neutrinos – electron, muon, and tau – can spontaneously turn into one of the other forms by a process called neutrino oscillation (the neutrino flavor transition mechanism). Thus they must have some mass.
Oscillation is one complete cycle of repetitive to and fro motion, from one extreme (maximum or minimum) to another(minimum and maximum) and back. Alpha to Omega and Omega to Alpha?
Is the human Christ the only matter through which neutrinos can be detected as having moved through and then oscillated, settled, accumulated as dust on the Shroud?
Light from the resurrection = speed of light + neutrino oscillation in a vacuum?
Neutrino oscillation = the invisible mass of space = stillness?
Stillness = a byproduct of neutrino oscillation – they are moving so fast with so little mass that we experience it as stillness? (just like flying on an airplane does not create the sensation that you are moving very fast, though you are).
Image on Shroud = stillness, the shadow/image dusting of larger mass (Christ's body)?
If Christ wanted us to know stillness, is His image on the Shroud our roadmap to it?
~~~~~~~~~~
From our present time, we look back into history through the Gospels and experience Jesus' life linearly, from Alpha to Omega.
Jesus the Alpha, traveling to us from from His conception, through His life, and up to (and after) His death would: be born, live, be crucified, die, rise from the dead, and then leave the imprint of His image on the Shroud (in that order).
Jesus the Omega, traveling to us in the opposite direction of time, would imprint His image on the Shroud before His resurrection and before His crucifixion.
The Lord is indeed the Alpha and Omega...does that mean He moves in multiple directions of time – at the same time?
Did the infinite amount of energy of Almighty God send neutrinos through the vacuum of space and onto the image on the Shroud so that we could have a way of studying, experiencing, and relating to Jesus as the Alpha and Omega?
Did His image only settle on the top fibrils of the cloth because it originated in the future and then traveled backwards through His rising and then into his dying?
Is evidence of His rising then stored in the parts of the cloth where His image vanishes?
Do we begin our understanding of Jesus' life from Omega as our starting point so that His transcending suffering marks the beginning of eternal life?
Every time we look at the image on the Shroud are we simultaneously seeing Alpha and Omega?
~~~~~~~~~~
Neutrinos are all around us, trillions of solar electron neutrinos passing through each of our bodies every second. Even though neutrinos are extremely light in mass, because they are in such abundance, they may account for dark matter in the universe. They have an antiparticle – antineutrinos, which may be one and the same as neutrinos.
Electrically neutral leptons, neutrinos only interact through the weak sub-atomic force (as opposed to interacting between the strong or electromagnetic forces). This is why they can travel through matter quickly, barely being affected by it.
Did the matter of Christ's body reconvert into neutrinos?
If the resurrection could be seen by the naked eye, would it look
like the image on the Shroud?
Is the resurrection still happening each time we gaze upon the image?
Image on Shroud = faster than speed of light = dark matter = God?
Did Christ grace us with evidence of His will as “form” by imprinting His image on the cloth?
Trillions of neutrinos with very light mass moving through each of us every second = unique fingerprint phenomenon = Shroud image as God's fingerprint?
~~~~~~~~~~
The letters and language of God include and reach well beyond relativity, time, space and any cosmic constants of our making. The language of God includes us.
We sink ourselves into matter, stick to it, deem it supreme, revel in its seeming significance, live according to its law of gravity.
The image on the Shroud is a matter mystery. Perhaps its message is: “Let go of matter and rise into light.”
Revelation 1:8
Recently physicists have discovered evidence that possibly points to undermining the speed of light as the universal speed, our cosmic constant of “nothing travels faster.”
According to the theory of relativity, it takes an infinite amount of energy to make anything go faster than the speed of light in a vacuum. But now evidence exists which seems to prove that neutrinos arrive 60 nanoseconds faster than the speed of light when traveling though a vacuum.
If proven true:
Do different dimensions exist?
Would cause and effect be rendered ambiguous?
What would become of E = mc²?
Would time travel be possible?
Can Christ's image, like neutrinos, pass through everything undetected, thereby vanishing and mysteriously appearing at will as matter in the photographic negative of the Shroud?
Could the resurrected Christ capture and hold still enough neutrinos to create His image on the Shroud?
Do neutrinos capture and reflect the light of Christ?
If the sun moves light towards us and neutrinos move towards us, away from us, and through us faster than the speed of light in a vacuum, then is the resurrection that vacuum?
The image on the Shroud = resurrection matter?
~~~~~~~~~~
Science tells us that neutrinos are particles that are produced when high energy cosmic rays collide with matter. The most common particles in the universe, neutrinos originate from radioactive interactions such as nuclear reactions, solar fusion, radioactive decay, supernovae, and cosmic rays colliding with the Earth's atmosphere.
Neutrinos are ghostly, with a non-zero yet vanishingly small mass, and they can pass through matter undetected.
Did Jesus' image on the Shroud originate from the high energy rays of the sun and radioactive disintegration?
If the image on the Shroud could be weighed, would it have a minuscule mass?
Is the image comprised of neutrinos that, for some reason, we are able to detect?
Does the image have trillions of neutrinos passing through its mass every second (just like they pass through each of our bodies every second)?
Is the image on the Shroud residual evidence of neutrinos colliding with matter?
~~~~~~~~~~
A neutrino is a fermion, because it has half-integer spin. The three types of neutrinos – electron, muon, and tau – can spontaneously turn into one of the other forms by a process called neutrino oscillation (the neutrino flavor transition mechanism). Thus they must have some mass.
Oscillation is one complete cycle of repetitive to and fro motion, from one extreme (maximum or minimum) to another(minimum and maximum) and back. Alpha to Omega and Omega to Alpha?
Is the human Christ the only matter through which neutrinos can be detected as having moved through and then oscillated, settled, accumulated as dust on the Shroud?
Light from the resurrection = speed of light + neutrino oscillation in a vacuum?
Neutrino oscillation = the invisible mass of space = stillness?
Stillness = a byproduct of neutrino oscillation – they are moving so fast with so little mass that we experience it as stillness? (just like flying on an airplane does not create the sensation that you are moving very fast, though you are).
Image on Shroud = stillness, the shadow/image dusting of larger mass (Christ's body)?
If Christ wanted us to know stillness, is His image on the Shroud our roadmap to it?
~~~~~~~~~~
From our present time, we look back into history through the Gospels and experience Jesus' life linearly, from Alpha to Omega.
Jesus the Alpha, traveling to us from from His conception, through His life, and up to (and after) His death would: be born, live, be crucified, die, rise from the dead, and then leave the imprint of His image on the Shroud (in that order).
Jesus the Omega, traveling to us in the opposite direction of time, would imprint His image on the Shroud before His resurrection and before His crucifixion.
The Lord is indeed the Alpha and Omega...does that mean He moves in multiple directions of time – at the same time?
Did the infinite amount of energy of Almighty God send neutrinos through the vacuum of space and onto the image on the Shroud so that we could have a way of studying, experiencing, and relating to Jesus as the Alpha and Omega?
Did His image only settle on the top fibrils of the cloth because it originated in the future and then traveled backwards through His rising and then into his dying?
Is evidence of His rising then stored in the parts of the cloth where His image vanishes?
Do we begin our understanding of Jesus' life from Omega as our starting point so that His transcending suffering marks the beginning of eternal life?
Every time we look at the image on the Shroud are we simultaneously seeing Alpha and Omega?
~~~~~~~~~~
Neutrinos are all around us, trillions of solar electron neutrinos passing through each of our bodies every second. Even though neutrinos are extremely light in mass, because they are in such abundance, they may account for dark matter in the universe. They have an antiparticle – antineutrinos, which may be one and the same as neutrinos.
Electrically neutral leptons, neutrinos only interact through the weak sub-atomic force (as opposed to interacting between the strong or electromagnetic forces). This is why they can travel through matter quickly, barely being affected by it.
Did the matter of Christ's body reconvert into neutrinos?
If the resurrection could be seen by the naked eye, would it look
like the image on the Shroud?
Is the resurrection still happening each time we gaze upon the image?
Image on Shroud = faster than speed of light = dark matter = God?
Did Christ grace us with evidence of His will as “form” by imprinting His image on the cloth?
Trillions of neutrinos with very light mass moving through each of us every second = unique fingerprint phenomenon = Shroud image as God's fingerprint?
~~~~~~~~~~
The letters and language of God include and reach well beyond relativity, time, space and any cosmic constants of our making. The language of God includes us.
We sink ourselves into matter, stick to it, deem it supreme, revel in its seeming significance, live according to its law of gravity.
The image on the Shroud is a matter mystery. Perhaps its message is: “Let go of matter and rise into light.”
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Chapter 52: Where Were You?
“Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good." - Romans 12:21
Today marks the 10 year anniversary of evil attempting a coup.
Never going to work.
Sometimes evil clothes itself “in the name of God's will” and towers crumble, lives fall apart, and “one nation under God” doesn't exactly feel so “under God.”
The energy of absolutely everything, the energy of God, is an omniscient force that permeates and transforms all in its path. And everything is in its path.
No evil, terrorism, genocide, torture, or barbarism can ever be bigger than the context of good, the energy of the justice and love of God. The vibration of His presence encompasses all evil. God does not will evil – humans do.
But human perception latches on to evil and we allow ourselves to be afraid of its impact on our lives. We live in fear that it will return and ruin us again and again. Reasonable; it will return over and again throughout our history. Evil's past, present, and future are certain.
Ironically, the idea of overcoming evil is redundant. It has already been overcome. Its resolution has already manifested.
We ask one another: “Where were you when the towers were hit?”
It makes me imagine that people asked one another: “Where were you when Christ was crucified?”
We all love stories. We love to hear them and we love to tell them.
Christ told the story of good overcoming evil centuries ago. It's a story we hear over and over and one we strive to understand and duplicate in the narrative we create in our own lives. The worst possible evil is a recurring character in our stories, both in those that are true and in those that are fiction.
The story of September 11, 2001 reassures us that good does overcome evil. Humankind is hard wired to become heroes when called to be. We are called to raise the American flag out of the ashes of the collapsed towers. We raise the rubble to find survivors.
Christ stamped our capacity for goodness into our DNA on the day He sacrificed His life for our salvation. He conquered evil for us. All we have left to do is resonate and adhere to His energy of goodness no matter what evil befalls us. He graced us with hero capacity, which is why, when people do heroic things, they don't see it as heroic — they see it as nothing extraordinary, but as an innately human response.
Every time we ask one another: “Where were you?” we are really asking for another cathartic experience of the story of good overcoming evil. Regardless if we find that catharsis in the thoughts or actions of the person recounting the story, we relive the horror followed by the redemption. We get another opportunity to resolve our internal conflict – the temptation of evil and our longing for goodness to prevail.
Perishing from and overcoming evil are one in the same. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the image on the Shroud of Turin, an icon of suffering, dying, and transcending evil in the peaceful repose of Jesus Christ.
but overcome evil with good." - Romans 12:21
Today marks the 10 year anniversary of evil attempting a coup.
Never going to work.
Sometimes evil clothes itself “in the name of God's will” and towers crumble, lives fall apart, and “one nation under God” doesn't exactly feel so “under God.”
The energy of absolutely everything, the energy of God, is an omniscient force that permeates and transforms all in its path. And everything is in its path.
No evil, terrorism, genocide, torture, or barbarism can ever be bigger than the context of good, the energy of the justice and love of God. The vibration of His presence encompasses all evil. God does not will evil – humans do.
But human perception latches on to evil and we allow ourselves to be afraid of its impact on our lives. We live in fear that it will return and ruin us again and again. Reasonable; it will return over and again throughout our history. Evil's past, present, and future are certain.
Ironically, the idea of overcoming evil is redundant. It has already been overcome. Its resolution has already manifested.
We ask one another: “Where were you when the towers were hit?”
It makes me imagine that people asked one another: “Where were you when Christ was crucified?”
We all love stories. We love to hear them and we love to tell them.
Christ told the story of good overcoming evil centuries ago. It's a story we hear over and over and one we strive to understand and duplicate in the narrative we create in our own lives. The worst possible evil is a recurring character in our stories, both in those that are true and in those that are fiction.
The story of September 11, 2001 reassures us that good does overcome evil. Humankind is hard wired to become heroes when called to be. We are called to raise the American flag out of the ashes of the collapsed towers. We raise the rubble to find survivors.
Christ stamped our capacity for goodness into our DNA on the day He sacrificed His life for our salvation. He conquered evil for us. All we have left to do is resonate and adhere to His energy of goodness no matter what evil befalls us. He graced us with hero capacity, which is why, when people do heroic things, they don't see it as heroic — they see it as nothing extraordinary, but as an innately human response.
Every time we ask one another: “Where were you?” we are really asking for another cathartic experience of the story of good overcoming evil. Regardless if we find that catharsis in the thoughts or actions of the person recounting the story, we relive the horror followed by the redemption. We get another opportunity to resolve our internal conflict – the temptation of evil and our longing for goodness to prevail.
Perishing from and overcoming evil are one in the same. Nowhere is this more apparent than on the image on the Shroud of Turin, an icon of suffering, dying, and transcending evil in the peaceful repose of Jesus Christ.
Saturday, September 3, 2011
Chapter 51: No Order
I'm not sure where things begin and end.
If we died with Christ on the cross, then do we spiral backwards down the vortex of human suffering, reverting from death to birth and then climb our way back through the myriad of suffering from birth back to death? And in that second death, do we find our rebirth? Or is there simply nothing linear about human existence?
Suffering is the main staple of Christianity. We each died on the cross with Christ and so are imprinted with the image of suffering in our genetic makeup.
Christ was human for human language and perception's sake; God wanted another way to communicate with us. Jesus in human physical form, teaching, performing miracles, suffering, made him a relatable point of reference.
Jesus' suffering and peace imprinted on a cloth reflect all human experiences and infinitesimal worlds in every particle, on the surface of every fibril, no limitations. The silence ahead, the silence behind. The now.
When I think about death, I feel fear and anxiety — mostly of the unknown and if it will hurt. But I also instinctively anticipate that I will meld into the great silence and stillness that is God, a place that is no particular place and where I already reside without realizing it. A place where all suffering is blown to smithereens.
Ironically, just as the image on the Shroud appears to be one dimensional, yet in the photographic negative it is three dimensional, we perceive ourselves as being three dimensional, but in reality our existence is likely a one dimensional facade, a billowing apparition. Our three dimensionality is as delicate and tenuous as the one dimensional image we see on the Shroud. Both are visible and invisible layered holographic transparencies, through which we can identify, extract, embed, and dispel the energies of life and death.
Comprised in our one and three dimensionality is the invisible and indivisible great silence and stillness...simultaneously enveloping us in the separation of suffering and unifying us in its evaporation.
I'm not sure where things begin and end.
Sunday, August 14, 2011
Chapter 50: Bending Bars
internal prisons cage us
cut from the same cloth
my self
your self
we all host a self
the water moves towards me
the dust of death hangs over
but in His life I hover new
all selves discarded
expanded by and into
supreme unity
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If God is in our every cell and experiences everything we experience (and as we are experiencing it), then Christ is God's mirror image, a multi-dimensional representation of a man who suffers as we do.
And if God is in our every cell, does that then mean we each are one of His cells and are therefore part of the totality of Him?
If He loves us, why would God want us to suffer? Why does suffering have to be a non-negotiable condition of His love?
We obsess, trying to figure out things and then control them. On some level, suffering is unnecessary. If our reaction to it is indeed in our control, then perhaps releasing into it is all there is to do. But fears govern us.
Why do we fear? Lack of trust in God? Lack of control over the known and unknown? Dislike of pain and suffering? If God is in our every cell, is there reason at all for us to fear?
Why do we need an answer to everything? Is it beyond our ability to perceive the answers to the higher questions?
Is the mystery of the Shroud God's way of telling us: “Look, you won't get the answers you seek in life, but hang in there because my unsolvable mystery on this cloth keeps you entertained for now and the mystery will eventually be resolved.” (Let's face it, mystery and suffering do keep us entertained – watch T.V. or go to the movies if you doubt that).
If God is in our every cell, why would He want Himself, His son and us to suffer? Is suffering a cleansing experience for Him? A purification of our toxic cellular anatomy before we can be fully unified into His supreme being?
Sharp machinery and physical forces begin the creation of beauty (wood carving, steel and bronze sculpting, marble and mineral polishing, phenomenon in nature, etc.). The beauty is revealed through the pain, just like the serene image on the Shroud is contextualized by Christ's Passion.
Why did He need to make pain into beauty? Why not just go straight to making the beauty? Did beauty bore Him?
Is suffering a stage in His evolution and therefore a stage in our own? Why do we never improve where human suffering is concerned and instead repeat the history and cycle of pain?
Does He improve through our pain and suffering? Is our lack of perfection a reflection of His lack of perfection and a pathway to His redemption (for creating the fiasco of humanity)?
Can we not figure out how the image got on the cloth because we cannot perceive, comprehend, explain, or fathom perfection? How can suffering be a part of perfection? Because everything is?
We bend the bars of our internal prison cells and the larger prison of humanity, longing to experience hosting Him in each of our human cells.
We struggle and strife for answers to these questions and to the design and meaning of the Shroud. We yearn to escape the difficulties and persevere in begging for some explanation of the purpose of it all. We wonder if love is His eternally sanctioned domain and only ours if we earn it.
Even if we can intellectualize or philosophize the answers, embodying them is far from our purview. Or is it?
...that is, if He is indeed in our every cell...
cut from the same cloth
my self
your self
we all host a self
the water moves towards me
the dust of death hangs over
but in His life I hover new
all selves discarded
expanded by and into
supreme unity
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If God is in our every cell and experiences everything we experience (and as we are experiencing it), then Christ is God's mirror image, a multi-dimensional representation of a man who suffers as we do.
And if God is in our every cell, does that then mean we each are one of His cells and are therefore part of the totality of Him?
If He loves us, why would God want us to suffer? Why does suffering have to be a non-negotiable condition of His love?
We obsess, trying to figure out things and then control them. On some level, suffering is unnecessary. If our reaction to it is indeed in our control, then perhaps releasing into it is all there is to do. But fears govern us.
Why do we fear? Lack of trust in God? Lack of control over the known and unknown? Dislike of pain and suffering? If God is in our every cell, is there reason at all for us to fear?
Why do we need an answer to everything? Is it beyond our ability to perceive the answers to the higher questions?
Is the mystery of the Shroud God's way of telling us: “Look, you won't get the answers you seek in life, but hang in there because my unsolvable mystery on this cloth keeps you entertained for now and the mystery will eventually be resolved.” (Let's face it, mystery and suffering do keep us entertained – watch T.V. or go to the movies if you doubt that).
If God is in our every cell, why would He want Himself, His son and us to suffer? Is suffering a cleansing experience for Him? A purification of our toxic cellular anatomy before we can be fully unified into His supreme being?
Sharp machinery and physical forces begin the creation of beauty (wood carving, steel and bronze sculpting, marble and mineral polishing, phenomenon in nature, etc.). The beauty is revealed through the pain, just like the serene image on the Shroud is contextualized by Christ's Passion.
Why did He need to make pain into beauty? Why not just go straight to making the beauty? Did beauty bore Him?
Is suffering a stage in His evolution and therefore a stage in our own? Why do we never improve where human suffering is concerned and instead repeat the history and cycle of pain?
Does He improve through our pain and suffering? Is our lack of perfection a reflection of His lack of perfection and a pathway to His redemption (for creating the fiasco of humanity)?
Can we not figure out how the image got on the cloth because we cannot perceive, comprehend, explain, or fathom perfection? How can suffering be a part of perfection? Because everything is?
We bend the bars of our internal prison cells and the larger prison of humanity, longing to experience hosting Him in each of our human cells.
We struggle and strife for answers to these questions and to the design and meaning of the Shroud. We yearn to escape the difficulties and persevere in begging for some explanation of the purpose of it all. We wonder if love is His eternally sanctioned domain and only ours if we earn it.
Even if we can intellectualize or philosophize the answers, embodying them is far from our purview. Or is it?
...that is, if He is indeed in our every cell...
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Chapter 49: Inversions
Our blessings are the result of His suffering; we get a relatively free ride...
Our suffering is the result of His blessings; it would be much worse worse without them...
If you grew up with constants, then change later in life likely feels tricky and hard to navigate. Loved ones get sick and die, family homes are sold, and your childhood memories are replaced with readjustments and impermanence.
If you grew up with changes – frequent moves, new schools, divorce and other instabilities, then stability later in life likely feels foreign, perhaps even confining and stagnant.
Both paths hold losses and gains.
Both paths hold suffering and joy.
All paths end in reconciliation.
Hallelujah...
Our suffering is the result of His blessings; it would be much worse worse without them...
If you grew up with constants, then change later in life likely feels tricky and hard to navigate. Loved ones get sick and die, family homes are sold, and your childhood memories are replaced with readjustments and impermanence.
If you grew up with changes – frequent moves, new schools, divorce and other instabilities, then stability later in life likely feels foreign, perhaps even confining and stagnant.
Both paths hold losses and gains.
Both paths hold suffering and joy.
All paths end in reconciliation.
Hallelujah...
Monday, June 20, 2011
Chapter 48: Prophecy, Dreams, and Visions
Pentecostal promise
spirit to flesh
infusion of holiness
peace be with you
breathe on them
the power of forgiveness
the prophecy already granted
yearning for and fearing death
is our recurring dream
of immaterial and temporary emotions
left without choice
we cannot want or wish away
our inevitable creation
our certain death
through the Holy Spirit
the vision is fair
our playing fields of birth and death
are made level by Grace
spirit to flesh
infusion of holiness
peace be with you
breathe on them
the power of forgiveness
the prophecy already granted
yearning for and fearing death
is our recurring dream
of immaterial and temporary emotions
left without choice
we cannot want or wish away
our inevitable creation
our certain death
through the Holy Spirit
the vision is fair
our playing fields of birth and death
are made level by Grace
Monday, May 30, 2011
Chapter 47: Fathom to Scale
The multiplicity of dimensions in the infinity of experiences of life and death are beyond human capability for absorption. No comprehension is adequate for an explanation of the nature of life or death, even though we are comprised of both.
We cannot fathom to scale.
The shroud reminds us that the structure of energy is always changing. From suffering to death to life to light, we need not feel trapped by any form our energy takes.
Our protection is integral. His gift of salvation eternal.
We cannot fathom to scale.
The shroud reminds us that the structure of energy is always changing. From suffering to death to life to light, we need not feel trapped by any form our energy takes.
Our protection is integral. His gift of salvation eternal.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Chapter 46: Promises
In the tomb, two pieces of cloth, separated, both enunciating the absence of Christ's physical body and the presence of His resurrection.
Two promises of eternal life, the life that rectifies the cruelty of human suffering.
Are we each living God's will for our life... or is our living itself God's will for our life?
We announce our promise of faith. We celebrate the promise of the tomb that is not exactly empty.
Two promises of eternal life, the life that rectifies the cruelty of human suffering.
Are we each living God's will for our life... or is our living itself God's will for our life?
We announce our promise of faith. We celebrate the promise of the tomb that is not exactly empty.
Saturday, April 23, 2011
Chapter 45: Sabbatum Sanctum
The day of the entombed Christ is the quiet rest of the Lord as He lay in His tomb.
It is the most mysterious day where the shroud is concerned, because we do not fully comprehend the mix of processes that created the imprint of Christ. Nor do we understand if the image was graced to us on this day of rest or if it is a byproduct of the resurrection...or both.
We assume that the Lord lay at rest, but what biological and chemical interactions, what principles of physics and unknown mysteries might He have been absorbing and redistributing in the midst of that quiet?
The Lord's quiet acceptance of His suffering and death does appear to be the message we are to absorb when gazing upon the image on the shroud. His message redefines our expectations of death.
That silent mystery we so fear is also the peaceful quiet we yearn for in the deepest subconscious interactions of our own living and dying. Was Christ using His day of rest to create this yearning for death in us?
Perhaps the Lord's forty days of confronting temptations in the desert and this day of rest in the tomb forge the alchemy of our eternal rest, the promised salvation, the quintessential quiet.
It is the most mysterious day where the shroud is concerned, because we do not fully comprehend the mix of processes that created the imprint of Christ. Nor do we understand if the image was graced to us on this day of rest or if it is a byproduct of the resurrection...or both.
We assume that the Lord lay at rest, but what biological and chemical interactions, what principles of physics and unknown mysteries might He have been absorbing and redistributing in the midst of that quiet?
The Lord's quiet acceptance of His suffering and death does appear to be the message we are to absorb when gazing upon the image on the shroud. His message redefines our expectations of death.
That silent mystery we so fear is also the peaceful quiet we yearn for in the deepest subconscious interactions of our own living and dying. Was Christ using His day of rest to create this yearning for death in us?
Perhaps the Lord's forty days of confronting temptations in the desert and this day of rest in the tomb forge the alchemy of our eternal rest, the promised salvation, the quintessential quiet.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Chapter 44: Gethsemane Shadow
three falls
three crosses
Simon helps you
help thieves
help us
the shadow of your cross
reaches a cross
over all lands
in the garden of Gethsemane
doubt and fear
mingling
not lingering
you are comforted
accepting death
as your Father's will
accepting suffering
as your will for our salvation
we are comforted
Pilate's purpose
to wash his hands
only you and mother Mary
fully understand
Veronica
a veil
Joseph of Arimathea
a burial shroud
shrines for us to witness
taken back
our pain to God
vanquished
the fragile shroud
vanished
your suffering
taken back
three crosses
Simon helps you
help thieves
help us
the shadow of your cross
reaches a cross
over all lands
in the garden of Gethsemane
doubt and fear
mingling
not lingering
you are comforted
accepting death
as your Father's will
accepting suffering
as your will for our salvation
we are comforted
Pilate's purpose
to wash his hands
only you and mother Mary
fully understand
Veronica
a veil
Joseph of Arimathea
a burial shroud
shrines for us to witness
taken back
our pain to God
vanquished
the fragile shroud
vanished
your suffering
taken back
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Chapter 43: Reed in His Right Hand
The crown of thorns is the mockery most noticed in the story of Christ's Passion. But what of the reed they placed in His right hand?
An instrument of irony. That reed, meant first to mock Christ as King, is the precursor to a second reed that is used to support a sponge soaked in wine and offered to Jesus before His very last breath.
The blood of a King that a King will not himself drink, but will spring forth and shower over all those who thirst.
Before the thorns, before the reeds, yellow-green palms ushered in our King.
On this sacred Sunday in Jerusalem, children weave waving palms into little baskets that carry flowers. On this sacred Sunday in Jerusalem, white sheets billow at the entrances of market stalls, burial shrouds of the surrendered-soon-to-be-risen King.
Should a loved one pass within this holy year, cover and bury the person with the sheet. Drape the person in the image of the one who makes a mockery of death every holy year.
This King, who forgives us the reeds of our shame. This King, who sits at the right hand of the Father.
An instrument of irony. That reed, meant first to mock Christ as King, is the precursor to a second reed that is used to support a sponge soaked in wine and offered to Jesus before His very last breath.
The blood of a King that a King will not himself drink, but will spring forth and shower over all those who thirst.
Before the thorns, before the reeds, yellow-green palms ushered in our King.
On this sacred Sunday in Jerusalem, children weave waving palms into little baskets that carry flowers. On this sacred Sunday in Jerusalem, white sheets billow at the entrances of market stalls, burial shrouds of the surrendered-soon-to-be-risen King.
Should a loved one pass within this holy year, cover and bury the person with the sheet. Drape the person in the image of the one who makes a mockery of death every holy year.
This King, who forgives us the reeds of our shame. This King, who sits at the right hand of the Father.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Chapter 42: Death Birth
only one way to be born into this life
so many different ways to leave it
life mother womb conceives
blesses us with a savior
not knowing how
or the exact moment
the certain arrival of our death
encapsulates us with embryonic dread
suffering is our gestation
until death mother delivers us
womb to salvation
so many different ways to leave it
life mother womb conceives
blesses us with a savior
not knowing how
or the exact moment
the certain arrival of our death
encapsulates us with embryonic dread
suffering is our gestation
until death mother delivers us
womb to salvation
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