revisiting "drinking Jesus's blood"

I removed the post "drinking Jesus's blood" from Zen Baptist a few days ago because I evidently did not give it enough context to allow full understanding of its intent and meaning.

Here it is back within the context I was envisioning. Zen is brief and to the point and slices right through. It is sometimes called the grandfather approach. Here is an attempt at a little grandmothering. It is from my blog "the bubbling spring" of this very morning.

Jesus said: Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the son of man has no place to lay down his head and rest. Saying 86, The Gospel of Thomas (Tr. Stevan Davies)

For those who follow the path that Jesus walked, there is no place to lay down one's head and rest. What is this path? It is the path of the "son of man," the path of those who are evolving beyond ordinary consciousness. The son of man is a further developing of man, a birthing beyond man. Ordinary consciousness opens to integral consciousness.

As this transition occurs, one finds there is no place to lay down your head and rest. There is no doctrinal matrix, no set of rules of worship, no ritual formula to follow, no ritual. While others may find comfort in such, one has moved on down the road. All falls away and one stands transparent and open in a full disclosure cosmos. Nothing is hidden. One's awareness continues to open.

To lay one's head down in a hole or nest is death to a son of man (gender is not an issue here), to one who has moved on. That is why rituals and creeds have lost meaning and are no longer necessary. When one opens to participation in and as the cosmos, one does not look back. Once the goose has escaped the bottle, it does not turn around and try to fit back in.

It is from this standpoint that I wrote "drinking Jesus's blood" as a post in my blog Zen Baptist which produced offense in some and an opportunity for unnecessary derision in at least one other. I reproduce it here:

If Jesus visited a church on communion Sunday, would he drink his blood and eat his flesh? I doubt it. I think he would say: Enough already! Quit toasting my demise and resurrection! Stop slamming down shots of my blood! Cease munching on dry wafers of discontent! Get off your butts and out into the street! The time has come! Stop drifting off into some realm of spiritual euphoria! Wake up! I'm here!

The son of man has no place to lay down his head and rest. Once one goes through a door, it is not necessary to go through it again and again. One does not become attached to the door, no matter how sacred or holy it appears. One moves through to the other side, to the next room. Nor does one make a nest there. No need. The nest of the son of man is a sphere with infinity in every "direction." One's nest is the eternal ever-expanding cosmos of radiance, grace, and mercy with a strong sense of loving humor. One is at home so needs no home.

the baptist crime

Here is the Preface I originally wrote for "The World's First Ever Baptist Crime Novel." I focused instead on how the novel came into being.

Preface

In writing a Baptist Crime Novel, the question eventually arises: what is the Baptist crime? Upon reflection, one sees that the Baptist crime is the carrying out of the crime embedded in a much larger system – the Judeo-Christian-Islam system. Though those three subsystems may not like being put into bed together (as evidenced by their continuous warring with each other), they are nevertheless based upon the same premise: a great gulf exists between God and man. This premise of alienation and separation of man from God automatically requires that the gulf be breached. It is insufferable otherwise. And each of the three has its formula for and path of reconciliation.

So keep in mind that as we look at the Baptist crime, it is embedded in a much larger crime system – a system of alienation. You might object and say, no, it is a system of redemption. But there is no need for redemption if there is no alienation. And that is precisely the Baptist crime – basing an entire world view on a dualistic premise. God is over there. Humans are over here. This is schizophrenic (split-mind) thinking. One starts with a splitness, a fracture that must be healed, a gulf that must be spanned. A religion is born. Many religions. Each claiming to be the healing of the splitness that was manufactured in the first place.

Now if you are a firm believer in any one of these subsystems (Jewish, Christian, Islam) you are not going to want to hear this. Your entire life has been based on alienation and redemption. You are probably also under the illusion that you are, or have (which is even more peculiar, for who is doing the having?), a separate free autonomous soul. This separate self concept is a requirement of any alienation-redemption theological or metaphysical system. Something has to be alienated and redeemed and that would be you, right?

In this Baptist crime novel, the crime is not Bagston’s lifestyle, nor his selling out the church, nor his possibly being murdered. The crime is in the alienation - redemption mindset.