As a Zen Baptist

As a Zen Baptist, my relationship with Jesus is direct, immediate, open, with little or no doctrinal interference. The parables of Jesus are regarded as koans, problems to be solved, not on any intellectual or emotional level, but in the realm of paradox. The parables "solve" themselves deep within, exploding and imploding, creating transformations of consciousness not to be predicted or foreseen. Jesus is the Zen Master refusing to rigidly instruct, even casting you away as a student or rather allowing you to cast yourself away if you insist on superficiality or concretized judgment. Jesus is a warrior of spirit, THE Warrior of Spirit, who teaches by example: compassion, strong stance, crucifixion on the cross of time and space, going to the wilderness for contemplation and meditation and demon wrestling but always coming back to face it all again one more time. Jesus, my Teacher, my Sensei, the one who loves me with a fierce love of deep understanding and the willingness to take me back into the dojo, the training hall, the arena of Now, when I fall. He looks at me with stern eyes of compassion and says, "George, here we go again!"