Midnight

3 a.m. or so I was reading one of the passages from the Zohar, the one about Midnight, the time when the Ancient Holy One appears with his retinue in the Garden of Eden to visit with all who are open. I felt Presence as I was reading. I finished the passage and sat quietly. Suddenly the lights went off, total darkness, then on again. The digital clock reset to Midnight. Strong calm Presence and happy open heart.

original sin

Want to know what original sin is? (Now don't go climbing up on your high horse and stomping all around at the very mention of the two words. Calm down. You can always do that later.) Want to know what original sin is? It is the separation of ourselves from the Interflow of Life Itself. We stand erect and proud and separate.

This sets up a chain reaction where now we are forced to do something about the Other. We have divided ourselves into Me and All That. All That has now become foreign. 

Love goes away and Fear-Anger-Anxiety move in. We have lost our Birth Right. We have sold it on the Market of Separation.

The good news is this separation can be overcome with Humility and Compassion, the two-fold formula for transformation. Humility: becoming as humus while not losing your sense of humor. Compassion: feeling empathy, identity, with the Other.

I was meeting with a healing class on the Winnebago reservation some time ago. We sat in a circle and began by introducing ourselves. An older woman, gray-haired and with a sparkle in her eyes said: Just call me Dirt Bag. We laughed with compassion and understanding.

Okay. You can get up on your high horse if you wish. But doing so is the replication of original sin -- a moving away from humility and compassion.

mutual weeping

We are all broken-hearted. The Spirit of the Source of our Being, the Blessed Holy One, enters through the openness of our broken hearts and weeps over us, weeps with us. This mutual weeping helps the healing. This world was created to be ruled with love. Broken hearts ensure that love prevails. Mutual weeping creates strength. Then we get up, move on.

That I AM God

"Be still and know that I am God." Psalm 46:10

O humans, this does not mean that you are God no matter how much you like to think so. You are not speaking here. You are being spoken to. Be still, and out of that stillness comes a knowing, a knowing of the "I Am" God, the only God.

What shall I say, asked Moses, when they ask who sent me? God said, Tell them I AM sent you. (Exodus 3:14)

Be still and know that I AM God.

All love, all radiance, all charisma come from here.

God speaks

Each wound is a mouth which speaks. 
God speaks through the wounds of the world, 
not through the scabbed-over.

Journey

In my first 25 years I studied the Bible. In my second 25 years I studied alternate approaches to the Mystery. In my third 25 years I studied the consciousness of individual humans. In my fourth 25 years I return to the Bible as if for the first time.

Job and God

Hey George. I have a question you might be able to answer, scholarly mystic that you are. Regarding the story of Job, Job was God's buddy too. God called him a righteous man. And the bad guy made a bet with God, that he could turn Job against God. And God took the bet. Without going into details, the bad guy/God (I'n not sure which one), gave Job a really hard time - as in brutal, physical psychologically and emotionally heart-rending bad time. Job supposedly remained a righteous servant of God throughout his ordeals. God rewarded him with a lot good stuff. But I just don't get that God would play games with someone who loved him and was a righteous man. Can you explain the lesson here, please?

George Breed Testing of the mettle always happens. Otherwise we sit on our spiritual couch in blob land. We go "down, down, down in that burning ring of fire." How we respond both results from who we are and determines who we are. Job had extremely strong mettle so testing had to be extreme to produce effectual change. What happened was a renewal of a contract -- a renewal at a higher deeper place. You can see the renewal in two verses. After Job's buddies gave all their lawyerly responses, God said (Job 38:3) to Job: Quit groveling around and get up ("Gird up thy loins now like a man") and (here comes the first part of the new contract) "for I will demand of thee and answer thou me." The second part of the new contract comes from Job, as it should, it's a two-way deal (Job 42:4). Job says to God: "Hear, I beseech thee, and I will speak: I will demand of thee, and declare thou unto me." Job gets up on his hind legs as God requested and his first act is to make demands of God. The two. God and Job, now have a tighter relationship. Mutual hearing, mutual demands. Like any friendship. No games.