The next post I intend to post will attempt, once again, to explain a basic concept I have attempted to get across many a time. This time, once again, in a different way, in the hopes that are eternal.

It is not a new idea. It has been expressed by many a zen practitioner, by many a Buddhist, by many a Sikh, by many a Hindu. But it is devilishly hard to get across. I have been trying for many years and will not give up for many more. [And then I’ll probably come back and try again, like I have in many incarnations before. You might remember me from back in one or more of them.]

The real reason I didn’t just go out and post it is that I was trying to incorporate some sort of explanation into it. I couldn’t find a way so I am just going to give the explanation of sorts, right now, up front.

The real concept is that basically the world in which we live in is a product of the dreams, hopes, wishes, desires, and wants of all of us. It is us who have created this world! We waste time complaining, calling it a mess like we do, pinning it off externally, and going out to seek a cosmic explanation or, worse, to develop a faith which explains it, which scapegoats it.

We make much of the concept that we are created in the image of God. It is a jumping off point to much. Much that is not right, of course. It is fitting, I am sure, that we get it so wrong, as to the import and the meaning of it all. It is no surprise that the civilization that deliberately made Jesus look a model of Europeanness would get the imaging imago so wrong.

What I’m saying that the expression ‘made in the image’ does not mean that we literally look like God. That is a stupid and silly and wrongfully wrong idea. It means something more along the lines of we are endowed, like the Creator, with some degree of ability to create. In that way are we a spitting image. We have created the world in which we live in, in other words. It’s not just all about ‘original’ art. (Our special endowed ability to create, I mean).

You can disagree all you want. You can insist that ‘in the image’ means literally in the image, emphasis on the image, meaning the looks. That, like I said, would be fitting for a culture that made the European image of Jesus, not so much to worship Jesus better so much as to aggrandize an ideal. And sure, the concept of aggrandizing an ideal in such a superior way sounds noble, but it means much darker than it might. Just think about it. Be woke, look upon the evidence ye mighty, and think!

So that’s what I’m saying. I may post the post. I may not. At this juncture of a state, without talking to myself, I’ve pretty much talked myself out of it.

I might just leave it at this and reconstitute to apply my creative art again another day another way. We, all of us, have still created this world. It is exactly as we all wanted and desired. Fail to believe it or me at your own peril. This world does not take kindly to such error, and it has been created that way. A lot of complications have been created to make it hard and to punish the transgressor. You know you like it that way. Especially when you’ve joined the strength-in-numbers group that absolves you from being the transgressor in so many creative and selfish ways. Let me count the ways! (Bargains and ransoms and deals, Oh my!) All you can do is throw shadows at me anyway. And you’re always a woman to me in any case, anyway. {You who knows of whom I talk).

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Lee Ann McNally

In the Book of Genesis, the Creator says, “Let us make man (and woman) in Our image”…. that “image” is Love. Each of us is created BY LOVE, IN LOVE, and FOR LOVE

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R.O. Sam

That’s great information and I appreciate your supplying it. I don’t remember that discussion at all from my previous exposure to and study of Genesis, in particular. But, YES!

*Note: I just revisited Genesis and find the very first mention of the literal word “love” directly in Genesis is the story of the “sacrifice” required of Abraham. So there’s that.

Regardless, what I was going to say before I got distracted with that research task was that I very much respond to this concept of everything absolutely being about love!

My devotion and commitment, and my favorite thing of all, is when Jesus was asked about laws, and said (I paraphrase) that we wouldn’t need all these laws if we only had love in our heart. That, coupled with Jesus telling us all to receive the Kingdom like a child! To me, that’s pretty much all I need. The other stuff is all cultural. All about conformity. Conformity and peer pressure and guilt, BAH humbug! So I say. And I know conformity pressure. I know conformity pressure like Langston Hughes knows rivers.

So, yes, my devotion is to love, just as you described it.

But the cultural stuff and baggage. I yawp a barbaric yawp to that. Sorry. I just can’t handle and repel against all the ‘Good Book’ misogyny. Maybe even starting with the rib. Also I don’t like the juvenile stuff that the tines [‘teens’ in pronunciation] (August and Constan) did and the anxiety and the complexities and the bad faith treatment of fellow humans that ensued. We are led to think of it as the manifestation of some kind of superior culture, but I find that idea pure poppycock. But that’s just me, I’m sure.

When I studied the Bible in its entirety with the Episcopalian Priest and renowned Greek scholar Minka Shura, God rest her soul, I had an epiphany near the end of the four-year course. It started with Genesis. Everybody is well-versed with the story of the loss of Eden. Everybody is very much acculturated to “know” about the Tree of Knowledge and the kinds of problems it caused, in tune with and in service of misogyny. Those are the kinds of “creations” us “creators” of the world commonly complain about, as I was alluding to and referring to in the original post above. But I remembered distinctly the other, more important tree: the tree of life.

The epiphany and the light-bulb moment occurred after these nigh four years of study with Minka, a tuition in which she consistently stressed the love and compassion and inclusiveness and accepting and forgiving nature of Jesus and the eternal transforming nature of Christ. I had always had my own problems with the generally accepted doctrine – which should come as a surprise to absolutely no one! So, it can be said, I suppose, that she was literally preaching to the choir in this case. In any case the insight of epiphany I had was that the true purpose of Jesus was to restore to us the tree of life. None of the other stuff!

That’s my little contribution to this thought exercise. The concept is more than enough to me and fits in snugly with my entirety of my theological creed: we don’t need laws and restrictions when we have love in our hearts and I accept it all like a child. And Jesus’ real purpose has been done in restoring the tree of life. We need nothing more: Christ is love itself. Christ is eternal!

I’ll close by quoting George Harrison quoting Prabhavananda:

The soul does not love, it is love itself

It does not exist, it is existence itself

It does not know, it is knowledge itself

How to Know God page 130

Well, that is all that I will say here. It is way more than I intended to share but I’m glad to share of myself in as generous a way that I can. It’s out of love.