A Saint.

You become a saint

when

your heart blossoms

like a flower.


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Harsh Penalties.

No matter what the sentences handed down by judges for crimes the media calls for harsher penalties.

This seems always to be the case.

Why?

Why do corporate plutocrats and media moguls want harsher penalties?

They whip up fear and hatred against evil and play a dangerous blame game.

Is this just an exercise in power?

There is more to it than that.

Because they believe in the power of punishment and fear they believe that being soft on crime will lead to increased violence and robberies against them (the rich).

Any talk of rehabilitation or reform is ridiculed.

The headlines scream Burn in Hell!

Perhaps they think this will make people work harder.

Fear is a great motivator.

But fear is not the way of God.

Cry out to God and He will deliver you.


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Red Berries.

White cockatoos

devour

the red berries

on my tree.


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Aquarius.

Everyone is looking for Aquarius.

Even Fundamentalist Christians so opposed to everything Aquarian are unconsciously looking for Aquarius (cite their addiction to Ronald Reagan - an Aquarian - and the stylized fish - the symbol of modern Pentecostalism).

The stylized waves (the glyph for Aquarius) can be seen everywhere from clothing to furnishings to architecture and art.

What people are looking for is a savior, something to rescue us from the rampant materialism and darkness we find ourselves immersed in.

There are certain things which are associated with Aquarius.
One is homosexuality which has become the major issue of our time.
Another is equality which is represented by feminism and social justice.

The prophecy implies that God (or the Divine) will reach out to humanity and bring about a sea-change in our thinking.

This is taking place in Western Protestant Christianity in particular.
The New Paradigm, however, will appear everywhere at once.
It will affect all religions and social systems.

The Millennium Development Goals are a good example.

But people are blind.
They can look straight at it and not recognize it consciously.

We are so attuned to the media with its hate campaigns and propaganda.
We cannot see our way clear to move forward.
And the popular culture betrays us.

So, rather than just using Aquarius as decoration, we should be looking to what it represents and moving forward with that.
  

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The Popular Culture.

So what happened to peace and love?

We were betrayed by our rock legends.

From the 1960s onward rock musicians have been selling their souls to the devil and practicing covert Satanism and black magic in their music.

I know this sounds incredible but their practices are well disguised.

Peace and love became sex and drugs and rock and roll.
This was thought to lead to death - the death to God that St. Paul called the wages of sin.

We were all steered in the direction of hell.

This combined with the counter-revolutionary events of the 1980s to see the end of peace and love.

But it has reappeared in the form of Progressive Christianity.
The Gospel of Love as taught by Jesus has re-emerged as the cornerstone of the New Temple - the home of the New Paradigm.

It is not rock music that will save us but the teachings of the historical Jesus.


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The Gospel of Love.

"'Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.'"  Luke 11:9 (NRSV)

In 1979 I set out to find out what was wrong with the world.

It seemed to me that the world's religions were well established - Christianity had been around for nearly 2000 years - democracy was the government of the day, and peace and love were the songs of the popular culture.

But something was wrong.

No one was happy.
And nothing seemed to work.

After studying Egyptian and Greek mythology (the former to discover why they were always smiling) I returned to the Bible and Christianity.

This was the 1990s when the New Reformation of Christianity was beginning.
It began with the Bible and how we interpret it.
It went on to seek the historical Jesus and arrived at the Gospel of Love that Jesus taught.

I discovered that the problem with the Orthodox Christianity I had been taught as a youngster was that the message of unconditional love and forgiveness from God had been modified by the bishops to suit the needs of the rich and powerful.

Therefore, instead of the Gospel of love, we had the religion of rewards and punishments based upon moral rules and imperatives.

This suited the powers because it kept the masses under control and substituted worldly authority for divine authority.
Obedience to God had become obedience to worldly authorities.

This situation exacerbated what was wrong with the world - i.e. that there was not enough love - fear had replaced love at the heart of the religions of the world.

As for the popular culture - that's another story.


[Scripture quotations (marked NRSV) are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., and are used by permission.  All rights reserved.]  


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Autumn.

Autumn.

And the European trees

lose their leaves.

Amid evergreen

Australian gums.

A chill greets

flowering camellias.

And cloudy skies

foretell early rain.


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Left of Center.

The position of the heart

in the body

is slightly left of center.


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Good Sex.

Have you noticed how elements within the popular culture paint all sex as bad.

Images of flames (hell), and skulls (death) predominate; snakes, spiders, and pigs are common.

This is not a healthy way to think about sex.
And it is propagated by those who do not have our best interests at heart.

Naughty, punishment, spanking etc. merely feed our fear and guilt.

Sex should be associated with images like: flowers, birds and bees, hearts, love.....

This will create good sex.

Sex which is associated with God as the author of life.

And in that I include gay sex.

We should not fall into the trap of playing off spirit against flesh.
As if one excluded the other.

Sex is life itself.

We can all give thanks for that.


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A Spring of Clear Water.

In a stony, loveless desert

a spring of clear water.


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The Glittering Prizes.

Success.  We are taught to chase after worldly success.
Our parents and teachers tell us we must succeed in the world.
All our efforts are directed towards this end.

But is success in the world what our lives are all about?
Are we to accept that life favors the winners?

God is with the losers, the marginalized, the outsiders.

Does God know nothing about life?

It is we who know nothing about life.

All that glitters is not gold.

Life is about Love.
Equal Love.

Once we realize this we begin to truly live.


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White Corellas.

Just when the darkness was closing in,

a flock of white corellas.


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Paradise.

God has made

for us

a beautiful garden

in which to live.

A gentle breeze -

the breath of life.

Sap rising in the trees.

A multitude of colorful flowers.

A crowd of animals,

birds and fish,

to keep us company.

Family, friends, and colleagues,

all aspire to happiness

and life in harmony.


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Love Your Enemies.

What then does it mean to love your enemies?
If my enemy is not my enemy but fear?

My enemy's motivation is fear.

To love them thus means to liberate them from the power of their fears.

This can be done by asking, "What are you so afraid of?"

They may think about it and come up with fear.

Otherwise we can pray for them to recognize and be released from their fears.

This is a blessing.

It may not be immediately apparent what fear lies beneath your enemy's hostility.
But fear it will be.

So then, when we see that the source of our enemy's attacks is fear, we can begin to love our enemies.


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The Love of God.

There is no fear

in the Love of God.

No reason to reject.

No fearful future to defend.

No barrier to erect.

So turn to Him,

be healed and saved,

and know that He is near.

And learn to love

with all your heart

and live without your fear.


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