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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Sunday, July 14, 2019

transform the whole


Tribalism is really a form of egoism.
It's all about my people, my religion, me, me, me.
Marty Rubin
__________________________________

I keep thinking about those disciples of Jesus
All huddled together “in one place”

I don’t know what they were talking about
I don’t know what they were doing

But what is clear is that they had separated themselves from “others”

I suspect they shared their common stories
I suspect they broke bread, and drank wine
I suspect they enjoyed the comfort of being part of the “inner circle”
Those who had been with Jesus
Those who had “gotten it”

And I suspect they would have sat there
In that one place
A closed circle
The Jesus Tribe
Forever

But then the Sacred came
Rushing and roaring like a might wind
Burning like a fire

Then the Spirit came
And singed their butts
And blew them out the door
Tumbling them into the streets

Into the midst of the crowds
Tossing them like a human salad
Mixing them in with the dregs of humanity

With saints and sinners
With people brown and people black
And maybe even people white

Mixing them in with
Parthians, Medes and Elamites;
Residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,[b] 10
Souls from Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and Libya
Strangers from Rome and Crete
Even Arabs

And in the power of the Love
Connecting them
Giving them tongues to speak
And (more importantly) ears to hear

It seems that the Spirit does not like closed circles
And does not like walls and barriers
And does not tolerate division

The Spirit does not allow us to play it safe
Or stand aloof
Arrogant observers, keepers of “the secrets”

The Spirit breaks us open
Spills us out
With the unfiltered enthusiasm
of the one who has had too much wine
gushing, babbling
awkwardly familiar

and before we know it
we are welcoming
accepting
forgiving
sharing
praising

but mostly we are mixed in
Sacred Yeast
Empowered not to add to our tribe
Not to stand apart
Not to “lord it over”
Not to control

But to touch the whole
To touch the whole world
To touch all people

To transform the “whole”
With love


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