Transdelion: Blog

Jeffrey Luck Lucas is one of those musicians who is a workhorse in the country/folk industry who never gets a break himself. Today I read an interview where he says, ""Luck" is as real a name as any of mine, in my opinion, though I wasn't born with it. I was christened with the name around a pool table in a great long-lost dive bar. It had a nice ring to it so I let it stick. I don't know how to introduce myself. Maybe we'll let the music do the introducing? I mean, it's all there." If that isn't a story in the making, in the greatest tradition, I don't know what is.

Forgive me, but SOL is my community, and this is what this community member is thinking about. Skip it if you don't want to hear stuff about God, but our Webmaster has said we can post anything on our blog, so with apologies, here goes:

"Jesus" has become a distraction.

There is ONE God. Nope, I don't mean that there are hundreds, thousands, millions of other Gods and MY god is better. No, I mean there is one pervading energy source throughout the universe, and everything exists within it. So, all gods, all of us, all matter and anti-matter are God.

This trinity thing, the father the son and the holy ghost, are simply different ways to describe the same essence. They are each useful because they provide a way to describe and relate to God. Everyone is different, and everyone needs their own individual road to God. However, you could expand the list of three to include every other conceivable way there exists, or could exist, to relate to the Holy (universal energy), such as Buddhism, Satanism, the Red Road, Communism, Idolatry, and the list would remain valid. The problem is none of them are the End All of a game of life. They are all just tools. They are not the ONE thing we need to do to get to God.

The focus is GOD: how to let go of self and merge with the universal. It's gonna happen when we die anyway, and we feel the pull within us throughout our lives to reunite with God. It makes us feel insecure and lonely to be so divided. We have self awareness, and if we didn't have self awareness, we'd just live in accord with our holy selves as do animals. Unfortunately, our consciousness divides us from the divine that we carry around inside ourselves, and we come to believe the myths about all this external claptrap called religion and morals and the law saving us. Self awareness is a wonderful gift and a horrible demon upon our backs.

Our molecules are animated by the spaces between them. That's where God lives. We are far more the open spaces than we are matter. Our matter is God, too, but we don't feel as if we are God, we feel like somehow we have to appease some overarching controlling force in order to please God and be redeemed by God. No, we're already "alright." We just have to allow ourselves, the material conscious self, to fall back into the soup of the universality of all things, matter and anti-matter, to become "chosen," i.e., a holy part of the whole holy. (That was fun to write.)

Is the Bible true? Oh yes. Is it the Word of God? Indubitably. But it isn't exclusively the final word on anything. It's a beautiful, moving book of failures and successes and it is an internally inconsistent collection of paths to pursue God. Some people could get there by following whichever interpretation they have of the Bible, and some could get there by other methods having nothing to do with Christianity, but most will never, never get there in their lives. Why?

Because our consciousness, our self awareness, divides us from the Holy and makes people disassociate and cast about for the answers they no longer are aware they already have. Not only that, but they project that struggle onto others, and judge those others in their own frenzy to be "right" or more "powerful" or "rich," which are their ways to sooth the pain of the constant pull back to the Holy, and their current living isolation and separation from God. When they hurt others, when they are intolerant of others, they are projecting their feelings about their separation from God outwardly, whether they realize it or not. What happens inside you has NOTHING to do with what anyone else does, or in fact, anything external to you at all. Oh, hunger might, injury might, relations with others might cause very real joy or suffering, even enjoyment of being in your garden might, but not at the level of your essence, your deepest self, your Holy/God Within. That essence is yours, no one can take it away (you can't take away anyone else's either, but you sure can make their consciousness a living Hell). You need to be aware that it exists, and permit yourself to reside in that deep self to relieve your own suffering. Forget what others do! They have nothing to do with you, and what happens to your deepest self. Denying them anything doesn't make your path better or get you down it sooner.

God is everything. God is all things made possible. God has no limits, and is limitless. To say that God is this or that is to LIMIT GOD. To say that there is only one way to God, is to LIMIT GOD. To rely on what is appropriate to God by accepting what others have told us is appropriate, is to LIMIT GOD. Only by direct relationship to God can we figure out what we should do or not do, and only can we decide that for ourselves. Since God has no limits, since God has made us all different one from another, then almost certainly there are a limitless number of ways to be and exist and walk to Him. You should concern yourself with your own path, because there isn't a damn thing you can do about another person's path except to mess up their ability to walk it, and thereby massively damage your own path. However, look to see if something in their path resonates with your own. You should never walk someone else's path (even if your pastor/rabbi/imam/insert name of spiritual leader tells you to), but sometimes something about their path will lead you a realization about your own and provide the next step. But in all things, go to God yourself to test whether the step is sound for you and the path God would have you take.

Referral is made to Romans 9 in the NIV or KJV.

Now, what I've written here is true for this Universe. I have no idea if there are other universes. I have no idea if God powers those other universes, if they exist. How can a Universe exist without a unifying force to drive it? If something is infinite, how can something exist outside of it? Can there be more than one infinity? I don't have the ability to answer those questions. Probably their consideration would lead to a myriad of wonderful scifi, though. :)

I am mesmerized by Jay Cantrell's Runaway Train, and congrats to him for a well written, great story. There's a passage in the last chapter I wanted to comment on:

"The life of a songwriter isn't an easy road. You have a story to tell in your heart but too many times there is just nobody that wants to listen. They want to hear their story in your words. They want you to bring out the emotions they want to show. They don't want to be offended; they don't want to be made to think. The listening public - and the corporations that control our work - they're like newborn babies. They want what they want when they want it. And they pitch a fit when they don't get it immediately."

At least in how I interpret these words (which may or may not be what Jay intended) this is so true, and also applies to writing, fine art, and all arts. It makes it very hard to be authentic and true to yourself when creating, unless you just don't care how the recipients like your end result. Somehow we hope to dance in the middle ground, and make what we like at the same time we bend it enough to make it sellable. That leads to anything different or unusual being sidelined.

I'm looking at this from the point of view of the artist. Now from the other side, does the audience have the right to demand what it wants without regard for the process of creation? Our economic system says that not only does the consumer have the right to demand, but the maker has the duty to respond in kind in order to make the profit necessary to make a living. Doesn't that mean both sides of this equation are missing an awful lot? Mutual greed is supposed to make capitalism click, but that's supposing we are all equally motivated by the desire to accumulate. For those motivated by other incentives, life in our system can be incredibly stultifying unless we really do like making the kind of art that also incidentally fulfills the demands of the mainstream, or unless we are not authentic and don't care about staying true to ourselves.

I was thinking about love today, the kind of people share with family and close friends. Here are two ways people love (there are lots of others. Disclaimer: These are MY interpretations and analyses; you should get your own.) First, you love someone unconditionally, meaning, you trust they and/or God know what they are doing, and they are doing the best they can, and you just open your heart to them fully. If they live in a way that is something you don't like, you first ask yourself if it really affects you, and if not, it ain't your business and you go back to having faith that they are doing the best they can and it's between them and God/their conscience, and you just open your heart to them and love them fully. If it does affect you, change YOURSELF to a position of being the least affected by it, and then have faith that they are doing the best they can, and open your heart to them fully.

Here are two ways that people believe in God/a higher power (there are many others. Disclaimer: These are MY interpretations and analyses; you should get your own.) First, your faith in God, or your ability to follow God, is so shaky that you try to make everyone else follow God in the same way as you do in order to feel safe and secure that you're making the right choices. Second, that you have faith that God is available to every single person, and it is up to THAT person to make their own best relationship to God. It seems like choice 2, to me, gives GOD the most options, and doesn't limit Him. Choice 1 pretends that we best can set the rules for God.

In other words, no one can tell us who and what to believe in and be, and real love just flows, no matter what.

If we don't write it, it will be gone forever. But is that a bad thing? Maybe the drivel of humankind means nothing in the grand scheme of things, and we should let it go.