Saturday, October 17, 2020
GYPSY & JESUS!
10/17/2020
Hello, Everyone!
Today is Gypsy’s 13th birthday. Gypsy is our Beagle, not a human, but I do believe we should honor her with a sense of equality because I believe she is equal to us – not inferior because she is “only an animal.” In truth, we are all animals – even though I also believe we have souls that may occupy our animal bodies – and that may include our pets, like Gypsy. Who is to say that Gypsy does not have a soul? In time, we will all die. If we have those souls I do believe we have, our souls will go on – as what composed our bodies will remain behind. Where will our souls go? I do not know; but for me, it doesn’t really matter where they will go as long as I know that wherever they go, they will simply continue as they were. That I Believe.
Anyway, I am mindful that Gypsy – a dog – is having a birthday today. Will I treat her any different? Nope! I may treat me different, though, by realizing that Gypsy is just as much a miracle as I am. When I look at Gypsy, though, perhaps I will see more of me in her than I did the day before. In that regard, knowing Gypsy is having a birthday will put me in a better mold than if I paid it no mind at all. Suppose? It just so happens that Gypsy loves eating. So maybe I will treat her to an extra treat today. I know she will like that.
It just so happens too, however, that on Gypsy’s 13th birthday, I will be continuing to read my book EXPLORING THE SOUL – AND BROTHER JESUS. I finished the part on the soul a few days ago, but am slowly reading the part about Jesus now. I call the section CHILD OF HUMANITY SERIES – which I wrote in 2005. I just finished a chapter I called BROTHER JESUS. Given the timing, I will repeat it below, though when I wrote it in 2005, George Bush was our president and we were at war in Iraq. If you want to read it, go ahead. If not, don’t. OK? But if you like what you read, you may enjoy the entire book. If so, go to my writings website – www.una-bella-vita.com – and page down to a listing of my books. Then click on EXPLORING THE SOUL (AND BROTHER JESUS). Alright? Or you can go to Amazon and input my name, Francis Bessler, in the search bar. Tap on that and then proceed to find EXPLORING THE SOUL – AND BROTHER JESUS.
Hey, have a good one. Hope you are staying free of COVID-19. So far, we are; but the virus is spreading here in Wyoming like it is everywhere it seems. It is really important to continue minding our manners and protecting others as we try to protect ourselves by wearing masks and following the guidelines of our health experts.
If you have not voted, please do so. Nancy and I voted by absentee ballot in late August and turned them in on Sept 1. When I vote, I try to vote for one who is more like the Jesus I know. This year it is for Joe and Kamala – simply because I see in them far more kindness and compassion than what I see on the other side; but whatever your standards, please use your opportunity to choose – and then vote as you choose. OK?
Thanks!
Bye for now!
Gently,
Francis William Bessler and
wife, Nancy Shaw
4.
Brother Jesus
4/4/2005
Preface:
The rules have changed. We have progressed since Jesus walked this earth 2,000 years ago. It is not that Jesus has changed. It is that we have changed. In the 2,000 years since Jesus walked this earth, God has evolved. That is, our notions of God have evolved – at least for many of us. When Jesus walked this earth, we had the idea that man and God were separated. With that idea, we felt we needed some kind of bonding agent to stick us together – or back together. Naturally, having a sense of separation from God, we needed a messiah. We needed someone who could heal the division. We needed someone who could resolve the impasse. We needed someone who could make us one with God. So, it was only natural with our thinking that we were separated from God that we needed a Jesus to be our messiah – to save us from the Godless dungeon of a divine-less jungle.
Well, things have changed. We no longer think we are in a divine-less jungle – at least many of us do not. Now we realize that if God is really Infinite, then God must be truly everywhere. What does that do to the separation idea upon which we formulated our need for a messiah ruling? Of course, it tosses it out the window. It throws it under the trampling hoofs of a runaway herd of bawling cattle – racing not to the edge of a cliff – but out to a brand new pasture. This is the world we have today. No longer do we feel God is “out there." Many of us at least have God in our hearts and in our chests and in our minds and in our gardens and in our wives and in our husbands and in our children and in every single thing. So if we are no longer separated from God – or have progressed to the realization that whatever God is, God is not gone from us - no longer do we need a messiah. The truth, of course, is that we never did need a messiah because there never was a breach between God and man; but be that as it may, mindfully at least, we live in a different world now than the world in which Jesus walked.
That means we have to find a different realization for Jesus – if we want to keep him at all. I want to keep him because I have long believed he was falsely miscast as a messiah in the first place. I want to keep him because I get the sense in THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS that he begged his fellow Jews to not cast him in the role of savior – the role of messiah; but the Mel Gibson directors of the day wanted him as their main star and they would have nothing else. So when Jesus died, they ignored his pleas to not make him a messiah and called on the ghost of Jesus to star as The Messiah – even though the real, throbbing, living Jesus begged to be excluded from that role when he was alive.
In THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS (Verse 52), one of those who wanted to cast Jesus as messiah said to Jesus: Twenty-four prophets spoke in Israel and they all spoke about Thee. That was their way of telling him that he was chosen to play the lead in their Messiah Play. Did Jesus answer that he wanted the role? Judge for yourself. He said to them: You have dismissed the Living (One) who is before you and you have spoken about the dead. The Living One, of course, is Jesus. Jesus did not want to be linked to the “dead” because by doing so, he was being dismissed for the true independent teacher he really was. Who could have been the “dead” that Jesus was referencing? That has to be “the twenty-four prophets." Right? The twenty-four prophets had no idea that God and man are one. They lived with the idea that God is outside of us and that they needed to sacrifice dead animals to their god in order to keep their god somewhat in their presence – to keep him from straying too far a field.
But Jesus begged us not to cast him in the lot of the twenty-four prophets who thought they needed a messiah. He knew that God is not outside of us and he knew there is no need of a messiah; but those who bowed down to the twenty-four prophets and their demand for a messiah had no such perspective. They needed a messiah – and damn it – Jesus could not refuse the role. He had to play it. So when Jesus died, his ghost was given the role that the living Jesus denied in life.
Such is the prelude to this week’s issue of my Child of Humanity Series. We have evolved now from the time of Jesus. We have grown to realize that the living Jesus was right – the twenty-four prophets of Israel are dead and they should remain dead. We are not to listen to them anymore. We have a new realization of God – and with our new realization of God – we have a brand new Jesus. With that, with the need of a brand new Jesus, let us carry on the discussion about who Jesus really is. The God and man separation issue has drained down the sink now like a litter of ten day old stinking garbage. With the stench gone forever from our lives, let us proceed.
Looking for a New Jesus
Was Jesus a king? For the many familiar with the alleged life of Jesus, there was a title placed over his head on the cross on which he died. That plaque read: JESUS – KING OF THE JEWS.
How little we know of Jesus to think that he was a king – or could ever be a king. Kings control. Kings rule. Jesus could not control; and Jesus can never rule. If, in fact, Jesus was crucified, he was crucified because he could not rule. He was crucified because he could not power himself over another to prevent it. If he died as they say he did in the gospels, he died without resistance to save himself and to show us the true nature of salvation – which is only another word for freedom. He did not die to become a king – not then or ever.
Let me offer you a little exercise. I want you to take your left hand, curl those fingers toward you. Now take your right hand and curl those fingers toward you. Then put both hands in front of you with arms extended outward and let the curled fingers of both hands clasp each other. Now, without relaxing, pull one hand from the other. If you are doing as I am asking, given that the strength of your left and right hands are equal, you will not be able to pull them apart. What does that say? Is your left hand free? Is your right hand free? No! Of course not! And that is what happens when one soul controls another. Neither the controller nor the controlled one is free.
If I hold you to me, I am not free – and neither are you. To be in control or to be a ruler of another is to be without freedom. There has never been a king who has ever been free because kings control; but in controlling, they are controlled by the ones they control. This is the amazing truth of freedom. No one can be free who is either controlled by another or controls another. Like a left hand pulling against a right hand, neither hand is free.
Now, tell me, do you think Jesus would give up his freedom to control you, to rule you? Little do you know Jesus if you think that Jesus would give up his freedom to become your king. It is terribly sad to say that in the days of Jesus almost no one knew him for the champion of freedom he was. Jesus came to challenge those who think they have a right to impose a rule over another – like the Jews of his day. The Jews were embossed in law – and bossed by it. Many who have no inkling of who Jesus really was think that Jesus came to perfect the law – or to complete the Jewish law with some kind of a kingly rule. Jesus did not want to be a king, never has been a king, and never will be a king. To do so would be to compromise the freedom that he loves so much.
Next Sunday, in a million churches around the world, the masses will be sitting in pews and chanting Praise The Lord! How little they know what they are doing. They will not make Jesus a lord by chanting it, but they will continue their servitude to slavery to others who are more than happy to claim to represent Jesus. Lords, like kings, rule. If you think that Jesus is going to yield his freedom of soul to become your lord, think again; but there are many who are willing to be the lord you want. When you chant in the name of Jesus, Praise The Lord, you won’t be getting Jesus, but you will be getting a lord.
How did it all go wrong? That is very easy to tell. It went wrong because people have always wanted lords. In fact, people have always demanded lords. How else do you think cruel kingdoms can exist on this earth? Because people want to be ruled. It’s easy to be ruled if you want to be ruled. The people in the days of Jesus wanted to be ruled. They wanted Moses to rule them. They wanted David to rule them. They wanted Jesus to rule them. Not Moses, not David, not Jesus could have ruled them except they wanted to be ruled. It was to a world that wanted to be ruled in which Jesus was born.
Jesus – King of the Jews! Why was it written? Because they needed a king. But they did not want the king they had – a Roman king. They wanted their own king. The trouble is they picked on someone to become their king who could not and would not ever become one. Sadly, we are doing the same thing today. Sadly, we still want to be ruled; and sadly, we still think that Jesus will be our king. But Jesus will never be a king – let alone our king. How little we know of Jesus to even begin to suspect that someday he will relent and put a crown on his head so that we as willing subjects can rule over our alleged enemies.
You see, we were not offered the truth about Jesus because those who wrote about him did not know him. They wrote fanciful stories about someone they hoped would be their king someday; and they probably made up a lot of their stories. They could not have an impotent king. So they wrote him as performing powerful miracles and raising dead people to life. But Jesus was not about power. He was about freedom. They did not know that then, though; and for the most part, we still do not know it. We are still looking for the same king that they were looking for – but as they never found their king in Jesus, never will anyone.
In THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO THOMAS (Verse 81), Jesus said: Let him who has power renounce it! But, you see, you did not get that gospel. Did you? No! That gospel that has Jesus renouncing power was suppressed by the “kings of the day." No king wants to be challenged. Any king worth his salt must offer to the people ideas that lend to control of others. What king would go about telling his subjects that all with power should release it? That would include him – and there would go his kingdom. And what bishop who revels in power would denounce it?
Sadly, people who want power are using Jesus as a claim to power when Jesus was never about power. But people who are caught up with power are unaware of what they are doing. Sincerely, power people think that Jesus was about power because it was a “powerful Jesus” that was given them as a legend. Truly, they expect to rule with Christ in the end. They are not pretending. They are only deceived. But for whatever reason they believe that they will someday become a member of a power kingdom of Jesus, it can’t be. Again, the day that Jesus agrees to be their king just because they want one is the day that Jesus will lose his freedom.
I love Jesus. I find in Jesus a very kindly companion – or in thoughts of Jesus. Jesus said that I should be kind to all. Now you should know why. Unkindness to one who is unkind only makes two who are unkind; but being unkind is to control. Tell me how you can possibly be unkind to another and not have him or her in your service or control? The very nature of unkindness, regardless of reason, is to control another. Can you imagine Jesus being unkind to another? If he were unkind, then he would have been in some control of that person. You cannot be unkind and still be free.
Is America being unkind to the unkind in the current war in Iraq? Of course it is. So we are controlling Iraq – or trying to control it. What is it getting us? By trying to control it, it is controlling us. When people wake up and realize that putting their energies to any kind of control of others is to lose their freedom, then maybe true freedom will begin to have a chance in this world.
Is President Bush free? Ask him. But President Bush and all those who want power have not an inkling of their jeopardizing their own freedom by wanting the power they do. It does, however, irritate me a tad when power people use my friend, Jesus, to stake their claim to power when my Jesus would have none of it. But if it weren’t Jesus that they would use, it would be something else. They only use Jesus because it is convenient. Everyone knows Jesus in America. So you use what people know. Right? Make your claim to power by virtue of what the people expect.
Love one another! They said that Jesus taught that. That makes sense. I think he did; but I also think that the reason Jesus said we should love one another and refrain from any kind of unkindness is because he knew that unkindness impacts and negates freedom. If I don’t love you, then there goes my freedom. It is as simple as that.
Brother Jesus – not Lord Jesus! Jesus will never consent to be your lord – or mine – because to do so, he would lose his freedom. Stop calling him a lord and start calling him a brother; and you will begin to realize why he taught as he did. Realize the reason for what you do; and it will be a lot easier to do it. Love is easy. There is nothing hard about it. It is easy because with it there is no control of another. You cannot control another and love that other at the same time because true love is letting another pursue his or her own adventure. If you claim to love another and then impose a rule upon him or her, it is not love you have, but domination.
Between us, I do wish that people would stop dominating others in the name of one who refused to dominate others. That is my Jesus – and your Jesus if you will dare to claim freedom for yourself. Jesus was a brother, one like us, not one over us. It is Jesus who said that we should love one another. In THE GOSPEL OF THOMAS, it is Jesus who told us to renounce power over others. I think I am in good stead in following the course I do – whether Jesus taught it or not – but knowing why I must love makes it so much easer to do so.
Climax
It was only a few days ago as I write this that we had a Good Friday. Next year at this time, we will celebrate a new Good Friday; and two years from now, a whole lot of us will celebrate another Good Friday – and forty years from now, another Good Friday will be cast in the ongoing drama that started 2,000 years ago. We cannot have an Easter without a Good Friday. Such is the script of the ongoing saga of the tale of man and God divided.
Those who are honest who thought that a crucifixion was needed for an Easter to happen should realize that their Good Friday changed nothing. It was supposed to bring God into our lives and erase the previous division; but it did nothing. God and man are still as divided now as they were when the Mel Gibson directors decided that a Good Friday had to be part of the great play of life and death. They allowed a little room at the end for an Easter, but only a moment – and then it was back to gearing up for next year’s Good Friday.
How man loves the idea that he or she is separated from God! The very thought that there is no division and never has been is just too galling to admit. It is just too damned embarrassing to have to admit we were wrong – and so we continue being wrong and we continue looking forward to next year’s Good Friday. And we continue living our lives like someday in some great beyond we will finally look up and see God face to face. Oh – that wonderful day! It will have made all the Good Fridays that we had to suffer worth it. Finally – we will be home!
Me? I will erase the Good Fridays from my calendar of years – and I will have only Easter. There is no need for me to suffer in order to drain some kind of misplaced notion of unworthiness from my liver and kidneys and heart and mind and soul. I do not have an unworthy liver. I do not have an unworthy set of kidneys. I do not have an unworthy heart or mind or soul. All of me is worthy right now. I do not have to wait beyond some mistaken Good Friday of the future before God and me are finally one. My God and me are one today! I can’t see his face except in my own and in every other entity – alive and otherwise; but that is saying one heck of a lot. Isn’t it?
10/17/2020
Addendum:
Indeed, All of me is worthy right now. I do not have to wait beyond some mistaken Good Friday of the future before God and me are finally one. My God and me are one today! I can’t see It’s Face except in my own and in every other entity (like Gypsy) – alive and otherwise; but that is saying one heck of a lot. Isn’t it?