Official Blog of the Church of the Holy Genesis

"I believe in God, Father Almighty
I believe in Jesus Christ, His Son, our Lord
He was conceived by the Power of the Holy Genesis
And born of the Mother Mary"

-the first lines of our revised Apostle's Creed

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Passersby

Jesus said, "Be passersby."

This life and this world are temporary. Let them go.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Something Nice

Some time ago, a Catholic priest was interviewed on a TV program. The host asked him about the nature of Jesus. Instead of lecturing him on theology, the priest asked if he could tell a true story.

He told about a woman who went to her priest and told him she thought her father was dying; would the priest please come by to see him?” He promised he would when he was in the neighborhood. “I’m sometimes out to run to the store,” said the woman. “I’ll leave the door open. If there’s no answer to your knock, just go on in. You’ll find my dad’s room in the back.”

One day the priest stopped by. There was no answer to his knock, so he went on through to the father’s room. When he got there he found a chair pulled up close beside the bed. “Ah, you must have been expecting me,” said the priest. No, said the man, the chair hadn’t been put there for the priest. “I’ll tell you, father,” said the man, “I’d been having trouble praying. But a friend said if I would put a chair there for the Master, and pretend he was sitting here, I could talk to him more naturally. So I placed the chair there and tried it, and it really works.” “That’s fine,” said the priest. "Anything that helps.”

A few days later the woman came to the priest and told him her father had passed away. The priest expressed his sympathy and asked if her father had died easily. “Oh, I think so,” she said. “A little while before, he had called me in to show me something in the funny papers, and we both had a laugh over it. Then I went out to the store to get some milk, and when I came back he was dead.”

“I’m glad it was easy,” said the priest.

“There was just one odd thing,” said the woman.

Oh?” said the priest.

“Yes,” she said, “Apparently he had pulled a chair over to the bed and was struggling to get into it, or to use it to stand up, because when I found him he had pulled his head and shoulders over to the chair and died with his head in it.”

-same sermon from previous post

"And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am."

Welcome

But we will never say to an outsider, “We welcome everyone as long as you are willing to become like us.” To do that would be reducing God to our understanding of God. And God is bigger than all of our ideas about God.

-from a sermon by Gary A Wilburn posted on The Center for Progressive Christianity site

Thursday, August 26, 2010

The Illusion, And How to Kick It

Shall we admit, finally, what the sufis, buddhists and gnostics before us knew? The world we live in, the Material, is Illusion, maya. We are trapped in a cycle of birth, death, rebirth, called by the people of the Subcontinent, samsara. The Illusion is designed to keep us from breaking that cycle, and ascending to Light, or the real world which is beyond the Illusion.

It is the stated purpose of Satan, the God of This World, to keep us from breaking the cycle, and finding nirvana. Nirvana is described by the Buddhists as "the blowing out of the fires of greed, hate and delusion" (wikipedia article, "nirvana"). It is Oneness with the Most High.

Satan's power lies in his ability to control humanity by pounding people with sufferings such as pain, hunger and disease. Then, he compounds these things by inciting us to fight among ourselves, presenting many temporary remedies for suffering, and making those remedies scarce. We fight wars over fuel and faith, thinking that by defeating our "enemies" we will become free of our sufferings.

"Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: 'I have seen the Lord!'..." -John 20:18

Many of the disciples (some say Peter, some say Thomas, for instance) didn't believe St. Mary when she said this. If even the disciples didn't believe, at least at first, what chance do the rest of us have?

The answer is this: We all have the same chance. Every single one of us can escape samsara. This is how:

Follow the Lord Jesus Christ
Listen to His words, both in the old books, and in your heart
Take good advice, from the ancients and from those around you
Do good works
Love those around you
Be calm and composed
"Do not do what you hate"
When you see suffering, try to help
If you cannot help, don't compound it
Remember: all things are temporary, this will pass

Light of the Heavens and the Earth

Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The Parable of His Light is as if there were a Niche and within it a Lamp: the Lamp [is] enclosed in Glass: the glass [is] as it were a brilliant star: lit from a blessed Tree, an Olive, neither of the East nor of the West, whose oil is well nigh luminous, though fire scarce touched it: Light upon Light! Allah doth guide whom He will to His Light: Allah doth set forth Parables for men and Allah doth know all things.

-Quran 24:35

Allah doth guide whom He will to His Light!

Sunday, August 22, 2010

A Pure Heart

Create in me a pure heart, O my God,
And renew a tranquil conscience within me, O my Hope!
Through the spirit of power confirm Thou me in Thy Cause,
O my Best-Beloved,
And by the light of Thy glory reveal unto me Thy path,
O Thou the Goal of my desire!
Through the power of Thy transcendent might
Lift me up unto the heaven of Thy holiness,
O Source of my being,
And by the breezes of Thine eternity gladden me,
O Thou Who art my God!
Let Thine everlasting melodies breathe tranquillity on me,
O my Companion,
And let the riches of Thine ancient countenance
Deliver me from all except Thee,
O my Master,
And let the tidings of the revelation of Thine
Incorruptible Essence bring me joy,
O Thou Who art the most manifest of the manifest
And the most hidden of the hidden!

- Bahá'u'lláh

Thursday, August 19, 2010

The Lord is on my head like a crown, and I shall not be without Him.

-The Odes of Solomon, Ode 1, verse 1