Theology of Crisis

Karl Barth's early theology of crisis
“[Barth’s] deepest intention was to point to the crisis for the sake of pointing to the grace of God, to speak the No for the sake of making the divine Yes heard. In this crisis all human ways are exposed as dead-end roads in order that the one Way might be revealed. The divine Yes is the background of the radical crisis which is suspended over the whole of life.”—G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (London: Paternoster, 1956), p. 33.
Posted by Ben Myers at 7:40 AM

Not only do I like the term "theology of crisis", I like the idea that Barth speaks to. So often in my life I feel like I'm stumbling from crisis to crisis, out of the frying pan into the fire, out of the fire into the soup, out of the soup into the grease. If it isn't one thing it's another. I just don't feel like I'm getting ahead but mostly holding myself against the current, identifying with salmon swimming upstream. Even when i get to float in the pools though I figure it's not going to be for long because some new demand or crisis will arise.
I've treated tens of thousands of patients and when a hundred were doing well there was always one that gave me nightmares. I'd be in the textbooks and journals reading papers, looking for an answer to keep them from dying or get them over their next hurdle. Soon there were just no textbooks that said much about the kinds of problems I was facing. The easy stuff was behind me and everything was a quantum leap more complex.
Meanwhile just when I had some help from staff they had a personal crisis and brought all their chaos and attitude into the office or to the hospital ward. In the midst of this a wife or two would be demanding more attention than work allowed while the government was trying to kill me and my patients when they weren't trying to put me in jail. I was never helping matters because I had this strange notion of justice, and truth and no one played by the rules especially not the politicians and judges who made them.
I felt like a boy scout up the proverbial creek without a paddle and would phone colleagues and they'd tell me they'd never dealt with such a case or the ones who could help wouldn't want to get involved or die before their years because of the caring and stress it brings. Mostly people just went through the motions and were beaten down by the system that served only the wealthy.
Everywhere I looked I found that the beaurocrats had secret agendas, kickbacks and corrupt motives. The deceit and fear in government buildings vied with apathy and arrogance and no shame. They collectively were like judas with their peices of silver. I wasn't Jesus. My patients were. At best I was often just washing feet. I weep these days as I hear of people on life saving medications that are being cut off to pay for the Olympics. They'll die in months or years but they'll die sooner and the reprieve from their illnesses was kind of like a mother offering a tit and then pulling it out of the child's mouth and watching the child starve to death while slowly shaking her head with a mona lisa smile.
Daily now I know there's a cure or answer but there's no resources. There's no medications in the cupboards. There's no specialists. It's a year wait to see one and people wait months to see me. A hundred referrals waiting for me to priorize right now and no time in my schedule because the business is failing because the people who do business decided to think only of themselves and make a huge profit on my patients and my loss.
The worst offenders are the beaurocrats who are paid big bucks to 'self police'. As insiders we know whose "immune" and 'above the law" but there's a few 'favourites' and the rest of us live in fear and the public is kept completely in the dark because it's all back rooms and closed doors and smoke and mirrors.
So it just seems like this is at best purgatory or maybe even hell because the bits of heaven on earth are interrupted by criminals and psychopaths getting away with bloody murder and a veritable million dollar industry of 'false accusation' and a court that thrives on lies. Perjury was once a crime but now the liars are rewarded. When do you know they are lying? Watch for their lips moving.
Their eyes are like reptiles.
They inflict pain. They know no God. They have sold their souls.

So along comes the Theology of Crisis. Barth says to pray. It's only when one prays and accepts that this world is 'wrong', it's 'sinful', it's in error and the people in it are in error, and I am in error, and those who most think they are right are most likely most wrong, that Grace comes. After all the No, yes appears like the light of morning after darkness. Down is up and up is down like everyone whose ever been in court or dealt with beaurocrats or tax departments will know. Double speak and 1984. But that's just jungle and bush. That's just storms at sea.

Step back. Sit quietly. Turn inward and pray. In the moment of crisis which literally is daily and mostly hourly for me or moment to moment as I juggle the impossible demands of the Washingtons and Ottawas and Victorias lightyears from reality in their dachaus and sterile offices and I'm one of the billion peasants now caught in the trenches of the high speed suffering world. Step back. Breathe. Close eyes. Pray.

Every moment Jesus was on the cross God's grace was his resurrection. I look to my own dying as God's grace. There's an end to the newspapers full of corruption and misery. There's an end to the cries of pain. There's an end to this earth where Buddha was right, desire is the root of all suffering and life is desire. I desire the next breath and fear it will be my last but facing death and welcoming it, knowing that God will take me from this life, I feel God's Grace. I am tired of the arrogance and pompousness of beaurocrats, the depth of their lack of empathy, the money men safe in their private schemes, their private health care plans their time for vacations and their servants and hit men and their personal armies and their deceit.
I am tired of my longings for love and peace. I'm tired of my inability to reach perfection. Daily I'm told I'm no good because I can't stop my patients from doing drugs, getting beat up, staying in bed, having unprotected sex, overeating, forgetting their medications, going to jail.
I'm told by my patients and government that I'm accountable for everything and I'm condemned all around but either the patient or the beaurocrat stands at the light switch and refuses to turn it on while demanding I do surgery with a lawyer waiting to sue me for a slip of the blade. And I'm always afraid. I'm always anxious. I'm always worrying I'll make a mistake. I'm surrounded by chaos and disorder and more and more no one cares and the hardware and software are corrupted.
A man is dead 24 hours in a Canadian teaching hospital waiting room and the story is hushed. There is no CEO who is arrested for fired for his death. No one mourns him. He's just another 'friendly fire' death and there will be an 'inquiry' but if I have a slip of the tongue or miss a beat I'm bankrupted and punished and run out of Dodge. There are no safety nets for doctors or nurses or peasants or taxpayers.
I'm persecuted as a "whistleblower'. I'm crying and trying harder and harder and doing more and more in less and less time with the government demanding more and more and police everywhere and homeland security and big limosines patrolling the streets and I'm told of deadlines after the deadlines and the tax men change the rules and only their friends know and the courts subpoenae me and I catch the flu and there's never a vacation because no matter what, the work just piles up and waits till you get back at ten times the amount because there are less and less resources for more and more. And the patients watch tv which is all lies and the politicians promises are supposed to be fulfilled by everyone but them. And we are all growing tired and working more and more and more for less and less and less.

Step back. Breathe. Meditate. Pray. Go for a walk. Get a dog and remember your body is like St. Francis called it, your donkey. Those fat cat beaurocrats, the doctor police and the politicians and the rich aren't caring about you or your patients. They want you to die. They'd love you to die. They only like the silent. Shut up and dance like new nigger. Man is the nigger of the world. You are just a number in their classy work camps. The world has become Auschwitz but just as the jails now have televisions, the gas just takes longer because it's really polluted air and unsafe water and food's aren't inspected for safety anymore and cars have gas pedals that stick. They want your patients to have euthanasia. They prefered abortion and now deny westerners adoption claiming everyone is a sex offender and all should be in jail so children from third world countries woud do better to starve than be raised by Burnaby couples who married late becasue they couldn't afford to have children and then it was too late.

The government's promises are idle. Only their threats are real. The jails are full and they're making more and more 'for profit' jails, sardine cans for your brothers and sisters, without programs, without rehabilitation but lots of money for construction and catering and lots of money for 'consulting' and lots for lawyering ands lots of ways for money to go missing and lots of pay for men in brown shirts with beady eyes.
And where are the hospital beds. Where are the asylums. When do my patients get the medications they need. When do I get any assistance and when will I feel like it's anything but moving in molasses. And when will I be able to do what I was taught to do in university, that very silly place which is an ivory tower and knows nothing about reality because it's like Ottawa and Washington and Victoria so so far from reality that they wouldn't know it if they saw it. And their solution to everything: Kill the messenger. Shut them up. Give them cakes. Make more flag debates.

Step back. Breathe. Slow down. Inside. Calm the screaming thoughts. Repeat the name of the Lord. This is Theology of Crisis. Invite Jesus right into the centre of your pain. Ask God to heal this suffering. Ask him in at the moment when the tax man calls, the same one who called your patient and your patient picked up a gun and blew his brains out. Ask him in when the beaurocrat calls, the same one who called your patient who took an overdose when he got off the phone. Ask God into your life when you read the paper and more money is spent on killing than education or medicine.

Breathe. Feel your feet on the ground. The Theology of Crisis is that God is here always. In the poem of the 'footprints', God is carrying you. Brother Ass, St. Francis said. Soon you'll have a dog. He'll make you walk. He'll make you bend and scoop up shit. All the beaugeosie have their 'personal trainers' cute boys with tight buns or girls in pretty skirts and hard bellies. You'll have another mutt. Life gets better. Maybe this one won't be killed by drug addicts and corrupt government officials.

Pray. Pray. Pray. Pray unceasingly as St. Paul said. Remember Martin Luther King. "It's going to be a tough day so I have to spend more time on my knees." Give up breathing before giving up prayer. And live just to spite the government beaurocrats. Those crazed office dwellers, the administrators with a few years of education and faces brown from loyalty to their superiors who insist they can tell everyone else what to do and how to do it like the feudal lords and ladies they are because they've bought a government with a contribution or a lie.

Breathe. Pray. Forgive. Pray for your enemies. The girl who stole from you and never returned what she took or made amends to you or the patients she hurt or the one who ran away, another liar, the chronic victims who live in the narcissism of victimship so they don't have to care for anyone else but themselves, the navel gazers.

Pray. The theology of crisis that every second you must choose between right or wrong. Every breath is in or out and the world's lung is 'right or wrong'. It's the No of crisis and suffering then the Grace of Yes and relief. Stop chosing fear over love. Stop kowtowing to the bullies in government. Stop being afraid of the prisons and their conspiracies they say aren't conspiracies. Love and Pray.

Live in the centre. Pray. In the theology of crisis know God is always with you and he is bringing death as a reprieve eventually. The pain will end. The persecution will stop. There will be a time without constant criticicm and taxes. There will be a place where you can stand someday in a grave and not be charged with loitering. There will be a parking lot which doesn't cost an arm and a leg. The kings of parking lots won't be there. There will be death and like sleep it will be good. God will bring you there in time.

Now pray. Now in the Theology of Crisis know that this too will pass. It's always getting better and there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Call on God. Talk to Jesus. Pray. Love. It's okay. Silence the terror. Go back to sleep after the nightmares. Open the mail and breathe slowly. They are always threatening, they are always bullying. Everyone is guilty today. You are not alone. They can pick up everyone anytime. You have no rights. You probably never had. You were lied to. It's the jungle and they have all the money and guns and they have scales.

Breathe. Quiet. Calm. God is here. This is not real. God is real. This is not real. God is real. This is God but God is greater. In the Theology of Crisis you are saved and chosen and there will be peace.

Go through another day. See yet another stranger. Walk down the unsafe streets. Pray. You are old. Pray. You are more frail and they want you dead. You know she does. She lives to see you dead. That's the evil. Passive aggression. The time theives are the worst. The wasters. The chair fillers. The zombies. The smiling cages. Pray for her. She's really just silly. Pray for her. Pray for your enemies. They know not what they do. Forgive them and forgive yourself.

Forgive. Pray. The theology of crisis. It's the beginning.

Theology of Crisis

Karl Barth's early theology of crisis
“[Barth’s] deepest intention was to point to the crisis for the sake of pointing to the grace of God, to speak the No for the sake of making the divine Yes heard. In this crisis all human ways are exposed as dead-end roads in order that the one Way might be revealed. The divine Yes is the background of the radical crisis which is suspended over the whole of life.”—G. C. Berkouwer, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth (London: Paternoster, 1956), p. 33.
Posted by Ben Myers at 7:40 AM

Not only do I like the term "theology of crisis", I like the idea that Barth speaks to.

Karl Barth (1886 to 1968)

Karl Barth, a Swiss Reformed Theologian, though Protestant was described by Pope Pius XII as the most important theologian since Thomas Acquinas. As a country pastor during WWI he found that the 'liberal' theology of the day made little sense in the bombs and suffering that was occurring around him. This lead to a new theological path sometimes called 'dialectical theology" because it stressed the paradoxical nature of divine truth – eg God is both Grace and Judgement.

He has also been associated with the "theology of crisis". The 'judgement' of Jesus on the cross is without understanding in human terms, to come to terms with it, one must have a 'leap of faith' and literally 'surrender' to God's divinity in acceptance. To quote Barth, "Jesus does not give recipes that show the way to God as other teachers of religion do. He himself is." It is when one truly surrenders and turns to the grace of God in all human endeavours on a daily basis, seeing the cross in all our personal struggles that resurrection becomes possible. This is living in the presence and ever experiencing the sacred.

I find this most interesting as it's the thread that had been picked up so strongly by early AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) thinkers who insisted that only through great suffering by loss, illness or addiction could one find the humility to truly say, "thy will, not my will, be done.'

Barth insisted that the Church rely fully on the divine and criticized the formulations that make God and theology appealing to the 'cultured' and 'refined'. Liberal theology appealed to the sensuality of man and was sanitized. Equally though, Barth considered Jesus' death on the cross as central and was called 'neo-orthodox' by his conservatives critics who objected to his arguing that those insisting on the 'inerrancy' of the Bible were putting forward another lord. This was a kind of 'book idolatry'. For Barth, Jesus Christ was the sole Lord of Christianity.

Barth who was associated with the Christian socialism movement said, "To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of the uprising against the disorder of the world." Barth was the principal author of the Barmen Declaration which rejected the influence of Nazism on German Christianity and himself refused to sign allegiance to Hitler. He argued that the church's allegiance to the God of Jesus Christ should give it the power to resist allegiance to other lords such as the Fuhrer. This lead to the founding of the Confessing Church which saved countless Jews during WWII. Christians sacrificed their lives daily by hiding Jews and when the collection basket was passed around putting in their identity cards so these could be used to forge ones for Jews. Bonhoffer, Barth's contemporary in the Confessing Church, was just one of the untold thousands of Christians who died to save the Jews from Nazism.

Barth strongly believed in Christian political action and felt pacifism, unchristian, in face of the horrors of Nazism, arguing that Christians who did not take action at this time, 'were not only sleeping on their Bibles but on their newspapers as well". He would later be associated with 'christian socialism' though argued against the forces that called themselves 'Communist' and those who called themselves 'anticommunist' considering both of those forces during the Cold War as intrinsically evil.

His watershed work was "Epistles to the Romans' and later his unfinished life time work "Dogmatics" continues to provide new insights for theologians and students alike.

In my own life I first heard of Karl Barth from Dr. Karl Ridd, my first theological teacher at University of Winnipeg, whose life and thought so touched my soul. He made me want to be a better man. I would later reflect that my Christian teachers like Dr. John White, Dr. Phillip Ney and Dr. Willie Gutowski would have this effect on me. Not only would I want to be a better student but I'd want to be a better man. The surgeon Dr. Ross whose teaching I was most thankful for and who I so admired would say 'it's in the way you hold the flesh that affects the healing' and I knew he was speaking not in technical terms but in the most human way where the sacred and secular connect.

At the time I followed my calling into medicine I'd been reading Albert Schweister, the Christian missionary doctor to African. I had also been studying the 8 fold path of Buddhism reflecting on it's insistence that individuals chose 'right action' in terms of career. I'd been a bar tender and thanks to my study of Buddhism at the time felt that this was not 'right action'. As Jesus was a healer being a doctor was a safer bet.

Later Dr. James Houston would discuss Barth with us in his Christian Spirituality courses at Regent College. Jim would agree and disagree with Barth but always admire the way Barth shone the light on some aspect of thought that brought us closer in our relationship with Jesus Christ.

Barth is certainly the theologian to be considered around the time of Easter, this cross roads of history and calendar.

Easter Sunday

"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed." Peter 2:24

I confess this is a stumbling block in my own understanding of Jesus. It speaks to the essence of my own suffering. For as I suffer so does God. Equally as I experience joy so does he. Jesus therefore has a truly invested interest in my getting it right. The 'suffering God' does not want my pain.

I find it easy to imagine a tourist God coming to earth in human form and checking out his creation from the inside. I find it equally easy to see him being unimpressed by the likes of us who set about killing holy men for sport. I can even grasp his holiness as he says 'love your enemy' and 'forgive them for they know not what they do.' In the 'play of creation' we're all just actors and actresses on the stage and will wake up in the 'green room' of afterlife and go over our various roles together with much laughter.

But that Christ was a sort of 'scapegoat god for himself'. My first thought is,that's "twisted pharisean shit" .. It speaks to the congregation wanting to have a priest or minister as a 'fall guy'. But in the deeper theological context of righting the error in creation, in keeping with the idea of Old Testament judgement of the Sodom and Gomorrah kind, one Good Man can save Society on the day of judgement. Whereas in the old testament there were none sufficient to step forward, so Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. All one could do was escape. Just like Noah in the Ark.

This time round however there was no escape but God made a new covenant with man through his Son's sacrifice. Anything goes. We all get to live. Jesus died for our sins.

Yet here today is Jesus, the innocent man. We are saved because there was one good man. This new world exists because of his sacrifice. Without him perhaps there would have been total annihilation and God might well have begun another 'science experiment' this time using bunny rabbits for his template rather than us rude chimpanzees.

But the key to all theology is in the Now. At this moment Jesus is dying for my sin. Jesus, the God within, is crying out in pain for me to come home. I am the prodigal son. I am asked to heed the 'wee small voice', to listen to my own 'conscience', and trust this 'helper' to know what is right or wrong and choose right.

Jesus died for my sin. And he resurrected. He also descended into Hell and I believe by that message we know that God's love extends everywhere so there is no 'eternal damnation' but only 'isolation from God for as long as we want'. As Milton said of the devil, he preferred to look at his own shadow rather than turn to the light and that which is loving in me believes that even the devil can be redeemed. All he needs to do is turn to the light. So similiarly I can choose to walk in the light or walk in the dark, be a child of day or a child of night.

Given the vast accumulation of sin since Jesus' death wouldn't God think it time to send another human sin sponge? Instead we eat consecrated bread and drink grape juice blood. It's a mystery that's for sure. Symbolic and metaphorical, paradoxical and divine.

Perhaps if I think that whenever I do wrong an innoscent man is being cruelly whipped and crucified, maybe I'll finally mend my ways. If I won't do what's good for me for myself and I won't listen to the advice of my elders, maybe I'll do what is right because any error I make is absorbed into the body of Christ. Makes me almost think I'll choke on the next wafer in church. I'll be the guy up by the altar gagging and spitting on my own sin come full circle. "This is my body shed for you." "Lest we forget," comes to mind.

On the other hand I might choose to think that it was only with all that sin that Jesus could catapult himself out of this life and into a better one. Maybe he should thank me for sinning because without my sin he'd not have resurrected. Be stuck here on the earth to grow an old man and feel real humiliation, the unattractive aging, stinking, sort of dying naturally. Equally so he could have saved himself a trip to earth if I'd not been mucking up and brought in the architectural God police to fix what went wrong with a perfectly good creation. Give those humans anything and they break it. Stop giving the kids toys!

Today is Easter Sunday. The day of celebration of the Ressurrected Christ. This is the "New World Order". The Gospell, or Good News. We are saved. Jesus said, "I am the way, and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."

There's a lot of diluted, bloodless, intellectual sanitized religion going around the tv talk shows these days. But Jesus is that "old time religion". "Give me that old time religion!" "Give me that old time religion!" Christianity speaks to the very heart of the matter. It's for the meek but not for the meek of heart. It is politically incorrect. Politically correct religion isn't Christianity.

We're born between piss and shit. As much as we like to deny it and as much as we want to keep our panties clean and our "Depends" tight the fact remains that life is bloody.

Christ is risen. Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

The Passion of The Christ

This is one of the greatest movies of all time with the realism deserving of the subject. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/

North Shore AA Round Up

The North Shore AA Round UP kicked off last night with speaker Tina H from Waukesha Wisconsin. The Hyatt Regency Hotel in Downtown Vancouver at Burrard and Georgia was packed with sober AA's and Al Anons. This Annual Event goes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday with some thousand or more people attending. Out of towners come early and stay at the hotel while locals come for all or part of the convention. There are books and tapes for sale, information booths, tourist events, and just for coffee meetings rooms. AA and Al anon meetings go on all day with local speakers sharing their 'experience, strength and hope' in recovery while out of town speakers like Tina are highlights of the conference. Each year a committee is formed to organize the next year's event. Committee members listen to countless speaker tapes selecting inspirational speakers who they feel 'carry the message' especially well.

Ti na's story was of alcoholism that began really early in a family of alcoholics with abuse and drugs and finally sex ,brawling and crime. At 14 Tina was in a coma from alcohol and thought not to live. She did. That was the turning point. She entered AA and joined all the 'old farts', "they wore flannel",she said in mock horror while I was dressed like Pat Bennatar with "4 inch heels, mini skirt and the tightest top I could find". "I didn't want to be there." The exciting part of Tina's story of Recovery was her service work for young people. She was part of the making of the video for young people for the increasing numbers of teens and 20 year olds who want out of their life of drugs and alcohol. It has been a real inspiration and fun for all those involved in the production and distribution. Claiming to be 25 years sober she doesn't look a day over 20 and is vivacious, refreshing and entertaining with a message that had everyone standing and all hands clapping when she finished.

The other highlight speakers are Theo F. from Calgary, Saturday night at 8, Kay L. from Los Angeles, Sunday 10 am, and Deb H. from Pioneertown California 12 noon Sunday.

Last night after the speaker and Serenity Prayer the carpets were rolled up and the dancing began. Upstairs the DJ Dance and Lightshow while downstairs the live Band, Promises, played anything from blues rock to straight rock with even a touch of country. Richard, over 6 feet tall with white hair and dark glasses reminded me of a Rock n Roll version of the Blues Brothers, supercool were it not for his great sense of humor. His harsh rangy world voice coupled with the beauty of the female singer whose name I missed in all the feet stomping and applause.

North Shore AA and Al Anon Round Up is a highlight event of the year for glamor and glitz. The girls just seem to go city sensational while the guys clean up surprisingly nice for a bunch of recovered drunks. All year round townships and towns hold AA one day, weekend, and camp out conventions and round ups. The North Shore AA Round Up just seems to start the whole process. Abbotsford comes up soon. Yaletown throws a fine party. Salt Spring Island, Kamloops, Chilliwack, Alkali Lake and Squamish are just a few of the favourites. Vancouver Island has their own and while locals flock to these real celebrations of the gifts of the recovery, there are tourists that make a point of coming to these all over the world.

The big AA Convention which happens every 5 years is going on this summer in San Antonnio Texas. Tens of thousands show up and wherever they're held it seems over and over again the city councils and police thank the AA people for being the most courteous with least problems, less than Shriners even, one city council man said, Who would have guessed with a group of drunks. People whose alcohol and drugs took them to jails and institutions, thanks to AA find their way back to a life that is 'joyous and free' with friends, community and purpose. The rounds up bring people together and 'by golly jeez' that person you met a decadeback who was carrying knives and stealing coffee and looked liked they'd not last a day more out of jail and would never stay sober is now happy, employed telling you about their travels overseas for vacation, and there with them is someone who loves them when years ago they'd have sworn no one could. Beside them is the famous movie star and sure enough a priest, a doctor, a lawyer and given the anonymity no one would know were it not for their sharing . It's the Miracle of the Recovery. A joy to see and be a part of.

And every year it's the same old joke, "imagine all of us here drunk and stoned and what a mess that would be." The girls laugh and the guys remember fights and everyone thinks of vomit and piss. Without the booze or drugs, everyone is having a good time. Without the cleavage, tattoos and leathers maybe with a stretch of the imagination you could think of a church convention. There's that much spirituality. However, AA is not a religious organization. "Religion is for people who don't want to go to hell while spirituality is for people who don't want to go back" is just one of the many sayings that members use. Like "keep coming back, it works if you work it."

North Shore AA Round Up surely works and the evidence of the success of AA is in the thousands of restored and happy lives.

Good Friday

Good Friday is the day that Jesus was crucified. This is the day of Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of Christ. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/. This is a national holiday in Canada. http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/canada/good-friday Hot Cross buns are a popular Canadian Easter food celebrating the crucifixion. In Christianity the two most key elements of the faith are first that Jesus was born, ie God became man, which is what the Christmas or Christ Mass celebration is about, and second that Jesus, as man died on the cross. The final 'trilogy' of the Trinitarian religion of Christianity is that Christ Resurrected. It is common parlance in Mass to say, "Christ was born. Christ died. Christ will come again." This is the central subatomic Christian understanding of Creation as imminently and eminently playing and replaying the cycle of birth death and resurrection. Like the cycle of the Sun or stars through birth and death and the resurrection of a new day. The Gospel or Good Word taught that this was true for man and has shown us this in the life and death and resurrection of Christ. God was born man, died and was resurrected to return to God and we God's children, the adopted ones, 'brothers and sisters' of Jesus can have faith that we too have come from God and will with death return to God because life as we know it (St Paul said, " now we see through a glass darkly") is such a minuscule 'take' on reality which is so much more than we 'can ask or imagine'.

That said, the actual story of Jesus' death is a profound commentary on individual life and community. Each person in the Christian faith is asked to see themselves not just as the 'heroic' Jesus but also as Judas and Peter and Mary and Caiaphas. A profoundly moving Christian spiritual is "Were you there when they crucified my Lord….Sometimes I wonder."

Developmentally the child is central in their life and so often with their personal wishes thwarted by externals such as parents or gravity or the neighbour's kid feels themselves the outside,the genius Jesus, misunderstood, the good guy, coming into Jerusalem with all the friends real and imaginary, the fool of the Tarot deck, the carefree young man, the donkey rider. Then the bad world bites our ass and we are Jesus the Crucified , full of self pity and revenge, confused , angry and ultimately with no where to turn making a virtue of necessity, taking the high road, saying "forgive them for they know not what they do." (the bastards).

Identification with the aggressor means literally that since you can't beat them you join them even when they are ultimately against you. So here's Jesus, son of God, the 'chosen', the 'annointed' and while Buddha has had countless babes and Mohamed has had harems and Abraham has had wives, Jesus has had a monogamous probably celebate relationship with his friend Mary and a pseudo homosexual adolescent boys hanging out time with the bozo disciples who can't understand what he's saying because it's that original. Not nearly as exciting a life as a Roman Emperor. Certainly not Caligula by any means. Rather suburban and tame. An ordinary man except for the odd miracle here and there.

We get it but they don't get it. It is is this new news. It is that new. Like disco when everyone danced it like Elaine danced on Seinfeld till one day we could actually look like Travolta. Like hola hooping and computers. What Jesus taught was that new. Since then we've had 2000 years of Christian thinking, Bahai, mystics, eastern religions, C.S. Lewis, Popes galore, televangelists and Kennedy. We've even survived Bush and Clinton and Diefenbaker, Chretien, Mulroney and Harper. We're surrounded by Christians. The Passion is about the day the disciples got it. It's the day when this world, the physical reality, the concrete of Piagian pre abstract children, the money men of swords and missile wars, took a backward step as the day stood still and time changed. All creation in fact was altered as all creation is altered by every birth and death in the unfolding story of God.

The servant king washing the feet of his disciples the night before becomes the human sacrifice of the day and it appears this Friday that the High Court of the land, the Sanhedrin, the laws of men, the up tight House of Shammai, the might of the Roman Empire will reign. It's Darwin, and genetics and 'survival of the fittess' the rulers like Roman Pontius Pilate and his appointed lacky dog Annas , its old money families, the G8 and G to infinities of earthly power, they rule this day. They win the first round. They must have had a great drunken party after to, a little orgy of delight, chopped off a head of a forgotten St. John sort just for the sake of it, slept with little boys and girls, a good crucifixition. That's the day Christ died. There was surely celebration in the high earthly places well below the realms of heaven.

And we're asked to see ourselves as Pontius Pilate in the drama, as Mary, as Peter, as Judas Iscariot, as Caiaphas and Annas, even one of the outcast of the Hillel family of the day, ascendant today, probably as much thanks to Jesus's sacrifice and proof as any intrinsic philosophical discussion. We are asked to see ourselves as those who bind and those who loose. We are both the killer and the killed, the predator and the prey. It is on Good Friday that duality is lost in grief. In the Trinity we become One. The great drama of Jesus with the Three crosses and all the hints of mystery are unfolding today in millions of churches around the world as some billion or more Christians consider crucifixion, the crossroads of time, the day the world as we know it today began.

The charge against Jesus is "BLASPHEMY" . This is the charge of "IRREVERENCE". "You didn't take the earthly authorities seriously." You're an adolescent. You don't respect your parents. You don't kow tow to the police. You don't obey the law. You're a trouble maker. Brush your teeth. Do as you're told. Wear three piece suits. Your skirt is too short. We all are right and you're wrong. Obey. Obey. Don't question authority. Don't rock the boat. You've been questioning our teachings. You're hurting us where the money is. You're made fun of us in debate. You've called us hypocrites. Laws are made by us for you and we are above the law. We can have sex with whoever we please on company time. We can steal and do our own work on company pay. We can profit from wars we create. We can lie and falsely accuse . We can scream rape when we are ignored. We can deny, deny, deny. We can have sex with children. We can kill women and children. We can be racist, sexist and re write history because we are the winners. We can do whatever we please because we have power and you must respect our power or we'll kill you. And if you stir up trouble others might follow you and we'd better nip this in the bud because we've got a good thing going with the Romans. We're the capos of Auschitz. We're the 'appointed' Jews. You say you're a Jew but just because you were born of the line of kings we bow to the real emperor. The real emperor is in Rome. As Marx said, Our God is money. Whoever has the most money can buy us and we'll enjoy the droppings of his table. We like lording it over those who aren't "appointed'. We're the primal 'beaurocrats' . We're the "lawyers". We're the 'government'. We don't work for the people. We say we do and we really do worry about them but we're serving the Romans. We're serving whoever has the money and you're messing with the way things are. We fought hard to get to this gravy train. We're Ottawa and Washington, Paris and London, Moscow and Beijing, Tokyo, Berlin, and New Delhi. We are Jerusalem but mostly we are Rome.

And Jesus says he's not of this world. He says that there's this other world, the spiritual world, and that he's not interested in messing with the physical world. Indeed asked about a coin he says whose face is on it. Answered, Caesar. He says "give unto Caesar what is Caesars". The concrete unidimensional world is not the real world. Jesus was tried for Blasphemy. The English word for blame comes from the same root. And you can't 'blame' the government. The government is 'divinely inspired'. Only this century the pope was claiming that he was always right. So there's Jesus in the principal's office and he's being told by the Sheriff that the Mob isn't happy and the Hell's Angels are going to do their thing to him. This is the World Court. This is Geneva. This is the United Nations. These people are by world terms of the day Nanaimo or Brandon or Moose Jaw. Jerusalem isn't Cairo even. It's not Athens. It's the ultimate backwater boonies. These guys who are trying Jesus are as far out in the boon docks from the centre of the known universe as Saskatchewan is from anywhere. Their self importance is astonishing. Yet they've got an invading army in their hick town. This is the appointed powers in Iraq and the Americans are telling the local leaders to shut up that loud mouth Jesus because he could get more Canadian and British soldiers killed with his talk of another Kingdom. He's today's moderate Taliban if anything good could ever come out of Jerusalem.

And Jesus doesn't get a 'Dream Team" of lawyers to defend him. After he's dead he's supposed to be our lawyer in heaven which given his experience with lawyers on earth is a rather odd part of the story. He's a healer and a teacher but later he's an advocate. It's a mystery. God the father is a loose cannon in the minds of men but in his mind there's sanity and he makes the suffering and laws and all that is creation so Jesus is supposed to be a go between. He's like Krishna in this regard. He's the happy face of God after he dies. He's a Ganesh sort. He's the Christian "apologia'. God the father kicked man out of eden and Jesus argues that we should be allowed back in the Garden. The Shack by William Young really makes one think about this stuff in a new way and a very good way. http://theshackbook.com/

But that's getting a way ahead of the story. Friday is a very intense day in the life of Jesus. It's not TGIF. First the lower courts and then the supreme court with no civil rights and jailers that later become Rodney King's police. These are the prototypes of Nazi's and the worst of the Homeland Security sorts. We recently saw their pictures when they stripped all the moslem prisoners naked and piled them up. The American girl soldier whose picture we saw all over the world humiliating Iraqui prisoners was one of the people who spit on Jesus and gave him a crown of shorns, acupuncture torture by any stretch of the imagination. Just the sort of thing to shrink the big head of an arrogant manic psycho.

One of the guards was General Patton beating the mentally ill man. Another was the guy who flogged the dying horse in Doystoevsky's novel. Doystoevsky's Brothers Karamasov is really about the Passion as is so much great literature. The Bible is great literature. It's DVD and internet and musicals and dance and vaudeville all rolled in one.

But Good Friday this man who may well have been trying to explain that he came from another planet, "I'm not of this world", was killed as humans kill strangers or have sex with them like Sodom and Gomorrah. We're really perverted killing cowards if we look deep into ourselves and admit to our humanity. Of course the paranoid position is that I'm a good guy and everyone else is bad, or worse, I'm a good girl and everyone else is bad. Poor me.

And the fear of the Sanhedrin and the Roman Empire is shown in the killing of Jesus. His death was like the death of Sadam Hussein. His death was why a lot of folk don't want the State to have the power of 'execution' because despite what the State and Pope and Emperors and Presidents and Prime Ministers and especially Judges, and most especially Supreme Court Judges say about their "infallibility", there's the other side who think they've made a few mistakes in their day with nooses, guillotine, fire squads and crosses. But if there's one thing that's truly human it's that we're 'slow learners'.

And the Passion asks us to see ourselves as each of these people in this glorious play of heaven and earth and all that is. Carl Jung wrote about the Archetypes and took his collection from the European collection that's similar to the Tarot, the Greek and Roman images of different types of inner self in that European play and Mediteranean play that seems to progress in community and in individual lives.

But the Archetypes of Christianity are found in the actors and actresses of the Passion. They're also found in the psyche of Jesus through the Stations of the Cross. The via dolorosa. They're the journey. They're about suffering after triumphance. They're really about aging. The young man comes of age. He ages and dies in a day. One day at a time. In this last day of life he transforms.

Pontius Pilate, was the prefect of Rome, likely banished by Caligula to the armpit of the universe of the day Israel. His father was said to be an Ambassador to the Caledonians. What a poor lot for a military family, father stuck with Celts and son stuck with Jews. Now there's as much suffering as hemorrhoids by any genetic account. Bad karma. However Pontius Pilate and his family are truly one of the "historical facts" of the Bible cross referenced in Roman annals.

Pilate's primary function was military. To get a comparison of what he was doing at the time, one only has to look at the Canadian military leader in Afghanistan. A recent CBC scandal has the Canadian military giving their prisoners to the Afghanistanians who like the Sanhedrin torture and kill them making the Canadians accomplices. That's the way one Gospel portrays Pontius Pilate and certainly the way the Canadians are trying to get out of their responsibility for maryring the Taliban Jesus types. We don't know if any of the Taliban are like Jesus. They're probably more like Barabbas the criminal who is said to have been chosen by the Jewish people over Jesus when Pontius Pilate is said to have Los Vegas' the crucifixion process giving the sporting sort a chance to bet on who would die, the academic cleric doctor teacher sort or the theiving warrior sociopathic criminal sort. Of course the crowds chose the popular man and there is the great flaw in democracy which of course the Emperors of this world love to manipulate. Beware of stupid people in crowds.

And I walked the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. I was a pilgrim to this Holy City. I walked across the fresh bloody streets where Jews had been killed by Palestinians and the world of the Gospel was daily fresh. I worshiped in the Holy Sepulchre at Golgotha. I received mass there from a Catholic priest with a small circle of devout. I cry now to think of that time. On my knees I prayed to be a better person than I am. It is so easy to see myself as Pontius Pilate, Peter, Judas, Caiaphas, the soldiers or even the poor guy who was forced to carry Jesus' cross when he fell on the Via Dolorosa. But it's hard to even think of myself as the thief who repented on the cross. And it's even harder to think of my self as Jesus. It's much easier to see myself as Seinfeld or one of the Friends.

Jesus Christ means God within and God will come again. We are made in the Image of God. The world Creatures of Creation are all made of the Creator. The Imagination of God. We are God stuff. We are the 'star dust' of Joni Mitchell's song Woodstock. We are divine shit if we are shit at all. And What Would Jesus Do or Say is not likely what I would do or say. When I was younger I thought more highly ofmy actions and words. Even Churchill has to look back on Gallipoli. Gandhi's moment of greatness begat the massacres of Moslems and Hindus. If you don't get wiser with age you stay an idiot. Thankfully when Churchill was challenged for changing his opinion he responded by saying that he had the intelligence to learn in comparison to his detractor who appeared to lack that capacity. Because in learning we must forsake our certainty. The greatest leaders have always been the greatest followers. Those who the most learned are also the ones who were able to take the most correction because as the Glass Bead Game of Herman Hesse teacher life is a series of letting go of old ideas, shedding snake skin after snake skin.
This is a day of reflection. This is a day of dying. This is the day when the aged are the most regarded in the Christian calendar because in the life of Jesus this was when he was an old man, a very old man, moments from his death. This was the time when we'd be known most by last words. This was the day when the tomb inscriptions were being made. This is our last day.

As Christians this is the day we may choose or choose not to believe. As one pastor said, "Either Jesus was everything or nothing." There is no in between.

This is the day when the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Iman, the Swami, the Pope and all the leaders of the governments, the Kings and Queens and Obama and Bush and Harper and Chretien and Tony Blair and whoever is in charge in England today and all those European leaders with their sexy mistresses and plush bank accounts of Eurodollars and the Donald Trumps and Oprahs and Jenifer Anistons, Nicholas Cages, and Paul McCartney and Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan and Madonna and Sting and all the other leaders of world either Crucified the King or stood by and did nothing. This is the day that Spock came to earth and Captain Kirk didn't greet him but killed him and probably would have eaten him if they didn't have a good crop year then. Sun baked long pig right off the cross.

This is the day that we should wear electric chairs around our necks on gold chains and celebrate the death penalty. This is the day that we know if we live another day we're human and not God. This is the day we consider our mortality. This is the day of immortality.

This is the day that time stood still. This is Good Friday. God's Friday.

And if I was in charge and you treated my son, or even my cat, or one of my tribe like you treated Jesus, like I treated Jesus, then I'd get a 'rocket launcher" like the one Bruce Coburn wanted in his song. And I 'd build a space highway through this part of the earth and wipe out the planet like the Adams' Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy solution for earth.

We're human. We're Gods' that shit. Our minds and our imagination are immortal while our body, the one's we abuse and forget, the brother asses of Saint Francis, are mortal and limited. Maybe this is just a kindergarden where we learn to control our tempers and possibly do as Jesus taught us, Love God and Love our neighbor as ourselves. Maybe Love will trump fear. Or maybe I should get another RRSP, invest in safer stock, buy a gun and lock my door. Maybe I can whack my neighbor and steal his stash. Better still I can get into government or own a bank or rule a country and fix the cash system. I can cheat and steal and call it "business' and I can kill in the "lord's name" too. Hell, I can kill and call it "love" like the Peacemaker Missiles. The mind of man is a ghetto and probably no one should go there alone. Least of all Michael Jackson. We all need adult supervision and the children are rarely safe.

Maybe today I'll get together with other people and consider the cross. Maybe I'll ask myself through out the day who do I remind myself of in the Passion Play. Am I being like Anas or Judas or Jesus. Do I poison with a kiss?

Do I believe? Is love real or is love false? Do I have hope? Do I have faith? This is Good Friday. Anything is possible. But it's a bleak and rainy day outside. Best to walk softly. Good Friday has also been called Sombre Friday. It's not a superficial day. It's a deep day.