Kingdom

I offer this message with love. To hear it, please, just for a few moments, let go of all you think you are, and follow this breath down into your chest - a brief and effortless journey to the listening heart.

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world... for I have overcome the world." And he said, "The kingdom of heaven is within you."

More than ever today, we need to hear Christ's secret of sanity, for all of us have reached a mental health crisis, our minds overwhelmed with images of world-sorrow - in no small part due to the media. But you are not this world sorrow. Anger and angst are passing clouds. You are the Sun.

The world is the flux of opposites, sparkling in a gown of tears, whirling in a golden robe of laughter. And those opposites are ever-balanced and paired, in grief and hope, pain and joy, darkness and light.

But the nature of the world is not your nature. The world has its own nature, and you cannot change it. Not even Jesus could change it. He simply lived the Way. And that is all you can do, which is enough.

If you postpone your celebration of Life until all conflicts resolve, and the 'right' side triumphs over the 'wrong,' you will ever remain frozen in bitterness. For the judgment day, the end of time, is never in the future. It is always now.

This world-sorrow arises and dissolve like mist. But it is not you. Your kingdom is not of this world.

Yet when you live in the world, not of the world, you uplift the world. That is the secret Jesus whispers to your heart. To embrace this humbling, devastating, liberating truth, not only lightens your burden, but radiates that lightness around you.

On the other hand, if images of suffering and conflict drown your mind, that is your choice. But you must know that to carry such heaviness will not empower you to lift others. Rather, it will make you part of the burden.

You are free to invest your energy and attention wherever you like, and where you invest it, that is what grows in your life. Jesus said, "Where your treasure is, there shall your heart be also."

Here is a koan to practice. "Do I choose to swallow the toxic images that the world feeds me? Or do I allow the stream of my own life to nourish me from within?

Honor your life-stream. Flow with it in truth, gratitude, compassion, and beauty. Attain, as much as possible, a courageous measure of self-sufficiency. You are not called to carry the millstone of all humanity, but to be the wheel of your own destiny, rolling out of your own center.

This is not selfishness, but response-ability. Who do you think you are to believe that you can save multitudes? At best, you can be an example, and a quiet spring of strength for the few whom nature sends to walk beside you, ever so briefly, on your labyrinth way.

Now take off your shoes. Get mud between your toes. Dance for no reason.