Deep Value And Truth From An Odd Source

I have never posted a link to another article before. I am doing it now because this deserves it. I read this and think, with tears at the back of my eyes, "What have I actually accomplished?" Then I realize it's not too late.

We have a world to build, lets actually do it.

http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-harsh-truths-that-will-make-you-better-person/

The Difficult Power Of Love

Here is a special treat. A guest post by my brother Wayland. He is a co-founder of The Charis Project, an officer in the United States Marine Corps, and one of the more spiritually aware people I know. A heads up: he prefers to work in shocking and uncomfortable imagery.

I spend a lot of time working through the choices thrust upon me be the sex and violence of day to day existence. Things like, what do I do now that I know the reason I don't see my students anymore is because they got sold to people who gang raped them? How do I keep the other kids I try to protect from having the same thing happen to them? Or, and this is much more banal, how do I keep the people I'm in charge of from doing something really stupid like marrying the stripper they met this weekend? Or how do I deal with my friend having killed himself after coming back from war? Or how come after doing everything I possibly can for this girl, in the most uncreepy, honest, and open way I could, it still seems like I have to use an ice pick to chisel my way through bitch mountain to get through to her?

We all face hardship and suffering, and for those of you who wish to change the world, you know who you are, the biggest sources of suffering come from the dissonance between the way things should be, which is obviously not the way things are, and the way things actually are. (Just admit it. Sh..y.) Now just try and follow the same path of self sacrifice and selfless giving up of yourself to change this and see how long it takes to, either end up drinking every night and generally feeling depressed, or, and I would argue that in this economy with gas prices the way they are this is the worse choice, becoming super conservative religious and trying to shut out all that pain with yet more small groups, even more volunteering and yet ever more advice from spiritual teachers. Not that there is anything wrong with any of this IN IT'S PROPER CONTEXT. That goes for the drinking every night also by the way. But the reason I, we, engage in these types of self destructive behavior is because we have taken our sacrifice and the love behind it and bent it out of it's proper context. Actually we have taken ourselves out of the proper context because we have fallen into the all too easy and most banally evil path of defining ourselves in opposition to what we oppose and in so doing become less than what we are.

When you really care about something, it gets really easy to define yourself in terms of opposing what is bad for it.

On a scale of twisted to perfect, that leaves us twisted, just like everything else that's wrong, including Lucifer, but I'll get to that at a later and undisclosed point. And don't think for a minute I'm about to say something about just embracing universal love and there is good in all. Find out about the girls you spent your time and effort looking after getting gang raped and see how long it takes for you to come up with new and exciting ways to dismember someone unto death and be absolutely right to feel that way.

I'm actually going to take this in a whole other direction. I'm really more interested in penetrating to the guts of the problem, and splitting it wide open to the point that it turns inside out and becomes something new. In doing so, I had to go looking for inspiration. I still find it strange that such would come from my work, which is really a lot more boring than people give it credit for. There is this concept we have called maneuver warfare, by which we seek not to kill off the enemy, but to destroy the enemy's system in key ways that cause him to collapse with as little real destruction as possible. It turns out God does the same thing.

Which means I'm about to go off in yet another direction. Those of you who know or, better yet, are mothers know what real selfless sacrifice actually is. Consider that God describes himself as a mother. He also calls himself love. Now, that word has been corrupted in the modern context to mean something more along the lines of, I love you, but…

I love you but you need to be more open.
I love you but you need to not not push me away.
I love you, but change or I can't do this anymore.

WEAK.

Or, "I care about poverty/love poor people, but we will always have the poor." Read: "I can't deal with this right now".

(What does that even mean? )

In other words the modern context of love has become hugely self centered and ends up leading us into defining ourselves and what we care about in opposition to what we don't like. Mothers, or at least good ones, know better. I'm not, nor will ever be one, but I am aware enough to see that waking up at all hours of the night to let a screaming, completely self centered little mammal literally suck nutrients out of you demands something else to be going on. Something very unselfish and rather embracing of the way things actually are and addressing them as they are, i.e. a screaming little mammal that needs to be fed.

Now, tying this back to maneuver warfare, I'm going to have to make an all too tantalizing jump into the mystical world of ideas. Ideas like, love is actually more than an emotion (it is that too, and that's totally fine) it's a choice you make. In fact it's one of those choices you make when confronted with the sex and violence of everyday existence.

This means I'm going to have to get to the point, which is that there is nothing wrong with pouring yourself out in self sacrifice for what, and who, you care about. And to make sure you don't end up being selfish about it you destroy the system that leads to that outcome. I have found the fastest way to totally overcome it all is to decide to be a slut about it. Love everything. The brokeness, the twistedness, the retrograde behavior. Try turning it on yourself if you want to get real kinky. Forgive and love everything about yourself. I know this feels strange at first, but we have to learn to take care of ourselves, you know. This works because love isn't a two way exchange between something or someone you are trying to get something from. It is a one way transformative (read redemptive) force that changes the twisted, broken things to what they, we, were meant to be. Destroy the system by embracing it and thus causing it to adapt to you, to the light that lives in you.

What better way to damage an agenda of damage than by applying a transformative and redemptive force to it. Instead of pushing away that which we are revolted by, and thus bringing it's existence into more clear relief, why don't we get right up next to it, assume that everything we hear about us being bigger, better, and more powerful is true and thus compel the that which is weaker to adapt to that which is stronger. It's a law of biology that the larger organism absorbs the smaller. It seems to work in all of life as well.

This makes dealing with your former students, if you can ever find them again, a lot easier because you can love their brokenness, and thus have any hope of changing it. You can love your friend who killed himself and leave it at that. You can love the people you are in charge of, and for that matter who are in charge of you, do your job and leave it at that. And you can love the passivity and sadness of the girl making you use an ice pick to chisel you way closer to her, which has a dramatic effect on determining how committed you are and how much you really care and actually produces positive changes. At least that is how it all works for me.

As for Lucifer? God loves him.......                                               

Another Position To Consider

Normally on this blog I spend my words thinking about how amazing God is and how wonderful our place in this world is, about the hard work of bringing redemption to this broken world in the blood, sweat, and tears of living a fully Christlike life among the people we interact with and the decisions we make, about the responsibility each of us has to obey the commands of the Spirit of the Living God.

Recently my wife and I have made the proposition that politics is not the primary venue for the advancement of the Kingdom of God (here, here, here, and here). But rather that Christians ought to guide their political actions by the ultimate goal of the redemption of each person. That is, aim for redemption rather than winning the argument.

Though neither I nor my wife has ever claimed to speak for God, rather we muse and explore what deeply following God means, both of us would hate to lead people astray.

A gentleman named Geoff recently proposed that we might be mistaken. I have posted below his unedited comment.

I put it to you to discern by the direction of the Spirit. The responsibility lies now with you the reader. You must make your own decision before God. If the proposition Carrien and I have made is false and misleading, I pray God will save you from our folly.

It should be noted that abortion is not what our comments have been about, though we have used the issue as an example. Though this alternative view is important, you should bear in mind that we have been discussing a Christian approach to political discourse and action and not abortion as a topic in particular.

(As the text is unedited, please read "Carrien and Aaron" where he says "Carrien" as he posted this comment to both of our blog postings.)
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Carrien,

My wife is a big fan of your blog. She was so outraged by this she asked me to read this. I'm not one to comment on blogs, but I feel you have strayed so far from God's word I had to speak up. Up until now, we've loved most of what you've written, but I'm really disappointed because the Bible says, 'Woe to them who call evil good and good evil'. I feel your logic is going down that path. Even the tone in your post betrays you- as Brenda and others have pointed out.

As one who sets yourself up to promulgate truth from God's word, you are unaware/misinformed of what God has already told us in the Bible about the role of government. Secondly, I feel you are ignorant of history, and at a time like this, no one can afford to be ignorant of history for it repeats itself.

Here's an excerpt from a blog I wrote, "Who would Jesus vote for?" I think that is the only way to look at this issue from God's vantage point.

If He were here, who’d he vote for? I mean really can we know? We have seen so much corruption in politics that we might conclude that Jesus would give up on the whole process. I know that it is so tough to think through all the issues, we have the economy, poverty, and on and on it goes. Who is really telling the truth? Can we even know with a biased media what is best for the country? Is there any definitive way to see through all this mess? I think so. As a matter of fact, I think there is one issue that cuts through all the fog, and I can say with authority represents what Jesus would most care about most, and therefore who He would vote for.

First of all, the economy wouldn’t be a driving force of whom he would vote for. Jesus had a lot to say about money, and if He were here today, He would instruct us on seeking first the kingdom, not on what is better for the American economy.

I don’t think war would be a driving force either. Jesus
wasn’t a pacifist, when he spoke with the Roman soldiers He didn’t tell them to quit the army; He told them to be good soldiers. God has been behind wars throughout the Bible, so there is such a thing as a just war, its just hard to figure out what that is.

Maybe its poverty? Jesus had a lot to say about helping the poor. But upon a careful study of the scripture He wouldn’t ask the government to take care of the poor. They can’t for the simple fact that the government can’t solve the problem of poverty. The government is missing something crucial: accountability. Just handing people money does not help them it cripples them. Jesus
would tell us that we are our brother's keeper and every Christian should be involved in helping the poor. (Sadly, the church dropped the ball on this and the government has tried to become the savior of the people). Christians this is our doing!!!

According to the Bible, God has given the government the role of carrying out justice and protecting the weak and defenseless. Genesis 9 spells it out. First, the setting; the wickedness of man was so great that God had to destroy the entire human race except for one. That’s why the flood came. Man demonstrated that he could not govern himself. So God appointed human government, because He realized the propensity of man is to exploit the weak and defenseless. This world is tilted toward the rich and the powerful. So, God said that human life was to be
guarded at all costs, especially those who can't defend themselves. By doing this He demonstrated that life has inestimable worth. Every human life reflects part of who God is. Everyone matters to God, no matter what society says.
Genesis 9:1-6“And I will require the blood of anyone who takes another person’s life. If a wild animal kills a person, it must die. And anyone who murders a fellow human must die. 6 If anyone takes a human life, that person’s life will also be taken by 
human hands. For God made human beings in his own image.”

Government’s sole role is to protect and value human life, if they didn’t everything would slip into anarchy because the strong would kill off the weak. By valuing human life as its first priority, government carries out its God-given role, and people are able to live in relative prosperity.
This is because when a society values defenseless life above everything else (money, convenience, status, expediency, etc.) they are following God's value system, which is for people to prosper and enjoy freedom. People prosper in a just society where the stronger are not able to tread on the weaker just because they can.

In Moses' day Molech was a popular god. If parents were 'down on their luck' or hit by difficult financial circumstances they would offer one of their children to this god in hopes that their luck would change and this offering would get them out of their bad situation. Through appeasement this god (through baby sacrifice and sexually immoral rituals) would deliver one from bad 
circumstances.
The statue of Molech was a furnace. It was heated to the point where the outstretched arms glowed red-hot. Then the baby was thrown onto the arms where it was burned alive. Listen to 
how seriously God says to deal with those who worship the god of sex and ease.

Levitcus 20:2b-5 “If any of them offer their children as a sacrifice to Molech, they must be put to death. The people of the community must stone them to death. 3 I myself will turn against them and cut them off from the community, because they have defiled my sanctuary and brought shame on my holy name
by offering their children to Molech. 4 And if the people of the community ignore those who offer their children to Molech and refuse to execute them, 5 I myself will turn against them and their families and will cut them off from the community. This will happen to all who commit spiritual prostitution by worshiping Molech.”

Even though we are not under the Mosiac law, recognize two things: 1) God takes killing of babies very seriously. 2)Those who 
witness this and do nothing, God is going to come after them!
For this election, abortion is Jesus’ biggest concern. Please don't obfuscate the issue with lesser things. Anyone who votes for someone who does not protect the unborn child is sharing in their guilt. America has executed over 55 million of her children. Who is going to give an account for that? Not just the mother or the father, not just the Supreme Court justices, and not just the presidents who appointed them, but also those people who elected the presidents who appointed the justices.

We are our brothers’ keeper! I think Jesus would say that anyone who has such little regard for human life is incapable to lead a nation toward peace and prosperity. Someone who believes it is the mother’s right to kill her child, demonstrates that above all he does not value life, but will make decisions governed 
by selfishness and expediency, not what matters most to God; human life. I believe we have a modern day god of sex and convenience; no longer is his name Molech but “Pro Choice [1]”.

[1] The Bible states life begins at conception. It also makes clear that “the life is in the blood.” God considers an unborn baby fully human. (A baby has rudimentary blood vessels by the 2nd to 3rd week).

So to claim that neither president is going to do anything about abortion is missing the point entirely. Proverbs makes is clear that "godliness exalts a nation and sin is a reproach to any people."
What this means is that if leaders of a country have God's values, they will bring prosperity; if they don't, the country will deteriorate. Why, one simple fact, God has wired the universe in such a way that if we honor him, and his laws of the universe, justice, prosperity and good fortune will generally follow. America is a great case for this, the most blessed nation in the history of the world. Why? Because this government was set upon the Judea-Christian value system. Obviously it wasn't perfect, as no government will be perfect until Jesus rules.

A leader who defends the defenseless demonstrates that He has God's value system. His judgments will be based on this value system, not on what is expedient or because he will get kick-backs. To care for little people who can't return the favor demonstrates godliness. He will treat all fairly. He will truly be a knight in shining armor for the people.

He will uphold God's laws of cause and effect. You have sex before marriage, you'll likely be a mom/or dad-and dads you can't dodge responsibility, you must father that child-not leave your girlfriend holding the bag (essentially that is what abortion does-it is sexist and destroys women). You don't work, you don't eat. You work hard you are rewarded. He will recognize that as a government official his role is to carry out justice (God's value system). He will recognize the church and respect it, not try to replace it. He will know that government's role is limited and won't overstep his bounds, but allow the church to flourish and encourage them to take care of the poor, and teach them a work ethic, etc. With lower taxes the Christians can more easily help the poor. 
When we vote for a president who supports partial birth abortion and has voted 3 times for infanticide, this is means that we as a nation have left God's value system of defending the weak and defenseless. It means that we now have a leader who will not do the right thing, but do whatever is expedient, so long as he can get away with it. What it means is that his value system will from the top down will lead this country to a place where 'everyone does what is right in their own eyes" if they can get away from it. It means that lies and deception will be the rule of the day. Citizens will no longer govern themselves, but will do whatever if they can get away with. Not to mention, Obama will probably appoint at least four supreme court justices. What value system will he use when he picks them? That is why this matters!!!

Secondly, history repeats itself.

You mention, "How about we step back and stop playing the game, and do the real work of the kingdom instead?" Carien, you commit a logical fallacy here. You cannot separate life that easily. That may work for you in a nice cozy lifestyle here in America, but that is not real life. Travel a bit, go around the world to countries where government is rife with corruption. That argument only works for Americans. Tell that to the Jews in the Holocaust. I would urge you and others on this site to watch the Netflix documentary on Bonhoeffer.

Here was a man who began his life as a pacifist, he was all about advancing the kingdom of God and didn't want to get involved with politics. But he soon realized that was an ignorant position, he very wisely realized that evil triumphs when good men do nothing. He could not sit by (however, the majority of Christians in Germany did) and watch the defenseless be executed.

As one of his few compatriots said, "First they came for the socialists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

God expects us to be salt and light in this dark world. He expects us to stick our neck out there and speak up and stand against evil. He also expects us to take care of the widows and orphans. Please study history and you will see how dictators rose to power because good men did nothing. History repeats itself.

Carien, with all due respect, what makes this really difficult is that I'm not really into blog reading and comments, but I had to speak up because your ignorance of God's word in this issue is really leading people astray. Jesus' harshest words were reserved for us religious leaders who led people astray. You have set yourself up as espousing God's vantage point. At at a time like this you need to be very sure you are speaking accurately on behalf of God.

In sum, God warns us that they day will be coming when the prophets call good evil and evil good. The only way you will not fall into that trap is know God's word. If you are going to espouse your political views, please make a distinction between your opinion and what God says. In all sincerity, if you are going to speak on behalf of him, make sure you know what He has already told you in his word.

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What say you?

My Wife Just Keeps Hitting It Out Of The Park

This is so good I couldn't resist pulling it right out of the comments section on Carrien's blog (with her permission of course.) The expected response to that last post came in, "But voting and involvement is REALLY IMPORTANT!" Carrien has done an outstanding job of responding.

I didn't say that votes don't matter, and I didn't say to not vote with your conscience and to do your best in this arena. I didn't say you should give up. I didn't even say to not feel frustrated and sad when evil is called good. I didn't say to not speak your mind and stand for what you believe. I didn't say that you should apologize for it. I didn't even say that I disagree with your politics, because largely, I don't.

I just think you maybe frustrated because you are focusing all that fight and passion in the wrong arena.

I am trying to say that when the voting is over and that part is done, remember that our battle is not against flesh and blood.

I'm after total redemption. That's my job, and yours. Laws have a role to play in that. But they are hardly the primary means by which we seek redemption. If evil is to be overcome, it's not by legislation. It's by you and I and everyone else being the presence of God here, to the best of our ability. And I just can't see Jesus, our best picture of God, drawing partisan lines and standing on one side pointing fingers at the other. Can you?

What Jesus got angry at wasn't the people who were sinning, it was the people so terribly missing the point of what being the people of God was all about. It was the ones who thought that their keeping of the law and their lineage made God like them better than the others, it was the ones who kept people away from God and set up barriers for them that He condemned. For all of Jesus' bold talk he didn't use it to condemn sinners, he spent his time with them.

So the question is, are we setting up barriers for people to come into the kingdom? Why is it that hate, not love, is what most people in the country under 30 think of when they think of the religious right? I'm asking us to evaluate how what has been done so far is actually working. Is it bringing people into the kingdom, or driving them away. Does the activity of the religious right accurately reflect the character of God, the testimony of Jesus, and bring light, life and freedom to a broken nation?

I'm not sure it does, or ever did, because the kingdom of God was never intended to be institutionalized through a government, and bad things have almost always happened as a result of people trying to make it happen that way. And perhaps we should apologize for so poorly representing Christ in this country in our political activities. Just maybe.

Game Change: Your argument is invalid

A super special treat for all of you! This is a guest post from my wife Carrien. She put it up on her blog and I begged her to let me re-post it because it is so good and so in line with what I am doing here. LOVE

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Dear friends on the religious right. Some of whom are beloved readers here. (Yes, I have friends there. They are dear sincere people who care deeply about others, their families, this country, and the world. Just as many of my friends who would define themselves as more moderate or liberal care deeply about others, their families, this country, and the world.)

Totally borrowed this from Fox news. They won't mind.

All day today I have seen you in various shades of despair as Obama prepares to serve as president for another 4 years. Your predictions are dire. America as you know and love it is no longer. Obama's administration is going to destroy all that you love and hold dear. Obama is a baby killer. Obama is destroying the traditional family. God help us because the end is near. You wish this was all just a dream, and I've seen more than one reference to arranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

First, please just stop watching Fox news and all of it's affiliates for a couple of days, ok? Don't tell me that they are the only station reporting the truth anymore. They are a multimillion dollar conglomerate whose business it is to make money. If they can get more of you to tune in and watch everyday by making you paranoid and expressing such polarizing views that you can't help but be sucked in through fear, they will. Because then they make more money. It's all about money. Just like all of the other news networks.

At least do me a favor and give equal time to different stations and perspectives, so that you can begin to see through the hype and understand that the fear is the same, from all of them. It's just different things they tell you to be afraid of. You do know that they are selling fear on the other side too, right? "Be terrified of what will happen if the religious right get their way. We will go back to the dark ages. Women will have no right to say what happens to their bodies anymore. You won't have healthcare when you're sick. They will cut all programs that care for the poor and destitute. There is a war on women. The GOP has no compassion."

Please step away from the fear mongering, all of you, on both sides. Please recognize that the truth lies somewhere on a completely spectrum.

There, ok. Deep breaths. Let go of the fear.

Now, what is left?

You don't like the president. Ok.

You disagree with his fiscal policies. All right then.

Is the world going to end in the next 4 years? Probably not.

Is there a chance that you won't like what this country looks like at the end of it? Maybe. Just remember the legislative process is remarkably slow. Which is kind of on purpose, to keep things from getting out of hand.

Is your security supposed to come from the fact that the party you prefer wields the political power in the country you live in? Not even remotely!

You want abortion to be illegal again. Let's think about this. When has an antiabortion president in the Whitehouse actually accomplished anything in terms of reducing the number of abortions? Since Roe vs. Wade I mean. What do you actually expect to happen if your candidate was elected? I mean, there is still an entire legislative process to go through. What are the odds you are actually going to get the legislation you want? Remember that this country just elected, by what appears to be clear majority, a pro abortion, pro gay marriage president. How do you expect an ever shrinking minority to get such a bill to pass?

Perhaps I shouldn't have picked such a hot button issue as an example, but here's my point. If you are playing at politics, and believing that victory in the political arena = victory for the kingdom of God you are sorely mistaken. 

Do you remember Jesus? He refused to play any of the games that everyone else was playing. He played an entirely different game, and by an entirely different set of rules. You are called to do the same.

You see, making abortion illegal again isn't going to stop women from having abortions. It didn't before it was legal. You aren't going to change people by changing laws.

Do I believe that every abortion is a tragedy? Absolutely!

But I've learned a few things over the years. One of those is that trying to control people is a mistake. God gave people freedom, therefore they are free, and the choices they make are theirs, and they are responsible for them. Trying to legislate this country back toward the way it used to, or ought to, be is a futile effort. That is trying to use laws to control behavior, to control people.

The religious right has become so obsessed with controlling behavior through legislation in the claim to fight for freedom that they have forgotten what their real mission is. (Both sides do that exact same thing, claim to fight for freedom by limiting people's choices through legislation.)

You see, the kingdom of God is not red states vs. blue states. It's not fiscal conservatives vs. big government spending. It's not even prolife vs. prochoice.

The kingdom of God is the followers of Jesus vs. no one. It's loving everyone. It's never dismissing a woman who's situation is so complicated that abortion seems like a viable option as a baby killer. It's loving her enough to walk through the pain she is feeling with her. To love her no matter her choice, even if it's not the one you wanted her to make. And to give her all the support you are able, to help her actually feel free to choose without fear.

It's loving the friend who voted for Obama, and honoring the ways that they are moved by the democratic rhetoric of caring for all of those who struggle. Even if you think it's total BS and that the actual policies will do the opposite. It's realizing that you have more in common with people on the other side of the polls than not, and choosing to care about them as people.

It's loving that gay couple with the giant happy smiles on their faces as they come down the courthouse steps, and remembering that God loves them just as much as He loves you.

It's letting go of hate and fear and winning the hearts and minds of people through loving them.

It's rolling up your sleeves and personally attending to the needs you see, rather than waiting for the government to do it for you. It's caring for those in need. It's loving those who are alone. It's the opposite of the polarizing fundamentalist positions that drive a wedge through this nation on both sides of the aisle.

The culture wars are over. You lost. Now how about we get back to what is really important, loving our neighbor as ourselves. How about we stop villainizing people and start treating them as individuals who are worthy of love and respect? Even if we disagree with them.

How about we start listening to opinions other than our own and actually having a dialogue rather than a shouting match? Every time someone does that they eventually discover common ground.

How about, and here is the kicker, we stop believing that politics is a war between good and evil and all that disagree with us are on the side of evil?

How about we step back and stop playing the game, and do the real work of the kingdom instead?

Who's with me?


----NOW WE HAVE A FOLLOWUP POST! RIPPED STRAIGHT FROM CARRIEN"S COMMENT SECTION-----

I Like It, But I Am Not Quite Sure What To Do With It

 

 I was recently speaking to a close friend of mine and they told me about this dream they had.

Now, I am not entirely sure what to do with dreams. However, I found it, at the very least,  vividly illustrative of some features of life-after-death that would not surprise me. With their permission I have related the dream here. Worst case it is just some weirdness to be dismissed, best case there are some pictures and structures in here that may open doors in your mind and soul that bring freedom in ways that only features of a story can.
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So I'm beginning to have a recurring dream about my own death

It goes as follows:

I am arrested for treason and killed via injection. Some times I get away for a bit, then get shot, dragged in and injected. Other times I just go with it. For the first few times I knew for certain I was about to die and I really wondered what I was going to find on the other side, or if there was actually anything there. The first few times there wasn't. Things just went black.

Then the last time I had this dream I knew it was going to be different. The reason I was not actually over to the other side, for lack of a better word, in the previous dreams was because I had not gone brain dead. As long as the brain is functioning, it will filter out perception of the afterlife.

I knew this time it was going to work all the way.

I get injected, go into paralysis
feel as the various biosystems shut down
finally I realize the brain is about to go
then it does and everything is black
then quite as if it was totally natural
I come to on the other side
this is where it gets really interesting
I woke up in the back stage area of a theater
wearing 16th century British attire
along with a few others dressed the same

Here is the key thing.
NOTHING fundamental had changed.

The only thing different about the after life is that we could not die again and were now stuck with accepting reality for what it was. Also, we could see through each others thought processes and realize that all the same emotional dynamics were in effect.....no one had actually changed, gotten better, worse, wiser, stupider, and most of all no one was at peace because, and this is the really important part, we all still had complete freedom and responsibility.

The big change was that we now had no pretense of morality or right and wrong to justify anything we did or didn't do.

We started fighting and arguing and I realized that we had been stripped to the barest essentials of junior high level emotions and retardation because these emotional process and not some abstract notion of morality are what actually direct our actions
we could no longer hide it
guilt did not exist
right and wrong could not be used as a justification
only schoolyard shame
It wasn't a question of if we should or should not do something because it was good. It was a question of what people would think if we did something. This is what underlies all actions.

This all confirmed for me that fear is not tied to survival as people would assume from an evolutionary stand point, because we were no longer physically alive. It is tied to the soul, it is tied to interpersonal emotions.

God was no more present or not present than in the physical world. We just saw him as a constant, which is to say we ignored him because he was in the room with us instructing us on what we were actually dealing with.

As I remember it the big conflict in the rehearsal room was when to go live on stage.

And here is where it gets insane.
We had to strip, as in take off the clothes we were wearing, and go on stage to do a live sex show. (Not to read into it too much but the going on stage part in my opinion was about our new bodies and the sex show part has to do with entering into a level of intimacy that would just seem obscene to our current sensibilities.)

The big take away from all this is that our impression of the after life being Heaven or Hell or whatever are wrong.
It's all Hades or Sheol.
Everyone goes there and it is a continuation of everything we did or didn't do in this life. Unlike the common religious assumptions about the afterlife like both places being where we have no responsibility/freedom, and we either are made perfect or burn for all eternity, we had complete freedom and all pretense was stripped away.

The evolutionary process of making us more perfect however was fully in effect
I realized that the growing would never stop and we all had a long way to go.
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The idea that we are still free in the afterlife, that we are not relieved of our freedom, but that we can no longer hide from it or hide it from ourselves, and that our passing is a transition to a deeper development of personhood with the crutches of this world stripped away.

I find the picture invigorating and it drives me to want to accept more responsibility for my own actions and inactions to better prepare for that next phase.

What do you think of it?