Wonderful, wonderful note. I'm deeply touched, and honored by your sharing.
I consider your sharing Sacred. I've chosen to reply forcefully. YOU need to decide whether it is Helpful, or not, to read my comments......... Truly.
You are looking in the right direction, very much so. Very much so.
I fear for you, and us, that it is too little, too late. What I mean is, the direction of the path you lay out is Right; but the speed with which you outline traversing it, and all the caveats, and conditions...
'START, HAVE SOME SYMPATHY MAN! IT IS DAMN INTIMIDATING LOOKING IN THE DIRECTION I OUTLINED!' 'START, I JUST GOT OUT OF THE HOSPITAL, BOTH LEGS ARE BROKEN, MY SPINE IS BRUISED, I ACHE ALL OVER... AND YOU ARE TELLING ME I'VE GOT TO SPRINT OUT OF THE WAY OF THAT ONCOMING TRUCK!!?!?!!??!!?' :-)
'If you pick up your Cross, it WILL cost you son, daughter, wife, husband, farms....' Mandela, Gandhi, Jesus, Romero, Bonhoeffer....
'Let the dead bury the dead.'
'If you look back, you are not worthy [ABLE] to follow Me.'
'The parable of the feast - 'Oh, I'd love to come Lord, but I just bought an ox....'
Jesus, Our Father, they never tell us what THEY are going to do TO us. They tell us what we are going to do TO OURSELVES, if we don't bow to the Truth, The Truth, that They have outlined some of to us.
I hear you saying, in effect, 'YES START, I SEE that the roof collapsed on the elementary school, with kids inside! I'm gunna run in to help! But I have to settle my affairs, take a course, get guidance, pack some water, and then I'll be ready!' Yes, and the kids will be dead.
My God Chris, I am not belittling, but rather Honoring what you shared with me. YOUR INCLINATIONS ARE SO CORRECT! But pretty quick after you begin to learn to hang-glide, you either leap off the cliff, or you don't, and if you kinda try to slide of the cliff gradually, you crash, or Truly, stay on what was to be only your departure point, forever.
You are seeing that you need to get out of the way of the oncoming truck, and to help others do so as well! That's great! But all that really matters is whether you actually GET you and others out of the way of the truck, IN TIME. Tho we must NEVER for an instant forget, 'FULL EFFORT IS FULL SUCCESS.' Gandhi. 'WE ARE CALLED TO BE FAITHFUL; WE ARE NOT CALLED TO BE SUCCESSFUL.'
It can't happen nearly, nearly, nearly as painlessly, or as well calculated as you lay out.
Pray on what the World, Our Father's Family needs from you. How fast, how far do They need you to move? Can they really wait? Yes, the risks you lay out are real! But can They, the neediest, afford for you to be so cautious? No. Nor reckless.
Had I not been able to leave a fairly large pile of wealth for the woman I was married to, and for my grown bio-kids for finishing college, would I have lept? Possibly not. Probably so. John, Paul, Andrew... did. By leaping as I did my bio-sons totally severed relations with me; as the relations were severed between the Prodigal Son and Father; Jesus and his bio-fam, pretty much; Jesus and the Rich Young Man, who Jesus loved. But in all these cases, by virtue of allowing the separation, the rupture, the distance... an opportunity was created for the Lost, to see, and Choose, and Return home. 'No one comes to me except that the Father brings him.'
Jesus didn't decide for himself and his apostles to be bums, living off the land, etc. He saw that what was required was total, immediate action, NOW, and the consequence was they were a bunch of bums, living off the land, and what people handed out. Things have only gotten worse, more desperate, more urgent.
Two last thoughts. Focusing on those 'farthest from God.' This is really difficult, but very important. I think I know what you are grabbing at, and that is Good! But we all need to learn a lot more about this. The good MD, comes around the bend of a remote country road, and there before her are hundreds of bodies that have been thrown out in a terrible plane crash. Does she go to the one furthest from life? She goes to those she has the best chance of bringing the biggest distance from death, to Life, in time. This is really, really, really tricky to see - I've not figured it out yet nearly enough.
This is all I can share, so far. When you go fishing, do you get down in the water with scuba gear and visually pick out which fish you want to catch? No. You go to an area you guess is promising, and throw in the line, and wait for a while, and see if you get any nibbles. Jesus told us to sow, sow, sow... on the rock on the path among the brambles.... but yes, when we could SEE a swine, to not throw before it. Who in Jesus day did Jesus assess were the farthest from God, the least likely to be helped? The Church folk, (Jews), and the Priests and Pastors - they had devoted their lives to remaking God in their own image, and inoculating themselves to the Truth. And so it is today. [Start, ARE YOU ASSUMING I'M NOT WAY AHEAD OF YOU ON ANY OR ALL OF THIS?!? No. :-) ]
Last thought, THERE IS NO CHURCH. Don't shy from creating one - this is our work! HOWEVER, THE CHURCH IS THOSE IN WHOM OUR FATHER DWELLS, IN TOTAL CONTROL. Do they flock? Do they build buildings for themselves? Do they sing for themselves? Etc. Etc. Etc???? THEY GO OUT!!!!!! AND TEND THE SHEEP THAT ARE GREATEST IN NEED!!!!! Did the apostles flock? Did Jesus build buildings, organizations...?
'A church is the place people go out from.' MLK Jr.
'Go out into the houses, two by two; if they accept your Peace....'
'We must preach the Gospel, every day, all day long! And occasionally use words, to do so.' Assisi.
"Example is not the major thing in influencing people; it is the only thing." Schweitzer.
With much Love,
sl
ps:
xx sl
pps:
Your note of this morning brought this to my mind, too:
xx sl
ppps: To my friends reply, and expression of profound agreement, to the long email above:
Friend, again, I consider this dialog with you on this immensely consequential personal journey, immensely Sacred. But we are talking of the ENTIRE Gospel you and I. NOTHING is as consequential. NOTHING. Everything else is symptomatic of getting the Gospel right, or wrong.
'Heart' IS OUR FATHER'S KINGDOM, and 'Head,' when Head is IN CHARGE, is Satan's. I continue to do all in my power to make available at my blog everything I've been, and am being shown about the 'Path.'
I've been on that 'Path' for 13 or so years now. I swear on Our Father that if I had doubts of that Path, that I'd found It, that the walking of it IS Heaven itself, IS Salvation ITSELF, I'd tell you. IT IS HEAVEN ITSELF. IT IS SALVATION, ITSELF. Yes, it absolutely looks like HELL to the Head/Flesh.
FYI, if you've not seen this in my recent posts, my level of Hoplessness for the world is at levels in recent weeks way, way, way, way beyond anything I could have imagined even months ago, and my level of hope has descended each of the last 13 years. Am I Hopeless, without Hope? I am not. I have no Right to be Hopeless. Today's young, Eternity's Children, have a Right to my Hope.
But I think more and more of what little I know of the Monks that 1000 years ago went and lived in caves, as I understand it. I think I get it. They too, objectively, saw so little hope, they went to preserve what little there was of Goodness in themselves, for future generations.
No, I don't counsel anyone, me or you, to go into 'caves.' No, you and I are at the scene of a planetary 'plane crash,' and before us are the twisted, writhing bodies of 7 billion today, and 10's of billions to be born, if you, I or someone(s) don't bring Our Father (BY WHATEVER NAME(S), BY WHATEVER CREED(S)....) DOWN TO EARTH.
If you haven't watched these, PLEASE DO. NOW. They are short. If you HAVE watched these, DO IT AGAIN, NOW:
My point in all this is, YES, YOU ARE CONTEMPLATING LEAPING OFF TOTALLY INTO THE MOST DANGEROUS, MOST DEADLY, MOST CRUCIAL BATTLE IN HUMAN HISTORY. THIS IS IT. How can we do less, if we love anyone at all? I imagine sometimes, how the spouses of the one group in this country I have any respect for, our men and women in Uniform, how the spouses, and bio-children react when they hear from their spouse - 'I enlisted today.' Some are proud, of course. But it is the ones that feel outraged, betrayed, abandoned... that I find instructive, illuminating, of my own journey, of my own RESPONSIBILITY TO THEM, to those MOST DEPENDENT, MOST MY RESPONSIBILITY. So, I offer you one last thought -
Not that you should care, but NEVER will there be a second when I will judge you, what you do, or what you don't do, personally. How could I be that stupid? I'm not. Only YOU know you well enough to possibly know what you should or shouldn't do from moment to moment. However, to my horror, I find that I KNOW NO ONE ELSE BESIDES SL THAT HAS FOUND, AND IS WALKING, THE 'PATH' IN THIS AGE. I don't say there are none, I PRAY THERE ARE 1000's!!!!!! I SUSPECT THERE ARE SOMETHING FEWER THAN 1 IN A MILLION, ABOUT 7,000 today. But I say I KNOW OF NONE. Point being, to my horror, I, in horrible solitude, know a lot about the Path, and WILL offer, when it seems appropriate, about what I know of it.
xx sl
ps final:
The greatest Revelation that yet Our Father has given to me, and just within the last 4 weeks or so, is the concept, and words - Insane Humanity, Insanely Humane. This encapsulates everything, EVERYTHING I've learned of importance to day.
If 4 years ago I'd had these words, my tattoos would have been different, if I could have figured out how to cram them on my face! LOL.
If Jesus wasn't Insanely Humane, and Bonhoeffer, Camara, Eleanor Roosevelt, Teresa of Calcutta, MLK Jr.... well, then I just don't know anything.
And of course by Insanely Humane I mean nothing more, less or else than - CLINICALLY SANE.
What you are contemplating is leaving the Clinically Insane, Deadly, Affloholic, Sodom and Gomorrahic domain that our sickest of all cultures fights to the Death to defend as Sanity. It isn't. It is Satan on the verge of winning it all, forever.
For you, and us, I Pray for you now. There have been only two Einstein-calibre psychologists - Viktor Frankl and Alfred Adler. Adler said, as a clinical psychologist, 'The correct, the Healthy decision typically lies in the direction of Courage (Loving, the Heart, properly understood).' Everything else is typically, Insane.
sl 
