I continue to be free of symptoms of the cancer, for the first time in a year - what a gift. No pain. Little fatigue. Sure, the bowel is still erratic (uh, you don't wanna know about the exploding diarrhea moments ago, on Christ-mass, when EVERYTHING is closed downtown. Yup. You don't want to know. ROFL.), and the gut hurts, but it is healing!
MY SERVICE TO OUR NEEDIEST GOES UNIMPEDED THESE DAYS!!!! WHAT TOTAL JOY.
All of my hope is in Christ - Loving, the Spirit of Loving. NO!!! I'M SPEAKING NONE OF THE PAGAN, HEATHEN DREK, CRAP, FECES... IN WHICH WE'VE DROWN TO NEAR-DEATH JESUS' TEACHING THESE LAST 1800 YEARS. Peter was not Jesus. Paul was NOT Jesus. John was NOT Jesus. Isaiah was not Jesus.... God only knows the Popes are not Jesus, nor the pastors, Calvin, Luther....
JESUS was Jesus, and, for Christs Sake, He could speak for Himself!!! IF WE'D ONLY READ HIM, AND GIVE HIM IS DUE - TO LET HIM SPEAK FOR HIMSELF! This is what Tolstoy did. And Gandhi. And King, me....
About 11 years ago I first saw the common reference by Gandhi and King to Leo Tolstoy.
When I tracked it down I found that were it not for "The Kingdom of God is Within You," Tolstoy, we would not know the name Gandhi; he would never have developed from the young lawyer in England. I became aware that we might not know of MLK Jr. were it not for Tolstoy's "The Law of Love, and the Law of Violence," read by King when in Crozier Seminary as a young man.
And then, that we would not know the name Gandhi, and maybe not King but for the book "The Gospel in Brief," the researching of which saved the 50 year old Tolstoy from certain suicide, resurrecting his life to write the aforementioned books and more over the next 39+ years, based on his translation of Jesus' original Greek texts of the bible in which he found the only True Teaching as to how to Live the Joyful Life.
My recent medical treatment, surgery, recovery... is the first forced downtime I recall in a decade, and I've used it in large part to re-read, and re-read "The Gospel in Brief," and just now finishing again, "The Kingdom of God is Within You." Having yesterday cancelled the chemo so as not to divert time from the vigil 24/7 here at the Canadian Embassy - what time I have left will continue to focus on maintaining the vigil, and becoming as pure and knowledgeable a "channel" for Loving, and those paragons in History we've had, as I am able.
Overwhelming. Overwhelming. Overwhelming. If one has knowledge of Gandhi, his beliefs, his works, his acts, his achievements... then the reading of Chapters 9-12 in "The Kingdom..." can only unleash the realization - OF COURSE THE READING OF THIS CREATED GANDHI. Gandhi considered Tolstoy his Master, and obviously this is true. AND BOTH VIEWED JESUS, THE MAN, THE TEACHER, AS THE ULTIMATE MASTER, EVER ON EARTH.
"Kingdom" is NOT Tolstoy's greatest work - that is "The Gospel in Brief." Be careful. "The Kingdom..." can pull one away from this the most sublime, central, ESSENTIAL of Truths - Loving is God, the ONLY Force of Creation, That which Will Ultimately Prevail, that which is Strongest.... And tragically, THIS, in the end, IT DID TO GANDHI, PULLED HIM AWAY FROM THE CENTRALITY OF LOVING, AND IS WHY, I'M SURE, GANDHI IN THE END CONSIDERED HIS LIFE A FAILURE. But read it still. Just take care.
The fatal error for both Tolstoy (the greatest living human, in Gandhi's view) and for Gandhi was that "Kingdom's" utterly Divine Ch 9-12, indispensably insightful, fatally focus on the outcomes, the only Possible True Revolution - the replacement of violent government with the Kingdom of men Loving one another - Universal Family - the inevitable final form of man's way of interacting with others, in Tolstoy's view, in Gandhi's view, in Jesus' view. This may well be correct! But the farmer that spends her energies watching the shoots come up, and the fruit develop... is NEGLECTING THAT WHICH IS NECESSARY - the tending of the roots and the soil. LOVING is the entire Gospel, the entire Teaching, Individual, by Individual, by ..... THE ONLY REVOLUTION THAT CAN SUCCEED. EVER. EVER. "Kingdom" speaks of this breathtakingly; but too centrally, way too centrally it focuses on the outcome - the end of "pagan" government - government based on fleshly selfishness, violence.
Loving - is the work, the only work, the only place our individual (or collective) focus can be useful, with every breath - pre-emptive, and in return for EVERY Evil.
Be careful. Read "Kingdom." HURRY. BUT BE CAREFUL.
Loving is our business, our only business; from which all else will come.
