Just Between Him and YOU

I have a friend up in Washington State, Robert, who is a devout Christian. Now this in and of itself is not necessarily a bad thing. He is forever chatting with me on the internet about his beliefs, citing various articles, and things the Pope says that he doesn’t agree with, and actually it’s quite exhilarating. Normally I will dodge deep religious debate. It always comes down to, “My invisible guy can beat up your invisible guy, but Robert is one of those who maintains his position without  getting too heavy. He don’t back up, mind you, but he will converse, and counter each point, quoting various scriptures to substantiate his argument, and I enjoy his discourse. 

My first book was called, “Sharon.” I wrote it back when I was a heavy Catholic, and originally I intended it to be a big display of the faith. Didn’t work out that way. As the book unfolded I kept hearing Jack Nicholson in my head saying, “There are other people in the room, Martini!” Catholicism is full of ritual and tradition. The idea is that while you’re sniffing incense and reciting “Hail Marys” you don’t have time to think very much. I can’t lay that solely on the Catholics though, because before I was Catholic I was a Southern Baptist, and we didn’t have a Rosary, but lord did we have a preacher! Being a Baptist is cool. You get “saved” and theoretically you go out and sin no more. RIGHT! Baptists don’t have confession, but they DO have a preacher, and when I took this apart in “Sharon” I began to see that all faiths seem to have a common thread. 

The book is about an evangelist preacher winding up the revival circuit when he meets this girl, Sharon, who is sitting in the second row. She lures him into a garden near a church and the book is the discourse between him them. She wears jeans, a tank top, and rides a little yellow scooter. And, oh yes, she’s cool. She never converts the preacher to the faith, but she does convert him to a higher level of understanding. She brings the reality of the Godhead to him in a way that astounds him, and actually astounded me when I wrote it. “Sharon” changes people when they read it, and she changed me!

After I wrote the book I began to ask questions. I began to real other works. Up until then I read the Bible exclusively. I had several versions, taught myself Greek, had audio tapes so I could listen while I was at work in my cable truck, I had BIBLE! Then I began to read works by other people. I read the Book of Mormon. Now before I launch into this please understand that I am a writer. I try to cover that fact with my “simple ol’ boy” mask, but I AM a writer. From way back in Nashville I have learned to work with words. I read and re-read what I write and edit until my fingers turn blue. My prose has a “sing-song” style, with the words working in sync, coming off the tongue smoothly. That’s because I’m a song writer. If you are a song writer long enough you learn that certain words and phrases “link up,” and others your tongue will stumble over. That’s why you can read some of my stuff and it flows like butter, and you read other blogs by other people and they may be saying the same thing, but the reading is like five miles of bad road. 

Anyway, I read the Book of Mormon, and while it was intricate, as a writer, I realized how Joseph Smith wrote it. I was impressed by the style, but I do not believe he got it from tablets he found buried in some hill up in New York. Just like an angel did not deliver “Sharon” to me. But, ask yourself, where does inspiration come from? Do you really think God grabs the hand of the writer and composes scripture, or is it something more. The Bible says we were created in the image of God. But what is that image? Obviously I’m not very “God like.” Could it be that there is a great intellect out there somewhere, and somehow, some way, we are in sync with that force, and the more attuned to that entity the more like it we become? Could it be the writers of any religious work strive toward understanding that sync, and the closer you get to it the more you relate not only to it, but to humanity itself? And the common messages are almost always the same! Doc Greene is as Christian as they come, but he is very fold of quoting Jesus telling his followers to sell their cloak and buy a sword. Mohammed would fight at the drop of a hat, defending his crowd, and like it or not, Joseph Smith died in a blazing gun battle, and brothers and sisters, he did NOT die praying! That’s because that entity out there that GAVE you life, also gave you the desire to PRESERVE that life. Common thread right there! And there is also a common denial that runs through all faiths. Brigham Young led the Mormons to the Great Salt Lake with a Bible in one hand and the Book of Mormon in the other. Mohammed was a kind gentle soul who prayed five times a day, and my great, great, great, grand uncle Silas never fired a gun in his life. Well. . . sure! Trouble is it won’t go ‘round in circles. Brigham had an old boy called “Porter”  who enforced the will of the Prophet at request, Mohammed would make war on entire tribes, and uncle Silas was a Baptist Preacher AND a mercenary who would shoot ‘em, bless ‘em, and bury ‘em whenever the need arose. 

But, does that all mean that God is not there? Certainly not, and that’s what “Sharon” taught the preacher! No one with any measure of common sense can look at a leaf and not realize said leave did NOT construct itself! The Apostle Paul points this out in Romans. Simply by looking up at the night sky you condemn yourself! Even the atheist realizes this, though he will not admit it. There IS a great “I AM” out there and the proof of that is because “YOU ARE!” All “scripture” is filtered through the human intellect, and that intellect is striving to “sync” with the ultimate intellect that originated it all. To divorce it from the understanding of man is to deny the truth. 

Jesus was an exception. I’ve read countless commentaries trying to psychoanalyze Jesus Christ, and none of them work. He was very simply the real deal. He never wrote a line. His public career spanned only three years. He had no “P.R” department and no sound crew, yet he sole completely ticked off the high priest that the Pharisees moved heaven and earth (please excuse the pun) to get Him OUT of the picture.  Only problem is that after over two thousand years it can’t be proven that Jesus didn’t get up one Sunday morning and just walk out of His grave like he had good sense! Pretty good for carpenter’s kid from the projects if you ask me. But Jesus accepted everyone. Romans, Samaritans, men, women, sick folks, rich folks, poor folks, and was fond of saying, “If they are not against us, they are FOR us!” The only time He ever showed anger was when he found pawn shops in the Temple. He believed in the separation of church and state, and he likes a good glass of wine on occasion. I find it indicative that from Mohammed to Joseph Smith, the understanding of just who or WHAT Jesus was is central to their theme. They canNOT ignore Him! Could it be, quite possibly, that Jesus was that intellect they are all trying to sync with?

This is where I differ from Robert. Robert is that brand of Christian that believes that Jesus is best served as a bitter pill, rather than a tonic. If Jesus IS God, then He is the god of ALL. Different understandings, or interpretations do not suspend that fact. Mormons can thumb through that Book of Mormon, Christians can pound that Bible, and Muslims can pour over that Qu’ran until their eyes turn red, and Jesus is still THERE! I, myself, cannot deny Him. And not because I’m a lame brain Bible thumper, like the members of the Westboro Baptist Church, but because I’ve got COMMON SENSE! I see Him in all things, but I believe that other believers, in other faiths see Him too. They just don’t see Him as I see Him. 

Anyone, anywhere, can take a book, written for the edification of man and twist and pervert it to their own ends. Individuals of different faiths can pound on each other until the walk away in exasperation, but the existence of God is paramount. We all  cross over that line between life and death, kicking, screaming, and struggling for breath, just as we did when we came into this world, and arrive at the ultimate realization of the reality of that “intellect” I spoke of earlier, and I’ll assure you, it will be not like anything you imagined before. And no Pope, or Imam, or Prophet can do that for you.  It’ll be just between Him and YOU!