The Walk

You took my hand in yours and we walked on.
This surprised me, the feel of your soft, warm palm
Against mine on that beautiful night.
Our arms swung gently, naturally - and something deep was calm
We spoke of many things not spoken of,
But they fell out of our mouths like wine drunk too fast

And we walked, and we talked, and sometimes
hearing nothing I just look into your eyes,
Transfixed by the beauty of this moment,
and the warm touch of your hand in mine
Who are you to have stepped out of nowhere?
What dizziness afflicts my mind?
Does the enchantment of this late night walk mean
Anything more than the warm satisfaction
Of ice cream and hot apple pie?

I want answers to none of these questions,
I only crave the sweet taste of your words.

The Assumption

You said she came in through the bedroom window
She made no sound
But it was you I did not hear

I had gone to visit my grandfather
          a year or two after his wife
          my Nana, had died
and he was telling me secrets
          secrets you might tell your best friend
          except that he didn't have one.

Then his voice changed,
          he grew quiet and he leaned in closer
          “Do you believe,”
                he asked,
                “in the Virgin Mother?”

Now I was young, and puffed full of that arrogance
          that when I was young I called knowledge

“I believe in Nana,” I said firmly.
          “I believe she lives on in our hearts.”

And he, my grandfather, he fixed me with a stare like I'd never seen
          surprise and anger and two parts disappointment
          like he had been about to offer a diamond to a pig

He sighed deeply, but went on

“I am not speaking about your grandmother,” he said
          just as firmly
         “I am talking about the Mother of God.”

Never, before that moment had I ever heard him speak
          of religion once - unless
          you count the stories
          about sneaking ‘spirits’
          into the church for his brother, Father Ray

“Did you know my brother, Auley...” he asked,
          “Did you know he died young?”

“Yes,” I said. And I did.

“Well, I was alone with Auley,” he said,
          “the night he died
Alone at his bedside as my brother lay there so calmly
I was just a boy, we both were
          and it was just the two of us....

“Auley was a good brother to me
Everyone liked him
We didn't have much money, 

           but his funeral was the biggest I had ever seen
Wasn't one person in town that didn't come
Everyone'd said that he'd be a priest.
          Everyone knew how much he loved God, 

          how much he prayed,
                    especially to the Virgin
I couldn't see how much good it had done him
          I mean, he wouldn't even make it to 18 years old.”

“And then,” he said,
          “I saw Her,
          a strange and beautiful woman
She came in through the bedroom window
She made no sound
But went straight to Auley's bedside and took his hand
Took his hand like it was the most normal thing in the world

“I was confused and afraid,” he said
“I ran to get my older sisters but
          I didn't tell what I saw
They just had to come
          ....now
But when we got back to his room
          both Auley and the Lady were gone.”

“Gone?” I asked.

“His body was there,” he said, “but Auley was gone.”

Then he fixed me with his stare again, 

          “Do you believe me?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said, not so firmly at all.

A year later,
my cousin, Sister Joan drove me down to see grandpa in the hospital.
People get confused when I say that
She's my Dad's cousin and she's a nun.
The Catholic kind. She works with the poor
           in Guyana.
Everyone else calls her Joanie,
I call her Sister Joan.

I was not prepared for what I found in the hospital that day

My grandfather's face was an image
from the wall of some old European church
          filled with terror and torment
          surrounded here not with flames
but the cold white blue of the hospital room

His unseeing eyes locked on mine
          with such terror and desperation
          from the moment I crossed the threshold
          that I thought
like Marley's ghost
he might scream out
“There is still time for you,
          time for you to save yourself from my fate.”
His lips moved with great effort, but there was no sound at all.
He grasped frantically for my hands
But his fingers passed right through mine as though I were the ghost.

I am sure there were other relatives in the room
But I only remember Sister Joan.
Joanna, named after Grandpa's mother, Johanna
How she went straight to his bedside
As if nothing were unusual
She took his hand
          his hand
          which had passed through mine
          like so much morning fog
she took it 

          and held it
          and stroked it
          as if soothing a fevered child.
She whispered soothing sounds to him that I could not hear.
She reached for a tiny sponge and
used it to wet his tongue and wipe away
          the foam that collected in the corners of his mouth.

Horrified, 

          I just stood at the foot of his bed 

          staring into his unseeing eyes
He stared back at me.
I know you hurt a lot of people, I thought.
You think you are going to hell - and I don't believe in Hell
But it looks like you might already be there.

I did not see my grandfather alive again

Years later, Joanie and I spoke on the phone about that afternoon
And I told her about his vision
And she asked what seemed to me
          a trivial question
“Do you know,” she asked,
          “when Auley died?”

I calmly pulled out my notes
           and read this:
“Joseph Aurelius, nickname: Auley
Died August 15, 1929 of Tuberculosis, he was almost 18

“My grandfather would have been 12.”

Joanie made no sound
and then she said
           just this:
          “August 15 is the feast of the Assumption
the day we celebrate the Virgin taken bodily into heaven.”

You said she came in through the bedroom window
She made no sound.
But it was you that I did not hear

Grandpa, did Auley hear Her?
Did Auley see the Virgin 

          when She came in through his bedroom window?
When She took his hand? Did you see before you ran?
Is that
          what you wanted
          to tell me?

Did you see the virgin come to your bedside?
          When she held your hand and soothed your thirst?

          Did you hear the words she whispered so softly?

Grandpa
          I saw Her.

Two Lives Crossing

I spent last night with my love from another life
A string of beautiful moments from what might have been
Not really stolen, for they were freely given
Something I needed, but didn't know it.
An opportunity missed, long ago mourned

But unlike the saying, it did knock again.... kind of
Not really the same. This time it was just a night, not a lifetime.
'Just' a night! No, that word won't do.

You walked past me and language was lost and forgotten.
My lips could find no words,
but this time they found your mouth instead.
And finding your mouth I lost everything else -
as I found the rest of you.

We laughed and played.
Talked and touched.
Made love as if this one night were a whole life time.
As though things had unfolded as they were supposed to do
As though this time were not the first
and the last.

'Are you happy?' I asked. You shrugged.

'Is this wrong?' you asked and your eyes lost focus.

I didn't answer, I just held you.
Like it was the most natural thing to do.
It felt right to me.

By some strange karmic tie
After you left, and before I made my way home, I saw your husband.

Well, I think I did. I only met him twice when he was with you.
And mostly, I only remember seeing you.

You had told me that he was with someone else as we lay together.
His eyes told me he hadn't been but that he was still looking
- even before he opened his mouth.
I bristled and looked away.
But like a cat ignored he approached.

'Don't we know each other?' he asked.
'Or is it just from seeing you around somewhere?'

'Probably,' I nodded and shrugged and moved to excuse myself.

But he held out his hand,
And gave me his name
And asked for mine.

In stunned silence, I cursed my inability to lie before
I coughed up my own name like poison
as I shook his hand smiling,
turned,
and walked away.

I tightened my coat and
walked into the bitter February cold,
alone.

I do not know if he found what he was looking for
But he, I presume,
eventually made his way home to his own bed -
already warm from your nakedness.

A Tale of Two Prophecies

And it came to pass the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, and in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azur the prophet, which was of Gibeon, spake unto me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and of all the people, saying, Thus speaketh the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon: And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, saith the Lord: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. (Jeremiah 28:1-4)

Just a few days ago, a friend noted with wonder that there seemed to be a church on every second corner of my neighbourhood. And it is true, they are everywhere. The historical role of the Churches in the lives of North Americans, and Europeans, is evident if only in the vast number of buildings large and small. And you can see the immeasurable wealth once wielded by these churches - if not in gold and silver, than their very sizes and locations play testament to the central roles they once played in families, cities, nations - in how to govern, how to live and what it meant to be human.

But, as in the time of Jeremiah, the thieves have reached the Temple and the King has been taken from His throne. The riches of the churches have been taken away and God no longer finds a home there. The church has lost it's relevance to the common people - who have moved on to other pursuits. There is a great hunger for spirituality, but the people do not turn to the churches to satisfy that hunger. These august buildings lie close to empty, playing host once a week to tiny, aging congregations barely able to heat the building and pay the taxes - much less feed the hungry or clothe the poor. In fact, with the swelling property values under them, the buildings are being sold, or abandoned - transformed into luxury condominiums with security guards paid to eject the poor and the hungry that they were theoretically built to serve.

For the faithful, what can this mean? For the prophet Hananiah, a contemporary of Jeremiah, it was just a temporary setback. He told the people what they wanted to hear: God would never allow this embarrassment to continue. Within two years, he promised, the treasures of the Temple and the very King of Judah - stolen by the Babylonians - would be returned and order restored.

Jeremiah prayed that this might be true. But to him, these events were a sign that the nation had has lost it's way - that the people had become consumed with the work of their own hands and had forgotten the poor and the sick amongst them. God himself has been forgotten, abandoned, become irrelevant to everyday life - and his protection had been withdrawn from His People.

Jeremiah spoke in bitter irony of God Himself, wandering in the land, abandoned and forgotten by the people he loved. Bruised, betrayed, tortured by the punishment He was about to unleash. And His wrath was only beginning to be felt. A great and terrible suffering was coming and the only way to avoid it was to turn back to the justice, mercy and compassion He had demanded.

The nation of Judah chose to believe Hananiah. They chose to believe that their privileged status with God would protect them. It did not. Jerusalem fell and it was many years before order would be restored.

Which future will we see? Will the church remember it's purpose this time? Or will it be transfixed by a rose-coloured view of the world that blinds it to the suffering of the poor and worships the work of its hands.

God calls - gently, but urgently.

Letter to and from my saint

This is from an exercise I was asked to do this week in a class I am taking. We were asked to identify someone we saw as a saint or spiritual role model in our lives, to ask them a question that we'd love to have answered and then to ask them how they stayed alive spiritually.

Then we were asked to write a response from our saint.

Here is my attempt:

Dear Molana Jalal-e-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi, Konya, Turkey,

I have been much inspired by your work - even translated into English it is so beautiful and moving. It has helped me a great deal in my recent spiritual journey as I am sure it will for much of my life. I find as I grow and develop, I read your work again and am able to see more depth.

It would be a great honour to write one day with even a fraction of the beauty and insight you have shown in your work.
However, I write to you with two simple but more urgent requests.

First, although I have generally always suffered from some kind of depression - that has changed somewhat in the last two years since I have begun to study Zen and have begun a practice of regular meditation. While what I (and my doctors) have always called depression has lifted for more than a year now - something else seems to have replaced it. It manifests as a kind of ennui, inertia and feels almost like heartbreak. The most direct symptom of this state is a sharp decrease in my ability to be productive and support myself through work.

I know you suffered great loss during your life - and I know that at least one of those losses, that of your beloved Shams-e-Tabrīzī, seems to have haunted your work for the rest of your life. And yet if anything you became more prodigious and prolific in spite of this loss, perhaps even because of it.

How did you do it?

And secondly, what do you recommend I do in order to become more productive in this fleshly world and to shake off this affliction?

With great affection and respect,
Teofilo Maxim, Toronto, Canada

-------

Dearest Teofilo,

Thank you for your kind and gracious words.

You are not unlike me, although sometimes you might feel so. I know you know this to be true. I also know why you think you chose me as the recipient of your letter. However, even as your wrote your letter, I am convinced that you could see the deeper reason.

At what was for my time an old age, thirty-seven years old, I fell in love and my life was changed. I cannot tell you that my love for Shams was exactly like that you feel for men in your day. Our times are too different for such a simple equation.

However, both meeting and then later losing Shams shocked me out of a complacent comfort that I might not have left were I not to have met and lost that great friend. When he left the first time, my heart was truly broken. When he left forever, the future in which I had such faith was destroyed. I thought that I might die, and sometimes I wanted to do so. But Shams had brought more into my life than the physical and mental comforts of companionship. His burning presence had set my own heart ablaze with his love and understanding of Spirit.

And so it was that in this heartbreak, not so unlike that which you describe, that my writing truly began. I allowed that spark that Shams had awoken in me to settle into the ruin of my own broken heart. And there it grew into something beautiful.

You are correct to see, in my writing, a blurring of the desire to be united or reunited with a love, and the desire to be united with the divine. These longings are not dissimilar. What I learned first was that, in fact, we are never separated from God, that our longing to be reunited stems from a delusion which is an unfortunate, but curable, part of the natural human condition. Even after dispelling this delusion, as you have recently accomplished, you will still feel the longing, as you sometimes might feel a similar longing for a lover as he lay asleep in your arms - as though he were a million miles away. Our conviction of separateness is nothing if not persistent.

For a while I travelled in search of Shams, hoping to bring him home. And then, gradually, I learned this as well: we are never truly separated from the object of our love even if we are denied the physical gratifications of that relationship or the pleasure or indulgences of companionship with our love. And then I realized, Why should I seek? I am the same as He. His essence speaks through me. I had been looking for myself!

During Sham's third and permanent absence from my life, I eventually came to believe that he must be dead. But even death cannot separate two people. In fact, in a sense, it does the opposite. Separateness, remember, is a delusion of our present existence. You know this: there is only one soul. Shams and I, you and I, dear friend, are one in God. How many times can these words be spoken without being heard? Let those who have ears hear this!

And here is a harder lesson that you must learn too. Love, even when not returned, is never lost. Do remember to love yourself as well and that may affect the way you express an unrequited love, but all acts of love and kindness - when done selflessly - are done to the One. Jesus said, "Whatsoever you do to the least of these, you do to me." I hope you can hear what he was truly saying.

Now, let us quickly write a prayer for you together for you to say in the mornings which will help you remember who you truly are. We will base it on one of my poems that has touched you, add a little of your Saint Patrick (who borrowed it from the Irish before him) and a little of your own work.

I hope that it will serve you in your journey.

Go with God my child,
Molana Jalal-e-Din Muhammad Balkhi

Morning Prayer
I rise in God this day and cannot be defeated

I AM the glimmer of dawn, I AM the air of eventide,
I AM the rustling of the branch and the roar of the sea.

I AM the swiftness of wind,
The strength of the ocean and the firmness of the earth.
I AM the mast, rudder, helm and ship;
I AM the reef upon which the ship flounders.

I AM the breath of the flute; I AM the spirit of man and of woman
I AM the spark from the stone; I AM the sheen of metals

I AM the physician and sickness, poison and antidote;
Sweet and bitter, honey and gall.
I AM war and peace, battlefield and victory;
The town and its besiegers, the stormers and the wall.

I AM the plaster and the trowel, the builder and the plan,
Cornerstone and roof-tree, the building and it's ruin.

I AM hart and lion, lamb and wolf;
I AM the shepherd who gathers all into one fold.
I AM what is and what is not;
I AM the soul in the All.

I arise this day in God and cannot be defeated
For even if my enemies shall take my life from me
My true self cannot be harmed
I am One in Christ who is One in God
I rise in God this day.

Just what is "Holy"?

I have been taking a course at my local Church that is centring on a relationship with the Sacred.

Our church, although Christian, is almost Unitarian Universalist in its approach to worship. Members, teachers, deacons, choir members come from many different traditions - and I don't just mean different kinds of Christians. We have Sikhs and Sufis, Buddhist and Ba'hai, Muslims and Methodists and many others.

And yet, like many Christian churches, teaching tends to centre around Jesus of Nazareth and his role in changing the world's view of God from jealous, punishing, cruel figure to a compassionate, unconditionally loving Father. I consider myself a follower of Jesus, so I have no problem with his central role in such things, but I do have a great deal of trouble with his presentation in this manner.

There are two parts to this premise, and since I have difficulty with both of them, I will address them one at a time:

1) That the God of the Old Testament (read Jewish Scriptures) is cold, judgemental and cruel.

2) That Jesus presents a NEW image of God, who he calles Abba or essentially "Daddy", as a loving, forgiving, understanding God.

First, I think the portrayal of the "Old Testament" God in such a hard way necessitates a limited and judgemental reading of the Jewish scriptures. Certainly there are some harsh moments in the Old Testament, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden, the destruction of the world in the Flood, the just-a-bout slaughter of Isaac (or Ishmael) to name just a few. But this same God often presents a forgiving, merciful side that comforts, often surprises and sometimes even frustrates the human protaganists.

And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not. But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was very angry. And he prayed unto the LORD, and said, I pray thee, O LORD, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I fled before unto Tarshish: for I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil. Therefore now, O LORD, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. (Jonah 3:10-4:3)

And the Psalms continually extol the endless, relentless love and support of God: O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. (Psalm 118:29).

Secondly, Jesus does not come to repeal or soften the message of God at all - in fact Jesus uses his powers at times which seem elitist, rash and judgemental. He curses and withers a fig tree because it does not bear fruit out of season - apparently on a whim. He makes clear that his followers must keep the Law even better than the Pharisees (a point generally forgotten in Christian circles that now eat pork and shellfish with abandon). He takes existing laws and makes them tighter. First, he revokes the allowance for divorce and then tightens the law against murder and adultery.

"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, "Fool", shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire." (Matthew 5:21,22)

"Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. "(Matthew 5:27,28).

Yes, Jesus would talk of forgiveness and reconciliation, but his Way was not an easy way.

I believe Jesus, in the tradition of the long line of prophets that preceded and succeeded him, has a specific message for the people he came to. I believe that, like each of those other prophets, the core of the message was that people seemed to believe that they were doing what was right, but they were getting wrong. Each of these prophets said, like John befor Jesus did, "Repent". Originally, I believe that word had less of a connotation of regret as it does today and more of a sense of "Turn around" or to make a radical turn in direction. After that, each prophet had a different specific message and a different specific personality and approach to delivering it.

Of all them, Jesus seemed to be the most purposely obscure: "And he said, Unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand." (Luke 8:10)

Jesus' particular mission, in my humble opinion, was to subvert the very notion of Holy. In this, I believe that he was the most radical of the prophets that had come up until that time, and more radical than many of those that would follow. I do not believe this was why He was elevated to the Divine status he enjoys today, but I believe that maybe it should have been.

As a Gay man I more than familiar with specific passages of Mosaic Law - specifically a nasty passage in Leviticus:

"If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them." (Leviticus 20:13) This particular passage is part of a greater set of Laws, known sometimes as the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26).

Holiness means, literally, :"distinct and set apart" from others who were NOT holy. Israel was a Holy nation because it represented God's Chosen People and a central role of this Holiness Code was to mark the Israelites as separate from other surrounding cultures.

The Temple was Holy because it was the dwelling place of God, and each concentric chamber of the Temple was more Holy as you approached the Holy of Holies - where the Arc of the Covenant was housed. Only the most ritually pure and clean were permitted to enter the Temple and to approach or enter the Holy of Holies.

One could not enter the temple if one were ritually unclean (the reason the priests and pharisees could not help the fallen man the Samaritan would later help). One could not enter the Temple if you were ill, crippled, a leper or not one of the Chosen people. Women were segregated. Samaritans were forced to worship God on a nearby mountain being unable to enter the Temple themselves.

But Jesus said: "The hour will come, indeed it is already here, when you will worship the Father either on this mountain nor in Jerusalem....True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks." (John 4:21,23)

Until this moment, I have not believed that Jesus died for a purpose, but rather as a result of his dedication and integrity. But perhaps something else is afoot.

The Old Testament says very clearly: "...he who is hung upon a tree is under God's curse..." (from Deuteronomy 23:23)"

What if, at that moment, God was a man, and was hung upon a tree and was so God was under His own curse?

Maybe it's a crazy idea. But what if it did happen? What would it mean for God to be cursed? It would be a violent contradiction - a sacriligious absurdity. It would mean that something that we believe about the world, about the Holy and the unholy must not be correct or this could not be happening. For if God is cursed, what does holiness even mean?

Indeed, according to the Gospels, at Jesus' death, even the natural order began to change. The sky grew dark in the middle of the day and the veil separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple was ripped in half. "And, behold, the veil of the temple was ripped in two from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks broke apart; "(Matthew 27:51)

I have been told that the tearing of the veil symbolized that the intercessory of the priesthood was no longer necessary between God and man. There is probably truth in this. However, I wonder if the tearing was not more fundamentally radical. What if the tearing of the curtain symbolized the destruction of the very division between the Sacred and the profane? What if, consistent with His life, Jesus' death would rend forever the division between the Holy and the unholy, between the clean and the unclean, between the worthy and unworthy, the Elect and the condemned.

Is this what Paul meant when he wrote, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us".

Certainly Peter and Paul would perform great works to continue to destroy of the division between those who were chosen and those that were not.

"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)

When I was a child, I though it a perverse idea that God might set up some Divine system which required the brutal death of his own Son in order to allow human beings into Heaven. And certainly it would be. But perhaps it was never about the system of rules in Heaven after all. Perhaps it was about our own system of rules and the way we viewed them.

What if Jesus hoped that the shocking sight of his tortured and murdered body hanging there in front of us would demonstrate what He knew to be true: that there is no Holiness. What if he wanted us to see that our reflexive urge to judge was causing so much suffering in ourselves and in others.

According to the Bible we were first separated from God by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The snake promised that eating that fruit would make us like God. But has the Knowledge of Good and Evil made us like God, or has it only caused us to obsessively label things as good or bad? And how much suffering has come from this reflexive judgement of others, ourselves and our surroundings?

In the Gospel of Truth, Jesus crucificied is depicted as an antidote to that poisonous fruit - the fruit of the Tree of Life.

What if Jesus' real message was that the two categories of Good and Evil were meaningless? None are Holy. All are Holy. Both statements render the idea of "distinct and set apart" meaningless.

What if He came to tell us that creation is vast and beautiful - and not one single grain of sand could be separated from the love of God by the sharpest of swords?

Crossing into the bridal chamber

St. Teresa saw her soul "as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or a clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions." And the door of this castle is prayer. As one develops in one's prayer life one moves deeper into one's soul, toward the Principal Mansion where God alone dwells.

My Zen Master is named after Teresa of Avila and so I feel a particular affinity for her journey. What's more, as a gay man, I find her work with spirituality and gender - as many woman mystics in the Middle Ages - to be of utmost importance to reconciliation between accepting Christian communities and those who are more exclusive of those with alternative orientations or genders. John of the Cross and other male mystics would follow in Theresa's stead and would - by virtue of her logic - refer to their own soul as female in order to commune with what was seen as a male God. In fact, even today you will hear some Evangelical preachers talking about Jesus planting his Divine seed in the soul of the believer, impregnating the believer - whether that believer be male or female.

Here is a contemporary evangelical quoting from the Amplified Bible (John 3:9): "No one born (begotten) of God [deliberately, knowingly, and habitually] practices sin, for God’s nature abides in him [His principle of life, the divine sperm, remains permanently within him]; and he cannot practice sinning because he is born (begotten) of God."

This kind of fundamentalist gender play may sound bizarre - but I actually think it is a source of great hope. The tension comes from seeing the scripture through a heterosexist lens - which much of the evangelical movement still has firmly in place. But this gender turn can be traced back through the female mystics of the Middle Ages.

Although many would trace this idea of a female soul back even further, in Jewish and Christian traditions this can be traced at least as far back as the Song of Solomon which is referenced again in the New Testament and its contemporary, non-canonical Christian works.

Now Jesus said: "There are many standing at the door, but it is the solitary who will enter the bridal chamber." (Gospel of Thomas, saying 75)

The bridal chamber is - I believe - similar to Teresa's inner, Principal Mansion where God dwells. I have never been to this Principal Mansion in my own soul, although I have stood sufficiently close to feel God's presence as tangibly as the sun on my skin.

I do not know that it is possible to truly enter this Principal Mansion and live.

In the Quran, Moses asks God to show Himself to Moses. God refused, but showed Himself to a nearby mountain that was instantly vapourized by the experience.

Part of a Zen Koan says this: A Buddha made of wood cannot pass through fire. For if it does, it will surely burn." If it does, there will be nothing left but the burning, nothing but the fire. The Buddha will be obliterated.

I begin to suspect that this is true across traditions. The Principal Mansion, the bridal chamber, the fire is always receiving those who seek and find entry. But whatever beings that enter are entirely obliterated as individuals. Inside, there is only God.

I think it is no accident that this Principal Mansion is likened to a bridal chamber. Of marriage the Bible says this (Genesis 2:24): "Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh". When one day I cross that threshold, I will not survive the crossing as an individual separated from God in any way. I will be united with the Ground and Source of All Being. I will vanish like salt in water.

In a sense it would be a death - not permanent, but certainly transformative. Such a death is nothing to fear (although I confess, I do fear it). It is in fact a promise to be embraced with great joy. "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." (John 12:24)

In fact, I believe that this is the only way to truly know God. For I cannot hope to understand God as I might understand any other being. I cannot say with any meaning that "God is this" or "God is that". For God cannot be experienced as object - only as subject. I cannot experience God except as I AM.