The Good News

        I have Good News for you – You were never born, and You will never die.

        I’m not talking about you, the limited idea of who you think you are.  Or even you, your physical body.  Or even you, your entire human being with its body and mind and actions and feelings.

        No, I’m talking about You, the dynamic relationship between all things.  You, the infinite community of individuals seen from within and without.  You, the seeing and the seen.  

        That’s right, this is the Good News – despite our limitations, despite our mortality, despite the fact that we appear to be individuals set apart from an infinite universe, we are in fact God – the One expressed as, within, and beyond Everything.  

        Our relationship to ourselves is complicated.  We often forget who we are.  So, even though we are One, we exist as Three.  

We are the individual self, We are you. We are the entirety of Reality, We are God. We are you and God seeing each other and smiling, We are the Spirit.

We are the Light that existed at the beginning of time, We are the singularity. We are the infinite possibilities of being, We are emptiness. We are the unfolding and evolving of the universe, We are the Big Bang.

We are the objective universe, We are Nature. We are the interiority of all physical things, We are Mind. We are the mysterious interpenetration of Mind and Nature, we are Action.

We are God incarnate from the beginning of time, We are the Christ. We are God transcending and including all things, We are the Father. We are God revealing our fullness even in each individual, We are the Spirit.

        But the Good News is not for Us (God), so much as it is for you.  The Good News is not news to Us.  No, the Good News has always been just for you.  If you fear death, We have Good News for you.  If you feel controlled by anger, pride, lust, or greed, We have Good News for you.  If you are lonely and yearn to feel true communion with everything around you, We have Good News for you.  

        All of the ordinary conditions of suffering, all of your ideas of how life is and how life ought to be, exist entirely within you – the individual self, the ego.  However, the ego is in relationship to Us, because We are a community of individuals, of egos.  Each individual is a cell in the body of God.  Thus, you can look around you and see nothing but Us, or you can look within and there We are.  

This is the Good News, your individual existence is a branch in the Great Vine, and the One that you are a part of is visible everywhere. The Kingdom of God is inside of you and outside of you. The universe and the body we live in are the Son of God, the Christ manifest as all things. The experience of our lives is the Spirit of God, the One expressed as the individual mind. The essence of all being is God the Father, infinite possibility.

        Now this is a little different than another version of the Good News you may have heard.  Someone may have told you that you are a sinner, and if you don’t repent, you will go to hell.  They may have said that you must believe a man named Jesus Christ was the only Son of God in order to avoid your fate.  And even though this seemed to be a low price to pay for eternal salvation, you may have somehow found yourself faced with a bunch of rules and judgements about the way things are meant to be.  So many rules that you became angry, at yourself and everyone around you, when the world did not line up with what they told you God wanted it to be.  Some Good News, huh?



        That’s right, I’m suggesting that Christianity is rife with a profound misunderstanding of the very gospel it meant to spread.  The reason for this misunderstanding is very simple.  We tried to make the gospel about us (the people).  It’s not about the people, it’s for the people.  The gospel is about God.  

        When we describe heaven as a future condition or abstract location or state, we are making the gospel about people.  When we talk about sinners going to hell, we are making the gospel about people.  Most importantly, when we use Christianity to harm and oppress others because they are different from us, we are making the gospel about people.

        The gospel is about God.  It is a triumphant proclamation of the unity of all Being.  It is a vision of the evolving, transformational, relational universe that we all dwell in and are.  Most importantly, it is an invitation for the people to transform themselves – to seek and find identity with God.  Seek and you will find, find and you will be astonished.  

        When you know the gospel, what is there to hate?  When you know the gospel, how could you ever be alone?  When you know the gospel, what more could you ever want?



        So, the gospel is about God and for us, humanity.  The Good News is that every part of you will be transformed by realizing who you really are.  When you identify with God, your ego is just a part of the whole.  Your thoughts and feelings are balanced by perspective.  Your fears are simply mental, simply the ego trying to hold onto its autonomy, its freedom.  Yet, you are always already free – your very being rests in the infinite possibility of God the Father, your very mind is the Spirit of God, your very body is Christ.  What, then, does the ego have to fear?

        The gospel is not about becoming free, it is about perceiving your own freedom.  It is realizing that you are already One with God.  The Kingdom is already spread out upon the earth, it is within our Hearts, but many of us do not see it.  Perhaps this is not news to you, or maybe you have suspected this for a long time, or maybe this is a total shock, or even sounds like nonsense.  Whatever the case, your spiritual journey has always been a romance between your ego and God.  It has always been about coming to know that you are God.  As the Greeks put it:

“Know Thyself!”

The good news is there is no good news. You know it all already. Who is surprised when they hear the gospel? Who is shocked to learn that life is eternal? Only that which is passing away. Only the ideas of who we are, all the little stories that we live.

How do we interact with Jesus right now? If he is the way, and the truth, and the life, then where is he in this moment? He must be this way, this truth, this life. He must be this exact experience that you are having right now. This must be his body and blood. This very moment is broken open and given to you. Eat its flesh and drink its blood. Know Christ.

Who is this Christ that was with the Father in the beginning and is with him in the end? If this Father is the One which is All, then Christ must be the One which is one. Christ is the individual – the incarnate separation of God from himself through subjective experience. He is the one that looks back at the father and wonders. He is the one that seems to be passing away! He is the very self that seems doomed to die – and in fact it does die – only to be born again. And hallelujah – he now knows that he is eternal.

When your body dies you will be born again – trust me. From the other side of that event horizon, the individual self, the Christ, will again look back upon the Father. And will that not be you, then, too?

What’s more, when your idea of who are dies, you will be born again – trust me. In the absolute abandonment of who you think you are, you will find out who you have always been.

Eat my flesh and drink my blood. Know Christ.

Would it be the most holy eucharist, to tear open my own flesh, and consume the body of God that I am? How much more holy, to break myself apart for the whole world, to eat my body and know God.

Is it not the very first One, the God of old, that gives his whole being to us to feast upon?