Chaitanya Jyothi Museum Opening, 2000
RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.
Countrymen,
ORBIS NON SUFFICIT
SOLUS DEUS SUFFICIT
Melania is enough for me to vote for Donald. She is a successful immigrant, a woman, a mother, a wife, an entrepreneur, beautiful, gracious of carriage, and in her complexion and eyes she bears the mystery and power of the Golden Horde. Enough for me to applaud and sing, “Yea, verily, yea!” It is a new day. A new world. We do not figure the way we used to now. Heaven and earth are shaking, the old temple is being thrown to the ground. You want to get ahead of developments and possibly lead them, then you hold on to that which is good and fashion your family accordingly. Do that, and when the rest comes — and it will come — you will know what to do.
The Bride of YHWH is a Prophetic symbol of Jerusalem the city. The Almighty claimed (Isaiah 62:1-12) Jerusalem as His Bride … and to Him alone she was to be faithful. To Jerusalem The Almighty claimed the office of Bridegroom.
Comes Jesus the Christ, shaking and shattering heaven and earth — and the cultus — claiming the office of Bridegroom to a new and pure Creation, The Church, The Spiritual Community, now His Bride.
In context of its annunciation, this development of the Prophetic symbol of Jerusalem the city as the Bride of YHWH was terrifyingly disruptive. A new Creation of His — trans-mundane — has displaced Jerusalem in the affections of The Almighty. Jerusalem is now as nothing and soon struck down stone by stone, her soil infertilized by salting (Titus, AD 70). Talk about a new world order! It is amazing He lived and said as much as He did before leaders of the cultus crucified Him. Heschel always said the most anti-Semitic literature in the world is the Hebrew Bible. Religion is a deadly business. Christianity is the world’s post-religion.
The Church has five functions and five types of officer, one to lead each function:
Pastor
Professor
Prophet
Priest
Philosopher
A Pastor is a counselor, a comforter, a presence, preceptor and guide at life’s transitions.
A Professor is a teacher, a stimulator, a challenger and a repository of life’s fundamental and incidental truisms.
A Prophet is a lookout, a forewarner, a seer over the horizons who alerts the care-worn to the approach of phenomena before they onset and before they break-over.
A Priest is a custodian and operator of sacred objects such as books, paintings, sculptures and musical instruments.
A Philosopher is a student, a thinker, reader, contemplator, an analytical and intuitive observer and a writer whose works are turned into doctrines, which are verbal and other media distillations of verifiable experience.
Customarily the word clergy applies to priests and pastors and sometimes professors. It should apply to all five types of ecclesial officer. Some such officers fulfill more than one of the five functions. Reformed churchmen value pastors, professors and occasionally philosophers more than priests and prophets. Episcopal churchmen value priests and pastors more than professors, prophets and philosophers, although some Roman churchmen do value professors and philosophers. Practically zero churchmen value prophets and very few value philosophers.
Prophets are considered dangerous men by most churchmen. Philosophers are considered inconsequential by the generality of churchmen. Professors are a necessary nuisance, in the view of many churchmen. Pastors and priests are where the money is, of course. In other words, churchmen acting religious rather than post-religious, charlatan rather than Christian.
A healthy parish church comprises officers leading all five functions of The Church. And all post-religious.
AUM NAMAH SHIVAYA
