RAMANAM
In the Name of The Father, and of The Son and of The Holy Spirit, Amen.

A close friend, whom I have not met in person and likely never will, inquired after associating with a “messianic congregation” in her area.  I responded:

I couldn’t recommend a “messianic congregation,” as if there is some other kind.  Any time an adjective is attached to the name of a church, I wonder what they’re smoking, or whose wife/husband/son/daughter they dream of subjugating.  The word religion (Latin re + ligio) means “binding up,” meaning, binding up that which is come apart (the meaning of paralysis = unbound, flopping about chaotically).  E.G., ligature.  Religion is re-ligature-ing.

Life is work and if the elements of one’s existence — body, mind, spirit intellect — are alienated one from another, disunited, helter-skelter, one is paralyzed and cannot work, cannot fulfill their purpose.  It is the role of religion to heal the paralyzed, to rebind or reunite their separated elements, to make them whole, one person, internally integrated, strong, confident, free, independent, relaxed, mind hard as diamond, heart soft as melted butter, hands ever busy skillfully creating beneficial structures, things which impart joy and strength.  Peace has to be earned.  It cannot be given.  Love is the royal road.  Duty is God, Work is Worship.

Religious practices are relative to time, place and circumstance.  Note that all the great saints and sages invent new religious practices.  This is because they came during times when existing/old practices were in-fructuous.  They didn’t condemn the old, they transcended them, left them behind, creating new practices tuned for the times.

I do not see saints or sages creating new practices tuned for these times.  That leaves the old ones as the only choices, and I see those choices as uniformly repugnant to spiritual practice, which means to the royal road of love.  Therefore, IMO, each one is on their own, and that must be how the Almighty wants it since that is all I see obtaining, existing.

I think the Almighty has taken human form — am certain of that — but it’s also clear to me that not only did he not do that to attract followers, nor yet to make a new religion, but also he is selective as to who recognizes him, and the number is consistently small over a long duration.  So, no blazes of salvatory glory for us!

And always it is true that God transcends every name and form, is restricted by none of them, not anywhere, not ever.  This must always be borne in mind, especially when accosted by the smug and unctuous who know what one must do.  “Shut up and behave yourself,” is an appropriate reply to such.

I think we are living on the cusp of a time the outlines of which we or at least I do not discern.  I have no dates, no sense of deeds or definitions.  It feels like a waiting period.  Perhaps best termed a gestation.  I don’t know.  In any case, the baby isn’t here yet, so to speak, but I think one is on the way.  In that sense a “messianic congregation” is responding to deep currents, well below the conscious realm, but in any case it’s a bad name because it derives from already fulfilled prophecy.  The Messiah of history,  Jesus the Christ, is already come.  Anything that happens now won’t contradict that but it will not be restricted by it, either.  The terms are all different for whatever it is that approaches.  I have no idea what they are.  But they are of God and so they cast comfort before them.

And meanwhile, I’d commend staying in the clear, grasp the uncertainty such as it exists (Uncertainty is God), and do whatever appears needful and reasonable according to the best light that one has in those regards.  One’s nature is divine — Logos/Reason — and that is the basis of comfort amid whatever circumstances throw in one’s path.  One has, one is, all that one needs, that is, already, one’s Logos Nature, which is Divine Nature.

AMDG