This is the combined Scripture for my sermon Love of Law, Law of Love, posted separately. I'm posting it this way because it's a little easier to read than flipping through the Bible. This comes from the NRSV translation.

Exodus  (24:12; 31:18; 32:15,19; 34:1,4,27a,28b)
The Lord said to Moses, 'Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction.'

When God finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two tablets of the covenant, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God.

Then Moses turned and went down from the mountain, carrying the two tablets of the covenant in his hands, tablets that were written on both sides, written on the front and on the back. As soon as he came near the camp and saw the [golden calf and the dancing, Moses' anger burned hot, and he threw the tablets from his hands and broke them at the foot of the mountain.

The Lord said to Moses, 'Cut two tablets of stone like the former ones, and I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets, which you broke.' So Moses cut two tablets of stone like the former ones; and he rose early in the morning and went up on Mount Sinai, as the Lord had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tablets of stone.

The Lord said to Moses: Write these words. And he wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.

Jeremiah (31:31-33)
The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt—a covenant that they broke. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Ezekiel (36:22a,26,27,28b)
Thus says the Lord God: A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone, and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall be my people, and I will be your God.

2nd Corinthians (2:14,15,17b; 3:1b-3)
Thanks be to God, who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession, and through us spreads in every place the fragrance that comes from knowing him. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing; for in Christ we speak as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God and standing in his presence. Surely we do not need, as some do, letters of recommendation, do we? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all; and you show that you are a letter of Christ, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

The reading today is Matthew, chapter 28, verses 16-20 -- the last five verses in Matthew's gospel -- after the crucifixion, after the resurrection. This passage is often called the Great Commission. Hear the Good News:

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."
 

And of course, it's understood that Jesus isn't just talking to those eleven -- the point is, this Great Commission applies to all of us.

This passage -- for liberal/progressive Christians, for modern/postmodern Christians, like ourselves -- this passage is usually not real popular. It sounds a lot more evangelical -- it sounds so authoritarian. Listen again to some of the words:

• They went to the mountain where Jesus told them to go.

• Jesus said all authority has been given to me.

• Jesus said go.

• Make disciples.

• Baptize them.

• Teach them to obey everything...

• ...everything I have commanded you

It's easy to get the impression that these are marching orders, almost militaristic. And in fact, this passage has been used many times in the past to justify a colonialist, imperialist, even a militarist approach to Christian mission. I don't want to be colonialist or imperialist or militaristic; I'm pretty sure everyone in this room actively opposes that approach to the world. So where's the Good News for us in this "Great Commission?"

Now, to be fair, I read this passage from the New International Version, a translation preferred by a lot of more conservative, evangelical congregations. There are other translations that soften it a bit, but even the Inclusive Bible that we use here has "authority," and "go and make disciples and baptize," and "I commanded you."

Let me read you this -- listen and see if it falls a little easier on your ears:
 

The Lord said to the disciples, "I am delivered from all fetters, human and divine.  You, my disciples, are also delivered from all fetters, human and divine.  Go now and wander for the profit of many, for the happiness of many, and out of compassion for the world, for the good, profit, and happiness of all.  Preach the Way, which is good in the beginning, good in the middle, and good in the end, in the spirit and in the letter. Proclaim a consummate, perfect and pure life of holiness. And I will go also, my disciples, to preach the Way."
 

Does that sound better? More egalitarian? More free? More loving?

The thing is, though, that wasn't a new translation of the Great Commission in Matthew. No, that was actually Chapter 1, verse 11, of the Magavada, a Buddhist text. It's wonderful, but it's missing some of what's in the Matthew text.

So before we give up on Matthew and just all convert to Buddhism, let's take another look at some of those troubling words.

Now, in the Greek...

Wait. I read somewhere once that, when you hear the preacher speak the phrase "in the Greek," you should run for the hills. So, maybe I won't give you that Greek lesson after all. But I do want to remind you that what the Bible "really" says is written in Greek. When we translate the Bible, what we're really doing is interpreting the Greek original, and re-stating it in a language that makes sense to us today.

Like when Jesus "told them" to meet him on the mountain in Galilee. The word that's used here means something more like "made arrangements with them." And in fact, he didn't tell those eleven men anything. In Matthew's story of the Resurrection, Jesus spoke only to the women disciples, and made arrangements with them to get the men to Galilee.

Then, on the mountain in Galilee, when Jesus says, "All authority has been given to me," he doesn't mean authority in the sense of "do what I say or else." He's saying that God has auth-or-ized him to speak on God's behalf. He's simply confirming what everyone has known, or at least suspected, during his whole ministry -- that he's not here with his agenda -- he was sent here by God to do God's work.

Jesus says, "Go." Yeah, that's pretty imperative. But his point is that they shouldn't just stay on this mountain and worship him. Their ministry -- our ministry -- like Jesus' ministry, is out in the world.

"Make disciples?" Jesus isn't saying, "OK, now you know everything -- make sure all those other, ignorant people out there know it too." In fact, that's one of the important differences from the Buddhist passage. The Buddha's disciples are the ones who have achieved enlightenment, and now they're prepared to take enlightenment to others. Jesus' disciples are not so perfect -- far from it.  Remember, "They doubted."

And "make disciples" doesn't mean, "make them believe." Jesus made disciples of these eleven with an invitation: "Follow me". Perfection is not required, just following. "Make disciples" says invite others to follow, invite them into the community of followers of the Way.

So with baptism. Baptism isn't a means of identifying who's saved and who's damned. "Baptize them" isn't a synonym for "save their souls." Baptism is a celebration of welcoming a new follower into the community.

Then there's "teach them to obey everything I have commanded you."

Obey is technically one correct translation, but not in the sense of "a soldier obeys orders." To avoid this connotation, other translations use different words: "teach them to carry out" what I have commanded, or "teach them to keep" -- to keep -- what I have commanded. It has more the sense of taking good care of something precious -- something precious like the Way that Jesus' disciples follow, the Way that Jesus taught.

Or as Jesus puts it, that something precious is "everything I have commanded you." In this case, the word means exactly what it sounds like: commanded means commanded. But before we start to fret -- "Oh, I knew it! Now comes the hammer! In the end it really is all about commands and rules and thou-shalt's!" -- before we start to fret, let's take a look at just what this was, that Jesus commanded.

In particular, let's look at what Jesus commands in Matthew's gospel. It's back near the beginning of the gospel. Jesus started laying the groundwork for this right from the start, in chapters 5 and 6. It's Jesus' major speech in Matthew... speech... well, sermon actually: the Sermon on the Mount. What's in there? Here are summaries of a few commands you've probably heard before:

• It's not enough just to not murder someone. If you are angry with a brother or a sister, you'll still be judged. Reconcile with the person. What really matters is living with love in your heart.

• It's not enough just to not commit adultery. If you look on someone with lust, it's the same thing. What really matters is living with love in your heart.

• Justice by retribution -- an eye for an eye -- is not enough. If someone wants to take something from you, give it to them, and then give them even more. What really matters is living with love in your heart.

• Loving your neighbor is not enough. Love your enemies too, and pray for them. What really matters is living with love in your heart.

"Commands" in the sense of a bunch of picky rules to follow? No, not at all. But commanding? Oh yes.

Let's take what we've learned and re-tell Matthew's story of the Great Commission. It might sound something like this:

Then, as arranged by the women disciples who had seen the resurrected Jesus, the eleven men disciples went to the mountain in Galilee to meet Jesus. When they saw him, they worshiped him; yet they still doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, "God has authorized me to speak on God's behalf. Invite people everywhere in the world to follow me with you. Celebrate and welcome each new follower. Teach them the Way of Love, as I have taught you. And don't let your very human imperfection stand in your way. I am with you, always."
 

So what does this mean to us? Are we supposed to preach on the street corner? Go door-to-door handing out leaflets? Buttonhole our non-Christian colleagues at work, and explain to them all the answers that Christianity has to all their problems?

No, no, and no.

Should we just go out into the world then, and do good works, and keep our religious and spiritual life private for Sunday nights here at Circle of Grace?

No. That's not it either.

You see, we have something very special. We understand an exceptionally intimate relationship between God and humanity -- an intimate relationship between God and each individual person. So intimate, that we understand our spiritual leader to be both God, and a human person.

God is so close to us that God and a human can exist as a single being. That's what allows us to do what really matters -- to live with love in our hearts. The Spirit of God in our hearts is the source of that love. It is God in us that leads us to follow what we call the Way -- the Way of Love.

I know a lot of people -- and I'd guess you all know a lot of people -- who hunger for some kind of spiritual comfort, spiritual presence in their lives. People who can't bring themselves to look for that in a church, who wouldn't even consider Christianity as a place to find that. Because they think Christianity is about a bunch of rules to follow, or because some church has turned them away, or because someone used "Christian" beliefs as an excuse to hurt them terribly. But they still hunger.
 
These are the people to whom we can tell our story. We can't undo, excuse, or make up for the hurt that has already been caused. But late at night, when they tell us of their hunger, over a glass of wine, we can say, "You know, I belong to a spiritual community that follows the Way of Love. No rules, no requirements, no formalities, no church building. None of us has all the answers. We're just a community that believes that what really matters is living with love in your heart. It would be wonderful if you and your partner could visit us some time."

That Spirit-led love in our hearts -- that's something worth inviting others to follow.

I think Jesus would agree.

Amen.

Ezekiel? What does that most dour of Old Testament prophets have to teach us about Lent, our Christian journey in anticipation of the glory of the Resurrection? Plenty, as it turns out.

Ezekiel brought God’s word to Israel during a dark time in its history: the Babylonian Exile in the 580’s and 570’s BCE, after the fall of Jerusalem. He preached the good news of God’s power to redeem right alongside the sobering reality that there was much for the people to be redeemed from. The Exile was understood as the dire consequence of turning away from God – sinning, we would call it in our Christian tradition. That is emphasized in this passage by God’s command to “remember your evil ways, and your dealings that were not good; and [to] loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominable deeds.” The people cannot turn a blind eye to their own ultimate responsibility for the collapse of their society and their nation, not if they truly want their relationship with God to be restored. And we cannot follow this path to Easter with our eyes closed to how much we have fallen short of what, and who, God wants us to be. Just as the ancient Israelites, we can only appreciate redemption when we understand what it is that we need to be redeemed from.

And through Ezekiel, God does promise that redemption, just as God promises redemption through Christ. Significantly, God redeems the people “not for your sake, O house of Israel… but for the sake of My holy name.” It is for God’s own purposes, and through God’s own power, that the people are restored. Just how much power, God shows in the very next chapter, in the well-known vision of the valley of dry bones, brought back to life by God. It’s the same in our Christian tradition: we know we are powerless to impel God save us from our own far-from-perfect selves; God saves us because God wants to. When we fast for Lent, whether literally, or symbolically by giving up chocolate or coffee, we don’t do it because that’s God’s price for redemption. We do it as a sign of our spiritual discipline in contemplating who God is, and who we are. God is the one who restores our relationship with God; we are the ones who need God to restore us to that right relationship.

In the language of life abundant – the grain, the fruit, the fields – God points the way to the new life of Israel. And so it is with us, amidst the riotous blooming of springtime, that we somberly reflect on our need for redemption – our need for God.

Let us pray:

Come, dear God. Come. We hold ourselves in the tension between knowing our own transgressive nature, and knowing your power and desire to redeem us. Come, remove from our bodies the hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Come, sprinkle on us the clean water of Easter baptism. Come, and put your spirit within us. With faithful trust in your word, we pray in the name of the One you sent, Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.

Ezekiel 36:22-32 (God, speaking to Ezekiel)
Therefore say to the house of Israel, Thus says the Lord God: It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name, which you have profaned among the nations to which you came. I will sanctify my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord, says the Lord God, when through you I display my holiness before their eyes. I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God. I will save you from all your uncleannesses, and I will summon the grain and make it abundant and lay no famine upon you. I will make the fruit of the tree and the produce of the field abundant, so that you may never again suffer the disgrace of famine among the nations. Then you shall remember your evil ways, and your dealings that were not good; and you shall loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominable deeds. It is not for your sake that I will act, says the Lord God; let that be known to you. Be ashamed and dismayed for your ways, O house of Israel.

Pond. Stone. Splash. Ripples.
Bigger. Spreading. Smaller. Gone.
What was real? Splash? Stone?

This moment.
Now.
Right now, someone hurts,
would trade the rest of her life
to be held for one minute,
this minute – now.

This moment.
Now.
In this darkness
clouds obscure the moon,
dark energy hides emotion.
Exists not, what we cannot see
right now.

This moment.
Now.
That heartbeat has faded to silence.
The next has yet to be.
We can by faith alone call this
the time between heartbeats –
this still, dark silence
of now.

This moment.
Now.
I exist, and you.
We exist,
not in the past or future,
the “we” exists in just
one moment – now.

Tags: poetry

Not sex, but feeling intimate –
that is what we say we miss
as we grow old, and live alone.
We both say this,
sensibly and coolly,
almost with detachment.
Our meeting at the church is done;
your car has brought me home.
I should get out
and say goodbye
and go upstairs…
and yet
our conversation carries on somehow.
We talk of this and that – banalities –
then return to saying
that we’re happy single, pursuing love no more
though wouldn’t mind if it just happened
somehow.
We say that holding hands is what we miss,
the quick peck when parting,
someone to listen, and to listen to,
when we come home. Not sex.
And then we talk about our jobs,
then oh my gosh it’s getting late,
why yes it is
I have to go, tomorrow is a busy day
and so good night, and thank you for the ride.
And parting in the summer night,
we wave and smile
and separate,
each to her own home.
And there we find our happiness and satisfaction
in our aloneness. Not sex.

Tags: poetry

Today's sermon, preached at Crossroads Community Church (UCC), Melbourne, FL. The baptism theme is because this is Baptism of the Lord Sunday in the church calendar. Today was the first time I ever preached back-to-back services. After lunch I took a three-hour nap.
Isaiah 43:1-7
Luke 3:1-3,15-22

Loving God, we ask that you guide us today as we explore this ancient Scripture. We ask to be touched by the Word, even transformed. We ask for your sure, steady presence with us as we seek to learn more about your call to us, our response to your call, and our mutual commitment – ours to you, and yours to us. May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts, be pleasing to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

Let’s talk about baptism. What is baptism? Why do people get baptized? That is, why do Christians get baptized? Why did Jesus get baptized in this morning’s Gospel reading? Does anybody here remember their baptism? I don’t – I was baptized when I was a baby, back in the middle of last century. A lot of people are baptized as babies. Why do parents have their babies baptized? –babies are too young to even know what’s happening, let alone understand what it means. But if someone wasn’t baptized as a baby, they might choose to be baptized when they’re an adult. Why? What difference does it make? You don’t have to be baptized to go to church, or to pray, or to worship God. Does it make a difference? Wouldn’t Jesus still be our Lord and Savior if he hadn’t been baptized? Wouldn’t we still be Christians if we weren’t baptized?

When I try to answer these questions, here’s what I see: baptism is a ritual that brings two acts together: an act of the person being baptized, and an act of God; and that it introduces a new relationship between the person and God. It’s a sign of that new relationship, and it’s a seal: it “seals the deal”, it seals the commitment to that relationship, your commitment and God’s commitment.

So first, it’s a ritual – it’s something that we do in a formal, traditional way. A ritual is a symbolic expression of some greater truth. There is drama in a ritual, it reaches out and grabs us by the heart.

As John the Baptist proclaimed, baptism can be a ritual of repentance and forgiveness. Or more generally expressed, a ritual of cleansing and renewal. It’s also a ritual of prayer and blessing. Baptism is a ritual of call and response. It’s a ritual of claim and gift. It’s a ritual of death and life.

What better symbol to use in our ritual, then, than water? Water, the very basis of life! Water was there at the creation: “God’s breath moved upon the water.” Before we're born, we're surrounded and protected by water, in the womb. Water is rain on our crops, it’s a spring in the desert. For the prophet Amos, it was the source of all that is good and right: “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream!”

For John the Baptist, baptism in water was the ritual that symbolized repentance and forgiveness. The act of the people was repentance of sin, and the act of God was forgiveness of sin.

Of course, that does raise a question. Why did Jesus come to be baptized? Jesus, who we understand to have had no sins of his own? In fact, in Matthew’s telling of Jesus’ baptism, John tries to refuse. “No, no, no,” he says, “you’re the one who should be baptizing me, not the other way around!” But Jesus insists, and John baptizes him. Why this ritual of washing away sin, for the sinless Son of God?

And this is where we see that baptism is more than a ritual of our repentance and God’s forgiveness. In a larger sense, it’s a ritual in which we cleanse, we wash away, and God renews us. Cleansing and renewal.

But more than that even – and now we begin to touch on what it meant for Jesus – it’s a ritual of prayer and blessing – we pray, and God blesses. The Gospel passage tells us that Jesus was praying at his baptism, and that’s when the Holy Spirit came down from heaven onto him, that’s when God responded with a blessing, “You are my beloved son, with you I am well pleased.”

For thirty years, Jesus had been living in Galilee, an obscure life, it seems – we have no record of it – waiting, preparing. Waiting for what? Waiting for God to call him to his work. God called Jesus to begin his ministry, and Jesus responded. And gosh, did he respond. He walked 70 miles from Galilee to the lower Jordan to be baptized, to seal the deal, to confirm his commitment to God’s work. And in pronouncing that blessing through the Holy Spirit, God confirmed God’s commitment to Jesus. Call and response.

In baptism, God claimed Jesus, and Jesus responded by offering himself as a gift to God. As the prophet Isaiah taught us this morning, God said, “I have called you by name, you are mine.” And really, God claims us from the very beginning of our lives, as Isaiah makes clear in a later chapter: “The Lord called me before I was born, while I was in my mother’s womb he named me.” It was this claim of God on Jesus that Jesus acknowledged in his baptism. Claim and gift.

In the largest sense, baptism marks our death to an old life, and our rebirth into a new life. Never again would Jesus live as an obscure carpenter’s son in Galilee. Oh yes, he returned to Galilee after his baptism – 40 days after this baptism, 40 days in the wilderness, making sure he was fit for the work he was about to do – but when he got back to Galilee, he didn’t go back home to the shop. He started a new life of healing and teaching. Healing the sick, the injured, the mentally ill and the spiritually ill. Teaching that God’s power was about to be revealed in God doing a new thing, a redemptive, reconciling, loving thing. Paying the cost of our sins for us; making peace between us and God; and all because of the faithful love that God has for us. Death to the old life, birth into the new.

And all this is true for our own baptisms, too. It’s true whether you’ve already been baptized, or you’re preparing for your baptism for some time in the future, or if you choose to be baptized today, here and now. It’s true whether you remember your baptism literally, because you were a teenager or an adult when it happened, or whether you “remember” it in the same sense that we are “remembering” Jesus’ baptism today.

Unlike Jesus, of course, we’re not sinless, so baptism for us includes a formal, ritual repentance of all our sins, along with God’s forgiveness of those sins. We see the water as cleansing us of the pollution of those sins; and the water symbolizes God’s renewal of us. Even for infants, this is God’s promise of a clean start.

Our baptism, too, is prayer and blessing – our own prayer, prayer by parents on a baby’s behalf, prayer by the congregation – in the sure confidence of faith that God responds to prayer with blessing.

Especially for adults, our baptisms are call and response: God’s call and our response. For babies, the language of claim and gift may make more sense. But either way, when God does call us, it is rooted in God’s claim on us; we give ourselves and our children in acknowledgement of that claim, so that we are ready to respond to whatever God’s call may be.

And finally, when we are baptized, and every time we remember our baptism, it is a rejection of the old way, the way of sin – it’s the death of a life empty of God, and rebirth into a life filled with God’s abundance.

Friends, if you haven’t been baptized, I invite you to listen prayerfully for God’s call, and to consider prayerfully whether your response to that call might be to assent to God’s claim on you by the gift of yourself through baptism.

And friends, if you have been baptized, I invite you to remember the death of an old life, and rebirth into a new – I invite you to touch the water as you leave today and remember your baptism.

Tags: baptism, sermon

What do you think you’re doing?

What do you think you’re doing,
Getting under my skin?
Yes, I know… yes, I invited you
But how was I to know that you’d accept?

And what are you doing there,
In my heart?
I know I didn’t ask for that.
Maybe, perhaps, I opened up,
Opened up myself to it,
Opened up my heart.
But you didn’t have to just come waltzing in
Like I was fine with that.
Yes, yes, I like you
And yes, yes, I know, you like me…

But really, do you have to be there, on my mind
All
The
Time?
In my thoughts?
You are my thoughts…
You’re taking over my thoughts!
Who do you think my thoughts belong to, anyway?
Who do
I think my thoughts belong to, anyway?

But really – really! – you should know
I warned you
It’s not safe inside me
I’m crazy, dangerous
It’s not safe
You could get hurt in there
I should know
I hurt in there

Inside Out

I’m inside out
That explains everything

I’ve known for weeks
All my nerve endings
Are on the outside
Not in the inside
Where they belong
I feel so much
Too much sometimes

I know so much
Too much sometimes
All my strong, protective layers
I sent them down inside
A long time ago
To guard my heart
But suddenly now
I know
They’re not doing it any more
They’ve gone even deeper
I have no idea where they are
Damn. I’ve lost track of my strong, protective layers
Now what?

Andofcourse Everybody knows
My parts are inside out
Born that way
I could get them fixed
I could get fixed
But they’d still be inside out

My brain is inside-out too
I don’t think like other People
Sometimes I don’t see it
Whatever ‘it’ may be
Til someone gently
Takes me by the hand
And explains
Sometimes, though, I get there
Muchmuchmuchmuch faster
Than the Others
I know the shortcuts
Well, I take the shortcuts
To follow the shortcut
The back way, the secret passage
You can’t know, can’t do
Can’t even really go
You just
Be there
At the other end
Like the tortoise
Watching the hares arrive

Inside-out heart, though
That’s really complicated
Turn your brain
Inside out
To understand it
Pumping my body
My inside-out body
Through my blood
I am in my blood
I am of my blood
Oh yes, I have a heart
But I can’t depend on it
My heart depends on me

Between

Truth lies in the Between
not in the particles of space
not in the grains of time
not in any of them
not even in all of them together.
Truth (or Existence or Being or God) lies in the Between
Can’t have the Between without that which it is between
But the Between is not either thing that it is between
Balance can’t be at either weight
Balance needs both weights but it is not both weights or either one

The clock moves. Time does not move.
People move. Space does not move.
Our thoughts/feelings/lives move. Existence does not move.
Time is.
Space is.
Existence is.
Religion moves. Faith moves. God does not move.
God is.
I do not move.
If movement then not I.

I am broken.
All is whole.
I am whole.
I am in the balance between broken and whole.
I am the balance.

Without brokenness I am incomplete.
Without wholeness I am incomplete.
It’s not a mix.
It’s both/and simultaneously with neither/nor.

I am both and I am neither.

Both what? Neither what?  NO!  It’s
the abstract, ideal Both;
the abstract, ideal Neither.

Truth is not the opposite of falsehood.
If there are opposites neither can be Truth.
Truth is in the Between.
It’s not the grains of time or the particles of space,
it’s what’s between them.
That’s where Truth is.

Between is not a place, not a time.
Then it would be a particle or a grain.
Between exists but only when you know what “exists” means.

I can only be if I rise above being.
Being is in a place, at a time.
To truly be is to transcend space and time.