Shadow Puppet Storyteller

Metanoia -- a transformational journey Mary O Davis, my part

This is built from the late chapter in Metanoia -- a transformational journey (DeVorss 1980) to complete a Good Friday service touching upon the last seven words of Jesus. I have synthesized it with much of my own thought and words, but still acknowledge the framework that is the quoted words from that chapter in Metanoia -- a transformational journey by Mary O. Davis.

How does our life finally transform in the manner of Christ Jesus? Poet John O’Donohue inspired me with the idea that if you can view yourself through acceptance, you will know the most intimate and forgiving compassion. And this is the word and the action taken by Jesus at the end:

ACCEPTANCE

"Acceptance means a complete letting go and letting God." (pg.98) It is momentous as related in the bible, and it often in life seems the most difficult task. However, with this final act of commitment, Jesus the man accepted the Christ consciousness, which all along was the will and the message of the Father.

We must hear an important distinction in what word we are talking about, ACCEPTANCE, and that there is a great "difference between acceptance and resignation." (pg.98)

Acceptance is positive, an affirmation of the creative power.
Resignation would be barren of the life-affirming principle that we know is the Christ consciousness.

To resign himself to his fate as the Son of God, would be to focus on the daunting circumstances of his ministry in an unfavorable political climate, in the questions at the Temple left unanswered from when he was a child, in all that could not be done. It would have created a bleak, wary creature believing "in a vast unknowable creation." (pg.98) This is not the Jesus we read about, however, is it?

Through acceptance, there are miracles. All who believe can step away from the pain of ridicule, rise from the dead, be healed of blindness. Acceptance absolves the body of resistance. This one, final act removes the suffering. As long as a situation is resisted, the pain of it hangs with us.

An acceptance says, “I trust the good will and the love of God.” (pg. 99) The power of creation is allowed to man through the example of Jesus’ acceptance. Nothing is left to make sense of when a situation is turned over to the consciousness that is the Christ consciousness. When Jesus spoke the last word, "He Gave up the ghost, and further, that moment reads like this: The veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom." (pg. 100) The curtain hanging in Soloman’s Temple physically blocked worshipers from seeing past it to the holy place beyond.Relinquishing belief in material reality is acceptance of the pure Christ consciousness.

So, with freedom and confidence, all people are able to see past what was once believed.

When we make the final act of giving up all personal ambitions and aims, the soul enters into the glory beyond.

In the awakening to the Light of Spirit, and speaking these few final words, Jesus illuminated for us the last seven steps that we must take to finally overcome.