The Camerado Chronicles -- Part One --Chapter XV

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26 June
Flagstaff, Arizona

Thought I’d give us all a little breather after that and get
you caught up geographically speaking. This last entry
spanned three separate days –it is now Saturday the 26th
and I’m sitting aside old Route 66 as it heads west out of
Flagstaff. I did some typing at Northern Arizona Univer-
sity, and reminisced about some seminal time spent in this
fine mountain town. But for a brief detour in eastern
Oklahoma to meet my swap truck, I have been retracing
the path of ol’ 66 since Chicago, and will stay on it until
it turns south out of Barstow, Calif. and I must make my
way north to Stockton. I would follow it to its terminus
at the Santa Monica pier (and beyond if necessary), but
customers of Ralph’s supermarkets in northern California
are counting on me to bring them toilet paper.

And I have to go home.

I have so many mixed feelings about this return trip to Ashland.
It may be a very hard few days. I know my thoughts are
dwelling on that possibility, which consequently is making it
much harder to write than normal –they shouldn’t be, but they
are. Aubray and I have tried for five-and-a-half years to build a
home together on the foundation of God, with good periods of success but ultimately a lot more failure. And now all this: was I
supposed to be a seed willing to go into the ground and die all this time? Or was it preparing me for that destiny? All I know for sure is,
that’s where I feel God leading me now. I AM has proven over and over for me my inadequacy at any other human endeavor, besides
writin’-n-drivin’, and even writin’ was partially blocked off for me for the longest time. Now these dual elements of my life are coming
together in a united path that feels like it has me floating through the air, so that, as the old Celtic saying goes, the road must rise up to
meet me. This is the goodness I feel at the wheel and at the pen. But where does that leave room for the woman I love, the wife I so
desire?

I don’t know. Right now I just plan to motor west, get a few kicks maybe. Allons!

* * * *

This would be an awful lot to ask you to swallow, all this stuff about God and Jesus and all. Fortunately, I’m not asking you to swallow
it. This is my personal testimony of faith, nothing more. It originates from the Word of God as I hear it, and is corroborated by the
testimony of some other “loose canon” Christians, but that’s all. I do not claim any authority with which to back up these statements;
for one thing, I’m not foolish enough to think I have any; for another, my hope is that in reading them you will seek to look beyond
authority and into that place where the Word of God resonates within you. Human authority will always try to place a sound filter
between you and that place, so that everything you hear will sound like their tune. Resist that, in this reading if nowhere else. I used to
struggle so much with reading the Bible in the light of Biblian claims of its authority. Those claims seemed to come from such a typically
worldly perspective that I found them very distracting to process of discerning the spirit. I inherently do not trust spiritual institutions or
bodies of thought that claim exclusivity in the realm of Truth –what is more human than the need to assert oneself over others?

When I stopped that struggle, by declaring, as you personally

witnessed in

Chapter One, that I do not believe these claims of

exclusivity, so much was

unlocked, so much that rang true as the

Word of God.

Only then did the

Christian Bible take its rightful

place for me on the continuum of the world’s

holy scriptures,

written utterances upon the infinite nature of God.

If it had continued to sound little more than a dull thud, however, it

would not

have much of a place within my faith, and you certainly

wouldn’t see so many

references to it here.

I believe this is how

we should read writings of a spiritual

nature, or how we should

listen to lectures and sermons.

The “God said it, I

believe it, that

settles it” approach to reading the Bible may make things simpler

for our Christianity, but

it deprives us of a great opportunity for

developing

our spiritual discernment –fine tuning our inner

ears, you could say, to

hear God’s Word

—without which you

will have trouble hearing it in anything

but the Bible, and that’s a

shame.

The message I hope to have conveyed in the last chapter probably depends a lot upon the reader’s perspective. For those of a non-
Christian faith –especially, for some reason, the much-maligned faith of Judaism—I hope after “x” pages of this manuscript I have finally
put forth a convincing, irrefutable argument that the Christ I seek and serve is not a man, and certainly not one for whom you
must forsake all your beliefs and bow down to. I hope I have presented a concept that resonates within the framework of your own
faith, rather than one that encourages you to disassemble and rebuild that framework, for the aim of the Perennial Philosophy is the
opposite of spiritual imperialism; it is, in Aldous Huxley’s words, the “Highest Common Factor” of all faiths. I encourage you to
always seek the living God, by whatever name you call I AM, in all beings.

For the non-religious or non-spiritually-attuned reader: Maybe you too have always been turned off by the imperial nature of the Western
Orthodox Church. Maybe you were afraid that you would have to check your brain at the door to come in for Sunday service. Maybe
you looked at the Western church’s history and thought, “If these are God’s ambassadors, I’m better off seeking on my own,” or if it
seemed too speculative or absurd, seeking not at all. Or maybe you looked into religion, saw all the competing claims for “God’s Truth”
and it made your head spin, so you looked away before getting ill.

Well, all I can say is this: brothers and sisters, I have been exactly where you are on every one of these points (might still be on some),
and I think I can say from experience that there is room for you in the Body of Christ, exactly as you are (I will only try to speak
for Christianity here, for I can’t relate genuine personal experience within another faith). Even more to the point: you are already in
the Body of Christ! You couldn’t get out of it if you tried! There is a famous passage in the Bible, in one of Paul’s letters to a
church in Greece (I Corinthians 6:19):

“Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [Spirit] which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not
your own?”

Now it is popularly assumed –and probably intended by the author himself—that this passage refers to Christians only, as if God’s Spirit
is a prize that can be handed out for good behavior. But if I may be so bold, I am here to say that this is not possible. God’s infinite
presence, God’s Holy Spirit, is just that: infinitely present. It is everywhere if it is anywhere! Don’t be deceived by appearances of
limitations! God’s Spirit becomes wholly within you, if you’ll pardon the pun, when it is acknowledged and free to speak to your
whole self. Then you can say with confidence that the Spirit is (w)hol(l)y within you!

Call this Spirit whatever feels right to you –“he,” “she,” “it;” call it “Fred” if that suits you. Just get to know it. And don't lose sight of
the fact that the Spirit who is in you is the same as who is in all beings, in spite of various names. If you find the Spirit working
within you, let it guide you to a church where you will feel received by fellow believers (or synagogue, or mosque, or temple). If that
still doesn’t work for you, remember, always seek the living God within all beings, and let the world become your “place of worship,”
and you can never go wrong. The only errant faith is none at all. May God richly bless your journey upon whichever path you are
led.

For the Christian reader: When I began the last chapter I had but one objective in mind: to eradicate the doctrine of spiritual deadness
from your personal walk with Jesus. I hope that you will see that it is not just superfluous to the Christian life, but detrimental.
Try as you might, you will never love your neighbor as yourself if you are convinced that he is spiritually dead –there will
always be left a barrier. You may not want to kill him, and that is admirable (not all neighbors are easy to get along with), but mere co-
existence is not what Christ commanded. We must show our neighbors the love of Christ, and we cannot do that if we have
let men, for partisan reasons, convince us that some of these neighbors are spiritually dead.

If you felt convicted of this, even slightly, my whole heart goes out to you! Maybe you can feel the effects of the wound now, on
yourself and others. Maybe you have children with whom you have been a little alienated because they are “not saved” or “fallen away
from the Lord;” maybe they’ve sought their own path to God, or they are immersed in dangerous and self-destructive behavior. If you
feel that your Christianity has ever given them reason to feel alienated from you, reach out to them now. Call them, or better yet, go visit
them if you can. Tell them that you see Christ within them, that they have the Spirit of the living God within them, and that God accepts
and forgives them exactly as they are right now. They may have been waiting to hear that from you their entire lives. Repeat
many times if necessary. Let this work in their hearts before you entertain any notions of “changing” them –let God do whatever healing
needs to be done, for God alone knows our hearts.

Maybe, less dramatically, you’ve had friendships that have fallen away, or conflicts with siblings who don’t share your beliefs. Certainly
there are good, God-loving people in your community –maybe even fellow Christians—who you and/or your church have turned away
from because you believed they were dead in God’s eyes. I ask you this (and if you are devoutly of a Bible-believing persuasion, I
apologize greatly if I offend you by denying your god so bluntly, but I have to try): given what you have learned about the heart of
Christ through your Christian walk, do you really think that Jesus said that he came to bring a sword that divides? Honestly,
does that sound like your Lord and Savior? Would he have said that, and then shortly thereafter told the Pharisees, “every city and house
divided against itself shall not stand”? (What, Jesus is a home-wrecker? Does Focus on the Family know this?)

Basically, I think, it comes down to this: if you can’t picture spending five minutes doing what Mother Teresa devoted her entire life to –
demonstrating the heart of Christ by caring for some of the most downtrodden, non-Christian people on earth, and loving each one of
them as Jesus—you might want to ask yourself whose Christ you are serving.

But I truly believe that if you ask sincerely of the Spirit of God, which I know is in you, you will be given the answers that best honor
Him; and I pray that He will show you the love that He has for all His children, and that you will want to walk with this love and
nothing less. Your great adventure in Christ will be even greater, brothers and sisters, even greater.

If, having read this chapter through, you hold that it is not even possible for any of this to be true –and I don’t mean that “you haven’t
bought into it completely,” I mean that you are still certain that non-Christians are spiritually dead and bound for Hell after they die—then
I have a challenge for you: show me. Demonstrate this belief to me. Give me your testimony, as I have given you mine (please don’t
make it as long though). That’s the great thing about this forum: it is perfectly interactive. You have my email address at your disposal.
If you prefer to speak to me instead of writing, send your phone number and I’ll call you at my expense. Let me know where you live
and I’ll arrange to meet you when I’m in town, if you prefer face-to-face. I would love the chance to hear someone defend this doctrine
with conviction.

But there’s one catch: you have to give me more than Biblical verses.

I want to hear conviction from the heart, not the book.

You want to give me your personal testimony about how you were saved? Brother, I hear ya! I love to hear those stories, and I have
my own. By all means, include that in your testimony.

Maybe you felt spiritually dead before finding Jesus. I’m with you there too; I certainly felt spiritually dead for most of my first twenty
years and a lot of time thereafter. I wasn’t, but I felt like I was. So I can be compassionate with you about that too.

But if you can’t give me the same passion about the spiritual deadness of non-Christians that you have for your spiritual aliveness; if the
Word of God isn’t clearly moving in your heart as you testify; if you want to tell me that a Jewish woman who has been faithful and
lovingly married for 50 years, and raised her children to love God and devote themselves to the teachings of the Torah,

Or a Buddhist monk, who is so overflowing with compassion for every living being that he strains his tea every morning so as not to
accidentally swallow a bug,

Or Kahlil Gibran,* who penned the words, “Wake at dawn with a winged
heart, and give thanks for another day of loving,”

Or Mahatma Gandhi even,

If you want to tell me that these people of diverse faiths are all going to
weep and gnash their teeth for eternity without God, that they lived their
whole lives without God’s spirit within them, and all you have to back
that up is verses from the Bible….don’t bother. I don’t want to hear it.
You’ll have to talk to the hand. I am looking for the heart of Christ.

Brother, what are you looking for?

© 2004 by Hermit Crab
a Fish Out Of Water production

* Editor's note: This was a mistake in the original manuscript, as you will see if you open to the Wikipedia entry for Khalil Gibran. He
was a Lebanese Maronite Christian, not a Sufi as I believed at the time. I could have replaced the quote with any number of similar
verses from non-Christian poets, but in the interest of authenticity I let the error stand. --HC

Next -- Chapter 16