Approaching Zion: The Kingdom of God on Earth

[Frida Kahlo, "Moses," 1945]

The Kingdom of Heaven

There's an ancient Chinese proverb that says, "A cow drinks water and turns it to milk; a snake drinks water and turns it to venom."

You see, the water is not the issue. 
Rather, it is our nature.  If we are plagued by spiritual insecurities, then having a glorious spiritual manifestation won't silence our inner demons.

The irony is that once we've changed inwardly, it doesn't matter what we drink.  I spent many years asking the Lord to turn water to wine for me, to bless me with many things, to "act upon me" in some way.  A lot of fruitless head-banging.

I realize now I was a fool (and still am, let's be honest).  But I am beginning to understand that whether I drink water or wine (or Windex, really) it doesn't matter because it all becomes blood in my veins (referring to the blood of Christ).

Infinity + five = infinity; and Christ's infinite and eternal blood plus my X, Y, and Z still equals Infinite Love.

Jesus said to Thomas:

   Blessed are they
   that have not seen,
   and yet have believed.

(John 20:29)

Faith is seeking the Spirit of truth from within, not from external sources or authorities.

Faith is experimental because it does not boast a perfect knowledge.

Faith's power depends upon our willingness to explore the unknown (where the greater light abides).​

To stretch into the highest heavens, we must reach into our souls (i.e., the darkest abyss).  Where else did we expect to find heaven?

For the Kingdom of God is already here; it is found within (Luke 17:21).

Listen: there is no teacher, no guide, no guru, no prophet, who can tell you anything your inner-self doesn’t already know.

The fact is, we do not lack for truth, but honesty.  Especially honesty with ourselves.

If we were honest, and stopped hiding behind fig leaves, we'd understand that knowledge of God comes through self-revelation.

To know God, we must know ourselves.  How else can God possibly be comprehended?

Always remember: the truth is not mine to give, for you possess it already.

My words are water, but the seed lies within you.
 
My words are light, but they only shine a light on the truth found in you.

Change comes by faith.  Everybody wants to "see" God, thinking it will change things.  It won't.  Lucifer stood in God's presence (D&C 76:25), and look at what happened to him.

Having Jesus return in clouds of glory is not such a big deal when He has already made Himself known to us in our souls.

[Frida Kahlo, "Sun and Life"]

The Heavenly Hierarchy

Christianity-at-large has ignored Joseph Smith's greatest doctrinal contribution (albeit one that Eastern traditions have known all along):

   The mind of man
   is as immortal
   as God himself.

(King Follett Discourse, 7 April 1844, as reported by Thomas Bullock.)

You see, there is no ontological difference between us and God.​  In fact, the "spirit and mind [of man are] coequal with God himself." (Joseph Smith, 7 April 1844, as reported by Wilford Woodruff.)

In Church magazines they often edit Joseph's quote by replacing the word "coequal" with "coeternal."

But the Correlation Department is worried over nothing: there is no competition between us and God.

Are you jealous of your leg?  Do you envy your elbow?  We don't view our body parts as separate from us; we simply treat eyeballs and eardrums as part of "Me."  We're all on the same side (although I am still mad at my hair for abandoning me.  "Repent, follicles!").

Likewise, God treats us as part of "Me," the Great I AM.  He doesn't see us as separate from Him, because we are actually members of His Body (1 Corinthians 12:14). 

Beatrice Bruteau (1930-2014) said:

"The trinity [represents] living-together, symbiosis, mutual indwelling, the Many-One; a Self-creating universe that is . . . God dancing outside Godself."

(God's Ecstasy, Crossroads Publishing: 1997 and 2016, pp. 9-10; edited.)

So shall we learn to be gods?  That's what we're doing here on earth.  We're discovering the truth of who we are, and who we can become in the fulness of God's nature.

   And thus he was born
   of the Spirit,
   and became quickened
   in the inner man.
 
   And he heard a voice
   out of heaven, saying . . . 
   Thou art after the order of him
   who was without beginning
   of days or end of years,
   from all eternity to all eternity.

   This (!) is the record
   of the Father, and the Son.

   Behold, THOU ART ONE IN ME.
​
(Moses 6:65-68)

It never ceases to amaze me that, with the power to be anything ― anything at all ― our incarnate God chose to be, of all things, a harmless dove.  A Lamb.

[Frida Kahlo, "Love Embrace of the Universe"]

The Master Illusion

What is hidden inside of us?  What is secreted away from our five physical senses?

And importantly, how can we interface with the Kingdom of God that is within?

The veils of separation (i.e., duality) are an important part of mortality.  Life allows us to experience duality, to taste the bitter and the sweet, to feel the light and the darkness.

But duality is merely instructive.  These things are educative, not immutable.  They are "illusions" in the sense they do not define reality.

Take, for example, the duality of male and female.  This is one of the greatest illusions we experience on earth.  The sacrament of sex shows we were never really male and female, but were always "one flesh" in God (Ephesians 5:31).

   There is neither male
   nor female:
   for ye are all one
   in Christ Jesus.

(Galatians 3:28)

Duality is useful insofar as it helps us to learn something essential about God: in Him there is only unity.

The unity of God is perceived as charity, or lovingkindess.  This is the celestial law; this is the Kingdom of God.

The only thing greater than unity is infinity.

   Separation -> Unity -> Infinity

​By definition, infinity cannot be divided.  And this is why wise teachers throughout history have taught that infinity is found by seeing beyond duality (which is inherently finite and divisive).

Paradoxically, infinity is not judgmental; for in an infinity there would be nothing but itself to judge.

In the midst of infinity, cardinal directions are meaningless because there is nowhere but here; any point is everywhere.

But my mind is not so enlightened (yet, fingers crossed); so I'll say instead that each mountain we ascend must be descended.  And we never descend the same path we climbed; we do not backtrack.  We go up and over.  Even when we Fall, we fall forwards.

At some point in our journey we realize there were never multiple mountains at all: there was ever but One, and the mountain was God.  And we are the mountain.

[Frida Kahlo, "The Two Fridas"]

"To Be [a God] or Not To Be [a God]"

I saw a bumper sticker that said, "Always give 100% ― except when donating blood."

Christ's blood type was O Negative (being universal), and it flows in veins of all stripes and varieties; it pulses through hearts of every race and creed.

Blood is the power of creation; it represents the offering of one's lifeforce to another.  We call this "grace."

As I age, I am growing to appreciate our biodiversity and differences more.  When I was younger, I had a "missionary" spirit that wanted everyone to believe as I did, and felt I had the truth they needed.  Now I have a "seeker" spirit that questions, wanting to learn from others.

And what a smorgasbord of spiritual truth there is!  As we fellowship with each other, we see some are like gigantic apricot trees that produce thousands of apricots each year.  Others are like the beautiful Titan Arum flower found on the island of Sumatra that blossoms only once in a decade.

All gifts should be celebrated and shared, valued and honored.

This is how I view the Kingdom of God.  While I may not possess all the gifts myself, I can enjoy them through you, each and every one, in a community in which the fulness of God's fruit is shared freely.

If I am hungry for a pomegranate, I don't need to be a juicy pomegranate myself when you've got one I can savor.  We are one body.

Thus the human race is God's breadbasket; God's diversity of operations is manifest in our collective soul.

Together we embody all that is good and desirable, through the gifts of God.  The light of Christ is woven through all things, but is manifest uniquely in each creation.  Love is expressing the nature of the Creator.

We are that love; we are the sharer of God's nature.  The key is to share God's gifts in their season, and to His glory.

Christ can teach us to enjoy every good gift.  But more importantly, Christ can teach us to become Gods; that is to say, to become Creator-Christs.

Clement of Alexandria said:

"Just as Ischomachus will make those who attend to his instructions husbandmen ... and Aristotle men of science, and Plato philosophers ― so he who obeys the Lord and follows the prophecy given through Him, is fully perfected after the likeness of his Teacher, and thus becomes a god while still moving about in the flesh."

(Clement, The Seventh Book, p. 179.)

I know we don't look much like Gods, but that's who we are, who are fashioned as our Father.

[Frida Kahlo, "The Little Deer"]

​Maps and Madness

Is there anything stronger than temple covenants and sealings?

Yes.  Faith.

We see this in the story of the Stripling Warriors, which undercuts our current covenant-theology.

The fathers of the stripling warriors had made personal covenants to not shed blood again (a worthy promise, to be sure), but this left them unable to defend their families (Alma 24:18).

Helaman forbade the men from breaking their covenant even though it meant sending their sons to die in their stead (Alma 56:8).

But surprise!  Those two thousand sons ― who had NOT made the covenant ― didn't die.  In fact, they obtained unshakable faith in God’s power of deliverance without the covenant of their fathers.

Huh.  This shows there's no "one-size-fits-all" approach to covenant-making.  It is often better to not make covenants, remaining unfettered to pursue faith's prize. 

Think of how the Sinai covenant tied Nephi’s hands (2 Nephi 25:25); his covenants had "become dead" as he was made alive through faith in Christ.

The Kingdom of God contains covenants, but they are not its foundation.  The foundation of the Kingdom is faith.

The greatest threat to the Kingdom of God is not sin but stiff-neckedness.  There is real danger in fixed-forms-of-thinking.
​
Matthew Bowman wrote:

"Religion is a map, but eventually we'll come to the edge of our map; all maps are finite.

"Latter-day Saints were influenced by Protestant fundamentalist thought.  The problem is that fundamentalism promotes fear.  Fundamentalism turns religion into an idol, a God who is easily broken if knocked off the shelf.

"Fundamentalism creates binaries ― but binaries do not reflect God.  For God is not a concept, an idea, something frozen in time.

"God is a person, and encountering God is not about mastering a set of doctrines, but understanding and trusting in the bonds of a relationship that will inevitably change over time."

("Spritual Cartography," Wafare, May 14, 2024, edited.)

One enters the Kingdom of God by knowing its King; it is a relationship more than citizenship.

Churches are "true" only insofar as they are living.  The Kingdom of God does not keep divine authority on life support, hooked up to a legacy machine that confers Keys while its patient is comatose, passing authority down through generations.  Truth must be living!  The Kingdom must be breathing!

The institutional view of faith has made it captive to belief systems and hierarchies that have choked the life out of it.

I wish I could disabuse us of the notion that faith is buttoned-down, conservative, and quiet.  While religion wants to trap and domesticate her, faith is a wild creature; she has little to do with priests in marble magisteriums; she is not reverent by modern standards, for she is as loud as a mountain moving, causing the earth to shiver and tremble with delight.

What happened to faith?  Why has the mustard seed been ground to dust?

A clue comes from the fact that Christ was always trying to get us to exercise faith in what is possible.  Anything!

Instead of having brainstorming sessions in Elder's Quorum about what is possible with faith, and how we might convert the wilderness into an Eden of milk and honey, we turn into lifeless pillars of salt looking back at Sodom in our dualistic, proscriptive mindsets.  

What vision for a better world has Christ given you, specifically?  There is the Kingdom!

I have such dreams for it.