Round Table

According to legend, the central feature of King Arthur's court was the Round Table.  The king placed his knights around the Table so none could boast of a higher position than any other ― (and here's the important part) not even the king.

Is it really possible for the king to be equal with others?  Has the king any peer?

Is it really possible in the Kingdom of God for his children to be "equal in power, and in might, and in dominion" (D&C 76:95)?

What you may not know is that, according to legend, Merlin himself fashioned the Round Table in similitude of the table of the Last Supper.

And at the Table there was always one seat left empty (no, not for Elijah), awaiting the coming of the knight who would return with the Holy Grail.

Ever since my childhood I have loved the lore of the Arthurian legends, but as I have grown older I have come to love even more the doctrine of the Kingdom of God. 

And I have long wondered what it means to be given "the keys" to the Kingdom.  But the kingdom is not a car to be driven, but a door to be unlocked.

As everyone knows, the keys of the kingdom are held by its king.  But what everyone forgets is that Jesus refused to be king.

   When Jesus therefore
   perceived that they would
   come and take him by force,
   to make him a king,
   he departed again
   into a mountain.

(John 6:15)

Ever since, the misguided have been trying to turn Jesus into a king like the ones we see on earth, a monarch fit for heaven.

But Jesus had no desire to play Nebuchadnezzar's part.   He sought no status.  He conspicuously avoided being "made a king."

After all, his kingdom was not of this world.

And so I want to explore what kind of king, exactly, is Jesus?

Uncle Sam Needs YOU

Who belongs to God's kingdom?  How are its citizens chosen?  Well, quite shockingly Jesus told us:

   Verily I say unto you,
   That the publicans 
   and the harlots
   go into the kingdom of God
   before you.

(Matthew 21:31)

In just one sentence, Jesus flipped all our religious notions on their heads, didn't he, leaving us speechless!

It must have taken hours for the Jews to lift their jaws from the Temple's Outer-Court-floor.

With this simple statement, the Lord dashed thousands of years of religious sensibilities straight to the pit.

And the fact that thieves and sex workers get to cut in line at the Pearly Gates in front of the law-abiding Pharisees, it highlights the fact that we, sadly, do not understand his kingdom at all.

No wonder Jesus' disciples were confused, and asked, "Who is greatest in the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 18:1)?  I'm sure they hoped it would be someone sensible.

But no, Jesus threw them another curve ball when he said the greatest in the kingdom were little children.

Kids?  What do they know about management and taxation and armies?  How in the world could a kingdom run by children ever survive?  The whole idea is preposterous.

Humble, meek, mind-your-own-business types?  Not exactly what we think of when we think "Executive material."  We're searching for a strong, mighty king, right?  As in, almighty?

Listening to preachers, we might believe that "sovereignty" is top dog.  The desire for God to knock some sense into everybody is a common theme in Christianity, where churches thrive on eschatology, feasting on a theology of God's judgment and Armageddon.

So what business had Christ going around, telling us the Kingdom of God is a crazy assortment of lost things and souls, full of misplaced coins and wandering sheep and prodigals?  What a curious thing, this Kingdom!

Having turned things inside-out, we can safely assume that every convention we have about what a proper "king" should be like, Jesus will throw out window.

Chances are, we're in for a surprise.

"Can I see some identification, please?"

We're told to teach one another "the doctrine of the kingdom" (D&C 88:77).  What is this doctrine, exactly?  Is it the same as the Doctrine of Christ?

Well, although I am a poor teacher, if the Lord wants us to teach the doctrine, let's take a stab.

The first thing we encounter, quite bizarrely, is that we cannot migrate to the Kingdom, thinking to leave our homeland and cross over the border to God's country, as if we had a passport.

Because the Kingdom must be inherited.  What is that all about?  We have to be "born again" into this Kingdom.

​   And the Lord said unto me:
   Marvel not that all mankind,
   yea, men and women . . . 
   must be born again,
   being redeemed of God,
   becoming his sons
   and daughters;

   and thus they become new
   creatures; and unless
   they do this, they can
   in nowise INHERIT
   the kingdom of God.

(Mosiah 27:25-26)

So the Kingdom, let's pretend, is not a geographical destination but a matter of lineage.

Which makes sense, in a way, because everyone in the Kingdom is, in fact, royalty.  Everyone in it possesses the King's blood.

This explains, perhaps, the deeper meaning of Jesus' statement that "the Kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21) ― because the Kingdom and its keys are an heritage of lineage and birth, which is to say, a matter of blood.

But how do we "seek ye first the kingdom of God" if the thing we're seeking is within us?  Do I buy leeches and let the blood out?  Do I cut myself like the priests of Ba'al?

   And Moses took the blood,
   and sprinkled it
   on the people,
   and said, Behold the blood
   of the covenant,
   which the Lord hath made
   with you.

(Exodus 24:8)

How do we "build the kingdom of God" if the kingdom is constituted from blood?  How do we magnify blood, or propagate God's spiritual DNA?

Take a Second Look!

Why are the citizens of the kingdom so vulnerable?  I mean, Jesus said they're persecuted  (it's awful they don't stand up for themselves but turn the other cheek) ― "for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:10).

Well, the more we dig into this Kingdom, the more perplexing things get.  Why can't God's kingdom be more like the Holy Roman Empire, strong and impressively rich?

Well, yes, I think that is what we have sort of done in making the priesthood about governance: turning deacons into miniature dukes, and elders acting like earls, and apostles regarded as the princes of the Church, and so on.

You get the idea, okay.  All this management structure makes more and more bosses.  But that's what we seem to want, deep down: someone to really get a move on, and make things happen in an orderly fashion.  That's what a kingdom needs, people to take charge, issue orders, and make the trains run on time.

So why was Jesus such a terrible administrator?  Goodness, he let his treasurer embezzle, gave no thought to the morrow, and implemented no sensible logistics for the feeding of thousands.  Why didn't he care about all the practical stuff?  Why does his kingdom "toil not" (Matt. 6:28)?

I've never met a single person who lives the Sermon on the Mount's counsel:  "Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?" (Matt. 6:31).

That's no way to operate a kingdom.  The economy would sink!  Without regimented ranks, how would anyone know what to do, without spiritual sergeants to assign them latrine duty and push-ups and to minister to Sister So-and-so?

And yet this fellow, this man they called Joshua, son of Joseph, is somehow a King of Kings?

Now here's my point: Jesus' kingdom is a reflection of his character.  He exercises no compulsion.  He is like a gardener who doesn't pull weeds (allowing them to grow together with the wheat).

If you want a king to boss you around, and take charge, then Satan is more than willing to suit your desire.

Christ's kingdom is unseemly because it observes the seasons rather than trying to control them.  The celestial only harvests what is freely offered.

Thus in the celestial kingdom, kings do not have subjects so much as students.  Celestial kings inspire as teachers of the Way, but they do not impose their views (for the first law of heaven appears to be the free flowing of intelligent will).  God's nature is to nurture soil so it produces good fruit through persuasion and love unfeigned, just by providing sunlight and rain (Matt. 5:45).

Now, that's no way to run a business, is it?  Yet Jesus showed no desire to rule and reign, or govern, as Herod Antipas.  

Jesus never sat upon a throne in his lifetime, so why would that change now?  Shall Christ ascend to heaven to take upon himself the guise of Pontius Pilate?  Shall Jesus don Caesar's robes when he eschewed titles on earth?

No one believes it!  How crazy I sound, suggesting the idea that Jesus actually meant what He said.

No, we know better than He.  We think the Kingdom needs a Constantine more than a Christ (and this is why our churches resemble the world instead of the Kingdom).

​Never mind this notion of letting the people govern themselves.   No, we insist on a monarchy ― and have been trying to foist God into the role of monarch-of-the-universe ever since.

And yet, I am here to tell you, if you can believe it, that just as Jesus refused to be the king people wanted him to be back in John 6, so likewise, today he refuses to assume the role we expect him to play of Supreme Ruler and Master of the Universe.

I will not try to prove it, or convince you.  I will simply make some observations.  See what you think.

No Multi-Level-Marketing?  How Will the Kingdom Pay its Bills?

The first thing I think we should explore is the fact that God's Kingdom is numinous.

Numinous means "arousing spiritual or religious emotion; mysterious or awe-inspiring."

The coming of God’s kingdom is not as a crusader expanding the borders of his dominion, gaining territory and tribute, but refers to the mutual in-dwelling of the Father in every kingdom.

Joseph Smith said in the King Follett discourse, "What did Jesus do? ... When I get my kingdom, I shall present it to My Father, so that He may obtain kingdom upon kingdom, and it will exalt Him in glory.  He will then take a higher exaltation, and I will take His place."

Now, I understand where Joseph Smith was coming from, but I do not see things quite the same way; heaven is not a Ponzi scheme with a downline.

Instead of conceptualizing the Father's kingdom as being "above" or "greater" than others, think of the Father’s kingdom as abiding in them all.

When the whole is increased and integrated into a new creation, to whom does it belong?  It belongs to all whom God has made “equal in power, and in might, and in dominion” (D&C 76:95).
 
God then does not preside over his kingdom, for God is the kingdom, the collective intelligence of all his parts, as the head crowns the body.

But the body does not belong to the head, though the head unifies and inspires the members to act, as when we tell our hand to blow each other kisses.

For the head and members are one Being, a living organism whose glory is one. 

There are many exalted beings and Fathers in heaven, but there is one God.  This is the doctrine of the kingdom, as well as, coincidentally, the Doctrine of Christ (2 Nephi 31:21).

Walking on Water

It is easy to walk on water when the lake surface is frozen.

We consider it miraculous only when the water moves beneath our feet.

Listen: God’s kingdom is not frozen or static ― it flows freely upon the celestial tide, for God walks upon the waves of eternity as Jesus did upon the Sea of Galilee.
 
To enter the Kingdom is like walking on spiritual water.  Those who are unwise will attempt to devise ways to make the water hard, like unto a hierarchy, crystalized and rigid, as a pyramid (Pharaoh's at it again).

But those who are wise have learned to walk by faith upon currents constantly reforming and changing, creating newness of life as joint-heirs.
 
In his mortal ministry, Jesus modeled a reality the world has rejected ― that is, that heaven is a self-organizing organism:

   For intelligence cleaveth
   unto intelligence;
   wisdom receiveth wisdom;
   truth embraceth truth;
   virtue loveth virtue;
   light cleaveth unto light.

(D&C 88:40)

The Kingdom is a cooperative woven together by faith and hope and charity.

Love is the Constitution of the kingdom, for God is a living, relational Being, not a machine.

Flow with whatever edifies you (D&C 50:23).  If it does not edify, let it go with your blessing.  Do not allow anyone's doctrine to become quicksand upon your path, tethering your soul as a yoke, a noose for your faith.

Christ transcends the precepts of men; the atonement refers to a reality far greater than we have imagined, for it is infinite: do we comprehend infinity?
 
Now, between alpha and omega exists all of creation, and so Christ can be seen as many things.  But for me, when I consider my relationship with the Lord, I do not think of him as a king: for Jesus told us plainly who He is, and what role He wants to play, by His own word, and that is:

   Our Friend (John 15:15).

If our Friend also happens to be a king, then fealty is merely the love owed to a friend, which loyalty is reciprocated in kind.

It was friendship, even more than priesthood, that served as the great hope of Zion, according to Joseph Smith:

    It was my endeavor
    to so organize the Church
    that the brethren
    might eventually
    be [brought into]
    the celestial kingdom
    by bonds and covenants
    of mutual friendship
    and mutual love.

(Joseph Smith, History of the Church, vol 1, p. 269)

As the song says, what a friend we have in Jesus!

Sleep Over and Dream with Me

If you don't mind, I am going to write freely today without worrying too much about how my words fall.

My thoughts are raw, like runny eggs that threaten salmonella.  I usually try to pretty myself up for you, but today I don't feel like putting on makeup or brushing my teeth.

​So this will be fun!  I have no idea what's going to come out of my cluttered mind.  We'll be reckless and drink straight from the milk carton; we will forget to flush; we will run around the house and turn on all the lights, wasting electricity like irresponsible millionaires.

So come on over.  We will microwave smores; with our chocolate-covered fingers we will spin the bottle, and play truth-or-dare in pajamas, and tell each other secrets, not wanting the night to end.

So brace yourselves!  Let us dive into this spiritual stream-of-consciousness, and see if there's any reason to randomness.

   Double-dog-dare you!

"So they chanted in the darkness, and there cometh a victory now"

Recently I was wrapped in a blanket in my basement study, reading about early British history during the time of Roman occupation.  I was captivated by the uprising of the British Queen Boudica who defied Caesar and marched on Londinium.  She became a symbol for future generations of justice and freedom.

According to the Roman historian Tacitus, after Boudica's husband died, Rome made a show of power by flogging her and raping her two daughters and emptying her treasury.  In response, Boudica led the British tribes in revolt and burned the countryside in her grief and rage.

Boudica had brief success before being subdued by the Roman general Suetonius Paulinus, who famously massacred the druids at Anglesey.

Here's a poem that describes the Celtic prophecy a druid sage spoke to Boudica when she sought divine favor:

Rome shall perish—write that word
   In the blood that she has spilt;
Perish, hopeless and abhorr’d,
   Deep in ruin as in guilt.
 
Rome, for empire far renown’d,
   Tramples on a thousand states;
Soon her pride shall kiss the ground―
   Hark! the Gaul is at her gates!
 
(William Cowper, excerpts from "Boadicea")
 
Well, that sounds quite noble.  But then Alfred Lord Tennyson took up his pen and his portrayal of Boudica, half-mad and raving for vengeance, was not well received by the public.

Published in 1864 while England was still a colonial superpower, Tennyson's poem did not reflect Britain's imperial glory in a flattering light.

You see, Tennyson subversively used Boudica as an image of Britain, her bloodthirstiness and violence an indictment of the Empire's wrongs.

   Burst the gates, and burn the palaces, break the works of the statuary,
   Take the hoary Roman head and shatter it, hold it abominable,
   Cut the Roman boy to pieces in his lust and voluptuousness,
   Lash the maiden into swooning, me they lash'd and humiliated,
   Chop the breasts from off the mother, dash the brains of the little one out,
   Up my Britons, on my chariot, on my chargers, trample them under us.

(Excerpts from Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Boadicea")

It didn't help that Tennyson's version is a mouthful, written in galliambic meter (it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue). 

But in this Tennyson was a true prophet, for empire-building (such as see in churches) requires patriotic pride, or what we call in a religious context, sectarianism.

Usually the more a person attests to the truth of what they are saying, the less true it is.  So it is with religion.  Truth has its own appeal, and needs no adornment.  But falsehood?  She lawyers up, hires a PR team, sends out the calvary.  The adulteress, not the virgin, hires others to vouch for her chastity. 

But there is no honor in slaughter.  There is no pride in priestcraft.  There is no glory in the gleaming gem-encrusted walls of a temple built with spiritual blood diamonds.

Step 1: Know Thyself

Has the children's meat gone to the dogs (Matt. 15:26)?

Ilia Delio said:

"Social media ensures constant exposure to global suffering. The result is 'compassion fatigue' — the inability to continue feeling and responding to endless emergencies. This exhaustion manifests as numbing—people shut down, stop paying attention, focus on private concerns because the public sphere has become overwhelming.

"Institutional inertia [in the Church] is powerful; vested interests resist change; genuine reform threatens comfortable arrangements. But the alternative—institutional Christianity that fails to feed humanity’s zest when that zest is most desperately needed—is unacceptable. The stakes are too high, the mission too urgent, the gospel too important to allow institutional dysfunction to continue unchallenged.

"Christians are sent into the world to enkindle collective will for evolutionary advance, to channel energies of love that drive cosmic convergence. But we cannot fulfill this mission through institutions that betray it."

Where can we find creative solutions?  I watched General Conference and was disappointed, as if the messages had been poured from old bottles, even brittle wineskins.

The Family Proclamation and declining birthrate?  Hmm.  Where are new bottles to be found?  Where are the visionaries?

Where is the spiritual creativity in the Church? We are not assembly-line workers, but artists.  We are not machinists, but living, growing, organisms.

If we want to be like God, then let's be creative like Him.  And what, exactly, is at the heart of divine creativity?

    Play.

The way to become a Creator is to play around with the universe in new ways.  Perhaps this is why the kingdom of heaven is filled with little children, playing ― whereas hell is comprised of TV reruns and stale root beer that has lost its fizz.

​Saida Mirsadri, a Muslim woman drawing upon the teachings of the Quran, calls God "the Poet of the world."  I loved how she said, "[God’s] divine creative power, far from being unilateral, is relational and interactive, with God and creation intertwined, cooperating in the ongoing process of brining the universe into being."

We have this idea of God creating the universe long ago, way back when, by knocking planets around.  But God does not create that way.  He is creating the universe now, as we speak, with us.  He creates by putting Himself into the creation, as a co-Participant, so that everything is an expression of Him.

Step 2: Accept Thyself

Maps clutter our lives.  We surround ourselves with directions, making life dull.  Better to explore uncharted territory than to follow the maps of other men.  All begins and ends in mystery.  That is the magic!  What I have learned is there are aspects and faces of God that cannot be depicted on maps, that we will miss if our nose is stuck to paper.

Now it's true that maps help us get to our destination quicker.  But what's the hurry?  

If we sat down at the computer and typed out 20 pages on what we think heaven is like (make it double-spaced if you want), we will find we have little idea.  We have maybe one-or-two-pages-worth of material.  Heaven is half-baked in our hearts. 

Let us dream, and then create, the heaven waiting to be born.

Anything that remains the same, and static, becomes a bore.  The first principle of creation, then, is change.  Change is heavenly.

Are we footnotes in our own story?  Is our life a mere endnote found at the back of the appendix, in a book no one will ever read?  Do our lives matter?

Yes!  For we are part of the greatest story, the main story, the only story that truly means anything: the story of love being co-authored by us and God, weaving a new world into Being.

Tamara explained that creation is messy, so relax (it's not going to be 'perfect' and 'tidy'):

"Human relationships are not spreadsheets where cells line up neatly once the formula is right. They spill over margins, they miscalculate, they resist tidy balancing. They demand something that feels embarrassing in our age of self-management and curated composure: vulnerability. The willingness to say, I need you! And forget the generic Hallmark sense, think of the terrifyingly specific sense that without your presence, my world contracts. 

​"I cannot promise your need will be fulfilled. Most of the time, it won’t. But I can promise that denying it will turn you into a ghost inside your own life. Better to risk the embarrassment of hunger than the sterile pride of starvation. Better to admit you want, yes, too much, too soon, too raw than to live embalmed in cool detachment. Need is not weakness. It is the pulse that proves you are still alive."

You see, we need each other.  We are caught in God's web, and as a fishing net being drawn, the web is being gathered.

The world is exploding with spiritual seekers; the potential overwhelms me.  The web is coalescing into something remarkable.  We are seeing, I think, the sheepfold of God materialize as never before.

I look for God working at the frontier of things, where light and outer darkness collide.  Where do we find God working among us, now?  In our churches?  Well, um, yes, He's there.  He is everywhere.  But where is His Spirit really active, hot as red coal in the refiner's fire?

Actually, on Substack.  You think I'm joking, but I witness more spiritual voltage being channeled and poured out from some of these unlikely spaces, where people are reaching across the globe and connecting in a deeply spiritual way, forming something we've rarely seen before, getting away from their computers and church-labels, and meeting up in person, in the flesh, to dissolve boundaries in love, erasing the doctrines of separation ― it almost feels paradisiacal.

Step 3: Become the Creator

We've found each other . . . so now what?  What does God want us to do?  Better yet, what do we want to do?

That's the big question, isn't it?  I have always been a bit of a spiritual stray, a surf bum, waiting for someone to come and adopt me, giving me a name like I was a three-legged cat, or Cabbage Patch doll, and dress me and love me, take me home with them.

Not anymore.  While the angels serve an important role in performing divine investiture, they cannot save us.  I am no longer waiting for Enoch's City to start the party.   

Remember, by being who we are (who we truly are), we evoke all we-are-not by implication.  If we wish to do good, our shadow will spread over evil.

Matt Segall said:

"If we remember that possibilities require the agential decisions of actualities to enter into history, then we preserve the creative tension driving cosmic evolution.

"Organisms do not unfold according to rigid templates; they dip into a structured but evolving open field of potential, actualizing new patterns through their own activity."

Are you seeking a Utopia?  Zion?  The New Jerusalem?  Then stop trying to escape the world that we have!  You know, the one right here in front of us.  For heaven is now; the Kingdom is here.

All we need to do is love purely, universally, unconditionally.  It's that simple!

The thing I care very much about is not imposing upon the agency of others.  The reasons organizations crumble, and communities fall apart, and churches become corrupt, is because people want to be in charge, thinking they know "best."  When such people get a little money, and a little authority, how much worse things become.  

It's like at some point the tonsils, thrilled in their tonsilhood, incorrectly assumed that because they felt the fruits of the Spirit, doing as tonsils do, then all of us should be tonsils, too.

And so the tonsils tried to convert the liver and lungs to behave like tonsils. The liver and lung were convinced, and deceived, and stopped acting like the liver and lungs they were, doing as the tonsils counseled.

And the body died, for where was the liver?  What of the lungs?

Jesus’s gospel is His own.  He did the will of His Father.  But I am not going to be crucified.  The Father's will for me is not the same as for you. 

In this way, we must each embody our own gospel, for in following Christ we pursue the path our spiritual DNA was divinely encoded to express.  The greatest error is trying to get someone to act against their divine DNA code, rewriting their guanine and thymine genes to look more like, well, wolves in sheep's clothing.

This is why I love to encourage others, even when their walk with God does not resemble my own.  What unites us is not what we believe (my beliefs continue to evolve, and I hope yours are, too) or how we behave — what unites us is faith, hope, and charity. 

We are creatures of concreteness, and yet faith draws us towards the Unseen.

And so what is on my mind?  Shall we burn and wage war like Boudica?  Shall we pull down the pillars of priestcraft?  Shall we retreat to our hermitages and retire from the world? 

How strange, isn't it, that everyone seems to be bursting at the seams, wanting to do something, but what that is, they do not know.​

Wrestle with God
a poem

​​     And the hollow of Jacob's thigh
     was out of joint as he wrestled
     with God.
 
     And Jacob called the place ‘Peniel’:
     for I have seen God face to face.
 
          ― Genesis 32:25, 30
 
              "The pelvis is a bony girdle
fused from the ilium, ischium,    and
pubis bones"             They call Latin
a dead language    but here we are
                  Where was I
the grocery store is a     summation
of civilization                   the sacrum
temple                 my PIN wont work
oh bananas                remembering
the pelvis holds              the bladder
a reservoir of memories     flooding
memories descended           pooled
inward                between hip bones
the coccyx is                     in the end
the thing we outgrew           no one
                     remembers
bones are full of holes               
yesterdays                            nerves
need    .   .   .   .                      somewhere to go
sacral foramina                 for veins
           congregate in the groin
          
 
     Jacob wrestled          with
     hollow heart     wrenched
     thigh         Thy          Israel
     wrestled                  socket
                       hole
     looked within   ―the hole
     the whole                 holds             
                       Peniel