IT'S TIME

Modern man has heard enough of Guilt and Sin. He has heard enough that he just isn't good enough -- good enough for whom? He doesn't need more holy irrelevance. Already he is beaten to a pulp by his own bad conscience. What he needs now is to become re-conciled with his own true nature.

Christ is reported to have said "Love your enemies." How? Love Thaksin Shinawatra? Love Al Quaeida? Love the Pope? Love George Dubbya? Love that guy who cut you off in the traffic? Love the guy who comes home late at night and starts drilling the concrete floor of the flat above me? "Love your enemies" may have sounded fine in a sermon one balmy afternoon on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, but how do we actually do it when the heat is on? And who is "The Enemy?" anyway? Doesn't that have a little bit to do with where we stand and what our prejudices are? From where I stand, it looks as if one man's saviour is another man's enemy, and vice versa. Who does God love more? Which one?

The more I think about the God I was taught about in Sunday School, the more he begins to look like an idealised version of my parents. Certainly the righteous anger and certain punishment bits ring some painful bells.

The enemies around us, however, pale to insignificance alongside the Real Enemy. Tell us, please, how can man begin to truly love the enemy within his own heart? How did that evil little monster get there in the first place? What is his purpose?

Wouldn't that be a good starting point?

Modern man has had enough of trying to imitate the life of Christ. I'm told he was sent to be a man like me, with the same weaknesses and shortcomings, to prove that salvation is possible, even for me. But the same people who proclaim that little gem also get uppity if I question why he would have been born of a virgin if the whole point was that he was to be a regular bloke? They get offended when I ask how many times a week Christ had a wank. They get very shifty when I ask what it was with him and Mary Magdalene. Any way, I distinctly remember reading somewhere in the Gospels that Christ turned on a particularly pathetic bunch of Victims one day saying "Heal yourselves!" May be I'm wrong. Maybe that was John Cleese

I'm exhausted from a lifetime of trying unsuccessfully to live up to other people's ideals of how I should be. And I don't think I am Robinson Crusoe here. I'm also beginning to notice that every form of imitation is imperfect, dead and sterile. But then I get a bit scared. I'm closer to death now than I am to birth, and what if I'm wrong, and those pompous pricks are right? Do I get busted to hell? And what is hell anyway? I went there after my wife walked out. Nothing could be worse than that, and I'm still here.

Modern man wants to know how he can deal with his anxiety, depression, and his teenage daughter who is so out of this world he doesn't know what to do any more. He wants to know what he can do about politicians he elects and pays to run the joint, who spend their days endlessly getting into the media to yap at each other like demented poodles while the country goes to the dogs.

Modern man wants to know how he can get back the serenity and sovereignty he sold out to family, state and religion on the promise that these sacred institutions would do it all for him, as long as he followed the rules. Well, to the best of our ability we followed both the letter and the spirit of those rules and it hasn't worked, and modern man has had a gutful of political hoop-la, religious fairy-floss, and yet another social experiment. This doesn't need another white paper, green paper, or any other kind of paper, except toilet paper.

Modern man just wants to experience a few moments of Authenticity and Aliveness, from himself, and from those who put themselves up to act on his behalf. Is that too much to ask?

Most of all, modern man is looking for a Ceasefire --
In Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, the backstreets of America, Europe, Asia and Australia
And a Ceasefire where peace really matters --
Where peace begins and ends --
In the civil battlefield of our own bi-polarity.

Enough already. The old ways don't work. It's time for another way.

Is that too much to ask?