It is so hard to talk about Jesus, because he has been so mythologised as to become almost unrecognizable. Yet at heart I think he was a very simple person who had three overriding qualities:
—a heartbreakingly huge love of humanity and its foibles and successes and hardships;
—the deep, breathtaking clarity of someone who has become free;
—a tremendous sense of poetry and storytelling.
Combine those three qualities together and we may approach a little to the essence of his being.
Was he "the only begotten Son of God"? I'll leave the answer to that question to those who know more than I. I just want to talk about Jesus the man. The simple man.
First, his heart. In my opinion, Jesus was filled with an almost unbearable love and compassion for the suffering and beauty of humanity, and indeed, of all life, and indeed, of all existence.
And he wanted us to taste of that love. "Love one another, as I have loved you," he said. Over and over again he talked about tolerance and non-judgmentalness as the key to love.
"He who is without sin cast the first stone," he said. "Judge not, that ye be not judged." "Don't judge the speck in your brother's eye before looking at the log in your own."
Jesus knew that judging each other is what the human mind does incessantly—and that it's also the very thing that divides us the most. Without judgment, there is only love.
The love that takes you inside the heart, no matter who you are, no matter what you've done, no matter where you've been, no matter whether you're rich or poor, saint or sinner, powerful or meek. None of it mattered to Jesus. He just loved you without condition.
Second, he had utmost clarity, the clarity of one who has awakened to reality. What reality looks like to one who has awakened is that it has no divisions or distinctions. Sure, such a one recognises that over here is "Peter" and over there is "Paul," but it makes no difference to him or her. S/he loves them equally.
Such a one looks at all the distinctions the mind makes—beautiful and ugly, desirable and undesirable, good and bad, right and wrong, light and dark, man and woman, saint and sinner—and doesn't care. They just love you anyway.
In that sense, Jesus' love surely was divine, because it partook of the divine love of the absolute, "who sends his healing rain to saint and sinner alike."
Third, Jesus was afire with poetry in his soul. Listen:
"See how the lillies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that Solomon in all his splendor was not dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field...will he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?"
"Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
"Do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, for it will not be you speaking, but the spirit of the infinite speaking through you."
We on this little planet are so lucky to have had such an incredibly clear poet and lover arise among us and be with us and speak with us and for us. We are so lucky. If we really look at Jesus, the only possible response to him is gratitude, gratitude, tremendous, tremendous gratitude...
—jim sloman, 12/25/00 for Dec 25
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