PART III: Read Jesus-- Getting it Real.

I have a new niece. As I lovingly gazed at her the other day while standing over her crib I couldn't help but reflect on the beauty of her innocence as a person-- a human being. She has yet to be conditioned by her culture or family system to think a certain way about life and all that life encompasses, she's just pure-- alone in her true, natural state; God's image.

This morning I was reading and meditating about Jesus and his baptism and the journey into the desert. I reflected on Jesus and his life. He seemed to be able to stay real to his true, natural state. He never sold-out for power, property, or prestige; he was, if anything, one who placed no conditions on love, but in all actuality perhaps, defined love. Even though he was certainly conditioned by his culture and family system, he never allowed culture or the social system in which he lived to define him. As a rabbi, he never allowed his "religious" customs to dictate who he was; how he lived; or how he loved. Rather, he lived, like my little niece does at the moment, unstained by the world and the shoulds or coulds. He lived from his most authentic-self; his human-divine nature; his direct experience of God.

As I reflect and read Jesus, the WORD made flesh, I sense the Spirit's movement deep within my soul and I have to ask myself how has my limited cultural/ relgious world-view; family-system; social system has gotten in the way of my direct experience of God and living from the image of God within my DNA?

I hope that my niece ask questions, like Jesus. I hope that my niece, like Jesus, lives from her direct experience of God, and, like Jesus, does not allow her relgious/social/cultural system to define for her how she should believe. I hope that she isn't worried about getting it right, but instead lives from what is real. I hope that somehow, like Jesus, that she lives from the image of God reflected in her very being.

Jesus, was more interested in getting it real, than getting it right. And it seems that the way he got it real, was not from getting it right, but often times from his direct experience of his true, natural self and God.

So as I read the Word made flesh, my desire is to get it real, and spend less energy trying to get it right.