Then He answered me, out from the whirlwind:
"Why don't I do them? Can't I do them better, faster, than you? Why didn't I turn stones to bread?
Can't I empower you to do all things perfectly? Then why don't I make you such a perfect robot?
"Do you know the sleeping-place of the Morning Star? Did you make its gossamer bedclothes?
Do you awaken it at dawn for breakfast, do you feed its light, to make it shine?
"Do you do well, to share Jonah's anger at worldly ills, though I Myself do not?
And Why am I Myself not angry? Why don't I fix the problems you see?
Why, instead, do I grow the gourd to shelter you from the sun?
But ah, in your worldly ire, the sun's heat blazes unheeded!
But ah, your earthly passion clouds the Morning Star --
so, then: how can you see..anything?
"Do you know the sleeping-place of the sick-at-heart,
their humility in pain, which prosperity weakens?
Do you know what awakens 'godly sorrow',
that dawning of Truth in the heart?
Can you make rise the Star of Belief,
from its nightmare of hating Me?
"Do you do well, to succor the body,
when the soul is, by body-saved, slain?
Since any work without faith is stillborn,
Since any faith without works is a corpse,
'work' to believe in Me, as did Abraham.
'Work' to learn Me. Rest your own eyes,
your own arms' labor. Rest, for it is I
Who work in you: to will, and to do.
Rest, so that others see Me,
NOT you."
Then He replied, out from the whirlwind:
"Learn Me! Not this world, not its choking claims on your fickle, weak attention.
For Father, with exceeding joy, baptised every dust-speck to display My Glory:
Hidden manna, unending pleasure: a feast of ever-wondrous flavors, colors.
"Learn Me, instead of your desire to blanch the devil's frenzied world.
Learn not the altruists' foul vanities, their whitewashed sepulchres.
For though dying in Me, they die-yet-living, for lack of My Mind.
They weep like the failed ambassadors: bitter, disappointed,
Their love leprously decays in their ignorance of My Soul.
"Learn Me! Please All-Hearing Father with your thoughts!
For as you learn to baptise My Word on all your thoughts,
low-or-high things, nothing-things, visible, or invisible,
then shall your soul be built like Mine, into Mine, One:
For you will never love Whom you do not know,
And you can never please Us, with ignorance.
"Learn Me! For Spirit endowers with My Mind,
NOT with any worldly, empty-headed deeds.
"Learn Me! For as Bride you are comely to Me
only through the 'dowry' of My Thinking: pure.
For the world with its works shall be burnt,
Just as My apostle Peter promised."
"What," said one, "but we are to do good to people!" And he walked away in disgust, still blind to the Cross.
Then He answered him, out from the whirlwind:
"Yet it is your ego that I Myself want of you. I made you. Do you now make Me?
Do you instruct the Living God, by your shiny alms and judgemental prayers?
Indeed you do teach Me, for YOU bless and curse, then expect My Approval!
Shall you command Me whom I should now feed, clothe, shelter, aid, heal?
Shall you now rub Me, to rain on only those you feel worthy, in your view?
Is this how you serve man -- by replacing Me? For you 'pray', to order Me.
"Your free will's ego: did you ever use it to wonder about Me at all?
Why did I make the world? Why did I CHOOSE to pay doubly, for all?
Did I give you powers to heal all? And why not? What, am I a sadist?
So, then: why, oh why -- do you insist that stones become bread?
"Did I gift you with free will to squander it on people's bodies --
Or, did I gift it to you to CHOOSE investing your will on Me?
For apart from Me, your will accomplishes nothing."
I told him.
The other two sat in silence, looking at my weakness. One finally stood up, and came over to me, sat next to me. The other one stared at the noise of Him, then also stood up, and walked over to my cringing friend.
He then answered them, out from the whirlwind:
"Do you study ME? Or do you spend your vapor-trail life on old dead men's tomes?
Do you convince of grace, or do you convict yourselves? Do answer, if you can!
Do you defend all your rituals and your histories, slapping My Name on them,
smiling smugly in triumph? Answer Me, if you dare: while you yet have time.
"So you tell others, 'Don't steal', but then you steal your own wills from Me,
obsessed with earthly things? Do you thus serve? Are you not more guilty?
"For you teach that you, not I, must clothe even the lillies of the field!
Thus I am forever accursed through your stingy accounting of My Word.
"You lay Me away, in a napkin! See how you feed My hungry sheep:
Oh, you feed them constant movement and emotion,
Oh, you feed them grandiose rituals and intonings,
You only teach the dead to bury their own dead.
Why seek to be stoned, among those still living?
Why seed them dead works, not Living Word?
You, who sow such false alms about Me,
with sweaty palms and dried-up souls!
You, you cows of Bashan --
You have your reward."
They did not believe him.
Then He answered us, out from the dining whirlwind:
"So: run the thought-race set before you!
Not some earthy-man's 'race', but MY RACE.
For you are now MY RACE, not another man's.
As I ran, so should you. LEARN FROM MY KENOSIS.
I forewent what I could do apart from My Father.
So also should you. LEARN FROM MY KENOSIS.
I ran alone. For Father. To Father.
Not 'the world.
Think My Thoughts!
Not the world's.
"Please Father with My Thoughts!
For your 'portion' is solely in Me, even as I am in you.
For you are become MY inheritance, My Eternal Bride:
Holy Priests, for Father! Dedicated in every thought!
Grasp this eternal prize! Endure training in My Mind, to inherit the-all-things He gave Me.
Learn Me, so that your inheritance will not be stunted by the world's puny idea of 'good'.
Box as Paul did, not with the world's hot air,
but so to bring every thought into captivity,
Subdue the body's me-be-god do-goods,
that legacy from Adam,
which is apart from Me.
"For what can you give Father, but your free-will thinking? Does He need food, clothing, shelter?
What can you give Him, but your free-will thinking? Can He not do all else, but coerce you?
Yea, but 'keep thinking this in you, which was also in Christ Jesus' ..thinking, not doing.
Lay aside your doing, even as I laid aside My Privileges as God,
To learn the fruit of praise, the thinking of Love --
Apart from the world's mandrakes.
"What, is My Arm too short? Can I not reward the world,
from My Father's Pleasure at hearing your learning Me?
Shall I not sustain the world, BECAUSE you learn Me?
Did not Father reward the world with life due to Me?
Shall I not thus reward the world, due to My Bride?
And can I not do a better job of rewarding,
than your measly arms could ever do?
For you are kept here to learn Me,
but not the world's altruisms.
The Bride need not dally
with false christs."
Then He spoke tenderly, out from the delicious breeze:
"Be not little-faiths.
I bless to bless, and I curse to bless, also:
for the heart, only I know its seared, scarred, secrets.
Only I can sew together, and that healing raphah I Myself authored --
For Father's Sake. For you, for all..for Father's Sake.
"Let Me instruct you when and if you should do aught for another.
Be in Me! Not apart. What, do you want a divorce?
For apart from Me, what can you do, but evil?
Can a man do aught but stumble, in the dark?
Learn Me, instead. Feed daily on My Word.
Learn to delight yourselves in My Fatness.
Let My Spirit fatten you first with My Word,
So that you come to display My Feast for Father.
let Me handle those other hearts and bodies, too:
Whose sleeping sickness you can neither diagnose, nor cure.
"Learn Me: Shall I leave you bereft?
Didn't James my servant warn you,
'Faith without works is dead'?
So lay aside faith in your eyes.
Work at learning Me, My Way.
'For My Ways are not your ways,
nor My Thoughts your thoughts':
How then can you but drink evil,
until your ways and thoughts
Are refilled -- with My Own?
What, shall I make war against you also,
or shall I reward the world by giving you greater grace,
because you heeded my slave James, and drank My Wisdom?
"Learn Me. I shall care for the hating-and-tawdry,
the narrow-and-uninterested world,
which only gets Father's Blessing,
when He 'eats' My Childrens' learning.
For He never delights in sacrifice,
but in the Body He prepares: My Bride.
Learn Me, so to have rapport, as One.
Learn My Mind, and I shall instruct you.
Learn Me! What, are precious stones, man-made?
So agathos cannot come from flesh'd pursuits.
For it is you I saved, not your works.
For it is you I saved, not your flesh.
For it is them I would save, not their deeds.
What, don't I make all, solve all.. with a Word?
What, won't I make a 'miracle' of YOU?
So, then: My 'slowness' has purpose.
Be still, and know that I am God.
Be My Bride, not the world's concubine.
For you constitute My Bride, even now,
while the world may spurn My Loving Call.
So Endower yourselves with every rich gemstone,
My Thinking! securely in escrow, for you:
let Spirit do His Work,
arming you with 'every spiritual blessing',
free of worldly stubble, dross.
Accouter yourselves, put on Me!
Don My Wedding Robes!
Not earthly, fetid, jades.
For just as John, My apostle, instructed,
and just as Paul, My apostle, explained,
Yea, just as Peter, My apostle, has taught:
'Grow in grace, and in the knowledge'
of ME! Not 'the works-to-be-burnt world.
of ME! Not 'dead-men's tome-y councils,
of ME! Not 'body-slaving, mystic deeds,
which choke the soul's thirst to know Me.
"Become Fit Bride within yourselves! Seek first My Kingdom-of-Thinking, which IS Righteousness,
and all these things will be added unto them -- for one must see the soul, to heal it.
"Do you yet hear?
Do you not yet know?
Do you not yet see My Aid?
Mockers are allowed to live, because you do!
And why do you live? Was it not because I do?
And why do you live now? To serve Father
On My behalf, while He makes those who hate Me
the Footstool of My Feet.
Happinesses to him who counts it joy to learn Me,
to be Evidence ou Blepomenon of learning Me,
becoming weak, laying aside his own 'glory',
depending on Spirit, not his own 'strength',
resisting the Tempter's counterfeit good:
To him I grant the Crown of Life,
to rule those who hated learning Me:
As if I were too boring to know,
a Crusted Book of Yawning,
Weakly lain down in a napkin.
As did My friend Abraham and My slave Paul,
You yourselves, Learn Me!
Watch what great works I Myself shall make of you --
greater deeds than you could ever ask or even imagine.
For Great is this mystery: just as I saved the world by ignoring it, though in its midst,
and concentrated instead on the Word -- so to think, and please the All-Hearing Father --
So also you come to salt the earth as you learn My Mind, to exhale My Sweet Savor.
What works of Mine saved you? Could Father make it plainer I did nothing?
Nailed, unmoving, what works could My arms even do?
Wasn't it the 'blood' of My Thinking, which atoned?
Did I have anything else to offer?
But no, I was Lamb, a tola-worm,
The Substitute: Imputed and Judged,
with the blows of the petty, the small,
the fragile -- mankind's sins.
So what did I 'do'? I THOUGHT.
Oneness is a thinking, if ye did but know.
"What else can one offer Almighty, Holy, Needing-Nothing God?
So also My Thinking in you provides the world with blessing.
For who else can warrant the Father's Expressed Pleasure?
He imputed and judged all sin on Me, completing Salvation.
So, He imputes and judges all blessing ..FOR Me.
So be IN Me, think My Thoughts!
Nail your arms,
lest they move alone,
to do hollow deeds
the world alone applauds."
He ceased speaking. We then stood up, and each went our own way.