people are beautiful

So I went in this antique shop and the owner, Vladimir, had all these really old hand painted Russian and Greek Christian murals. They reminded me of Buddhist and Hindu spiritual representations I had seen before. Jesus was depicted in sitting postures with his hands in poses reminiscent of Shiva, Ganesha, Krishna and the Buddha.

Was Christianity simply a reaction to the Monotheism of the Jewish faith which left man the inheritor of God's wrath and anger? Was it simply a reaction of man to his own fallen nature? Jesus Christ represents the divinity of man. Were we tired of feeling guilty? Were we tired of feeling doomed? Were we detached from our divine nature? Why do we worship Jesus? Did he not tell us that if we wanted to find God, we should look within? He did not want to be worshiped. He was a teacher and a preacher, who was forsaken on the cross by his father, the Lord. Yet we retold the story, making this torturous death of a prophet, our own redemption. He died for our sins. Yes, he certainly did, because it was we who killed him. Man killed man, or, as we have been taught, man killed God. But somehow we came out of this forgiven, well, at least those of us who believed, who accepted Jesus Christ in our hearts. We were forgiven.

Originally you had to be Jewish to be a Christian, that is of course until Paul started writing his letters, opening up the religion to Gentiles. The fact that the fledgling church was not going to get far without new believers may have played into this strategy. Many Jews didn't seem to want to get off the hook. They wanted to keep on wearing their little black caps. They wanted to keep on being the recipients of God's punishment and wrath, reaping the rewards of the fruits of our banishment from the Garden.

Anyways, all I was really trying to say is that walking down the street today, and seeing a blind man grasping at a wall, looking for a door that wasn't there, and then watching myself and another tattooed bad ass looking white boy, rush to help the blind black man, both asking him if he needed help, the other gentleman gently grasping the blind man's arm. He was looking for the barber shop, which was just 3 or so feet from where he was looking. We said "hey man, you're right there." We helped him in, and looked at each other knowingly, and I thought, on the verge of tears, man, people are beautiful. People are divine. People are angels.