Post-Denominational Human Consciousness

I received the following Christmas greeting today from Peter Challen which I thought was well worth sharing more widely:

"We have many opportunities and much hard work before us in 2009, as the incarnational resonance of Christmas implies.

The mind-shift required of us in the present global stress challenges us all to set our own lives in the big picture. Here is my attempt, based on Shakepeare's wise quip ' A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' We are in pursuit of inclusive justice and can find leads in many places.

POST DENOMINATIONAL
HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

All things apposite not opposite,
birth emergent out of universe
that reaches always for transcendence
without ever leaving immanence.
Natality easing into life-consciousness,
body in soul, never soul confined to body,
ecumenicity ensuring cosmic inclusiveness,
catholicity providing whole earth identity,
protestation keeping boundaries open,
pentecostal fire retaining enthusiasm,
orthodoxy securing tentative limits,
heterodoxy escape from dogma,
friends awed by inspiration,
and good faith, in all faiths,
offering love, passed on, not back;
pastors as prophets
and prophets pastors too,
in cyclical ceaseless creativity
gift of life eternal.

CODA

Language
being only mundane metaphor,
these terms with any other name
hold just as true
to an ineffable unity in totality,
confined frame containing all being.

Peter Challen 12-08"

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Annie Lennox & Al Green - Put a Little Love in Your Heart.