Stained glass fragments

Go to, let us make brick and build a tower, lest we be scattered upon the face of the earth. The family was tight, wasn't that a good thing? They didn't want God's ordination, they didn't want to be separated. Let's form a religion, build a landmark, a gathering place for our family reunions, to keep the band together, remember the tribe.

But God had said to go out and populate the earth. And God was not happy with the new religion, the tower of brick, or the determination to cling together. So God divided their tongues; as if a river was struck into seven streams; man suddenly spoke seven new languages; confounding their religion and scattering their dreams of remaining one family. Isn't it strange that we hear their spirits? That dream; one family of man, still courses through our veins. We think it comes from God, but it is altogether our opposition to God, a willful resistance bound up in our blood, and every family carries it, and every family fights the same fight generation after generation, and every family fails, ever since the day he confounded our tongues, and dispersed us upon the face of the earth.

But the families still clung to the religion and the hope of staying together. This is Babylon. It rules our earth to this day, it fails us over and over, it is a big lie, it pretends to represent God, when, in fact, it is fighting against God. This is the will of the blood, the pull on every family of tradition, the false love that doesn't care for the members but sacrifices the members for a tower, an idol, the central pull of the herd, the family concept, the tug at the heart, the rock-n-roll religion, the blues, the soul music, the hymns, the tongues, the magic that leads us to believe that we know God in our hearts, the deceiver in our veins, the pulse of upbringing, and the hope that is lost over and over.

So light a candle, say a prayer, perform your vows and believe you are there. The stained glass fragments of yesterdays past, the clinging to religion that blows our main mast. We seek the delights of our soul, the comforts that stem from traditions of our youth, whether it is one culture or the next, it is our family roots, the way we were taught as a child, the way that feels right. It is the true church service in our bones, the moments that bring a tear to our eye, the hymns of Christmas, and the mad dash through the streets.

"Pleasant words are as an honeycomb, sweet to the soul, and health to the bones.

There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death."

So whether the priest is eating a human heart or meditating upon a mountain or putting on some other show for the flesh, we don't care, because we know it is right, we know it in our heart. We seek the bright colors, or the somber dark robes, we feel for the pulse, we groove to the rhythm, we sway to the beat, and we know it is right... In our heart.

But from time beginning, in the valley between the Tigris and the Euphrates, when we first strove together, when we first fought God together, when we resisted his will, when we strove to establish our own traditions and religion and way to congregate. From further back than we can remember, from the deepest parts of our soul, we have been deceived, we have been following a lie, building a tower to the heavens in rebellion against heaven. And at long last we need to recognize that, pull out of the spell that has had the whole earth in it's sway, the lie of tradition and religion and instinct to hold the family together, the worship of our youth, the lighting of the candle, the way that seems so right inside our veins, the pull, the tug, the unholy bond, that has kept us in bondage, and deceived our heart.


"And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues."

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