Unpackaged Salvation

I’ve met quite a few folks who wanted to save the world. Some of them are family members. They offer beatific visions of Utopia, an answer to all the ills of world — but of course, only those ills they wish to consider. Sometimes it is as simple as marketing this one solution to a particular problem, a superior product or first on the market. It all springs from the same urge to be significant, to accomplish something and point to it as their laurels.

That same fantasy once chained me, as it does so much of the human race. It nearly killed more than once. Not that I feared death, nor do I now, but death on the wrong terms is truly sorrowful. It would have been an utterly pointless death, death under a delusion.

Sanity came when I let it all go.

You can’t package truth. The salvation of humanity is not available on this plane of existence. Sanity is leaving all this behind, in the sense you finally realize to the core of your being this is just a prison, a big lie, not the real deal. Then you spend what time you have left finding small ways to show it. Some of you, dear readers, probably grasp this.

You realize, I’m sure, your answers are not everyone else’s answers. We have no branding, and whatever label we could find has already been co-opted and abused so much, it’s almost meaningless. We are truth in plain brown wrappers. It’s not the contents which matter so much as the utter lack of labeling itself. That’s our emphatic denial there is any answer, any “better deal” to which we can pin our names, hopes and dreams, or anyone else’s.

Salvation is not taught, but caught. It’s not a product, but a process. We demonstrate how it works for us, and know somebody is going to ask. If they don’t ask, that doesn’t mean they won’t get their own sanity, but those we can possibly help in any other way must ask. Unless of course, the convictions within force you to act unilaterally. You’ll know when that moment comes. Or maybe you won’t, but you’ll know later, and sharpen your convictions for the next time. The development process is never done, so long as we breathe this air.

We few know there will always be more, yet never more than a few. Sure, the long view of human history notes it comes and goes in cycles. Numbers or percentages aren’t possible, but there has never been more than a few of us. Even among people whose spirits are awake and alive, it seems most of them never get sane enough to really break free from the prison. They are like the children which never grow up, all unrealized potential. So even when we make some progress, we lose a big chunk in the process.

It’s not futile. At least, it isn’t futile so long as you don’t cripple yourself with expectations. Our very existence on another plane itself is worth it all. Dismissing expectations, that disentangling pillar of Christian Mysticism, is critical to whatever we have which approaches the idea of “success.” When we embrace the fullness of no expectations, we are success personified. We are free to let powers beyond us steer things where they must go, and we grant that same freedom to anyone we encounter. That’s the essence of helping them see this prison and seeing where freedom can be found.

They have to find their own answers, because we don’t offer answers. The best we can offer is shining the light on the path where humanity must go to find all the answers. The path is not in this world, so it can’t be packaged, managed, quantified, explained or sold. If you know this, on whatever level it is humans know such things, you are saved. You are sane. It’s also called love, peace, compassion, grace, and a thousand other things, all words which never quite capture the essence.

You can’t package salvation.