Ken Cooper’s “POETIC POSTLUDE” shares Bible EXAMPLES of seeing reality as God does!

Ken Cooper’s “POETIC POSTLUDE” shares Bible EXAMPLES of seeing reality as God does!
from the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson on “REALITY” for March 27, 2022

• Even if a dream seems very real Ken’s YouTube poem tells us “Awake! Reality is all that’s true”.
• In the monologue “Not born blind but born again” the blind man tells his full story that should awaken us to wash off blind acceptance of our supposed, dust-man origin in matter.
• In the poem “The Woman of Samaria,” we hear her surprise and delight that Jesus, as a Jew, revealed his Messiahship to her. a Samaritan and a woman with an immoral past.
  

  ---

  
  [Ken:] “Open up my mind, and let my eyes behold, the beauty and wonder of all that You have done, the perfect expression of your teachings and instruction!”  This Golden Text is fulfilled in Bible citation 9   “Then the eyes of those who see, My creation, will never be closed or dimmed, but will always see, and the ears of those who hear, My creation, will always listen and understand My Word.” (Isaiah 32:3 combined translations). What more can we ask for than beholding the reality, the substance and beauty, of what God is.

The Responsive Reading (RR) is exactly what it is! And what a start to each day: “Come on, get up! Awake early and put your face in the morning sunshine! Feel the glory of God shining upon you with all its radiance and brilliance.” (RR/Isaiah 60:1 combined translations). The call to awake resonates with my first poem, “Awake! Reality is all that’s true.” When we dream, we are immersed in what the dream suggests, – it is very real, although, as the poem indicates, sometimes quite preposterous. When the dream is fantastical, it is easily dismissed for what it is, but when the dream is “life-like” it can be so much harder to dismiss – yet we take it in until we wake up! What are we accepting when we should be waking up! See the morning sunshine, and feel the love of God! Each stanza ends with the lines:

But when I awoke, no news to you,
It simply wasn’t ever true!

God does not dream, and nor does man. The poem also looks at the false dream of sickness and sin, but the glory of God is all that is ever going on, and this should be the only news we accept! The substance of Soul is the reality far above the dream of physical health, the purity and glory of Spirit far above the temporary dream of sin.  What are we accepting as reality? God or the nothing of something else?

And wide-awake, no news to you,
Reality is all that’s true!

In Section 4 we have the healing of a man born blind. Straightaway the dream of human birth! Jesus gives a clear response to those caught up in this dream “Neither has this man sinned nor his parents, you cannot blame them for the state of this man, for every one of us is here to declare and show off the wonderful works of God, – who made him, his parents and us all.” (citation B12/John 9:3 combined translations, my underline). In the monologue “Not born blind but born again” we hear the story of a blind man caught up in his mortal assessment of himself, resigned to his “reality”, his view of the world. The monologue takes his full story, and the disbelief of others, then their discomfort of what they do not want to believe. To some the dream is preferable / comfortable, despite the promise that awakening offers.  How ready are we to wash off the dust / dream of ages?  This dear man was obedient to Jesus’ command, “he went his way, therefore, and washed, and came seeing”. So can we.

The “fact” that he was blind from birth was a dream, a mental rock, shattered by the reality that he was born of God. When we wake from the dream, we see as Jesus saw, as God sees. The monologue concludes:

“My life has fundamentally changed, from blind acceptance, literally, to light, to the glorious feeling of standing in God’s ever-present Love, being part of a marvellous creation that is all around me. Jesus opened my eyes! God is our perfect Father and there is only His perfect creation. That’s where I stand.
I see!”

Sight is understanding, and it is this that Jesus offered to the woman of Samaria, an anathema to the Jews. (Section 5). Here we have someone not born blind, but born of mixed lineage. Another false dream!  Jesus was aware of the social mores of the time, but he was more aware of, and he surely knew, the true status of man. This was his reality. In the poem “The Woman of Samaria”, read by Sue, (apologies for the low volume, – suggest looking at the pdf at the same time) Jesus breaks with his hammer the rock of strong prejudice, and offers living water to not only a woman, but what is revealed as an immoral one too. But he was not caught in the dream of social standings.  He could only express the truth of unconditional Love, because this was such a clear reality to him. His starting point was this fundamental fact that “God is Spirit”. This is reality! There is nothing else.  “God is (a) Spirit. And they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth” (citation B14) What a contrast this is to worship in matter and in error!! Living in the dream! When she learns that Jesus is indeed the Christ, she leaves her waterpot (her material belongings) and goes back to the city.

“Touched by the Christ I’m now reborn.
New freedom with my past forlorn!”

The Christ has awakened her to a new life, and her communicating with the men of the city is now on a different level, – the reality of equality, past sins forgiven in the outreach of present good. When we are governed by Love, we live in the present, and respond with the infinite power of man / woman as God’s own beloved.  She has been touched by the Christ, and there was no need to say to her, as Jesus did with the woman caught in adultery, “Go and sin no more.” She was another example of a good Samaritan, and she so blessed from that point on all others she met. The men listened to her, with her message of the now and not of her past.  Her past was no longer her. And they too were drawn by the Christ:

Many believe from all I say,
They searched out Jesus straightaway.
Two happy days he stayed and taught
Illuminating heart and thought!

When our thoughts are illuminated, they reflect the light of understanding, the vision of what is real. We fulfill the words of Paul (citation B15/Ephesians 5:8) “At one time you lived in darkness, blind to what was real. But now you are living in the glorious light that comes from the Lord. So live now as children who have this light glowing in them, yes, as children of Light itself..”(combined translations)

When we shine with the Light of God we glow with the reality of our true being, undimmed, untouchable by darkness of any sort.

WE SEE AS GOD SEES, AT ONE WITH THE FATHER-MOTHER, THE REALITY OF RIGHT NOW.

Copies of the poems are available in pdf format in color and B&W as DOWNLOADS at the bottom of the online version of this Poetic Postlude to this week’s Bible Lesson. The full range of Ken’s videos on YouTube can be found on KenGCooperPoetry.  All Ken’s poetry and other writings can be found on Ken Cooper Poetry.

Write to Ken on kengcooper@btinternet.com.