“For people do not gather figs from thorns or from thorn trees, if they are wise, nor grapes from thistles. For, on the one hand, that which is always becoming is in that from which it is, being from what is not good, which becomes destruction for it and death. But that which comes to be in the Eternal One is in the One of the life and the immortality of the life which they resemble” (Apocalypse of Peter)

It seems fundamentally impossible for us Gnostics, who seek full participation in the unadulterated life and light of the pleroma, to accept practices that amount to the exercise of killing by any state or government.  In responding to this issue, we must first feel profoundly the pain of those who are the victims or who are otherwise impacted by violent crime.  We too, like all people of good will, are horrified by the amount of violence that burdens our communities and the larger world around us.

Even common sense should tell us that you do not fight fire with fire, and that adding to violence does nothing more than make the problem all the worse.  But we Gnostics do not have to rely solely on common sense, for we also have the great example of our brother and teacher Christ to guide us.  Remember, my friends, how even in the Christian retelling of the story he saved the woman about to be stoned to death.  Remember, my friends, how his words forced the angry crowd to put down its stones and examine their own faults and failings before engaging in an act of violent self-righteous hypocrisy.  And this is not even to speak of the increasing likelihood that significant numbers of innocent people are trapped in death rows throughout the United States

 Indeed, however, capital punishment is even more disturbing than a mere act of individual or collective revenge, because it is carried out by the state, not by a single person or group of persons, but the government formed from the consent of the people.  It is a perversion of anything that a government should stand for to then turn on its own people and murder them.  It is only a few steps from murdering the “worst elements” in a criminal sense to weeding out the disabled, the undesirable, the merely unattractive or unwanted.  This is far worse than any murder carried out by a mere private individiaul or group of private individuals, because the state has a fundamental responsibility to its people.  If government becomes destructive of these ends, the Declaration of Independence reminds us, we are no longer living in a democratic or free society.

 And, my friends, do we not remember the greatest of all unjust state executions, the death of Christ? Are we so confident? Are we so bold? Are we so perfect, so infallible, so unquestionably perfect that we can take the power of life and death into our hands?  Are we so  ready to wash our hands along with Pilate and kill those for whom the crowd of public opinion is baying for their death?  Does not Sophia in the Thunder: Perfect Mind cry out to us, “Why do you scorn me?”  Both Christ and Sophia within our souls cry out to us when we scorn another human being, a child of the living God.

I ask you to remember the words of the late Robert F. Kennedy: “Let us dedicate to ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.”

Here is a press release we issued earlier today…

PRESS RELEASE

31 October 2006: The Alliance of Gnostics in Community and Awareness (AGCA) endorses a NO VOTE on Virginia’s anti-gay marriage amendment (ballot question 1)

The Alliance of Gnostics in Community and Awareness (AGCA), a progressive church communion of neo-classical Gnostics around the world, has a policy of not endorsing particular candidates for office in national or local elections.  However, we do provide guidance rooted in the Gnostic spiritual tradition about particular issues facing voters in American and selected international elections.

Next Tuesday, Virginians, including our Vicar who resides in Richmond, will be asked to vote on a “marriage amendment” aimed at permanently disqualifying whole sections of our Commonwealth’s  citizens from some of their most basic civil rights having to do with family, property, and health-care decision-making.  The AGCA has consistently articulated a moral message about the rights and dignity of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities.

Accordingly, the AGCA is formally endorsing a NO vote on Virginia’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

It is all the more vital that we in Virginia fight back against the encroaching fundamentalism of the conservative theocrats, because our state is the birthplace of American democracy and the source of ideas about the fundamental importance of human freedom, individual liberty, and the right of each person to the pursuit of happiness, as long as others are not being harmed.

As Gnostics, we believe in the equal spiritual dignity of each individual person, regardless of their race, ethnicity, personal beliefs, or sexual orientation.  One of our sacred texts, the Gospel of Thomas, reminds and challenges us, “Love your brothers and sisters like your own soul; guard them as you would protect the pupil of your own eye.”

We look forward to the day when all marriages and all families will be fully and equally respected in our society, even as they are already respected in the eyes of God.  We hope that all the anti-gay laws that have been passed in recent years will eventually be struck down by the federal courts under the Fourteenth Amendment and the full-faith-and-credit clause.  But we know that it will take a long time for this to happen.  It took a long time to get from the disgrace of Plessy v. Ferguson to the victory of Brown v. Board of Education, and we believe that the issues at stake are fundamentally the same — civil rights are civil rights, and equality means protecting the civil rights of all and protecting them from discrimination on any basis.  In the meantime, the AGCA continues to offer unity/commitment ceremonies to all couples, gay or straight, who are drawn to our spiritual ideals, even if they are not themselves Gnostics per se.  The text of our unity ceremony is available online at http://www.gnostic-church.org/unityceremony.htm

To learn more about our faith and our organization, please visit our main website at http://www.gnostic-church.org/.  If you have any questions or comments, you may contact our Vicar, Brother Matthew, directly at vicarmatthew@gnostic-church.org

Vote for human dignity. Vote for freedom.  Vote for Virginia’s legacy of democracy.  Vote NO on Ballot Question 1.

–
AGCA: Gnosticism for a New Millennium
Gnosis is about recognizing the divine within you, and learning compassion for those around you
http://www.gnostic-church.org

I have just been thinking of the interesting connections between the Gnostic ideas expressed in the Gospel of Philip and the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche (when it is not over-simplified, as it usually is in popular discourse).  Consider Nietzsche’s famous comments on God in his “parable of the madman” (http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/nietzsche-madman.html)

“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? With what water could we purify ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we need to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we not ourselves become gods simply to be worthy of it?”

When you really think about what is being said here, it is sort of a modern development on an idea that was central to the Gospel of Philip.  GoP observes:

“God created humanity… [but then in turn] humanity creates ‘God’ [i.e. the concept]. That is the way it is in the world – men and women make gods and worship their creation. It would be much more fitting for the gods to worship the human beings.”

Nietzsche, living 1700 or more years later, was facing the obverse side of this paradox, once the paradox had begun to decay — though indeed its decay is already evident in the revolutionary ideology of Gospel of Philip — but all the more so in Nietzsche, who is confronting this decay head-on: “Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose.”

It is just as necessary now to clear away the stench of this decay in order to face the truth about ourselves and our destinies.

-Brother Matthew

 Dear Brothers and Sisters,

One of the things that always strikes me as so amazing about the Gnostic tradition is its incredible dynamism, its incredible breadth, and its continuing ability to adapt to contemporary cultural milieu, even over what would seem to be the separation of almost two millennia.  I’ve just been reminded of a great example of this during the past week in considering some of the deep connections and relationships between some of the most dynamic aspects of philosophical postmodernism in our own contemporary world and the traditional philosophical and ideological approaches of early classical Gnosticism.  I’ve termed this the transformation of theory from Basilides to Baudrillard, simply because those two particular examples provide an especially compelling nexus for looking at the world around us and the human condition.

As many of you know, I am completing my graduate work in the American Studies Program at the College of William and Mary, where my research focuses on American religious history.  This year I am teaching for both William and Mary and the University of Virginia, where my areas of interest include African-American religion, alternative and new religious movements in America, and contemporary apocalyptic religious expressions.  This spring, however, I’ve been given the remarkable opportunity to design a special course at Virginia that will involve an exploration of major works in cultural theory from Marx through Baudrillard, with a focal lens of how these works of critical cultural theory can be understood in light of contemporary American culture and the larger world situation in the postmodern era.  In preparing for this class, I’ve been having such a great time just in terms of selecting material that we will cover — I’m working through Horkheimer’s Eclipse of Reason and a collection “Critique of Instrumental Reason,” and focusing especially on Baudrillard’s masterpiece, “Simulacra and Simulation,” along with his slightly less-familiar Symbolic Exchange and Death.  I am just bringing this all up because in working with Baudrillard, I’ve been struck by how many of his incredible theoretical insights are resonant with fundamental themes that were suggested by classical Gnostics millennia earlier.  Baudrillard’s fundamental notion of the simulacra, in which culture functions as a “simulation” of itself and truth becomes virtually (in a literal and a figurative sense) indistinguishable from representation (which itself ceases to be “re-presentation” but becomes purely “simulation”) — this is very similar in many ways to the negative definition of cosmos that was so fundamental to classical Gnosticism’s understanding of the realm of the demiurge — and then, paradoxically, transformed itself into a negative definition of the divine — most famously in Basilides’ notion of God as “ouk on theos” or “Non-Being God” (“God-doesn’t-exist-God”).  Basilides, and the sources from which he apparently drew, like the G. of Philip, is the most challenging of the early Gnostic writers precisely because he forces us to question all our presuppositions about the question of the divine.  It is a question of total apophasis — total negation.  This is why the distinction between classical Gnosticism and Buddhism — or at least certain forms of Theravada Buddhism — is by no means as clearcut as it can at first sometimes appear.  The divine — indeed the spirit as a force as a whole, including the spirit within us — is at one and the same time absolute being and absolute negation of being.  This is because when we use the term “being” or employ the concept “existence,” we are creating material-cosmic allusions (“simulations,” to borrow Baudrillardian language) and illusions for that matter as well, which are always more incorrect than they are correct.

It is for this reason that the highest form of Gnostic spiritual writing, the highest and most challenging and most frustrating in many ways for the reader, is the apophatic/kataphatic contestation, of which the finest and purest example is found in Thunder Pefect Mind.

For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.
Give heed to me.
I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.

It is only slightly, I would say, trailed behind by the Gospel of Philip itself.  It holds the famous statement of Gnostic apophatic declaration:

Light and Darkness, life and death, right and left, are brothers and sisters of one another. They are inseparable. Because of this neither are the good good, nor evil evil, nor is life life, nor death death. For this reason each one will dissolve into its earliest origin. But those who are exalted above the world are indissoluble, eternal.
Names given to the worldly are very deceptive, for they divert our thoughts from what is correct to what is incorrect. Thus one who hears the word “God” does not perceive what is correct, but perceives what is incorrect. So also with “the Father” and “the Son” and “the Holy Spirit” and “life” and “light” and “resurrection” and “the Church (Ekklesia)” and all the rest – people do not perceive what is correct but they perceive what is incorrect, unless they have come to know what is correct. The names which are heard are in the world [...] deceive. If they were in the spiritual realm, they would at no time be used as names in the world. Nor were they set among worldly things. They have an end in the spiritual realm.

What could be a better description of this philosophy than to say it is a prefiguring, written in the mythological and spiritualizing language of the first centuries of the Gnostic era, of the postmodern philosophy of Baudrillard’s simulacrum?  I think it is also relevant for us to consider the warning of Max Horkheimer, the Frankfurt School philosopher of the mid-twentieth century, that we as a society are advancing far faster technologically than we are in terms of our actual substantive enlightenment as human beings.  There is a difference between the substance of reason in the sense of “reasonableness”, and the process of “rationalization” — but unfortunately we collapse the two into the concept of the “ratio.”  Of course, Gnosticism has never allowed for such a collapse, because of its healthy skepticism about the ability of the ratio per se to provide the salvation of either the human person or of humanity as a whole.  It is important for us to hold onto that skepticism.  It is a skepticism that is not anti-scientific and anti-rationalistic per se.  We are not talking about the kind of anti-scientistic frenzy that has taken hold of conservative Protestantism with its bizarre hatred of genuine scientific endeavor and progress.  But we are talking about a recognition that our science and our technology is sometimes advancing well beyond our moral capacity to deal with that advancing process.  This is why we face issues like cloning and stem-cell research on which human society seems to be incapable of engaging in real dialogue beyond shouting and screaming matches that actually jettison any kind of reasonable debate in favor of competing fundamentalisms.  We can see that is a typical problem in many parts of human life today.  We actually have competing fundamentalisms.  One fundamentalism of the left, one of the right; one of the Christians, one of the anti-Christians; one of the sexually repressed, one of those who seem to have no sense of the need for any kind of sexual morality based on human diversity and respect for the individual’s sexual identity.

Anyway, I am very excited about the class and I wanted to share something about my thoughts and ideas.  I would like to hear back from you about any other cultural theorists that you think might be relevant to a Gnostic approach toward modern philosophy.  How do you think Gnosticism might be relevant to a discussion of Marx, Freud, Lacan, Jung, Horkheimer, Adorno, Benjamin, Debord, Baudrillard, etc etc?

Love in Christ and Sophia,

Brother Matthew

Brothers and Sisters, I would just encourage you to listen to this NPR story that ran today on All Things Considered.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6394180

I had a meeting in Charlottesville and I was driving home listening to this story, and I was in tears most of the way home after being touched by the profound message of thie story.  When are we going to put an end to this insanity? 

Love in Christ and Sophia,

Brother Matthew

As most of you know, we have made a practice of commemorating and memorializing the names of US fatalities in Iraq as a way of illustrating the costs of the war and commemorating the loss of so many young lives in the pursuit of death and folly.  Our last public recitation of the names of the deceased was on Good Friday, so we are now preparing to offer another recitation for our commemoration of Samhain and the pagan new year.  Unfortunately, it is another very long list.  If you would like to volunteer to help read the names of those who have passed on during our online service, please email me at vicarmatthew@gnostic-church.org.

These are only individuals who have died since Good Friday, 2006.  These are limited to only official US fatalities.

Darin T. Settle, 23, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 14, 2006

Mark W. Melcher, 34, Army National Guard Specialist, Apr 15, 2006

Derrick J. Cothran, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 15, 2006

Pablo V. Mayorga, 33, Marine Corporal, Apr 15, 2006

Justin D. Sims, 22, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 15, 2006

Ryan G. Winslow, 19, Marine Private 1st Class, Apr 15, 2006

Clinton W. Cubert, 38, Army National Guard Master Sergeant, Apr 16, 2006

Ian P. Weikel, 31, Army Captain, Apr 18, 2006

Robert J. Settle, 25, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 19, 2006

Patrick A. Tinnell, 25, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 19, 2006

Jason C. Ramseyer, 28, Marine Staff Sergeant, Apr 20, 2006

Jacob H. Allcott, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 22, 2006

Michael E. Bouthot, 19, Army Private, Apr 22, 2006

Kyle A. Colnot, 23, Army Sergeant, Apr 22, 2006

Eric D. King, 29, Army Specialist, Apr 22, 2006

Travis C. Zimmerman, 19, Army Private, Apr 22, 2006

Eric R. Lueken, 23, Marine Corporal, Apr 22, 2006

Jason B. Daniel, 21, Army Corporal, Apr 23, 2006

Robert W. Ehney, 26, Army Sergeant, Apr 23, 2006

Shawn Thomas Lasswell Jr., 21, Army Corporal, Apr 23, 2006

Metodio A. Bandonill, 29, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 24, 2006

Aaron William Simons, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 24, 2006

Raymond L. Henry, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Apr 25, 2006

Richard J. Herrema, 27, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Apr 25, 2006

Michael L. Ford, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Apr 26, 2006

Bobby Mendez, 38, Army 1st Sergeant, Apr 27, 2006

Mark A. Wall, 27, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 27, 2006

Matthew A. Webber, 23, Army National Guard Sergeant, Apr 27, 2006

Jose Gomez, 23, Army Sergeant, Apr 28, 2006

Bryant A. Herlem, 37, Army Staff Sergeant, Apr 28, 2006

Edward G. Davis III, 31, Marine Sergeant, Apr 28, 2006

Brandon M. Hardy, 25, Marine Corporal, Apr 28, 2006

Lea R. Mills, 21, Marine Sergeant, Apr 28, 2006

Steve M. Sakoda, 29, Army Sergeant, Apr 29, 2006

Robbie Glen Light, 21, Army Corporal, May 01, 2006

Robert L. Moscillo, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, May 01, 2006

Christopher M. Eckhardt, 19, Army Private 1st Class, May 03, 2006

Benjamin T. Zieske, 20, Army Private 1st Class, May 03, 2006

Joseph E. Proctor, 38, Army National Guard Sergeant, May 03, 2006

Brian S. Letendre, 27, Marine Reserve Captain, May 03, 2006

Bryan L. Quinton, 24, Army Specialist, May 04, 2006

Gavin B. Reinke, 32, Army Staff Sergeant, May 04, 2006

Stephen R. Bixler, 20, Marine Corporal, May 04, 2006

Elisha R. Parker, 21, Marine Sergeant, May 04, 2006

Alva L. Gaylord, 25, Army Private 1st Class, May 05, 2006

Carlos N. Saenz, 46, Army 1st Sergeant, May 05, 2006

Teodoro Torres, 29, Army Specialist, May 05, 2006

Nathan J. Vacho, 29, Army Sergeant, May 05, 2006

Dale James Kelly Jr., 48, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, May 06, 2006

David Michael Veverka, 25, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, May 06, 2006

Leon Deraps, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, May 06, 2006

Matthew J. Fenton, 24, Marine Sergeant, May 06, 2006

Cory L. Palmer, 21, Marine Corporal, May 06, 2006

Emmanuel L. Legaspi, 38, Army Staff Sergeant, May 07, 2006

Gregory A. Wagner, 35, Army Staff Sergeant, May 08, 2006

Aaron P. Latimer, 26, Army Specialist, May 09, 2006

Alessandro Carbonaro, 28, Marine Sergeant, May 10, 2006

Armer N. Burkart, 26, Army Specialist, May 11, 2006

Eric D. Clark, 22, Army Private 1st Class, May 11, 2006

Stephen P. Snowberger III, 18, Army Private 1st Class, May 11, 2006

Jason K. Burnett, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, May 11, 2006

David J. GramesSanchez, 22, Marine Lance Corporal, May 11, 2006

Michael L. Licalzi, 24, Marine 2nd Lieutenant, May 11, 2006

Steve Vahaviolos, 21, Marine Corporal, May 11, 2006

Brandon L. Teeters, 21, Army Specialist, May 12, 2006

Adam C. Conboy, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, May 12, 2006

Ron Gebur, 23, Army National Guard Specialist, May 13, 2006

Richard Z. James, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, May 13, 2006

John W. Engeman, 45, Army Chief Warrant Officer 4, May 14, 2006

Jamie D. Weeks, 47, Army Chief Warrant Officer 5, May 14, 2006

Robert H. West, 37, Army Master Sergeant, May 14, 2006

Matthew W. Worrel, 34, Army Major, May 14, 2006

Shane Mahaffee, 36, Army Reserve Captain, May 14, 2006

Jose S. Marin-Dominguez Jr., 22, Marine Lance Corporal, May 14, 2006

Hatak Yuka Keyu M. Yearby, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, May 14, 2006

Grant Allen Dampier, 25, Army Private 1st Class, May 15, 2006

Marion Flint Jr., 29, Army Staff Sergeant, May 15, 2006

Santiago M. Halsel, 32, Army Staff Sergeant, May 16, 2006

Lee Hamilton Deal, 23, Navy Petty Officer Third Class, May 17, 2006

Lonnie Calvin Allen Jr., 26, Army Sergeant, May 18, 2006

Nicholas Cournoyer, 25, Army Private 1st Class, May 18, 2006

Daniel E. Holland, 43, Army Lieutenant Colonel, May 18, 2006

Robert Seidel III, 23, Army 1st Lieutenant, May 18, 2006

William B. Fulks, 23, Marine Corporal, May 18, 2006

Benito A. Ramirez, 22, Marine Lance Corporal, May 21, 2006

David Christoff Jr., 25, Marine Sergeant, May 22, 2006

William J. Leusink, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, May 22, 2006

Michael L. Hermanson, 21, Army National Guard Specialist, May 23, 2006

Steven Freund, 20, Marine Private 1st Class, May 23, 2006

Robert G. Posivio III, 22, Marine Lance Corporal, May 23, 2006

Robert E. Blair, 22, Army Specialist, May 25, 2006

Douglas A. DiCenzo, 30, Army Captain, May 25, 2006

Caleb A. Lufkin, 24, Army Private 1st Class, May 25, 2006

Adam Lucas, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, May 26, 2006

J. Adan Garcia, 20, Army Corporal, May 27, 2006

Richard A. Bennett, 25, Marine Corporal, May 27, 2006

Nathanael J. Doring, 31, Marine Captain, May 27, 2006

James A. Funkhouser, 35, Army Captain, May 29, 2006

Jeremy M. Loveless, 25, Army Corporal, May 29, 2006

Brock L. Bucklin, 28, Army Specialist, May 30, 2006

Bobby R. West, 23, Army Corporal, May 30, 2006

Alexander J. Kolasa, 22, Army Corporal, May 31, 2006

Benjamin E. Mejia, 25, Army Sergeant, May 31, 2006

Brett L. Tribble, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Jun 03, 2006

Darren Harmon, 44, Army Reserve Staff Sergeant, Jun 03, 2006

Ryan J. Cummings, 22, Marine Corporal, Jun 03, 2006

Michael D. Stover, 43, Marine Major, Jun 03, 2006

Issac S. Lawson, 35, Air National Guard Specialist, Jun 05, 2006

Jamie Jaenke, 30, Naval Reserve Petty Officer 2nd Class, Jun 05, 2006

Gary Rovinski, 44, Naval Reserve Petty Officer 1st Class, Jun 05, 2006

Andy D. Anderson, 24, Army Corporal, Jun 06, 2006

Daniel Gionet, 23, Army Sergeant, Jun 06, 2006

Carlos E. Pernell, 25, Army Sergeant, Jun 06, 2006

Ryan T. Sanders, 27, Army 1st Lieutenant, Jun 06, 2006

Richard A. Blakley, 34, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Jun 06, 2006

Mark T. Smykowski, 23, Marine Sergeant, Jun 06, 2006

David N. Crombie, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Jun 07, 2006

Scott M. Love, 32, Army 1st Lieutenant, Jun 07, 2006

John Shaw Vaughan, 23, Army 2nd Lieutenant, Jun 07, 2006

Clarence D. McSwain, 31, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Jun 08, 2006

Luis D. Santos, 20, Army Specialist, Jun 08, 2006

Daniel Crabtree, 31, Army National Guard Sergeant 1st Class, Jun 08, 2006

Ben Slaven, 22, Army National Guard Private 1st Class, Jun 09, 2006

Jose M. Velez, 35, Army Reserve Sergeant, Jun 09, 2006

Salvador Guerrero, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Jun 09, 2006

Brent Zoucha, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Jun 09, 2006

Zachary M. Alday, 22, Navy Seaman, Jun 09, 2006

Michael A. Estrella, 20, Marine Corporal, Jun 14, 2006

Jeremiah S. Santos, 21, Army Specialist, Jun 15, 2006

David J. Babineau, 25, Army Specialist, Jun 16, 2006

Kristian Menchaca, 23, Army Private, Jun 16, 2006

Thomas Lowell Tucker, 25, Army Private 1st Class, Jun 16, 2006

Brent W. Koch, 22, Army National Guard Specialist, Jun 16, 2006

Robert L. Jones, 22, Army Specialist, Jun 17, 2006

Reyes Ramirez, 23, Army Sergeant, Jun 17, 2006

Christopher D. Leon, 20, Marine Corporal, Jun 20, 2006

Brandon J Webb, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Jun 20, 2006

Christopher N. White, 23, Marine Private 1st Class, Jun 20, 2006

Benjamin D. Williams, 30, Marine Staff Sergeant, Jun 20, 2006

Jason J. Buzzard, 31, Army Sergeant, Jun 21, 2006

Sirlou C. Cuaresma, 21, Army Sergeant, Jun 21, 2006

Nicholas J. Whyte, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Jun 21, 2006

Riley E. Baker, 22, Marine Corporal, Jun 22, 2006

Paul A. Beyer, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Jun 23, 2006

Mario J. Bievre, 34, Army Staff Sergeant, Jun 23, 2006

Ryan J. Buckley, 21, Army Corporal, Jun 23, 2006

Devon J. Gibbons, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Jun 23, 2006

Channing G. Singletary, 30, Army National Guard Specialist, Jun 23, 2006

Benjamin J. Laymon, 22, Army Sergeant, Jun 24, 2006

Justin Dean Norton, 21, Army Sergeant, Jun 24, 2006

Virrueta A. Sanchez, 33, Army Staff Sergeant, Jun 24, 2006

Paul N. King, 23, Marine Reserve Corporal, Jun 25, 2006

Terry Lisk, 26, Army Sergeant, Jun 26, 2006

Michael J. Potocki, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Jun 26, 2006

Raymond J. Plouhar, 30, Marine Staff Sergeant, Jun 26, 2006

Jeremy Jones, 25, Army Corporal, Jun 27, 2006

Terry O.P. Wallace, 33, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Jun 27, 2006

Jason W. Morrow, 27, Marine Corporal, Jun 27, 2006

Rex A. Page, 21, Marine Private 1st Class, Jun 28, 2006

Ryan. J. Clark, 19, Army Corporal, Jun 29, 2006

Bryan C. Luckey, 25, Army Sergeant, Jun 29, 2006

James P. Muldoon, 23, Army Sergeant, Jun 29, 2006

Christopher D. Rose, 21, Army Specialist, Jun 29, 2006

Kyle Miller, 19, Army National Guard Specialist, Jun 29, 2006

Carl Jerome Ware Jr., 22, Air Force Airman 1st Class, Jul 01, 2006

Collin T. Mason, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Jul 02, 2006

Justin Noyes, 23, Marine Sergeant, Jul 02, 2006

Paul Pabla, 23, Air National Guard Staff Sergeant, Jul 03, 2006

Omar Flores, 27, Army Staff Sergeant, Jul 08, 2006

Troy Carlin Linden, 22, Army Specialist, Jul 08, 2006

Joseph P. Micks, 22, Army Specialist, Jul 08, 2006

Damien M. Montoya, 21, Army Specialist, Jul 09, 2006

Duane J. Dreasky, 31, Army National Guard Sergeant, Jul 10, 2006

Irving Hernandez Jr., 28, Army Sergeant, Jul 12, 2006

Jerry A. Tharp, 44, Naval Reserve Petty Officer 1st Class, Jul 12, 2006

Al’Kaila Floyd, 23, Army Sergeant, Jul 13, 2006

Thomas B. Turner Jr., 31, Army Sergeant, Jul 14, 2006

Andres J. Contreras, 23, Army Sergeant, Jul 15, 2006

Manuel J. Holguin, 21, Army Specialist, Jul 15, 2006

Jason M. Evey, 29, Army Staff Sergeant, Jul 16, 2006

Nathaniel S. Baughman, 23, Army Corporal, Jul 17, 2006

Michael A Dickinson II, 26, Army Staff Sergeant, Jul 17, 2006

Kenneth I. Pugh, 39, Army Staff Sergeant, Jul 17, 2006

Scott R. Smith, 34, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Jul 17, 2006

Mark Richard Vecchione, 25, Army Sergeant, Jul 18, 2006

Geofrey R. Cayer, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Jul 18, 2006

Derek J. Plowman, 20, Army National Guard Private 1st Class, Jul 20, 2006

Julian A. Ramon, 22, Marine Corporal, Jul 20, 2006

Matthew P. Wallace, 22, Army Corporal, Jul 21, 2006

Christopher T. Pate, 29, Marine Captain, Jul 21, 2006

Adam J. Fargo, 22, Army Corporal, Jul 22, 2006

Blake H. Russell, 35, Army Captain, Jul 22, 2006

Christopher Swanson, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Jul 22, 2006

Dennis K. Samson Jr., 24, Army Specialist, Jul 24, 2006

Jason M. West, 28, Army Captain, Jul 24, 2006

Stephen W. Castner, 27, Army National Guard Specialist, Jul 24, 2006

Joseph A. Graves, 21, Army Specialist, Jul 25, 2006

Edward A Koth, 30, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class, Jul 26, 2006

James W. Higgins, 22, Marine Lance Corporal, Jul 27, 2006

Adam R. Murray, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Jul 27, 2006

Timothy D. Roos, 21, Marine Corporal, Jul 27, 2006

Enrique Henry Sanchez, 21, Marine Private 1st Class, Jul 27, 2006

Phillip E. Baucus, 28, Marine Corporal, Jul 29, 2006

Anthony E. Butterfield, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Jul 29, 2006

Jason Hanson, 21, Marine Private 1st Class, Jul 29, 2006

Christian B. Williams, 27, Marine Sergeant, Jul 29, 2006

Joshua Ford, 20, Army National Guard Specialist, Jul 31, 2006

Hai Ming Hsia, 37, Army Specialist, Aug 01, 2006

Ryan D. Jopek, 20, Army National Guard Sergeant, Aug 02, 2006

Dustin D. Laird, 23, Marine Sergeant, Aug 02, 2006

Joseph A. Tomci, 21, Marine Corporal, Aug 02, 2006

Marc A. Lee, 28, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class, Aug 02, 2006

Kurt Edward Dechen, 24, Marine Lance Corporal, Aug 03, 2006

George M. Ulloa Jr., 23, Marine Sergeant, Aug 03, 2006

Bradley H. Beste, 22, Army Sergeant, Aug 04, 2006

Leroy Segura Jr., 23, Army Sergeant, Aug 04, 2006

Clint J. Storey, 30, Army Staff Sergeant, Aug 04, 2006

Brian J. Kubik, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Aug 05, 2006

Carlton A. Clark, 22, Army Sergeant, Aug 06, 2006

Tracy L. Melvin, 31, Army Staff Sergeant, Aug 06, 2006

Stephen A. Seale, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Aug 06, 2006

Jose Zamora, 24, Army Specialist, Aug 06, 2006

Jeffery S. Brown, 25, Army Sergeant, Aug 09, 2006

Aaron Jagger, 43, Army 1st Sergeant, Aug 09, 2006

Steven P. Mennemeyer, 26, Army Sergeant, Aug 09, 2006

Ignacio Ramirez, 22, Army Specialist, Aug 09, 2006

Shane W. Woods, 23, Army Specialist, Aug 09, 2006

Jeremy Z. Long, 18, Marine Lance Corporal, Aug 10, 2006

Kenneth A. Jenkins, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Aug 12, 2006

Michael C. Lloyd, 24, Army Staff Sergeant, Aug 12, 2006

Kevin L. Zeigler, 31, Army Staff Sergeant, Aug 12, 2006

Jeffrey S. Loa, 32, Army Staff Sergeant, Aug 16, 2006

Michael Dennis Glover, 28, Marine Lance Corporal, Aug 16, 2006

John James McKenna IV, 30, Marine Captain, Aug 16, 2006

John P. Phillips, 29, Marine Sergeant, Aug 16, 2006

James J. Arellano, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Aug 17, 2006

Ruben J. Villa Jr, 36, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Aug 18, 2006

Marquees A. Quick, 28, Army Sergeant, Aug 19, 2006

Gabriel G. DeRoo, 23, Army Sergeant, Aug 20, 2006

Adam Anthony Galvez, 21, Marine Corporal, Aug 20, 2006

Randy Lee Newman, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Aug 20, 2006

Chadwick Thomas Kenyon, 20, Navy Hospitalman, Aug 20, 2006

Brad A. Clemmons, 37, Air Force Master Sergeant, Aug 21, 2006

Paul J. Darga, 34, Navy Chief Petty Officer, Aug 22, 2006

Thomas J. Barbieri, 24, Army Specialist, Aug 23, 2006

James Daniel Hirlston, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Aug 23, 2006

Jeremy E. King, 23, Army Sergeant, Aug 24, 2006

William E. Thorne, 26, Army Private 1st Class, Aug 24, 2006

Gordon George Solomon, 35, Marine Staff Sergeant, Aug 24, 2006

Dwayne E. Williams, 28, Marine Staff Sergeant, Aug 24, 2006

Jordan C. Pierson, 21, Marine Corporal, Aug 25, 2006

Edgardo Zayas, 29, Army Specialist, Aug 26, 2006

David G. Weimortz, 28, Marine Corporal, Aug 26, 2006

Jeffrey J. Hansen, 31, Air National Guard Staff Sergeant, Aug 27, 2006

David J. Almazan, 27, Army Sergeant, Aug 27, 2006

Kenneth Cross, 21, Army Specialist, Aug 27, 2006

Dan Dolan, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Aug 27, 2006

Seth A. Hildreth, 26, Army Specialist, Aug 27, 2006

Moises Jazmine, 25, Army Sergeant, Aug 27, 2006

Joshua D. Jones, 24, Army Specialist, Aug 27, 2006

Qixing Lee, 20, Army Specialist, Aug 27, 2006

Shaun A. Novak, 21, Army Specialist, Aug 27, 2006

Tristan Smith, 23, Army Specialist, Aug 27, 2006

Darry Benson, 46, Army National Guard Sergeant, Aug 27, 2006

Donald E. Champlin, 28, Marine Lance Corporal, Aug 27, 2006

Matthew E. Schneider, 23, Army Specialist, Aug 28, 2006

Shannon L. Squires, 25, Army Corporal, Aug 28, 2006

Matthew J. Vosbein, 30, Army Sergeant, Aug 29, 2006

Christopher Tyler Warndorf, 21, Marine Corporal, Aug 29, 2006

Joshua R. Hanson, 27, Army National Guard Sergeant, Aug 30, 2006

Colin Joseph Wolfe, 18, Marine Private 1st Class, Aug 30, 2006

Michael L. Deason, 28, Army Staff Sergeant, Aug 31, 2006

Angel D. Mercado-Velazquez, 24, Army Staff Sergeant, Sep 01, 2006

Cliff Golla, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Sep 01, 2006

Eugene Alex, 32, Army Staff Sergeant, Sep 02, 2006

Edwin Anthony Andino Jr., 23, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 03, 2006

Justin W. Dreese, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 03, 2006

Richard J. Henkes II, 32, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Sep 03, 2006

Nicholas A. Madaras, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 03, 2006

Jason L. Merrill, 22, Army Sergeant, Sep 03, 2006

Ralph N. Porras, 36, Army Sergeant, Sep 03, 2006

Shane P. Harris, 23, Marine Lance Corporal, Sep 03, 2006

Philip A. Johnson, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Sep 03, 2006

Ryan Edwin Miller, 21, Marine Private, Sep 03, 2006

Hannah L. Gunterman, 20, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 04, 2006

Marshall A. Gutierrez, 41, Army Lieutenant Colonel, Sep 04, 2006

Germaine L. Debro, 33, Army National Guard Sergeant, Sep 04, 2006

Jared M. Shoemaker, 29, Marine Reserve Corporal, Sep 04, 2006

Eric P. Valdepenas, 21, Marine Reserve Lance Corporal, Sep 04, 2006

Christopher Walsh, 30, Naval Reserve Petty Officer 2nd Class, Sep 04, 2006

John A. Carroll, 26, Army Sergeant, Sep 06, 2006

Jeremy R. Shank, 18, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 06, 2006

Luis A. Montes, 22, Army Sergeant, Sep 07, 2006

David J. Ramsey, 27, Army Specialist, Sep 07, 2006

Vincent M. Frassetto, 21, Marine Private 1st Class, Sep 07, 2006

David W. Gordon, 23, Army Sergeant, Sep 08, 2006

Anthony P. Seig, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 09, 2006

Johnathan Benson, 21, Marine Corporal, Sep 09, 2006

Alexander Jordan, 31, Army Specialist, Sep 10, 2006

Harley D. Andrews, 22, Army Specialist, Sep 11, 2006

Emily J.T. Perez, 23, Army 2nd Lieutenant, Sep 12, 2006

Matthew C. Mattingly, 30, Army Captain, Sep 13, 2006

Jeffrey Shaffer, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 13, 2006

Marcus A. Cain, 20, Army Corporal, Sep 14, 2006

Jennifer M. Hartman, 21, Army Sergeant, Sep 14, 2006

Russell M. Makowski, 23, Army Specialist, Sep 14, 2006

Aaron A. Smith, 31, Army Sergeant, Sep 14, 2006

David Thomas Weir, 23, Army Sergeant, Sep 14, 2006

Clint E. Williams, 24, Army Sergeant, Sep 14, 2006

Ryan A. Miller, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Sep 14, 2006

Cesar A. Granados, 21, Army Corporal, Sep 15, 2006

David Sean Roddy, 32, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class, Sep 16, 2006

David J. Davis, 32, Army Sergeant, Sep 17, 2006

Adam L. Knox, 21, Army Reserve Sergeant, Sep 17, 2006

James R. Worster, 24, Army Sergeant, Sep 18, 2006

Robert Thomas Callahan, 22, Army Specialist, Sep 19, 2006

Ashley L. Henderson Huff, 23, Army 1st Lieutenant, Sep 19, 2006

Jared J. Raymond, 20, Army Specialist, Sep 19, 2006

Eric Kavanagh, 20, Army Private, Sep 20, 2006

Charles Jason Jones, 29, Army National Guard Sergeant 1st Class, Sep 20, 2006

Robb Gordon Needham, 51, Army Reserve Master Sergeant, Sep 20, 2006

Yull Estrada Rodriguez, 21, Marine Corporal, Sep 20, 2006

Christopher Michael Zimmerman, 28, Marine Sergeant, Sep 20, 2006

Allan R. Bevington, 22, Army Sergeant, Sep 21, 2006

IV, Kenneth E Kincaid, 25, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 23, 2006

III, Velton Locklear, 29, Army Sergeant, Sep 23, 2006

Windell J. Simmons, 20, Army Specialist, Sep 23, 2006

Carlos Dominguez, 57, Army Reserve Staff Sergeant, Sep 23, 2006

Howard S. March Jr., 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Sep 24, 2006

Rene Martinez, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Sep 24, 2006

Casey L. Mellen, 21, Army Corporal, Sep 25, 2006

Jose A. Lanzarin, 28, Army Staff Sergeant, Sep 26, 2006

Henry Paul, 24, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 26, 2006

Edward C. Reynolds Jr., 27, Army Staff Sergeant, Sep 26, 2006

Christopher T. Riviere, 21, Marine Private 1st Class, Sep 26, 2006

James N. Lyons, 28, Army 1st Lieutenant, Sep 27, 2006

James Chamroeun, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Sep 28, 2006

Christopher T. Blaney, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Sep 29, 2006

Michael A. Monsoor, 25, Navy Petty Officer 2nd Class, Sep 29, 2006

Kampha B. Sourivong, 20, Air National Guard Specialist, Sep 30, 2006

Luis E. Tejeda, 20, Army Corporal, Sep 30, 2006

Robert Weber, 22, Army Specialist, Sep 30, 2006

Scott E. Nisely, 48, Army National Guard Staff Sergeant, Sep 30, 2006

Chase A. Haag, 22, Army Corporal, Oct 01, 2006

Mario Nelson, 26, Army Sergeant, Oct 01, 2006

Denise A. Lannaman, 46, Army National Guard Sergeant, Oct 01, 2006

Justin D. Peterson, 32, Marine Captain, Oct 01, 2006

Christopher B. Cosgrove III, 23, Marine Reserve Lance Corporal, Oct 01, 2006

Aaron L. Seal, 23, Marine Reserve Corporal, Oct 01, 2006

Raymond S. Armijo, 22, Army Specialist, Oct 02, 2006

James D. Ellis, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 02, 2006

Satieon V. Greenlee, 24, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 02, 2006

Justin R. Jarrett, 21, Army Specialist, Oct 02, 2006

Joe A. Narvaez, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 02, 2006

Michael K. Oremus, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 02, 2006

Joseph W. Perry, 23, Army Sergeant, Oct 02, 2006

Kristofer C. Walker, 20, Army Specialist, Oct 02, 2006

Daniel Isshak, 25, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 03, 2006

Jonathan Rojas, 27, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 03, 2006

Dean Bright, 32, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 04, 2006

Timothy Burke, 24, Army Specialist, Oct 04, 2006

Christopher O. Moudry, 31, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 04, 2006

George R. Obourn Jr., 20, Army Specialist, Oct 04, 2006

Edward M. Garvin, 19, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 04, 2006

Benjamin S. Rosales, 20, Marine Corporal, Oct 04, 2006

Nicholas A. Arvanitis, 22, Army Corporal, Oct 06, 2006

John Edward Hale, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 06, 2006

Bradford H. Payne, 24, Marine Corporal, Oct 06, 2006

Brandon S. Asbury, 21, Army Sergeant, Oct 07, 2006

Carl W. Johnson II, 21, Army Corporal, Oct 07, 2006

Lawrence Parrish, 36, Army National Guard Sergeant, Oct 07, 2006

John Edward Wood, 37, Army National Guard Specialist, Oct 07, 2006

Shane R. Austin, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 08, 2006

Timothy Fulkerson, 20, Army Specialist, Oct 08, 2006

Stephen F. Johnson, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 08, 2006

Derek W. Jones, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 08, 2006

Jeremy Scott Sandvick Monroe, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 08, 2006

Robert M. Secher, 33, Marine Captain, Oct 08, 2006

Phillip B. Williams, 21, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 09, 2006

Julian M. Arechaga, 23, Marine Sergeant, Oct 09, 2006

Jon Eric Bowman, 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 09, 2006

Shelby J. Feniello, 25, Marine Private 1st Class, Oct 09, 2006

Shane T. Adcock, 27, Army Captain, Oct 11, 2006

Nicholas R. Sowinski, 25, Army Sergeant, Oct 11, 2006

Justin T. Walsh, 24, Marine Sergeant, Oct 11, 2006

Gene A. Hawkins, 24, Army Sergeant, Oct 12, 2006

Johnny K. Craver, 37, Army Lieutenant, Oct 13, 2006

Thomas J. Hewett, 22, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 13, 2006

Kenny F. Stanton Jr., 20, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 13, 2006

Leebenard E. Chavis, 21, Air Force Airman 1st Class, Oct 14, 2006

Joseph M. Kane, 35, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 14, 2006

Charles M. King, 48, Army 1st Sergeant, Oct 14, 2006

Timothy J. Lauer, 25, Army Specialist, Oct 14, 2006

Keith J. Moore, 28, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 14, 2006

Jonathan J. Simpson, 25, Marine Sergeant, Oct 14, 2006

Jr., Lester Domenico Baroncini, 33, Army Sergeant, Oct 15, 2006

Stephen Bicknell, 19, Army Private 1st Class, Oct 15, 2006

Joshua Deese, 25, Army 1st Lieutenant, Oct 15, 2006

Jonathan E. Lootens, 25, Army Sergeant, Oct 15, 2006

Mark C. Paine, 32, Army Captain, Oct 15, 2006

Brock A. Babb, 40, Marine Reserve Sergeant, Oct 15, 2006

Joshua M. Hines, 26, Marine Reserve Lance Corporal, Oct 15, 2006

Russell G. Culbertson III, 22, Army Corporal, Oct 17, 2006

Joseph C. Dumas Jr., 25, Army Specialist, Oct 17, 2006

Nathan J. Frigo, 23, Army Petty Officer 1st Class, Oct 17, 2006

Ryan E. Haupt, 24, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 17, 2006

Christopher E. Loudon, 23, Army 2nd Lieutenant, Oct 17, 2006

Garth D. Sizemore, 31, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 17, 2006

Norman R. Taylor III, 21, Army Sergeant, Oct 17, 2006

David M. Unger, 21, Army Corporal, Oct 17, 2006

Daniel W. Winegeart, 23, Army Specialist, Oct 17, 2006

Ronald L. Paulsen, 53, Army Reserve Staff Sergeant, Oct 17, 2006

Joshua L. Booth, 23, Marine 2nd Lieutenant, Oct 17, 2006

Daniel A. Brozovich, 42, Air National Guard Sergeant 1st Class, Oct 18, 2006

Jesus M. Montalvo, 46, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 18, 2006

Jose R. Perez, 21, Army Not reported yet, Oct 18, 2006

Edwardo Lopez Jr., 21, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 19, 2006

Kevin M. Witte, 27, Army Staff Sergeant, Oct 20, 2006

Tony Knier, 31, Army Sergeant 1st Class, Oct 21, 2006

Clifford R. Collinsworth, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 21, 2006

Nathan R. Elrod, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 21, 2006

Eric W. Herzberg, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 21, 2006

Nicholas J. Manoukian, 22, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 21, 2006

Joshua C. Watkins, 25, Marine Corporal, Oct 21, 2006

Nathaniel A. Aguirre, 21, Army Specialist, Oct 22, 2006

Matthew W. Creed, 23, Army Specialist, Oct 22, 2006

Carl A. Eason, 29, Army Specialist, Oct 22, 2006

Willsun M. Mock, 23, Army Sergeant, Oct 22, 2006

Nicholas K. Rogers, 27, Army Specialist, Oct 22, 2006

David G. Taylor, 37, Army Major, Oct 22, 2006

Richard A. Buerstetta, 20, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 23, 2006

Tyler R. Overstreet, 22, Marine Lance Corporal, Oct 23, 2006
Charles O. Sare, 23, Navy Hospital Corpsman, Oct 23, 2006

I thought it would be nice to share a poem that I’ve also posted to our Yahoo discussion group.  I’ve been working on this poem for some time — about a year in fact — and it relates to our spiritual journey, and more narrowly in a sense to the question of the relationship between Christianity and Gnosticism, and more specifically the question of whether Gnosticism is a sort of “rebel Christianity” or whether it is its own separate religion.  I guess the title to the poem probably gives away my feeling on this question.  I understand that there are many different opinions about it, though.  Certainly, Yeshua is central to our religion as well, or at least to many iterations of it, but that doesn’t mean that we must welcome the Christian label — when we really in so many ways represent another great monotheistic world religious tradition.  We have neither the right nor, I believe, the need to claim that we are “the real Christians,” any more than the mainstream Christians had that right in claiming they are “the real Jews.”  It doesn’t take much more than a quick run-through of Pauline theology to see the problems that that kind of approach mires you in very quickly.

Let me hasten to say that this is not, however, meant as an anti-Christian poem.  If it sounds bitter in places, then I probably am bitter in places in my heart, and yet I prefer to think about what I learned of love and theosis while I was still in the Christian traditions, for all their shortcomings.

One last remark, if I may — I hope this may be something of a spark for you to post your own religious (or other) poetry here on the blog, or on our Yahoo discussion group.  Doesn’t matter if you are a member, a non-member, or even a committed Southern Baptist — we love to read poetry.  Share something!

Without further ado…

No More Crosses for Me (2006, Brother Matthew Ouroboros)

As a child of the earthly kingdom, I made the sign of the cross
As a child of the spiritual kingdom, there are no more crosses for me
I was so busy drowning with that burden on my back,
and finally I just laid it down. I laid the cross down.

My true savior is not about death and sacrifice.

My savior is a circle through which I cross the boundary of understanding
My savior is life through whom I am made into life
My savior is the translation of self into the divine image imprinted
beneath it

He is not a dead carcass hanging on a tree
He did not die for me

I am not dirty, and he doesn’t need to wash away my stains

I am not disgusting, dirty, animalistic, brutal, hairy, mean
helpless, angry, violent, vicious, nasty, reptilian

I am NOT. If I am, that is still not ALL that I am.

They LIED to me. They told me I was NOTHING
that it took this bloody human sacrifice
just to wipe out my nothingness.
That was the worst lie they could have ever told me.
The soul-destroying lie.

I am not nothing. I am HERE. I am a child of God.

You are a child of God. WE are God’s daughters,
WE are the sons of God.

*

A serpent flows through the grass,
the humblest of all the animals, lithe and sinewy,
it flows like water. Not like the hard wood of a cross,
but soft, like the spirit, dynamic, fluid, she flows.

Her voice is soft, a whisper — I can barely hear her as she speaks,
that whisper still carrying.. but oh! so soft.. through a
million-billion centuries,
calling out to me, whispering, seductive, sweet, but tenuous,
like the whisper of a distant brook
just over the crest of a mountain ridge,
just out of physical sight, just barely it would seem,
a scene in a garden, far away, long ago,
yet taking place every day in my own heart.
“it was out of jealousy that he said this to you.
Rather your eyes shall open and you shall come to be Gods
shall be as Gods, understanding good and evil”

Every day that scene replays in my heart,
the serpent coils her way into a circle,
and dares me to step through her gateway
the gateway into gnosis.

I was scared, scared to death
the first time I heard her voice
felt her touch,
her power.

I am more scared today.
Each day I cross that threshold the fear becomes greater

But the rabbi said,
“When you become naked without being ashamed, and you pick up the
clothes that you used to be so proud of and trample on them and jump up
and down on them with the happiness of a little kid, then will you see
the offspring of the living one, and you will have conquered fear.”

So, beloved serpent, my love, my only love,
in your coil I see my Sophia
and in the passage along that coil I see my Christ
So lucky am I to bear your name, Ouroboros –
pass me the sacred fruit of your wisdom
I will face the fear, for it is the fear of falling –
falling into the infinitude of freedom.

No longer is my spirit chained to a cross,
dying, drowning, sacrificed to lies.

In a world with no “up” and no “down,”
who could tell whether she was flying or falling?
I am flying and I am falling
flying to the heights of a peace I have never imagined
falling into the depths of a love I have never known
flying to the divine around me
falling into the divine that is already inside me

and I am ready to fly
and I am ready to fall

into the darkness of the light

No more crosses for me.
I have cast my lot with the serpent
forever opening her great circle
forever chasing his tail

My dear brothers and sisters,

It is with in turns a heavy and a hopeful heart that I pen the following lines from my office at the university where I do my “secular” work and will type them to send to our discussion group and post to the “Vicar’s Corner” blog later this evening. As most of you know from your involvement in our online discussion groups, it has been a difficult year for us in a lot of ways. In particular, the past few months have seen our group of members and friends divided by any number of conflicts. I don’t know fully the genesis of all of these clashes and problems. Unfortunately ego is a problem in our world – that is part of the situation we face with the material realm of the demiurgic dichotomies that rule our
lives and which we seek to transcend through the pursuit of gnosis, with both a small and a big “g”, so to speak. I have an ego too – I don’t deny that – and I definitely do not put myself beyond blame for any problems that we have had as a group. If anything, I would say that perhaps I have exercised my ego a little too weakly, because I have hoped that a policy of gentility by example might be the best way to help put some of these conflicts behind us. This has not proven to be the case.

I have never wanted this church community to be all about me. However, I am also not willing to sit by and allow something I personally have worked very hard for over the past half a decade of my life to simply slip away into the ether of lost hopes and dissipated
dreams. I have put large amounts of my time, my money – and that isn’t important, but my spiritual life – I have just put everything I have into this church, this community that we are trying to build, and I think we have something of value – a message of value to share. I am not going to simply allow that to be destroyed without a fight.

Drastic problems call for drastic solutions, and I think the solutions I’ve proposed in the past have perhaps simply not been drastic enough. Our donations have dried up, and I’ve funding the church activities online and so forth almost entirely on my own, and so I think, frankly, that the onus is on me to set the direction for what we are going to do in the future. I ask you, please, to read the whole of this message, although I know it is a little long – and I hope that you will agree that I am acting sincerely, even if you disagree with precisely what I am saying or doing.

So, at this moment, we are cleaning the plate, and starting afresh.  All the prior proposals – organizing the synod, developing a more organized structure for the Vicariate – these have apparently been too little too late. So, we are starting again from square one more or
less like we did when I and about 4 other members founded the AGCA several years ago.
What do I mean by this? As of this moment, everything – with the exception of the ongoing mission statement work that is being done by Brother Anthony, which I am imploring him to continue, because it becomes all the more important now – but everything else is essentially placed on hiatus. There are no more committees, no more
councils, no more synods – we will go back to the situation we had when the church first began, and that is a system of basically direct participatory democracy by members and friends but mediated through me as the Vicar of the church. I thank Sister Artemis beyond words for her help as Auxiliary Vicar, and also Brother James as Vicar Emeritus,
but now the time is for me to stand on my own, and do what work I can to steer this organization toward a future we all can be proud of.

Our guiding principles will be no different from what they have always been – but what I am going to do is seek more clarity on making sure we all try to live up to them the best we can. Toleration is not what we are pursuing – because toleration means that you simply “allow” other people to have their own opinions. We are seeking active pluralism as a form of truth – we are engaged, to misquote President Lincoln, on a great challenge to see whether a pluralistic system of truth and authority can long endure, or whether it is doomed, as conservative Christianity would suggest that it must be, to fall apart under its own internal tensions.

At the same time, we are not pursuing pluralism for the sake of pluralism – but rather pluralism as a manifestation of an authentic neo-classical Gnostic spirituality and theology. There is a broad spectrum of what we can mean by neo-classical Gnosticism – but not an infinitely broad spectrum. Part of our challenge as a community will be to discover both the breadth and the limits of that spectrum.

In the immediate future, there are a few things that are going to begin to change, some dramatic, some less so. The first has to do with our name.

I have always maintained that our selection of “apostolic” was a poor decision. I won’t go into all the reasons that lay behind its selection at the outset of our Church’s life, beyond simply saying that we meant it as a synonym for “classical Gnostic,” but it was from
almost the outset badly misconstrued and became the cause for conflicts and confusion that was always unfortunate.

I had been planning at our first synod meeting to move that we jettison the “apostolic” name for something that would maintain our AGCA initials but avoid causing these confusions and misunderstandings. Well, we don’t have time to sit around and wait to
see if the synod might ever get off the ground. We will have a synod, or something like it, before many months are past, that I can assure you – but for now, I am simply taking the reins and dealing with this name issue, because it is just one symbol of the many problems we need to go ahead and deal with, and put behind us, so we can move into the future.

I have spoken with some of you privately about naming choices, and I know that there are many ideas. The idea we will be going with for the moment is: “The AGCA: Alliance of Gnostics in Community and Awareness.” I believe this represents our forward-looking ethos, our sense of community and togetherness (which we need desperately to reconnect with, I might say), and it removes both the rather official-sounding “church” as well as the problematical “apostolic” from our name. We will be transitioning to the new name on the
website and on this group as soon as possible. It shouldn’t change much of what we do or say because we will be keeping our initials the same, and I hope that this name meets with at least the moderate approval of most of you. If you strongly disapprove of it, feel free to say so in any forum you like (here on the blog for example) – this is not about stifling dissent or discussion – but this is the change, for now, and we can certainly
revisit it at some later date, for example after Brother Anthony is able to gather more information about opinions regarding our mission statement (which might help us pick an even better name).

The organizational structure of the Alliance of Gnostics in Community and Awareness is now a clean slate. We will have, basically, a coordinating executive officer, myself, who we will continue to call the Vicar – or, if you prefer something more democratic, just call me
The Brother. That’s all I want to be here in this new endeavor – your brother, sharing with you the ideas I have learned along the way, learning from you the ideas that you can bring to the table, building a community together, with the gifts you bring and the meager
resources I bring as well, laid together on the table of the Lord and the Lady, as we set a feast of gnosis for our fellow human beings.

I have never wanted the AGCA to be about me. However, I realize that I have spent the better part of a decade searching for a Gnostic spiritual path – I have spent the better part of half a decade working with and teaching others about seeking their own spiritual liberation. I am no savior, no saint, no hero, no pope, no dictator, and have no
desire to be any of those things. You might find me a dumbass, an egoistic pompous fool, a pretentious bastard, or maybe something slightly less extreme – if so, that is fine too. This is not about wanting everyone in the world to like me – I know there are lots of
people who don’t like me, and that is okay – they can be good Gnostics and wonderful people without liking me. The doors of the AGCA will always be open to everyone, and that means open for you to leave too if you don’t like the message that we bring. For now, though, this wiping of the slate means that much of what we do will be about sharing my teachings, my messages, my thoughts, my discussions. This is not because I imagine that I have any great secret to the mysteries of life or the universe – this is not because I am trying to set myself up as some kind of guru – its simply that I have spent a lot of
time and resources creating material and this material can serve to spark discussions – our discussion group and blog, for example, will begin going back and reposting some messages from our website and asking directly discussion questions about them – we will be refocusing our threads on this discussion group and revitalizing the way we conduct discussions– we’ll be talking about having live classes, and we will be continuing, if the people involved are willing to do so, with our development of Sophia-Radio.

Some people are, I am sure, going to say that I am transforming the AGCA into a vehicle for my own personal teachings. Again – that is fine, I – you know – I turn the other cheek. You can feel that way if you want. All I ask is that you think about what those teachings are. I have never told anyone anything except this: YOU have the power to
liberate yourself – YOU are the son or the daughter of the living God – YOU are the divine within you – YOU are the temple of the divine spirit that dwells inside you. Gnosticism is about liberating ourselves. I’m not asking anyone to “follow” me. If I am, I am asking you to follow me…by refusing to be a follower anymore. That is the Non Serviam of gnosis – that is the refusal to serve the framework of the demiurgic dualities and dichotomies that are forever forced upon us by this world-system in which we find ourselves.

The future, beyond that, is open wide. And to embrace that open future, we will begin immediately – and I do mean immediately – to have a series of public meetings on yahoo messenger regarding the future of the new AGCA. Our first one will be on Saturday, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time (noon pacific time). We will have an open forum in which I will be on mic and you can type or voice your questions directly to me, and to each other. Everyone is welcome, whoever you are, members or otherwise.

If you are involved in a ministry, please continue with your work on the grassroots level. We will be reconstituting our ministry committees as soon as possible, but in the meantime, we will continue our democratic way of dealing with the creation of spiritual
resources. If you write an article, if you create an artwork, write a poem, and want to see it on the website, you know where to send it (gnosis@gnostic-church.org or, preferably, directly to me at vicarmatthew@gnostic-church.org).

I will need volunteers to help me with the administrative side of things, particularly with the way we are streamlining our organization. If you are willing, for example, to help answer emails to our main office, or to help edit material for the website, or to do
some personal administrative-type work for me as the vicar, please email me and let me know, because it would be a tremendous huge help as we move forward.

I hope that you will receive this message in the love and the charity and the gentility and the incredible pride that it is sent – I am proud of you all, of every one of you, of the work you have done – of the spiritual progress you have made in your own lives. I am proud of
what we have done in the AGCA, despite the problems we have often fallen into. And I close by asking you to forgive me, my dear ones.   Please, forgive me — there have been times when I have not been able to give 100 percent of my time to the church; there have been moments when I have put the personal needs of my family above the church and –
I’m not saying that is right or wrong, but I’m sorry that it has caused perhaps some of the situation we now face. Please, forgive me for my shortcomings. I know there are many, but you know that my whole life is for you, for us, for what we are building here, what we
are trying to achieve together. Please, forgive me, and join me, and work with me and together we can raise the new dawn.

With my love, always,

Brother Matthew
Vicar, Alliance of Gnostics in Community and Awareness

Statement on Israeli Aggression Against Lebanon

The AGCA Central Vicariate released the following statement on 16 July 2006

The AGCA deeply mourns the situation developing into a regional war in the Middle East, remembering that the God whom we all (whether Gnostic, Muslim, Christian, or Jewish) seek to worship is “life giving life” and “peace giving peace,” and war and destruction serve only their own twisted ends, wherever they rear their heads in the world today. We call on all sides of this developing conflict to pull back from the brink of annihilation and seek mutual peace.

However, we feel we must in a special way strongly condemn the unjustifiable aggression against the entire nation and people of Lebanon by the state of Israel, which is leaving this beautiful and historic country, which has suffered so much, in smoking ruins once again. Israeli military might has put its heavy boot on the neck of Lebanon many times in the past, and seems to be doing so again, but perhaps with the intention of spreading the conflict even beyond the borders of this beautiful country.

We are concerned in a particular way for the Druze communities of Lebanon, and for the Eastern Christians in Lebanon including the Maronite and Orthodox communities, and we are particularly remembering them in our prayers and thoughts, along with all the people of Lebanon and Israel.

We sympathize greatly with the Israeli people, and we strongly condemn the terrorist actions of groups including Hezbollah and Hamas, which are outrageous and disgusting. However, this does not give Israel a carte blanche to go around doing whatever it wants, battering small countries and weak nations simply because they are weak and small, and murdering vast numbers of innocent civilians who have nothing whatsoever to do with the bands of criminal terrorists that have been attacking northern Israel. Life is of infinite but also equal value: one Israeli life, one Israeli soldier is not worth the deaths of 100 Lebanese civilians; such a twisted mathematics of genocide leads only to destruction, hatred, and in a bizarre way (given the circumstances) a sort of fascistic ideology that seems to be driving this military aggression out of control.

Once again, we feel the need to strongly condemn both Hezbollah terrorism and the unjustifiable Israeli aggression against the innocent people of Lebanon. If you are in the United States, we encourage you to write to your Congressional representatives to call for the US to put direct pressure on Israel to accept the Lebanese offer of a complete and total ceasefire and lifting of the naval blockade on humanitarian grounds, so medical relief and humanitarian assistance can be provided to the innocent people of Lebanon as they bury the casualties inflicted by the Israeli war machine during the past week.

We close with the reminder from the sacred text of Melchizedek, that “the archons [servants of the demiurge], who are your enemies, made war.”

Dear Brothers and Sisters,
On July 4, those of us in the United States celebrated the national holiday commemorating American independence.  It seems like an appropriate time to take a few moments to consider the meaning of our national identity and role as citizens from a Gnostic perspective.  There are many things that could be said at this time, but our attention naturally is drawn first to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  We continue to hear a great deal in public debates, particularly from those who are supportive of the continuation and even expansion of the war, about the idea of “supporting the troops.”  I believe that it is naturally incumbent on all of us to support the troops, to honor their sacrifices, and the sacrifices of military veterans, who are today so grossly mistreated at times by the government for which they served.  But supporting the troops, to me, does not mean supporting having them go thousands of miles away to die or be maimed.  It does not mean supporting having the lives of these men and women snuffed out for absolutely no reason at all ­: not for justice, not for peace, not for democracy, not for any of the subterfuges that are so often articulated to cover the real intentions behind the war, which should be easily evident to all of us.

“Peace be with you from peace, love from love,” begins the Apocryphon of James.  Supporting the troops to me means supporting the day when they will be able to return to their role as defenders of the peace, the day when they will be able to return to the love of their families and the support of their communities.  What is lost can never be regained, and our nation has wasted the gifts of so many precious lives over the past years.  But we have an opportunity, as another Independence Day passes us by, to keep its spirit from passing by, to rededicate ourselves to working to serve as lights of peace and justice, even against what may seem like overwhelming darkness.

And there are indeed many other challenges to our very unity and destiny as a society.  Hatred continues to drive a substantial minority in our country, who focus their anger on sexual minorities, on foreigners, on anyone who is perceived as different or distinct.  At times, standing against this wall of hatred, we too must feel, in the words of the Gospel of Thomas, like we are just “one in a thousand, and two in ten thousand.”  And yet, I believe that there is a great spiritual force embedded in many people around us, that there are so many people who are searching and dreaming and beginning to ask questions about the world around them.  We see this in the huge amount of attention that has focused on things like the Da Vinci Code and the Gospel of Judas in the recent past.  We read in the Gospel of Philip that Jesus himself sometimes looked “small” in comparison to the world around him: “Jesus took them all by stealth, for he did not appear as he was, but in the manner in which they would be able to see him. He appeared to them all. He appeared to the great as great. He appeared to the small as small. He appeared to the angels as an angel, and to men as a man. Because of this, his word hid itself from everyone. Some indeed saw him, thinking that they were seeing themselves, but when he appeared to his disciples in glory on the mount, he was not small. He became great, but he made the disciples great, that they might be able to see him in his greatness.”

So, let us also rededicate ourselves, in the wake of this holiday, to appearing to others in the manner in which they will be able to see us, as lights shining forth the unity of the pleroma, which might help light their way to their own spiritual awakening, through Gnosticism or through some other spiritual path.  If we seem small at times, we should not despair, for many people in our society feel small, feel burdened, oppressed, helpless, and isolated.  When we share those feelings, rather than despair, we have an opportunity to reach out to those around us.  Our purpose, as Jesus’ in the Gospel of Philip, is not to become “great” ourselves so much as to help other people become great, to discover their own greater identity, what other Gnostic texts call “the perfect human” that dwells inside each of us.  But in the end, this allows us to share in both the mission and the reward of gnosis.  It is in the midst of love, compassion, and service that we ourselves begin to discover our own greatness, which is paradoxically a humbling experience, as we see the dignity of the divine imprint deep within the cores of our beings.

Love in Christ and Sophia,

Brother Matthew

Vicar, AGCA