Daniel Lezcano

Hi everyone, Just joined today an again will say I am so happy to have found this concept of Christianity. I had always felt a strong attraction to Christ but.....well you know the rest. I was looking at another post that was about the music that relates what we are all about hear, as progressive Christians. In any case, I have a band and song in mind that I think might be very interesting to discuss. Firstly let me say that Maynard James Keenan, the lead singer has always been very controversial in his subject matter. Often his music is a reflection of the human condition and typically expressed by whatever particular platform he chose in the specific song. This includes a song that appears to be bashing Jesus. Which isn't the song this post is about but make no mistake it was a song that was actually inspired by the same "fundamentalist" behaviors humans for millennium have found "security" in. This security inspired by fear and blind in "gang mentality" or what Spong calls "tribal God". Hear we go...... the song...Lateralus, by: Tool Black then white are all I see in my infancy. Red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me, lets me see. As below so above and beyond I imagine, drawn beyond the lines of reason. Push the envelope. Watch it bend. ******** Indeed when we look at all of humanity it appears as though the longer we are around the more we lean towards color. "as I would hope, though at times seems not the case" In other words the infantile black and white perceptions, or insistence upon absolutes has been the source of so much death and destruction in this world! It always requires an individual or group to "push the envelope" before any change or growth happens. ******* Over thinking, over analyzing, separates the body from the mind. Withering my intuition, missing opportunities and I must feed my will to feel my moment drawing way outside the lines. *********** It seems another human liability is that we spend a whole lot more time thinking about, then doing or being about things. We become almost dead to the world as we are in the prison of our mind. Isolated and alone more often then not fear is spawned and we all know where that goes. You cant fully be in any moment of relation if you are to busy trying to figure out you response to the relation. If we could shut the mind up we might actually hear the message and be better position to to seize the "opportunity" to be of assistance anyway. This becomes a sort of intuition. ******* Black then white are all I see in my infancy. Red and yellow then came to be, reaching out to me, lets me see. There is so much more and it beckons me to look though to these, infinite possibilities. As below so above and beyond I imagine, drawn outside the lines of reason. Push the envelope. Watch it bend. ****** Hear I'm sure we can all relate. How many of us have felt like "There is so much more and it beckons me to look though to these, infinite possibilities." ​Or persecuted for asking, this I believe is a strong influence that drives the paridime shift now happening in the world of the spiritual, once known as religiousness. ******* Over thinking, over analyzing, separates the body from the mind. Withering my intuition, leaving opportunities behind. Feed my will to feel this moment, urging me to cross the line. Reaching out to embrace the random. Reaching out to embrace whatever may come. ******** WOOOWWW... How much courage does it take to cross a line others have drawn and to embrace the unknown. Imagine that. Tribal God or religion and the gang mentality was a response to fear of the unknown. It has always been very difficult for humans to embrace the unknown hasn't it? Indeed I say it has been for me! So we see how many tribes have found there security in defining the undefinable and then adopting an us against them attitude to anything that challenges there security. ******* I embrace my desire to... I embrace my desire to... feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral, to swing on the spiral, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human. ******** At this part of the song the mood shifts from frustration or longing, to uplifting and fulfillment. What beauty in these words. First off, is the fact that the purest aspect of any religion "of the creative nature" is certain timeless and universal principles. Always at the root are principles like: honesty, compassion, empathy, selflessness etc..... So one must view these lyric in that context. Funny thing about that is These are the very sort of lyric that the church of old would have dubbed as heresy. "embrace your desire" WHAT!! Blasphemer!! Yes to embrace our longing for fulfillment, our curious nature would have been a reckless notion to the church of old. It goes on to state such magic as to be able to "step aside" from self that we be free to weep like a widow. "To feel inspired" or in spirit. To witness the beauty, and what must happen in order for us to truly wittnes anything. We must step aside from ourselves, out of the prison of the mind. It is then that we can truly see. All of these things are at the core of any spiritual masters message and that of the Christ. At this point I will leave you to freely interpret the rest of the lyric's but know at this point the moode becomes one of revelotion a sort of breaking free from the chains of the past, a sort of uplifting but that of a rocket ship blasting forward!! oh and did you catch the fountain reference??? "But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. John 4:5-14****** With my feet upon the ground, I lose myself between the sounds and open wide to suck it in. I feel it move across my skin. I'm reaching up and reaching out. I'm reaching for the random or whatever will bewilder me, whatever will bewilder me. And following our will and wind, we may just go where no one's been. We'll ride the spiral to the end and may just go where no one's been. Spiral out. Keep going. Spiral out. Keep going. Spiral out. Keep going. Spiral out. Keep going.