The Door to Love
Without Conditions

If that happened to Jesus, don’t you think it will happen to you and me?

Maybe you don’t realize it, but it happens to us every day.  Every day we are crucified by the world that we have created. That is why suffering is Universal.  It is the inevitable result of living in a fearful world.   

Unfortunately, no matter how much we defend against attack,we cannot escape it.  The victims of gun violence and their families keep telling us that. If you have guns, they will be used to kill people.   If you have a cross, someone will be crucified upon it. Today it might be Jesus. Tomorrow it might be you or me.

Weapons do not keep you safe.  They simply increase the level of violence.

The only way to move out of fear, is not to act on it, but to learn to hold it compassionately.   That is the hardest thing for all of us.   We do not know how to hold our own fear, so we project it onto others.   We do not know how to hold the fear of others, so we retaliate when they project their fear onto us.

Is it any wonder why the world is an unsafe place?  Is it any wonder that children are killing children in the streets of Chicago or that suicide bombers are blowing up men, women and children in temples built for worship around the world?

The world we have created is quite simply insane.  We all live with that insanity every day.  Even if we are not hanging from a cross, we know someone who is….someone who is homeless, broken, tired or defeated by life.  

A war zone has a lot of victims.

Some people think of Jesus as a victim too.   Yet we know he was not.  He left the world behind, so that he could return from the desert as a truth-teller.

Then, he was in the world, but not of the world.   He challenged falsehood, but he forgave his attackers.  He forgave the one who betrayed him.

He knew that all of us who live in the world are driven by fear and he reminded us that there is not one amongst us who would not throw stones at his sister or brother.   That is what people do when they live in fear.

Jesus gave us a simple message when he was put on the cross.   He told us that truth does not die.  If you attack the truth, you will strengthen it.  

There is something more powerful than fearful power wielded by those in authority.   It is the power of the truth. And he told us that the truth could set us free.

So what is the truth that Jesus died for?  The truth is that you and I, like Jesus, are innocent.  And when we learn to hold our fear compassionately and to stop projecting it on our brother or sister, we will see that our enemy is also innocent. No one is bad.  No one deserves to be attacked or punished.   People carry generations of shame through their lives.  They carry the shame of their parents and ancestors and pass it along to their children.

And what is the shame that we are all carrying.   The shame is simply this erroneous statement passed on from generation to generation:   If you are not like me, if you do not have the beliefs that I have, the lifestyle that I have, if you are of a different race, or from a different place, or if your skin is a different color, if you are not like me, then you are BAD.  You are guilty.

Because I am insecure, if you are not like me, I will feel threatened.   I will attack you, imprison you or enslave you.   Or I will try to convert you and if you refuse to submit to my authority or my beliefs, I will kill you.

You are guilty of not being like me.  That means you must become like me or you must die.

Well, the truth is that Jesus was not like anyone else, so he had to die.  But the same is true for you and me.  Each one of us is one of a kind.  And our uniqueness is the key to our holiness.   Each one of us is a sparkling gem in the amazing, crystalline family of human life, each of us holy, each of us bearing gifts, each of here to learn to love and to serve.

In the end the innocent will die on the cross of the world, because they will not accept what is false as the truth.   And because they had the courage to be themselves, the truth will live on.   It will be passed on to their children and their children’s children.

No Jesus was not special.  He was not the only innocent one crucified.  Nor was he the only one who understood and lived by the truth of his heart.

But he has become the symbol for all of us of one who dies to the world and is reborn in Spirit.

Indeed, he is with us now, not just in the teaching he left behind, but his living spirit is with us.   Even as we mount the cross, he holds the door open to us and whispers to us:

“I am the Door to Love Without Conditions.  When you walk through, you too will be the Door.”

May this Easter be a time of rebirth and resurrection.  May you hold your fear and that of others compassionately so that the truth that lives in your heart may flourish and be brought forth into your world.

Love and blessings,

Paul Ferrini

This message was written 7 years ago. As one of our certified teachers said to me, it seems as relevant now as it was then. I hope that you find it helpful.