Koan #34: Christ is Not Nice

Let it always be noted and remembered, for it is often strategically denied by some Believers while simultaneously being tactically abused by certain Unbelievers, that the Lord Jesus Christ is indeed not a friendly, refined, polite, mannerly, agreeable, nice, accommodating, tolerant or pleasing individual! He is a loving individual, and this is a distinction and difference of the highest order, changing the entire manner to how He should and must be understood. For truly, a loving man may still rage against the injustice caused by others, while the polite and mannerly and nice may not wish to show such raw emotion, no matter what the circumstances. And a loving man may bloodily sacrifice himself for others, while the refined and friendly and tolerant may not consider such a thing as necessary. And indeed, a loving man may accept, however painfully, that there are those that want nothing to do with him nor do they wish to be in his presence no matter what he does, and thus, respecting their desires, the loving man keeps himself separate from them, whereas the accommodating, agreeable and pleasing man may not do so, no matter how much tension and bitterness and eventual hatred such an accommodation would bring festering forth. Let no Believer, therefore, ascribe to Christ any feeble attributes that he does not hold, but let them proclaim the radical love that he is, and practice it faithfully.

Koan #27: How to Preach the Good News

A Believer should preach the Gospel with his feet first, his hands second, his mouth third and his mind last. Let the Believer muse over this. And when he understands what it seeks to convey, he will see its truth reflected in the life of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Koan #24: Why Koans

Why Koans? A Koan is a path to reflection. Reflection is a path to wisdom. Wisdom is a path to truth. And truth is Christ, who is the path to love. This is why Koans.

Koan #19: All Must Change

What is often scorned as too difficult and unnecessary by many an Unbeliever, ignored by many a hypocritical Believer, and imperfectly attempted by the true Faithful, is the understanding, knowledge and acceptance of this fact: when one chooses to pick up his Catholic Cross and follow the Lord Jesus Christ, then this changes everything. And it is not merely enough to say this one word, for its use is often employed but rarely fully elucidated. So what does “changing everything” mean in practical and direct terms? It means that the Believer must change: what he thinks about the Divine; what he listens to; how he listens to what he listens to; what he believes about his future life; what he watches; how he watches that which he has chosen to watch; what he reads; how he reads it; what he speaks about; how he articulates his words; what he debates; how he debates; how he deals with the political sphere; what he studies; how he studies it; what he thinks; how he thinks about it; what he questions; how he brings forth those questions; the morals that he holds dear; how he socializes with the world; who he socializes with in this world; where he socializes; what he socializes about when he does socialize; where he goes; how he uses his time; how he spends his money; how he treats the poor; the virtues that he develops; how he deals with strangers; the vices that he rejects; how he views suffering; how he interacts with his spouse; how he treats his children; how he sees the world; how he cares for himself; how he creates and arranges his personal priorities; the ethics that he applies; what he thinks about the human person; what he believes about his very existence; how he views the supernatural; how charitable he is; how materialistic he is; the philosophies he subscribes to; the work that he chooses; how he conducts himself in public; how he completes the work that he has chosen; how he feels; if he fasts; how he sees himself alone in the dark; how he thinks of human nature; how he thinks of good and evil; if he even believes in good and evil; how he controls and directs his emotions; how he views the environment; what he drinks; what he teaches his children; what he wears; what he eats; if he prays; how he walks and a further list of endless things. Now it was no doubt tedious to read such a list—incomplete though it is—as it may have been believed that such things were already known, and perhaps they were, but it is necessary to see them written forth, so that a full realization of the extent of the change required is plainly seen. Let the future Believer be ready for this. Let the current Believer practice it. And let the one who fears it or finds it foolish turn his back and walk away.

Koan #3: Only Christ as Certain Truth

Man, both Believer and Unbeliever alike, often intone that Man most important quest is his quest for truth; that knowing what is true is indeed of the utmost and critical importance. Yet it is a wonder—though many may be shocked by the forthcoming idea—whether truth can actually be known without Jesus Christ. For if Jesus Christ is the truth, as He claims to be, and this Living Truth told Man that Man could know Him, than Man can indeed know the totality of truth, as Man can know Christ, the full embodiment of truth. Thus, the truth is something that Christianity can offers in full. By contrast, it is a question if any other views can achieve this knowledge of full truth. The practitioners of the Eastern faiths, for example, who hold that the world is but an illusion, can never be truly sure that they have overcome this illusion, nor that their perceived overcoming of this worldly illusion is not simply a further illusion within the illusion. Thus their grasp for truth may be but a constant illusion. Those of Islam, as another example, with a God whose omnipotence surpasses all other traits, can never be sure of the truth, for their God can change that truth at will and whim. And finally, those holding to unbelief, who do not except or believe in Christ as Divine Lord and thus as truth, or in God at all, are left by their worldview not with truth in a full sense, but only with what they believe they perceive as truth. For such, not only does their exist no certainty of truth, but there does not even exist a possibility of certainty of truth, for all things are then simply perceived, reasoned and understood by faulty, frail and easily deceived—both by themselves and others—human beings, which arguably leaves a certainty of truth without Christ beyond reach.