As we open our conversation here on Patheos, I want to talk concretely about those who are in communities, whether those communities be parishes or base communities that you're starting up, or whether you're just waiting for an inspiration about what really will be your connection. I want to ask the questions: What is a parish? What is a caring community? What does a community do for us, what do we do for the community?

I say there are two things involved in any healthy community. First, it produces lovers--it turns on the mystic or the Cosmic Christ in every person. That's what a healthy community in the spirit of the Christ Path is doing. Secondly, it produces prophets--that is to say, spiritual warriors. The mystic says yes, the prophet says no. The prophet, as Rabbi Heschel says, interferes with that which is interfering with the glory, the sacredness of life-that which is crucifying the Christ all over again.

And we have to get over this idea that only Jesus died on the cross. Rainforests are dying on the cross, polar bears are dying on the cross. You know, let's get into 2013. All the sins of the world did not happen at the hands of the Roman Empire two thousand years ago. There's a lot happening at the hands of the Wall Street empire, the American empire, and other empires of our day.

.....We're the first species in four and a half billion years of this planet that can choose not to go extinct. Of course, we haven't made that choice yet. For me, this Christ Path movement is about making that choice. If the word Christ carries still too much baggage, then you can call it Cosmic Wisdom.

Father, sun, rising from the east, setting

in the west, husband, lover, man, boy,

child, we all learn the purpose we have

felt for a lifetime rising steadily within

our hearts, strong-willed, the bones may

crack and bend, for they are not reinforced

with the steel that stands strong in building

so high that we remember just as easily,

it is sacrifice, I find, a simple word to fall

onto this tongue that lets itself loose from

these lips, shapes form and catches in the wind,

ignites with fire and passion, the compassion

burning itself into the most gorgeous flame

that encompasses the human heart beating,

pulsating, radiating with its own internal inferno,

a love that cannot separate, that easily forgoes

forever as if the electricity in us is endless.