The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with
his Creator. If it were elsewhere it would rest upon contingency, but
there IS nothing else. And this is wholly loving and forever. Yet has
the Son of God invented an unholy relationship between him and his
Father. His real relationship is one of perfect union and unbroken
continuity. The one he made is partial, self-centered, broken into
fragments and full of fear. The one created by his Father is wholly
self-encompassing and self-extending. The one he made is wholly
self-destructive and self-limiting.

Nothing can show the contrast better than the experience of both a holy
and an unholy relationship. The first is based on love, and rests on it
serene and undisturbed. The body does not intrude upon it. Any
relationship in which the body enters is based not on love, but on
idolatry. Love wishes to be known, completely understood and shared. It
has no secrets; nothing that it would keep apart and hide. It walks in
sunlight, open-eyed and calm, in smiling welcome and in sincerity so
simple and so obvious it cannot BE misunderstood. But idols do not
share.

Idols accept, but never make return. They can be loved, but cannot love.
They do not understand what they are offered, and any relationship in
which they enter has lost its meaning. They live in secrecy, hating the
sunlight and happy in the body’s darkness, where they can hide and keep
their secrets hidden along with them. And they have NO relationships,
for no-one else is welcome there. They smile on no-one, and those who
smile on them they do not see.

Love has no darkened temples where mysteries are kept obscure and hidden
from the sun. It does not seek for power, but for relationships. The body
is the ego’s chosen weapon for seeking power THROUGH relationships. And
its relationships MUST be unholy, for what they are it does not even
see. It wants them solely for the offerings on which its idols
thrive. The rest it merely throws away, for all that it could offer is
seen as valueless. Homeless, the ego seeks as many bodies as it can
collect to place its idols in, and so establish them as temples to
itself.

The Holy Spirit’s temple is not a body, but a relationship. The body is
an isolated speck of darkness; a hidden secret room, a tiny spot of
senseless mystery, a meaningless enclosure carefully protected, yet
hiding nothing. Here the unholy relationship escapes reality, and
seeks for crumbs to keep itself alive. Here it would drag its brothers,
holding them here in its idolatry. Here it is “safe,” for here love
cannot enter. The Holy Spirit does not build His temples where love can
never be. Would He Who sees the face of Christ choose as His home the
only place in all the universe where it can NOT be seen?

You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit’s temple, and it will NEVER be
the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and of love’s
condemnation. For here is love made fearful and hope abandoned. Even the
idols that are worshipped here are shrouded in mystery, and kept apart
from those who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no
relationships and no return. Here is the “mystery” of separation
perceived in awe and held in reverence. What God would have NOT be is
here kept “safe” from Him. But what you do not realize is what you fear
within your brother, and would not see in him, is what makes God seem
fearful to you, and kept unknown.

Idolaters will always be afraid of love, for nothing so severely
threatens them as love’s approach. Let love draw near them and overlook
the body, as it will surely do, and they retreat in fear, feeling the
seeming firm foundation of their temple begin to shake and loosen.
Brothers, you tremble with them. Yet what you fear is but the herald of
escape. This place of darkness is not your home. Your temple is not
threatened. You are idolaters no longer. The Holy Spirit’s purpose lies
safe in your relationship, and not your bodies. You have ESCAPED the
body. Where you are the body cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set
HIS temple there.

There is no order in relationships. They either ARE or not. An unholy
relationship is NO relationship. It is a state of isolation, which seems
to be what it is not. No more than that. The instant that the mad idea
of making your relationship with God unholy seemed to be possible, all
your relationships were made meaningless. In that unholy instant time
was born, and bodies made to house the mad idea, and give it the
illusion of reality. And so it seemed to have a home that held together
for a little while in time, and vanished. For what could house this mad
idea against reality BUT for an instant?

Idols MUST disappear, and leave no trace behind their going. The unholy
instant of their seeming power is frail as is a snowflake, but
without its loveliness. Is this the substitute you WANT for the eternal
blessing of the holy instant and its unlimited beneficence? Is the
malevolence of the unholy relationship, so seeming powerful and so
bitterly misunderstood, and so invested in a false attraction, your
preference to the holy instant, which offers you peace and
understanding? Then lay aside the body and quietly transcend it, rising
to welcome what you REALLY want. And from His holy temple, look you not
back on what you have awakened from. For no illusions CAN attract the
minds that have transcended them, and left them far behind.

The holy relationship reflects the true relationship the Son of God has
with his Father in reality. The Holy Spirit rests within it in the
certainty it will endure forever. Its firm foundation is eternally
upheld by truth, and love shines on it with the gentle smile and tender
blessing it offers to its own. Here the unholy instant is exchanged in
gladness for the holy one of safe return. Here is the way to true
relationships held gently open, through which you walk together, leaving
the body thankfully behind, and resting in the Everlasting Arms. Love’s
arms are open to receive you, and give you peace forever.

The body is the ego’s idol; the belief in sin made flesh and then
projected outward. This produces what seems to be a wall of flesh around
the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden
unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die
in honor of its master. And this unholy instant seems to be life; an
instant of despair, a tiny island of dry sand, bereft of water and set
uncertainly upon oblivion. Here does the Son of God stop briefly by, to
offer his devotion to death’s idols, and then pass on. And here he is
more dead than living. Yet it is also here he makes his choice again
between idolatry and love.

Here it is given him to choose to spend this instant paying tribute to
the body, or let himself be given freedom from it. Here he can accept
the holy instant, offered him to replace the unholy one he chose before.
And here can he learn relationships are his SALVATION, and not his
doom. You who are learning this may still be fearful, but you are not
immobilized. The holy instant is of greater value now to you than its
unholy seeming counterpart, and you have learned you really WANT but
one. This is no time for sadness. Perhaps confusion, but hardly
discouragement.

You have a REAL relationship, and it HAS meaning. It is as like your
real relationship with God as equal things are like unto each other.
Idolatry is past and meaningless. Perhaps you fear each other a little
yet; perhaps a shadow of the fear of God remains with you. Yet what is
that to those who have been given one true relationship BEYOND the body?
Can they be long held back from looking on the face of Christ? And can
they long withhold the memory of their relationship with their Father
from themselves, and keep remembrance of His Love apart from their
awareness?