Читать книгу News from the Kingdom of God - David Breeden - Страница 10

This translation of The Gospel of Thomas is rendered as free verse. The Gospel of Thomas is made up of parables and aphorisms designed not to be prescriptive but evocative—to call out our own hearts and minds into the lived experience of the present moment. Each of the numbered sayings is designed to lead the disciples of Jesus—which now includes you—to an understanding of what has in Christian tradition been called “the kingdom of God” or “eternal life.” (The phrase in Greek is Balileia ton Ouranon.) In the Jewish tradition of which Jesus was a part the preferred term nowadays is “the Sovereignty of Heaven.” The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King called it the Beloved Community. In this translation I have called it The Dance of the Sacred. Why call it that? Because in my lived experience, my deepest religious experiences—call them mystic, perhaps—have manifested as an invitation to join the dance of all that is. You are invited.