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You mentioned the symbol of the cross and you know, I Didn’t grow up with any religious actually any religion at all and have subsequently, you know Dove pretty deep into kind of the mystical Kabbalist teachings and also had a great friend by the name of Ted Decker Who’s deep into kind of the more mystical? Understandings the teachings of Yeshua so great admiration for at least the interpretations that have flowed through me that seemed to resonate Anthro ontologically with me like feeling in my body like oh, yeah, that’s fucking incredibly wise and true but the symbol of the cross for me has always been a confusing symbol and it’s confusing because it was a And and I know there may be older versions of the cross, but it’s confusing because it was a symbol of torture Right. Yeah, and so it’s supposed to mean all of these good things and also, you know has been used Subsequently as an oppressive force as you know nights or or warrior kind of the the armed militia of the of the church has burned and attacked and killed and so it’s very it’s very complex Symbol to me, you know, and I was hoping that you know I know this is an area of expertise for you to kind of explore I was hoping you could actually really give us a bit of a deep dive into the symbolism of the cross and And how it can be interpreted by so many different people So a cross is is basically just the meaning of a horizontal and a vertical at the outset if you want to get down to the Geometric aspect of it, but that is actually what makes it important, right? It’s a meeting of two things First of all, it’s a meeting of a vertical and a horizontal Which means that it’s something like the meeting of heaven and earth is maybe the best way to understand it So you have vertical relationships, you know You can understand that as hierarchies or different types of vertical relationships our relationship to God, you know relationship to the gods in general Whatever it is you imagine as a vertical relationship or new relationship to the to to your general if you’re in the army You know, it’s like this their vertical relationships and then their horizontal reality, which is it’s a your particular Reality as a person who’s dealing with all this stuff in the world and the cross is the place where those two meet You know, and so you can imagine that the cross is Every place where the vertical and the horizontal meet and you can imagine that For example being represented in something like a sacred space a sacred temple where there’s a theophany at the you know In the in the holiest place of the temple and then you encounter that and then you have this contact between me as a person And then a vertical relationship now the so that’s just the basic Symbolism of the cross well then just so if we just pause there for a moment double-click on it It would seem that then the placement of the intersecting horizontal line is significant And then also the length of the of the intersecting horizontal line that changes it from across True to a plus sign perhaps which would show equality between those two energetic kind of symbols, right? Like so is there in the in the Christian cross? Let’s just from a purely geometric and I think there’s some other versions of that that makes it across and not a plus like what is the symbolism of actually moving that horizontal line higher and Shortening it well well first of all it’s important to understand that the Christian cross is there are many versions of the Christian cross And so the square cross is a Christian cross It’s it’s probably one of the earliest versions of the Christian cross would have been a square cross actually And you can see that if you’ve ever seen an image of you know It says I see XC Nica like Jesus Christ conqueror these these these were the images that were used in the early Christianity As an image of of the cross and so I think there is specificity to the different types of crosses There is also a way in which to join the symbolism of the the cross with the historical cross That is to understand that it is a symbol that represents the union of heaven and earth But with the Christian contention is that highest version of that is the cross on which Christ was crucified? And like you said it seems like a very strange thing because So with the heaven the meeting of heaven and earth is the place where someone’s cruise is tortured by the Romans like that’s where The meeting of heaven and earth is like what the hell is going on there? But it’s not that complicated to kind of understand and You know we the world was built in the ancient world was was built on sacrifice There was a sense in which in order to reach that vertical relationship You had to give something up But you have to give something up and then if you give something up Then you get the protection you get the strength you get the relationship with that vertical. We still do that now It’s called paying taxes, right? So you pay taxes up towards the government and then the government offers you an identity protection a Connection, you know an interconnectivity between each other, right? And so so it’s not a silly thing we of course people because they don’t understand ancient sacrifice anymore They just think was superstitious nonsense, but think about it as paying taxes. You pay taxes up, right? and so what the Christian Revelation shows is that the ultimate version of that sacrifice is actually self-sacrifice That in the ancient world you had the sense in which would sacrifice other things, right? You would sacrifice, you know Your children or whatever like you’d sacrifice the animals the children you’d sacrifice things that are precious to you up Towards the gods and then you would get some kind of protection or some kind of cohesion in exchange and what the Christian mystery shows is that The ultimate version of that is self-sacrifice And that’s why the cross of Christ becomes like a revelation about how this relationship between The vertical and the horizontal meet so you then you can then you can actually start to apply it in different things You think what actually you’re right. It is self-sacrifice, which is the real way which heaven and earth bind So think about anything that you participate in vertically right here. I don’t know your basketball player You’re playing for a basketball team. And so you realize that wait a minute Like the way for the basketball team to function is I have to give myself To the purpose to the higher purpose, so there’s a higher purpose in this game Obviously, it’s not a super high spiritual purpose, but it is a higher purpose right because it’s what’s binding us together That’s why we exist as a team And so I give myself up and if I do that then I get the most out of The world I get the most out of the team and then it’s like, oh wait a minute So I can I could bind my family together with a scapegoat and it’ll work Like I get if I have four kids one of my kids could be the black sheep and we could just pile all our problems On that black sheep blame them for everything say there’s there the reason for all our problems And what it’ll do is it’ll bind your family together. It’ll work Like it’ll actually work But it’s not the best way to do it the best way to do it would be something like as a father I give myself to my family and if I do that then the binding is far more is Real like it has more more weight And that’s why so it ends up being the whole image of love becomes the cross It’s like it’s an image of love at the center so this and that makes that makes perfect sense and and I would Say that actually there are alternate stories about the way to actually Beyond sacrifice as a way to both bind together and to offer yourself in service in a way and the other the other Side would be pleasure right like the way to offer yourself in your sexuality is not service So let’s take the act of sexing. It’s actually to go find your Rapture and share your rapture and share your bliss and share your pleasure same with many games that we play in which play Actually, it’s actually your joy. It’s actually your your enthusiastic ecstatic experience Which is the antithesis of sacrifice which implies pain or a cross which is pies torture But it’s actually pleasure itself which then facilitates more pleasure and in many cases in basketball I was a basketball player. So in many cases there are Periods where sacrifice is necessary. You got to take that charge. You got to dive for that loose ball You got if you got fucking girl, you got to go for it, right? But also that kind of the lightness of spirit that little quick little you imagine the Jordan wink where he’s just Smiling and he’s like really in the in the joy of that flow state is also contagious And so I think you know, and this is something that the you know, Hebrew mysticism points Do they talk about Shakina which is an embodiment of what could be called Eros? Which is like kind of the pleasure of creation the creative pleasure of of all of life and God And so I guess I would just say that this story and the symbol makes sense for a worldview But there’s also alternate worldviews that are not mutually exclusive that but that can be kind of taken into consideration Yeah, well, I would say the way to see it is that the story of the cross like this sort of the crucifixion is a limit story, it’s a it’s a story of the hot the the most compressed version of what self-sacrifice is and and And then it also has in its story, especially in the crucifixion it has resurrection as its as its Result and the resurrection is a glorious resurrection, right? It’s not a it’s no longer a resurrection in pain And so if you understand the crucifixion and the resurrection together as a single story Then you will find what it is you’re talking about. So so think about a lover for example It’s a great example that you brought up. It’s like the lover who only thinks of his own pleasure Will actually have less pleasure in that in the long run But the lover who who will let’s say abstain to a certain extent or will how can I say would delay their pleasure? In order to discover the pleasure of the other will find the surprise that in that little self-sacrifice There’s more pleasure on the other side and it’s kind of like that with your family, too It’s like if you you know at first it’s kind of like, okay So instead of I don’t know like a five instead of playing video games. I have to spend time with my kids It’s like this is tough. I’m changing diapers dude. This stinks like this is rough But then it’s like that moment gives way to something like a resurrection where all of a sudden It’s like you discover this joy of having children that that is beyond anything that you can that you could have seen at the at the At the outset so I think that if you understand the crucifixion the resurrection together It contains both of the elements you talk about You know this kind of rapture because there is the description even of Christ is also described as a lover right as there is this this whole relationship between Christ and the soul or Christ and the person as as Ultimately being this this this erotic this erotic relationship, too You