Who is Josh? A great question. But perhaps the better question is why are we asking, is there someone named Josh worth asking questions about? In fact, yes, there is. Names are a powerful linguistic tool for helping us understand the floating egos that populated and populate the world. As nations rise and fall and the intricacies of culture season the great melting pot of humanity, these linguistic signposts adapt and morph into the cultures they permeate. The name itself is just a token of the power these symbols represent. The significance of that power is what a given culture or community gives to it.  For instance, in Western culture, Jesus is a powerful word. It’s a brand for what Christ means at this moment. That could mean “Jesus fucking christ!” as much as “praise be to Jesus!” or “Jesus save me from temptation!” Saying the word Jesus brings about all kinds of symbolism (if you were raised in a culture with its foundation in Christianity) that evokes powerful images of the past and future.  If we live in an American evangelical community, raising a child with the name “Jesus” would probably be considered blasphemous. But another child raised in a Latin-American community is blessed with the name “Jesus,” and these are two very different names, from meaning to pronunciation.  Perhaps rather than asking “who is Josh?” we should go back 2000 years and ask early Christians, “who is Jesus?” It’s very likely, even with an excellent translater, no one would have any idea who you’re talking about or why. That’s because Jesus never existed. Not in the sense that he’s a made-up fairy tale. Instead, the name and symbolism of one of the world’s most popular brands are entirely contrived.  This contrivance makes the symbol no less powerful or meaningful. Whether we call the ancient figure Yeshua or Josh rather than Jesus will not change the fact that people will name him Jesus, or JC or Christ. It is not to “reclaim” Joshua that we choose to call them that. The symbolism of Jesus is far too powerful. What these radical names represent is the identity of the individual in question.  For all intents and purposes, Jesus is a modern name with modern symbolism. So wrapped up in imperio-colonialism, patriarchy, and divisiveness is the symbol of Jesus that it is impossible to separate the good from the bad. Regardless of their consent, Jesus has been the justification for religious wars, racial genocides, societal stratifications, and cultural appropriations. In the same way, Jesus’ symbolism has brought peace, prosperity, and the proliferation of advancement to the western world.  When we refer to Jesus, we are not referring to the person they might have been. We are speaking to the identity of that individual and the power of their identity.  In asking, Who is Josh? We are not only pointing to the historical applications of who the figure was. We are asking, what are the origins of the modern-day symbol known as Jesus? Who was he or she originally, and what is the symbolism of what they represent? Wait, So Who Was Josh Actually?   Josh (or Yeshua) was a man, or quite possibly a woman, born when time as an abstract concept was still being tinkered with, and no one could say for sure when or where they were in relation to things. But most accounts speculate it was around 2,000 solar revolutions before now. Almost all reports say that “he” was a “man.” But we only have historical accounts of the figure, which have been edited countless times in so many revolutions.  If Jesus were a woman, how many scholars (indeed all men) along the way decided that that part didn’t mesh with their theology and could easily be edited out? Further, what if Jesus was born a man and identified as a woman? Doubtful there were operations and treatments back then to allow him to realize the transformation. And if they were born a woman identifying as a man, those facts are lost to history.  Regardless of the centuries of dogma I’m so casually throwing away, the best we can say is that Josh was an individual, possibly male or female, identifying as either or both, that lived during the ascent of the Roman Empire and had quite a few crazy ideas about how things were being conducted in so-called “civilized” parts of the world.  Josh’s setting is essential because, during their lifetime, they saw the advent of Rome laying the foundational steps of the Western world as we know it. A time of warfare and conquest, of deified heroes painting the maps of history, and a time of dramatic social reformation. Unlike many empires before it, Rome managed to bring disparate groups of people together through a tool called citizenship. Citizenship allowed individuals of any blood, creed, culture, and religion to live within their empire, providing they identified as Romans, paid taxes, and obeyed the laws.  We may take citizenship and its rights for granted, but it was a novel concept back then. Where before, and then still, captured or defeated enemies were enslaved and marked as lesser, Rome introduced integration. Slaves had the opportunity to become freemen, gain rights of marriage and freedom from persecution. The roman identity allowed the many to become one, but at a price. Joining the empire meant being a Roman, and Romans were united against common enemies.  Child of Rome, Prodeccesor to All So, to sum up this divergent ramble, the Roman Empire was successful because it allowed for integration within at the cost of disintegration without. The strength of its unity was a weapon forged to cut down the opposition. That is the foundation it laid for the West.  And it was among this foundation that an individual we call Josh lived and developed his own ideas of unity, citizenship, and integration.  As an individual, prophet, leader, or whatever you want to call them, Josh traveled the Levant teaching about a fundamental belief in something I call “christ-consciousness.” This embodiment of Christ is also referred to as Oneness, Wholeness, Nirvana, Bliss, etc., all of which point to the idea of “Heaven on Earth.”  I or anyone else at the Liturgists cannot personally claim to know what Josh said or did or precisely what his teachings mean. But I believe his message had something to do with the notion of separateness and self and that these two ideas are very much the same. Any time we separate ourselves or the world from ourselves, we are identifying with a self. This individual entity is somehow detached from the world around it.  You see, there is no fundamental separateness in what we call reality. Everything is connected to everything else. Nothing is individual. The more we abstract and divide reality, the more separate and isolated it becomes. The more we accept all of reality into ourselves, the more whole and complete we become.  That is not to say that abstraction and identity are bad or wrong. Quite the opposite. The beauty of Wholeness is that abstraction, divisiveness, and separate selves are still included within that Wholeness. And in fact, the only way to know Wholeness as Wholeness is to become separated from it in the first place so it can be discovered again. The hero’s journey.  If the world were simply Wholeness and nothing else, well, that’s the beginning, where darkness covers everything. Time and space don’t exist. Nothing happens. The universe is pretty dull and nonexistent. In the creation (also known as the big bang), more and more finiteness came out of infinity so that all the individuals could become dividuals-in harmony with the Whole.  Josh Lived the Hero’s Journey to Show Us That We Can Too That’s why the person called Josh was born in the first place. Not to rule the world as the son of some deity, but to live the life of separateness and duality, to know it entirely before letting us know that there’s another way. That way, traveled through self and isolation to live as victor, villain, and victim over and over again is to become complete.  This notion of self as separateness was and is not new. It is in the heart of many religions and philosophies, especially mystical ones. Josh happened to be around when the world was beginning to be ready to accept it as Truth. And at the core of these ideas is still a notion of the separate self. You can become enlightened, advance along the chakras and open your eyes to the roiling bliss of heaven. But the idea of advancement and progress still implies duality and separateness. What Josh, not Christ but a christ, had to say was that there is no becoming Christ. Christ is this moment, this breath, all of reality in the blade of grass whistling in the wind. There are no gods or immortal figures. The only immortality that exists is Emptiness, and Emptiness is the Wholeness of All. Josh came into the world and left it as a mortal who understood his own immortality was the entirety of existence, nothing more, nothing less. That was his message and possibly his purpose if he had any.  Of course, this is only one interpretation of the individual known as Josh, often referred to as Jesus, confused as being an Ubermensch with sole claim to the title Christ. There are many more, and most of them are probably a lot more accurate than this one.  But I think Josh would at least agree on being open to all ideas about who they were or weren’t and why they graced the world with their presence. To include all the dissonant opinions and statements and find the Truth of this moment, right now. Josh would say, these ideas are great, but who cares? You are already enlightened.  You are the Christ.