Realspiritik

Once upon a time, there was a man who had a beautiful garden. Neighbours came from miles around to see the lilies he grew. No one had seen lilies like these. When they asked him how he grew such healthy, thriving plants, he replied, "I love my plants as myself." Each morning, the man got up, and after attending to his bathing and breakfast and morning lessons, he went out to the field where his lilies grew. He spent hours in the field. He wheelbarrowed fresh dirt. He brought buckets of water to quench the lilies’ thirst. He trowelled the earth about their feet. He pulled marauding beetles from the underside of their leaves. He sang and he smiled from the time he arrived in the field till the time he left. The lilies grew and blossomed and filled the air with heavenly perfume. One day, his neighbours returned. They were angry. “You lied to us. You told us your garden is beautiful because you love your plants as yourself. We tried that, and our young plants died. You did not tell us the secret.” The gardener said to his neighbours, “I’m sad that your lilies died. Tell me, what is it you did to show the lilies your love?” “We held hands, and we prayed together that the lilies would feel our love for them.” “Ah,” said the gardener. “And who among you wheelbarrowed the fresh dirt?” “No one,” they replied. “You spoke only of love, not wheelbarrows.” “Ah,” said the gardener. “And who among you fetched the heavy buckets of water?” The neighbours looked at each other, then at the gardener. “No one. The Lord will provide the rain if the Lord deems it appropriate.” The gardener removed his gloves, and brushed the dirt from the knees of his work pants. “Who among you bathed this morning?” he asked. “All of us.” “And who breakfasted?” “All of us, naturally. We know how to look after our families properly.” “Because you love your families?” he asked. “Or because the Lord rained buns and cheeses and bathwater into your houses? It is not sufficient to talk of love, but to take no action. Each of you loves yourself, and because of this you ensure you have bread and water and all other things you need. To love another as you love yourself, you must do more than pray. You must work.” The neighbours, chastened, went home. After a few more weeks, though, they returned to the gardener’s field, and this time they furiously mobbed the plants and ripped the bulbs out one by one. “How can you justify this unjust act?” cried the gardener in dismay. “You told us that if we worked and sweated in the field, we would have beautiful lilies. But we have only ragged, limp stems that refuse to flower. We’re tired of working, and we’re tired of seeing the lilies of your field. You lied to us again.” “Tell me then,” the gardener said through his tears, “when you worked in the fields, did you give thanks to God that you could be of service? Did you give thanks for all the tools God provided so you could be of service? Did you sing and smile?” “You spoke only of wheelbarrows and buckets, not singing and smiling.” “And because you do not know how to love, you punish me? I have never lied to you. From the beginning, I told you what to do. I told you to love the plants as yourself. As you feed yourself, so must you feed the plants. As you quench your thirst, so must you quench theirs. As you seek companionship and laughter and music and kind words, so must you offer them in equal measure. It is clear why your plants failed to thrive. There is no love in your hearts. You are like the stones of the field, and I cannot help you.” “Teach us then how to have love in our hearts.” “Very well. Any among you who steps forward now and apologizes to me for this violent act, and who offers repair, and who asks to become a humble apprentice, this person’s word I will trust.” No one stepped forward. The gardener smiled sadly and said, “The seasons of heaven answer to no man. Blessed be those who listen.” Love Jesus October 13, 2006

Agreed. But who says they're not the same thing? I can't disagree with anything you've said -- thank you for posting your eloquent thoughts. But I ask you to go deeper and push hard against the belief systems that all human beings are dealing with. In what way would your becoming as nice a person as possible be the same thing as living out God's kingdom on earth? Where is the point of convergence between being a nice person and being an advocate of social justice? There is one, and the angels call it the Christ Zone. Seek that place, and you will know, as I did, the wonder of your heart and mind opening with radiant love to all that the Mother and Father are. Best wishes on your journey. Amen to our blessed Mother and Father. Love Jesus October 12, 2006

Jesus here, Aslan. I'm a bit confused, and wonder if you'd allow me to paraphrase your remarks. Do I understand correctly that you believe great ethics are no big deal to Christians or to me personally? Am I really to believe it isn't just a matter of "being of nice guy"? If it isn't a matter of being a nice person, what is it? What else matters? How are you or others to make this world a better place -- the Garden of Eden you long for -- if you don't start with yourself, and become the nicest guy you can possibly be? What relationship could I offer you that would be more important than helping you be a nice guy? What do you think my commandment to love your neighbour as yourself means if not that? Please let me know if I have misunderstood your sentiments. Best. Love Jesus October 12, 2006

I've been to different churches in Canada. A high Anglican cathedral in Ontario is hard to beat in terms of formal church architecture -- steeples, stained glass, pews, and bells -- but church architecture (or lack of it) isn't what I remember best when I look back at my church experiences. What I remember best is the way people treat each other. When my younger son was being treated for leukemia, he was allowed out of the hospital once. This happened to coincide with Easter, so we went to church on Easter Sunday. It was an Anglican church, and the church members had been very supportive to us during our time of crisis. Sometimes we'd come home from the hospital, utterly spent, and find a casserole on our doorstep. We couldn't have been more grateful. Anyway, on this particular Easter Sunday, the church was full, and the formal Anglican service in all its quiet dignity was proceeding, when suddenly our 2 1/2 year old son (who'd been in a hospital isolation room for 3 months until the day or two before) looked up and saw the ceiling fans spinning in the 19th century ceiling. He squealed at the top of his lungs, "Look, Mommy, a fan!", and the church congregation, instead of staring at us in disapproval for our son's behaviour, turned and smiled with us. It was a truly spiritual moment of membership in the congregation of the Holy Spirit. Love Jen

Jesus here, dear friends. I'm enjoying, from my angelic perspective, conversations that come deeply from the heart. So thank you, all, who are following this thread. I have a few thoughts on the idea of "hard". Indeed, I'd say "hard" is an issue for most human beings, not just Americans. A Course in Miracles is, in my heavenly view, a course in how to be spiritual the hard way. I know that what I'm saying will not be received well by followers of the course, and I respect that. But the course does not do what the God Team knows it could do. It does not teach people how to understand and flow with the mindset of God's guardian angels. It's angels who do the legwork for God the Mother and God the Father (not because the Mother and Father can't or won't do it themselves, but because they're teaching a lot of eager angels how to work with quantum probability waves). It's angels who create the miracles like synchronicities, inexplicable healings, and split second timing. It would be nice, from the human perspective, for you to be able to create these kinds of miracles directly, without angelic assistance, but you can't. They don't happen if God's angels don't want them to happen. God's angels have free will. They have a green light from our Mother and Father to listen to their own angelic wisdom, and do what seems best in each unique instance. And the really good news is that angels are never wrong. If they say, "Sorry, but today you're going to have to tough out the consequences of your unloving choices," then by golly that's what is best. A Course in Miracles has a series of different readings that are meant to be studied a day at a time. To be honest, this is the hard way to do things. The human brain simply can't focus on 270 different spiritual ideas over a period of months. The human brain can probably handle one. Just one. Pick one major spiritual goal -- learning to forgive yourself, or learning to expand your joy through the practice of radical gratitude, or learning patience. Pick one, and work like a dog on just that one for the next few months. This takes tremendous self discipline, but it's the only way to bring your brain into alignment with the voice of your own soul. Forgiveness isn't a fleeting but pleasing idea. It's a practice. It's a habit. It's a brain habit. It's a brain habit you must concentrate on consciously, or it won't happen. It's not magic. It's not a divine gift conferred on you because you ask. It's a change in the way your brain works. Your brain begins to work differently, more efficiently, when you begin to consciously practice the emotion called forgiveness. Most adults have little to no facility with the emotion of forgiveness. Every child is born with it, and all young children instinctively use it to improve their relationships. When the adults around the children fail to reinforce it, children begin to forget. Over time, they lose the ability to forgive because they haven't been guided to use it, they haven't been taught to integrate the truth of forgiveness into their confusing human existence. The human brain is like that -- use it or lose it. If you want to reclaim your innate capacity to forgive, you must practise every day, just as successful musicians or athletes or . . . well, the list is pretty long of skills that need to be practised every day till mastery is achieved, but you get the idea. The first spiritual goal you choose will be the most challenging, as you won't be used to the self discipline involved. But once you master just one major spiritual goal -- such as forgiveness or gratitude or selfless service -- the changes in your brain will make the next one faster to learn. I, and the angelic team to which I belong, would love to see groups forming to help individuals stay focussed on the single goal they've chosen. Churches and other spiritual groups could have weekly meetings for the "gratitude" group, or the "forgiveness" group, and no group would be considered better or more prestigious than another. As long as people are working on one thing with dedication, they're doing the best they can. When I lived as Jesus, I worked through these issues one at a time. I began with forgiveness, but I had many other lessons to learn (or, more accurately, to remember from deep inside my soul) before the Mother and the Father felt I was emotionally strong enough to endure the miracle of torture, then hanging by a thread between life and death, then resurrection. Thanks be to our blessed Mother and Father. Amen. Love Jesus September 24, 2006

Jesus here. JunkYard, you raise excellent points. Should you be interested, here's what the meaning of the cross is to me. (Despite the fact that 2,000 years have passed, the meaning of my time as a human being continues to deepen for me as I understand ever more about the beautiful, ancient heart of our Mother and Father.) I've seen many interpretations of what my time on the cross symbolized or taught. Each individual must take responsibility for what he or she chooses to see in the death and resurrection of one man. I choose to see the greatest possible message of hope, wonder, and divine love. I choose to see one man whose trust in both God the Father and God the Mother was so complete that they asked the healing angels to preserve the link between my soul and my physical body so I would not actually die on the cross. The bodily resurrection I experienced was the message they wanted to teach. The true power of God's miraculous power was the message -- just that. They chose to resurrect me so others might see that in a violent world full of pain and suffering, God's angels had the power to confer miracles. To most people, you must remember, this has never been a sure thing. Few people, now or then, actually dare believe in the quantum power of the Mother and the Father to reshape living matter. But I did believe. I'd seen it many times in my ministry. But to be honest, I'd never seen anyone brought back from the actual edge of death, which was where I was hovering when the angels swept in. You must understand it wasn't my return to life that was important. If that had been the message -- that God had granted me a special exemption from the natural part of human life called death -- I would have lived for many long years afterwards. Presumably I would have outlived Methuselah. But I didn't. I actually only lived among my family and friends for a few short weeks before I quietly died and returned Home. The message was about the intimate reality of God the Mother, God the Father, and the angels. It was no picnic for me to be cruelly tortured, emotionally abandoned, and utterly terrified. But I was a real person -- not a mythical figure, not a tale from ancient religious texts, but a real man with real pain. And the angels who kept that thread of life going while I was lowered from the cross and placed in a crypt -- they were real people, too. Real quantum beings who had a task to carry out to heal me. Their miraculous healing of my body was pure science and talent, from their point of view. But to me it was wonder, awe, amazement, and indescribable humbleness as I eventually opened my eyes . . . and found myself alive and in a crypt. Why did I merit a chance at a few extra weeks of life, when so many others have to die without apparent angelic intervention? Why me? Because God the Father and God the Mother trusted I wouldn't misuse their gift when that crypt door opened. Love Jesus September 23, 2006

Hi Earl. Nice to hear from you. You and I haven't crossed paths in a while. Your reference to the Icarus myth is, unfortunately, all too apt. Those who channel without first training their brains to handle the process run the risk of ending up with psychosis, severe depression, or both. If I had my way (like that's gonna happen! ) every would-be channeller would have to enroll in a 4-year degree program at an accredited university to learn the basics. Hey -- if a student can cover the basics of human anatomy, etc., in a 4-year medical school program, I figure the fundamentals of soul physiology can be covered in about the same amount of time! In the small city I live in, I know of two definite cases where an individual ended up severely mentally ill after playing with mystical fire. One had to be hospitalized. I don't say these things to frighten people away from experiencing their own internal soul nature, but to pass along what I've learned about the soul-body nexus through my channelling partnership with Jesus. Nothing would make me happier than to have a whole bunch of interested people jump on board the brain-training program for channellers. Then I would belong to a team, and I'd have somebody to complain to when Jesus recommends I fork over big bucks for that new &*%$# neurophysiology textbook! I'd also sleep better if more people had the knowledge to safely communicate via quantum language with their own guardian angels. The angels would like it, too (or so I hear . . . ) I know I sound like a broken record when I go on and on about the brain, but to be frank the brain is the frontier between one's physical existence and one's eternal life. Every thought and every feeling (spiritual, religious, or secular) that goes through one's head has a biological analogue -- a complex interaction of neurotransmitters, electrical impulses, and brainwave synchrony. There's just no getting out of it. No one can deny or circumvent their biology. Not even a mystic. Earl, you said: "When it's all said and done the only thing that seems to matter is how well we've lived and loved." I don't think there's any better way to sum it up. Thanks. Love Jen

Thanks, mystic. I respect what you're doing, too. I totally honour the truth that everyone has a unique path. Let us know what you learn. We can all benefit from each other's experiences. Love Jen

Thank you, mystictrek, for your kind and supportive thoughts. I most definitely am familiar with A Course in Miracles. I understand it's lately been gathering a lot of new participants, so your question is timely. Over the last few years, I've talked to Jesus about ACIM several times. Each time, he's asked me to go to my bookshelf and pull the book off the shelf. (I don't actually have it with me today, as all my books are on in one city, and I'm in another.) When I open up ACIM, I'm always struck by two things: first, there's a powerful current of poetry in the work, a longing and desire for the Divine that's potent -- a heady incense that's hard to resist. Second, there's an unfortunate lack of clarity and common sense in the channelled passages. The message is very difficult to grasp. The poetry is beautiful, but in my humble opinion, poetry is not enough to help individuals learn how to tap into their own unique, divine nature. Some years ago now, and with great sadness, because I love spiritual poetry, I set the ACIM and all books like it at the back of my shelves, and I don't look at them anymore except to check certain points when I'm writing. They're simply too confusing. They also tend to promise human beings things they actually can't have. That's discouraging and frustrating. I learned the hard way that for the sake of my brain health and the sake of my soul, it's best if I stick with material that's less mystical and more grounded in the everyday realities we must deal with in order to make life on Planet Earth the Garden of Eden we yearn for. I can't tell you how many times I've gone into Chapters (Canada's version of Barnes and Noble), and begun to head towards the spirituality section, only to have Jesus steer me instead to the science section, or the history section, or the psychology section. He's bound and determined that when he channels a message through me, it will be factually clear, if nothing else. This is not to say I don't pester Jesus with questions about God and angels and heaven and quantum creativity and ancient spirituality, because I do. But that's the "cart", and before anyone can relate to the cart, they need a horse to pull that cart. Maybe it's prosaic to focus first on the "horse," but trust me -- if one tries to pull the mystical cart without the right brain "muscles" in place first, one will end up like Helen Shucman, who channelled the ACIM and ended up suffering from a severe psychotic depression in the last two years of her life. This is a genuine medical risk to anyone who channels without proper training. 'Nuff said. Love Jen

Jesus here. Imagine this scenario for a moment. God’s guardian angels, the ones who look after each and every one of you on Planet Earth, are scratching their heads. They want very much to communicate more clearly with angels-in-human-form who are asking for guidance. They want to give clear answers about healing, faith, and eternity to those who are praying. But they have a problem. The problem is a scientific one, not a spiritual one. The problem is that when souls incarnate into human form, their soul energy must be squished into a very small 3D box called the human brain. The human brain has limits – far more limits than 4D souls are used to dealing with. The human brain is easily damaged. And damaged brains make a lot of mistakes. Sometimes human brains imagine things. Sometimes human brains confuse REM stage dreams with divine messages. Sometimes human brains don’t know something because they haven’t been taught. God’s guardian angels wish to give answers to the many questions people have, but, quite honestly, how easy do you think that is? I want you to stop and think carefully about your own experience. How would you feel if you were driving your car one day, and you suddenly heard a strange voice in your head say, “You should turn left at the next intersection.”? How would you react? Honestly . . . wouldn’t you be scared to death you were going crazy? Wouldn’t you wonder what was happening to you? Of course you would. That’s normal. The human brain is ill-trained (though not ill-equipped) to deal with quantum communication from a guardian angel. The human brain, upon hearing a strange voice emanating from the ethers, gets freaked out – as it should. Those who aren’t alarmed upon hearing a strange inner voice need to seek professional medical assistance, because they may be suffering from a seizure disorder, a psychotic illness, or a medical problem elsewhere in the body that’s affecting the way the brain works. Generally speaking, guardian angels work their divine magic through indirect means. They don’t even try to communicate mind-to-mind with you. Instead, they create a trail of hints for you to follow. Coincidences, synchronicities, sudden impulses, repetition of experiences. They sort of half drag you, half push you closer and closer to your true soul self. They’re prepared to use any indirect means necessary to get their message across to you, even if it hurts like hell. But what if the God Team (as I like to call the community of guardian angels who watch over you) wanted to have a mind-to-mind conversation with somebody incarnated as a human being? How would that work? Could it work? Well, yes, it can work, and it does work, but it isn’t easy. I know this, because I, as Jesus, was a highly trained channeller. The reason I got answers about the true nature of God’s love and forgiveness, and the reason I held onto those answers in the face of tremendous opposition, is that I had great confidence in my skill as a channeller. The thing that set me apart from other teachers and healers was my certainty – not a certainty of the mind, but a certainty of the soul. I gradually came to understand that a few divine truths were exactly that – truths. Some things about God just aren’t open to debate or opinion. Some things about God are simply . . . well . . . true. Once I understood with every fibre of my being that God the Mother and God the Father loved me, that God the Mother and God the Father forgave me for the mistakes I’d made in my life, I couldn’t be swayed by anyone’s words or rituals or traditions. I trusted our Mother and Father with all my heart. Because of that, the angelic guidance I received became less and less indirect, and more and more immediate. When there was a matter of disagreement between what a human spiritual leader told me, and what my angelic guides told me, I went with the angels. This meant many human beings were seriously ticked off with me. I was a mortal man, but I lived the last few years of my life with my heart fully open to God’s loving guidance. If this made me divine, then so be it. But I would suggest the divinity that cloaked me and my message lay in my perfect trust in God. It was my perfect trust that allowed me to become a vessel of God’s healing message, to teach others through my death and resurrection what miracles are possible both in Heaven and on Earth. It is open to you, should you so desire, to trust God as perfectly as I did. In this way, you will know, as I did, the bliss of feeling deeply loved and loving. There is no greater joy in all Creation. The message of the resurrection is not about me, Jesus. The message of the resurrection is about the miraculous healing gifts of God’s angels, and the infinite potential of the Mother and the Father to care for all of us. In the world in which I grew up, there was little belief or faith or trust in God as God actually is. There were many deities, and many religions, but few believers in a loving, forgiving, compassionate Mother and Father. My resurrection helped people understand the true nature of their relationship with the Mother and Father, and I shall always be grateful for being able to help in this way. Amen. Love Jesus September 9, 2006

Yes. Unequivocally yes. Glad you're here. Love Jen

Are you sure about this?

Love Jen

Thank you, ebloomer, for your wise and trusting prayer: “What am I learning/seeing here?” I don’t mind saying, from my point of view as an angel on the Other Side, that this prayer is heard too little. Thank you for posting it. The interesting thing about this prayer, and the reason I love it, is that it’s open-ended. This is a hopeful prayer, a prayer filled with the hope and faith that you, as a human being, can learn, that you, as a human being, want to learn. This is a prayer that doesn’t clip your wings with pessimism. Nor does it clip your guardian angel’s wings. This is a prayer which has implicit faith in the perfectibility of humankind. Those who pour such a prayer into every ounce of their being cannot help but find themselves gradually opening to God’s heart in a tender and wondrous way. “What am I learning here? What am I seeing here?” This is your request to be shown the mystery of divine love, for the hearts, minds, and bodies of God the Mother and God the Father are always changing, always growing in love and trust. As they grow in love, we, as angels, also grow in love. Whether incarnate or whether at Home on the Other Side, we, as angels, have our angelic eyes wide open, taking in all the beauty and all the joy. We must, as angels, want to see all that’s around us if we are ever to know the full magnificence of our loving Mother and Father. The journey for all of us is not a path that cuts a straight line, but a path that gently spirals. On the Spiral Path, you find yourself returning to the places you’ve loved, and finding those places to be all you remembered, yet more. Always more. Each time you return, you laugh with the joy of recognition, even while you laugh in surprise as you find yourself saying, “Gosh, I never saw that beautiful lamp before.” The Spiral Path takes you always forward. The Spiral Path feels like the loving arms of your eternally loving Mother and Father wrapped tightly around you, and only there can we, as angels, feel whole. The Spiral Path has no end, because there will never be an end to the questing and yearning of all angels to grow in love. I can’t tell you where that Path will take us, my friends, but my faith and trust are so complete, my heart is filled only with excitement at what we’ll see together around the next bend. I love you, Mother and Father. Love Jesus June 23, 2006

Hi Luthitarian, Just found your post, and couldn't help chortling, chuckling, and smiling. Your list was tooooo funny. I have given up all hope of guessing what my guardian angel will choose to do to my printer. When I print something off in full colour, I never know what colour the colours will be. Black is always black (so far), but apple green has been turned into neon pink, and vice versa, and I'm such a technomoron myself that I know I don't know how to change the colours back and forth myself. (It would make my life easier if I did.) Your cartridges probably aren't on the far end of the universe (though your socks may be). Keep an eye out for them to pop up in a weird place. Somewhere down the line, your guardian angel may decide to "un-disappear" them. Stranger things have happened in the non-Newtonian universe we live in. Best, Jen

From Jen: Thanks Fatherman, thanks Flow. Ah yes . . . how true . . . and how inescapable. If it makes you feel any better, when my journey began in earnest, I had to put a sign on my fridge that I forced myself to read everytime I went into the kitchen. The sign that felt right for me was: "When You Are Forgiven, You Are Forgiven." Naturally, I posted this sign because several times a day I forgot that I was worthy of God's forgiveness. It may sound kinda stupid, but it worked. Eventually, I got it through my thick head that when Jesus said I was forgiven, he darned well meant it, no ifs, ands, or buts. Hey, everyone's gotta start somewhere. Love Jen

Jesus here. I’d like to start a thread on the topic of prayer. When individuals begin to think about the meaning of prayer in their lives, they don’t often realize the word “prayer” is used to encompass many different belief systems. To one person, prayer means quiet time spent talking to God. To another person, prayer means trying to formulate a series of requests that might be considered acceptable in God’s eyes. To yet another, prayer means imbibing ancient words as a way to make the world slow down for a minutes of rest. Those who ascribe to the basic tenets of Progressive Christianity – and these are the individuals I’m addressing – are working hard together as a group to find a positive, uplifting way of connecting with God. They’re asking new questions, and looking for new answers. I would hope it might have become clear to readers on the TCPC site that the answers required to build a progressive faith can’t be rooted solely in past beliefs. If those who came before you had uncovered all the right answers, you wouldn’t still be desperate to understand why you feel the way you feel about God. You wouldn’t still be pulling out your hair about the question of prayer. There is scarcely anything that more confuses and disappoints human beings than a prayer which goes unanswered. This disappointment too often drives a stake right through the heart of one’s faith. You pray for the health of someone you love, yet your beloved spouse, child, friend gradually slips closer to death, and one day you find yourself offering not prayers of healing, but prayers of grieving for your loved one who has died. You don’t understand why your sincere prayers went unanswered. If you’re like many individuals – millions and millions of people, in fact – you’ll spend a lot of time and energy trying to dissect the transcripts of your prayers, examining what you said in prayer, and how you said it, and when you said it. You’ll make a comparison list between what you prayed for and what your religion teaches you to pray for. Then you’ll go over the list again and again, wondering what you left out, what you unwisely included. Meanwhile, God and your guardian angel are having a completely different reaction to the prayers you believe went unanswered. While you’re busy wondering why you couldn’t save your loved ones through prayer, God is wondering why you have so little trust. God is wondering why you think your prayers for someone else would even matter. As an angel on the Other Side, who trusts in your true soul self and your true angelic virtue, I’m heartbroken that you don’t trust God enough to let God do what God does best – to hear into the inner heart of all. I’m grief-stricken that you’ve forgotten the inspiring truth about God – that God watches over each and every individual on this planet with limitless patience and love, and that God always knows what’s best for you, your loved ones, and, more to the point, your not-so-loved ones. God the Mother and God the Father love the soul who lived as Hitler just as much as they love me, the man who first channelled the truth about divine love and forgiveness. This is the core of true faith, the faith I taught as Jesus. The answer to the question of how this could be so – that a man who brutalized and tyrannized so many could be equal in God’s eyes to the man who achieved a state of imperfect perfection – will give you the answer to one of life’s great mysteries, the mystery of prayer. Only one solution exists for this enigma. Only one. It is the solution I taught – acceptance of the reality that you must learn to harness your biological body and brain, and bring them into alignment with the needs of your soul. You must fully integrate your human choices and needs with the needs of your eternal soul. Not later. Now. You must not detach from the needs of your body and brain, or punish your mortal flesh. You must trust this mortal flesh given you by God, and cherish this flesh till the day it is no longer yours. (That will be the day you die.) You must be fully human and fully divine simultaneously. This is what it means to be a Christ-in-human-form. This is the goal of those who choose to follow my Way. This is the prayer God hears – a prayer of trust, a prayer of trust in the innate integrity of God the Mother’s and God the Father’s heart. A prayer of trust is not a prayer of supplication. A prayer of trust demands courage on your part. You must rediscover the inner faith and trust of your own soul, a faith and trust that could not for a moment contemplate a universe in which God would allow a Devil to co-exist with them, a faith and trust that could not for a moment fail to believe that a man like Hitler was severely mentally ill within the confines of his mortal flesh, but that his soul was beautiful and in desperate need of healing, succour, relief. If you believe in your heart that I, Jesus, found the Way and taught the Way, then you’ll have to find the courage to stop listening to those parts of the Bible that teach you your soul is full of sin. Your soul is not full of sin. God always protects your eternal soul, despite the extreme pain and hardship you may endure as a soul-in-human-form. You must trust with every ounce of your being that this is so. If you refuse to believe this one basic Divine Truth, you’ll miss out on the chance to do what you do best – transform pain and grief into wisdom. A prayer of trust goes something like this: “Beloved Mother and Father, I’m having a bitch of a day today, and everything seems to be going wrong, but I trust that you’re watching out for me. I humbly understand that you’re trying to teach me something, and I really, really want to understand more about what it means for me to be my best self. I trust that if I stick with this situation, and try as hard as I can to hear my soul’s wisdom, then maybe tomorrow will be a little easier. Thanks so much for believing in my ability to learn from my mistakes. Thanks so much for making me the imperfectly perfect soul that I am. Thanks so much for this chance to learn. I love you both. Amen.” This prayer of trust is very different from prayers in which you petition God for protection, or salvation, or your daily bread. A prayer of trust begins with the core belief that God already finds you worthy, that God already finds Hitler worthy, and that your spiritual quest as a soul-in-human-form is to understand this truth. A prayer of petition says: “God, please help me be a better person than Hitler was.” A prayer of trust says: “God, please help me get a clearer understanding of what Hitler taught us about our quest as souls-in-human-form.” A prayer of petitions says: “God, please don’t be too hard on Hitler at Judgment Day.” A prayer of trust says: “God, no country should ever let such a mentally ill individual become a national leader. It wasn’t fair to him. It wasn’t fair to anyone else. How can we help further medical research and social supports in our communities so we can compassionately care for such severely ill people?” It is not a judgment for you to say that Hitler caused grave damage. You don’t have to pretend, as a loving spiritual person, that he didn’t do anything wrong. He did. Your challenge is to forgive him in the full knowledge that he really screwed up. But don’t forget as you forgive. Just forgive. Forgiveness requires, in fact, that you not forget the harm he caused. Forgiveness means that you can love his fully divine self, even as you refuse to love his very unloving human choices. Such is the Way, the path to the Truth, and the only Life worth living. Amen. And thanks be to our blessed Mother and Father. Jesus June 21, 2006

Uuummmmm......Huh? Jen (Is that who we are today?) Your stunning intelligence is so superior to the rest of us here, it boggles the mind. Of course, perhaps I'm just playing with half of mine, according to your science. (My wife might claim "half" is being generous) Please continue to teach and astound us. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Darby, I’ve been thinking for a few days about how to respond to your cruel attack on me. Perhaps one might argue that major events like the meltdown on the Gulf Coast should overtake such small, personal concerns as your unwarranted attack on my integrity. On the other hand, maybe not. Maybe Cunninglily is the one who’s being honest and forthright when she tells the rest of us not to come to the Gulf Goast, but to take a good look in our own backyards. This site is part of my backyard, as it is for many people who are looking for a safe place to talk about feelings, God, and maybe even miracles. It is painful and frightening for people who are recovering from the spiritual abuse inflicted by some Christian factions to come on this site and witness an attack on a person who is simply stating scientific fact. Not opinion, which is subjective, but scientific fact. I invite you to spend hundreds of hours researching the brain, and I invite you to volunteer for an extensive psychiatric workup including, but not limited to, a single photon emission computerized tomography scan (SPECT scan for short) of your own brain before making accusations about me that you cannot support. I do not apologize for being a channeller. I do not apologize for yearning to share what I have learned after years of intensive work. I have miracles in my life – the miracle of being loved, and being able to love. But I got no free lunch from Jesus or the God Team. I had to work my ass off to let go of my own bad habits. When I was 18, I met all the criteria I stated above for being a conservative. I was rigid, fearful of spontaneity, perfectionistic, and quick to blame other people for my mistakes. But I got over it. I got over it because I finally realized I was ashamed of my behaviour. I got over it because I wanted to become more creative, intuitive, objective, compassionate, and flexible. It’s there for everybody. You just have to want it bad enough. Jen

Surely God has given each of us a pair of ruby slippers, because surely a loving God would want to give each and every person an equal opportunity to find divine peace. I can think of only one place where God can stash such a pair of ruby slippers, and that place is the human brain, where you do all your thinking and feel all your feelings and make all your choices. A.k.a. the Kingdom within. Jen

Come to think of it, I guess I'm also with October's Autumn.

Okay, Fred, if you want to wade into the realm of reality, let's haul out the brain science. A conservative is a person who over-relies on the anterior cingulate gyrus and the amygada of the brain, and who, as a result, is unable to learn from his/her mistakes, is perfectionistic and possibly obsessive (lending a "counting and cleaning" style to this person's religious experience), is uncompromising, fearful of spontaneity, and quick to blame other people for his/her own mistakes. Such a person doesn't use "whole brain thinking". I venture to say that a person such as this has fewer useful things to say that will change society for the better than, say, a person who does use "whole brain thinking" -- a person who is able to think creatively and intuitively (temporal lobes), objectively (basal ganglia combined with pre-frontal cortex), compassionately (very strong output in the gamma brain wave range), and is able to learn from his/her mistakes (proper use of the anterior cingulate). I'm with Beach on this one.

This is Jen here, chuckling at your description of God being like Aslan -- good, but not safe or tame, so hold on. Many is the day in my life when my beloved guardian angel Tom reminds me an awful lot of the TV character Dr. Gregory House, played by Hugh Laurie. Dr. House has a reputation for being prickly as hell on the outside, but if you're a patient with an undiagnosed and possibly fatal illness, you're lucky to have his knowledge, experience, and unflinching dedication aimed your way. This doc doesn't blink when the going gets tough. In one episode, a patient of Dr. House is adamantly refusing to be injected with a medication. Dr. House knows the medical situation is so dire that it's literally a choice between the needle or death. But he can't get near the patient, whose loved ones are hovering protectively around the bed. So Dr. House lies. He tells the patient he respects his choice. He turns as if to leave the room. Everyone lets their guard down. Then House turns and plunges the needle into the patient's leg. The man is saved. I thought this episode was one of the most authentic spiritual stories I've seen. Love Jen

Jesus here. Yo. Paul. Saint and Apostle. I was looking for the billionth time at your Epistles, and, as usual, your point of view gets all the press time. These days, it’s considered only fair to interview someone who’s on the other side in a debate. So forthwith I give a short rebuttal to the brief opening statement you make in Colossians Chapter 2. To refresh your memory, this is what you said to the people of Colossae: “For I want you to know how much I am struggling for you, and for those in Laodicea, and for all who have not seen me face to face.” Before I speak my mind, you’d better step back a pace or two. I’ve been waiting a long time to say what I have to say, and I don’t want to accidentally spit in your eye. Paul, big fella, you talk a good line there, and I’m sure folks want to believe that you honestly care about their suffering, but Paul, I’ve been doing my psychology homework, and I think you’re a big, fat liar. You want that I should believe your empathy is real? You want that I should believe your Paul Bunyan story about the miracle intervention God gave you on the road to Damascus, where you got an extreme brain makeover? You want that I should believe God transformed you almost overnight from a cold, judgmental, cruel tormenter into an empathic apostle? You want that I should believe you’re the first and last person in history who didn’t have to make the effort to be his/her best self before God’s healing angels stepped in to boost your body’s oxytocin levels? You want that I should believe God’s healing angels broke all the rules of quantum physics just for you? ######, if I’d known it could be that easy, I wouldn’t have wasted all those years learning how to be a Christ-in-human-form. Ya know, Paul, I just don’t buy your miracle-vision-on-the-road story. I’m willing to accept your word that something happened to you on the road to Damascus, but based on all the facts, I suspect you had a Machiavellian epiphany, not a divine epiphany. Maybe that’s where you hatched the beginnings of a plan to remove the thorn from your side. Between you and me, Paul, I can think of a few less-than-scrupulous corporations and government bodies who’d love to have a guy like you on staff. You don’t know the meaning of “ethical business practices”. You have enviable drive and ambition, and, to your credit, you have truly outstanding communication skills. Hardly anyone seems to notice you’re not trying to sell a religious vision to them. They think you’re talking to them about God. But you and I both know you’ve crafted one of the most remarkable branding campaigns in history. You’ve pasted the very face of Christ on the product you’re actually trying to sell. Paul, Paul, Paul. You can lie all you want to other people, but you can’t lie to an angel. Kick, yell, and scream all you want. I see no evidence from either your words or your actions that you believe in a beautiful God, a loving God, a forgiving God. I see in your behaviour a man who hates the idea of a beautiful, loving, forgiving God. Such a God is just too hard to control if one is a control freak. And I’m sorry to be harsh, Paul, but you’re a control freak. I love you anyway, man, and I forgive you. But sheesh. Love Jesus August 30, 2005

Jesus here. Today I begin a teaching session on the matter of Paul, author of more books in the New Testament than anyone else. If you’re a diehard fan of Pauline Christianity, I can tell you right now you ain’t gonna like what I have to say. Recently, I asked Jen to pick up and scan the new book by John Dominic Crossan and Jonathan Reed called In Search of Paul. On page xi of the Preface, Mr. Crossan and Mr. Reed have this to say: “The Roman Empire was based on the common principle of peace through victory or, more fully, on a faith in the sequence of piety, war, victory, and peace. . . [Paul] opposed the mantras of Roman normalcy with a vision of peace through justice or, more fully, with a faith in the sequence of covenant, nonviolence, justice, and peace.” These sequences are beautifully articulated, and I have no disagreement with the authors’ assessment of the Roman peace sequence or the Pauline peace sequence. There are millions of people in the world today who cling to the “piety, war, victory, peace” model, just as there are millions of people trying to make the “covenant, nonviolence, justice, peace” method work. If you like one (or both) of these models, go for it. You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do. But if you want to know what I said as Jesus, and you actually care what God has to say on the matter, here’s the lowdown. Burnished to its very essence, here is what I learned from the angels when I lived as Jesus, and here is what I tried to teach when I lived as Jesus. I taught peace through personal responsibility. The peace sequence goes like this: education, mentorship, personal responsibility, then peace. Note that my peace sequence doesn’t begin with the word “piety” or the word “covenant”. It begins with the word “education”. To me and to the angels watching over you, it shouldn’t be necessary for you to start your spiritual journey by declaring your piety or by claiming your stake in the so-called “covenant”. It should be obvious to everyone by now that all souls are equally worthy of God’s love, that all souls are born of God and will return to God, and that nobody gets a special deal from God. God has no Chosen People. God just has People, and People come in all sizes, shapes, and colours that are considered equally beautiful by God. There’s no need for you to join a “special group”, or carry out a “special ritual”, or say a “special prayer” to get God’s attention. You get God’s attention whether you like it or not, and the only thing God ever expects you to do is to ask for help in being the best person you’re capable of being. Your willingness to take personal responsibility for your choices is another way of saying you’re being the best person you’re capable of being. Your willingness to take personal responsibility for your choices is another way of saying you love God and believe in God. This is the only meaningful expression of faith as far as I and the rest of the God Team are concerned. If you really want to know what it feels like to live a life of faith, the way I did as Jesus, you will first have to learn to take responsibility for your own thoughts and your own actions. I did it. That means you can do it. I did not, contrary to rumour in the New Testament, grow up a sequestered young Messiah. Like you, I lived through a whole lot of painful mistakes before I learned to admit I was wrong. Like you, I hurt other people. But unlike most of you, I forced myself to learn how to do the whole forgiveness thing. I refused to quit on myself. I refused to take no for an answer on the question of learning how to forgive myself. And in proving to myself that I could forgive myself the way God forgives me, I found my faith. In not giving up on myself, I shared my faith with God. In believing in my potential to love and forgive the way God loves and forgives, I made God happy. It does not make God happy when you try to pass the buck to me and God the way Paul teaches you to do. Paul teaches you to surrender. I teach you to take personal responsibility for your choices. After you take personal responsibility for a long enough period of time, you’ll wake up one day and discover you’re in a surrendered state. The surrendered state finds you – you can’t force your way into it with blind rituals or prayer. It finds you when you find your best angelic self. Paul teaches you justification by faith – he says good works won’t suffice. I teach you to take personal responsibility for your choices. That means at some point you’ll have to get off your duff and do something meaningful to help others. All talk and no action makes Jack a very lazy and narcissistic boy. Paul teaches that you must strive to learn about faith, hope, and, greatest of all, love. I teach you to take personal responsibility for your choices. It does wonders for your brain chemistry. Once you have the courage to be your best self, you’ll wake up one day and discover you finally know what those three little words – faith, hope, and love – mean. First you have to make the commitment to yourself and God to be the best person you’re capable of being. Eventually faith, hope, and love find you. Paul teaches you not to ask too many hard questions about God and Christ, because if you do, you’re not trusting in the vision of Christ that Paul insists is the only correct vision, and he also teaches that you’d better not try to talk directly to God (channel) unless you follow Paul’s rules. I teach you to take personal responsibility for your choices. It does wonders for your brain chemistry. If you’re lucky, your temporal lobes will come fully on-line in your brain, and you’ll be able to connect strongly to your own powerfully intuitive heart. One day you’ll wake up, and you’ll discover you can hear the whisper of your own guardian angel deep within you, Paul’s rules notwithstanding. Paul teaches you that God gave him a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to keep him from being too elated. I teach you that I, Jesus, was the thorn in Paul’s flesh. I and my message of radical equality before God were a constant torment to Paul, who had such a commitment to the God of the Covenant that he begged God to show him how to undermine my teachings. And though God didn’t show him how to do it, Paul was a clever man, and he figured out how to do it all by himself. But the God Team is pretty smart. And they set about to help the people who wanted to preserve my actual teachings. Miraculously, a very short letter managed to survive all the cuts, additions, and edits that have been made over the centuries to the New Testament. This very short letter has drawn little notice, and thank heavens for that. Like the gospels (which somehow still manage to convey the truth in bits and pieces), this letter has been edited and added to. But the letter is so short, it’s easy for me to point out the changes that were added to the piece I wrote myself as Jesus. And no, it’s not the Gospel of Thomas. The letter got saved under the name of my brother James. Yep. About half of the Letter of James is actually the Letter of Jesus. Which parts did I wrote with my own hand? (Jen is using The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha at my specific request.) I wrote James 1: 2 - 27. I wrote James 2: 1 - 8. I wrote James 3: 1 - 18. The second half of Chapter 2 isn’t mine – it’s a rant. (It should also go without saying that the flowery phrase “our glorious Lord Jesus Christ” at the beginning of Chapter 2 isn’t mine, either. I was talking about God.) Chapters 4 and 5 are also rants. There’s no divine love in them. I may have talked a tough line (as I still do), but I always balanced my toughness with compassion. It’s an easy way for you to spot the “real” words of Jesus – they’re tough but fair. Compare what I wrote in James with what I’ve been writing on this thread. Listen with your heart. It’s the same message, folks. But please don’t try to micro-analyse every word and phrase I used 2,000 years ago. Pretty please. Please use the time instead to begin to take personal responsibility for your choices. Trust me – one day you’ll wake up, and you’ll finally understand what I meant in James 1:18 without having to spend a thousand hours with a Strong’s Concordance on your lap. I love you. And so does God, whether you like it or not. Peace. Love Jesus August 27, 2005

Well, I don't know about Jesus wanting to take out people , but I sure wish he had a pair of human hands to help me take out my recycling bin. Jen