Thank you for your bold reflection, Sean. And yes ... the revelation (laying bare) is when all apparent distinctions collapse to reveal our ever-present and undeniable shared ground of being.
Rabindranath Tagore wrote:
'We are all the more one because we are many
For we have made ample room for love in the gap where we are sundered.
Our unlikeness reveals its breath of beauty radiant with one common life,
Like mountain peaks in the morning sun.'
I love this because it celebrates that from the shared ground of being comes a multiplicity and diversity of embodied form that - should we choose - can be a consciously lived expression of impersonal Love.
I’m confused Sean. U speak of a verse in John so u must hold the Bible true yet say the witnesses of Jesus’ miraculous powers in the accounts from Matthew & Luke and others are not true, feeding the 5000, walking on water…..Miraculous powers is one of many spiritual gifts along w faith, healing, tongues etc., as told in I Corinthians 12:7. I always just assumed that was one of Jesus gifts from the Holy Spirit! Not sure why u are saying these miracles didn’t happen. Not to mention all the healings he did on a miraculous level, are those all untrue as well??
I do not read the miracle stories literally. Instead, I read them as early Christian theology, stories that attempt to convey through symbolic events the nature of Jesus' power. I think they are helpful fictions.
If a man came to my village and raised a neighbor from the dead and then moved on, eventually to be crucified, I would despair. The magician is gone! But if a man came into my village and showed me that what I am in truth cannot die, and also showed me how to share this new understanding with others . . . that man would be worth following. Why? Because that man's teaching would not be constrained by time and space. It doesn't depend on him.
I think the thing that happened in those early years after the crucifixion was that Jesus' followers realized that they too were Christ. That they love and forgiveness they felt with Jesus did not end with his death. They learned that Christ is not a person; Christ cannot be contained by a body (though it can be expressed through one). Jesus was - to mix my religious metaphors - kind of like the finger pointing to the moon in the old Buddhist parable
I know not everybody thinks this way! If reading the gospels literally - if taking the miracle stories as historical fact - is helpful, then by all means folks should do it. Truly.
But I do think A Course in Miracles is gently moving us beyond all that kind of traditional reading. If bodies aren't real, who cares if they can walk on water? If there is no world, who cares if ascended masters show up in it?
I suspect the author of John's Gospel knew this and, more to the point, knew it because s/he had actually experienced it - had actually realized God-as-Abba, God-as-Love WITHOUT the historical Jesus' intervention and thus understood that the particular experience of "God as Love" is not about world or bodies, time or space, at all. Even Jesus dissolves in divine Love.
As I point out in the post, the course unconditionally calls on us to notice - and be willing to see undone - all our special relationships. We start slow - friends and co-workers, then move on to family and then eventually, we reach the most special relationship of all - Jesus. And sooner or later (kicking and screaming in my case) we give that one over, too, as the historical Jesus surely did with his own special loves - maybe John the Baptist, maybe Mary Magdalene.
For me, in my understanding and practice of ACIM - which does not and in many ways can not be anyone else's - we are called to undo all forms of specialness (which is to become willing to be responsible for projection, INCLUDING our projection of Jesus) in order that Love might freely express itself through us, without our getting in the way at all. That work is interior and communal - it is about healing in and through relationship - and it is psychological more than spiritual.
So for me a juncture came where I became willing to let Jesus go as such . . . and anyway, Jesus doesn't really leave, he just becomes more like a good friend, an ally, a fellow traveler you can count on and so forth. Hopefully not unlike you and me ❤️
Thank you again, Debby . . . I am deeply grateful to readers who invite me to think more deeply, write more clearly, and consider again the helpfulness of my perspective. In the end, the goal here is to be helpful to one another, and you have helped me. So thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
And don't give up on me! I have miles to go and much to learn :)
Thanks for explaining ur point of view. U make me think as well. Ur pointing out not to make Jesus “special” was something that honestly never occurred to me. But following the Course, this does make perfect sense! Funny u say u don’t take the miracles literally in the Bible, as a rule I don’t either, talking snake in the garden, Jonah in the whale, people turning into pillars of salt, etc., I guess it never occurred to me that the miracles of Jesus would fall into the same category! I just took those as fact…..u have given me a lot to think about today Sean. I so appreciate ur kind, gentle & humble response. I don’t currently have anyone in my life following ACIM but if I did I would surely share ur wonderful posts! Sincerely Debby……
I grew up being taught in church that Jesus was the one and only "Son of God," and, as such, was completely different from all of us "sinners." God had used a human woman as the conduit through which He brought His very "special" Son into this world, but that didn't change the "fact" that Jesus wasn't human. Jesus thought like he did because he was divine, "sinners" could not think like he did, and the only "salvation" for "sinners" was to accept that the "special" Jesus suffered and died in our place to "pay for" our "sins" with his blood. There was nothing about this Jesus to which I could relate.
It was not until much later that the thought struck me out of the blue that he was completely human and was exactly like all of us - except for the way he thought. In that instant of revelation, my entire relationship to him changed. Suddenly, I knew that his challenge was to stay the course of being a human who didn't think like other humans, and to teach us how to think that way. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I could think like he did, and "Son/Child of God" took on an entirely different meaning. I knew it wouldn't be easy to think that way, but it was now possible.
"Fortunately," soon after that, ACIM and you were dropped in my lap.
Thank you for your bold reflection, Sean. And yes ... the revelation (laying bare) is when all apparent distinctions collapse to reveal our ever-present and undeniable shared ground of being.
Rabindranath Tagore wrote:
'We are all the more one because we are many
For we have made ample room for love in the gap where we are sundered.
Our unlikeness reveals its breath of beauty radiant with one common life,
Like mountain peaks in the morning sun.'
I love this because it celebrates that from the shared ground of being comes a multiplicity and diversity of embodied form that - should we choose - can be a consciously lived expression of impersonal Love.
Namaste
beautifully put, Kirstie . . . thank you .. . 🙏🙏
~ Sean
I’m confused Sean. U speak of a verse in John so u must hold the Bible true yet say the witnesses of Jesus’ miraculous powers in the accounts from Matthew & Luke and others are not true, feeding the 5000, walking on water…..Miraculous powers is one of many spiritual gifts along w faith, healing, tongues etc., as told in I Corinthians 12:7. I always just assumed that was one of Jesus gifts from the Holy Spirit! Not sure why u are saying these miracles didn’t happen. Not to mention all the healings he did on a miraculous level, are those all untrue as well??
Thank you for asking these questions, Debby.
I do not read the miracle stories literally. Instead, I read them as early Christian theology, stories that attempt to convey through symbolic events the nature of Jesus' power. I think they are helpful fictions.
If a man came to my village and raised a neighbor from the dead and then moved on, eventually to be crucified, I would despair. The magician is gone! But if a man came into my village and showed me that what I am in truth cannot die, and also showed me how to share this new understanding with others . . . that man would be worth following. Why? Because that man's teaching would not be constrained by time and space. It doesn't depend on him.
I think the thing that happened in those early years after the crucifixion was that Jesus' followers realized that they too were Christ. That they love and forgiveness they felt with Jesus did not end with his death. They learned that Christ is not a person; Christ cannot be contained by a body (though it can be expressed through one). Jesus was - to mix my religious metaphors - kind of like the finger pointing to the moon in the old Buddhist parable
I know not everybody thinks this way! If reading the gospels literally - if taking the miracle stories as historical fact - is helpful, then by all means folks should do it. Truly.
But I do think A Course in Miracles is gently moving us beyond all that kind of traditional reading. If bodies aren't real, who cares if they can walk on water? If there is no world, who cares if ascended masters show up in it?
I suspect the author of John's Gospel knew this and, more to the point, knew it because s/he had actually experienced it - had actually realized God-as-Abba, God-as-Love WITHOUT the historical Jesus' intervention and thus understood that the particular experience of "God as Love" is not about world or bodies, time or space, at all. Even Jesus dissolves in divine Love.
As I point out in the post, the course unconditionally calls on us to notice - and be willing to see undone - all our special relationships. We start slow - friends and co-workers, then move on to family and then eventually, we reach the most special relationship of all - Jesus. And sooner or later (kicking and screaming in my case) we give that one over, too, as the historical Jesus surely did with his own special loves - maybe John the Baptist, maybe Mary Magdalene.
For me, in my understanding and practice of ACIM - which does not and in many ways can not be anyone else's - we are called to undo all forms of specialness (which is to become willing to be responsible for projection, INCLUDING our projection of Jesus) in order that Love might freely express itself through us, without our getting in the way at all. That work is interior and communal - it is about healing in and through relationship - and it is psychological more than spiritual.
So for me a juncture came where I became willing to let Jesus go as such . . . and anyway, Jesus doesn't really leave, he just becomes more like a good friend, an ally, a fellow traveler you can count on and so forth. Hopefully not unlike you and me ❤️
Thank you again, Debby . . . I am deeply grateful to readers who invite me to think more deeply, write more clearly, and consider again the helpfulness of my perspective. In the end, the goal here is to be helpful to one another, and you have helped me. So thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
And don't give up on me! I have miles to go and much to learn :)
🙏🙏
Love,
Sean
Thanks for explaining ur point of view. U make me think as well. Ur pointing out not to make Jesus “special” was something that honestly never occurred to me. But following the Course, this does make perfect sense! Funny u say u don’t take the miracles literally in the Bible, as a rule I don’t either, talking snake in the garden, Jonah in the whale, people turning into pillars of salt, etc., I guess it never occurred to me that the miracles of Jesus would fall into the same category! I just took those as fact…..u have given me a lot to think about today Sean. I so appreciate ur kind, gentle & humble response. I don’t currently have anyone in my life following ACIM but if I did I would surely share ur wonderful posts! Sincerely Debby……
You too, Debby . . . thank you again for reading & sharing . . . 🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you, Sean, as always!
I grew up being taught in church that Jesus was the one and only "Son of God," and, as such, was completely different from all of us "sinners." God had used a human woman as the conduit through which He brought His very "special" Son into this world, but that didn't change the "fact" that Jesus wasn't human. Jesus thought like he did because he was divine, "sinners" could not think like he did, and the only "salvation" for "sinners" was to accept that the "special" Jesus suffered and died in our place to "pay for" our "sins" with his blood. There was nothing about this Jesus to which I could relate.
It was not until much later that the thought struck me out of the blue that he was completely human and was exactly like all of us - except for the way he thought. In that instant of revelation, my entire relationship to him changed. Suddenly, I knew that his challenge was to stay the course of being a human who didn't think like other humans, and to teach us how to think that way. I felt, for the first time in my life, that I could think like he did, and "Son/Child of God" took on an entirely different meaning. I knew it wouldn't be easy to think that way, but it was now possible.
"Fortunately," soon after that, ACIM and you were dropped in my lap.
Love and Peace, Brother.
Thank you for sharing this Kathy. It very much harmonizes with my own experience & path. Thank you for being here. Love and peace right back :)
🙏🙏
~ Sean
Thank you for this beautiful sharing. I find it precise, clarifying
and helpfully relatable as in the previous ones. Thank you
Thank you for reading & sharing 🙏🙏
~ Sean