Visionary appearances of Jesus to ordinary people I know have occurred over the years. It is much more common than people realize. One story - A elderly Jewish woman from an orthodox background I have known for 30 years (now 98) had one 40 years ago. Her son had become a Christian. He had been giving her a standard evangelical message - Jesus died for your sins, he is the son of God, believe in him for eternal life and so on. One day Jesus appeared to her, she exclaimed, “Lord, you’re younger than I expected!” She then felt his love settle on her and she cried out, “ You love me like I love my grand children” She has walked with the Lord since. When she saw her son next she chastised him for not clearly telling her about the love of Jesus.
Do a bit of online research and you will see that visionary and dream appearances of Jesus have been happening to Muslims in the Middle East resulting in conversions.
Michelangelo and William Blake were right about God.
From a Biblical perspective the nature of God is seen as reflected in aspects of the created order. Yes, God to a certain degree does have the nature of space, wind, emptiness, mist, air, sky, force, energy, light, darkness so congenial to Buddhist/Hindu/New Age types. However humans as being made in the image of God, are the best representation of what God is like – especially a human at their highest development, a mature, wise, good, vital 50+ man or woman. I knew a dynamic, spiritual woman in her late sixties, another one in her eighties. They both reminded me of a female God the Father carrying personal authority and full of love and kindness and approachable.
To me saying God is NOT like a man – Our Father in Heaven - is dumbing God down, making God less than what he is, flattening the divine out, a less than human gas. In a true sense since humans are made in the divine image, humaness is intrinsic to God, God is even MORE human than we are, as our humanity is but an image of that which is being imaged. though divine humanity is an infinite multidimensional cube compared to our simple flat squares. God is even more perfectly human than us who are echoes, a flatter image of him.
There is much wisdom and truth in Michelangelo’s and William Blake’s depictions of God as a dynamic, active, wise older man. Far from being simplifications of God they point to his personal depth, his danger, his joy and love and perfect humanness and the familiarity and commonality we encounter when we meet him for he is like us for we are patterned after him.
In all this talk of a wild Christianity I see no talk of the wild spiritual life of Jesus had with God the Father. A wild life we can also have as being fellow sons of God filled with the Holy Spirit – John 1:12, Galatians 3:26, 4:6. A wild Christianity with the Father because it is empowered by the Holy Spirit doesn’t need nature immersion to happen, though having the privilege of nature immersion I suppose may be a useful adjunct for many. After all when Jesus gave prayer instructions in Matthew 6 he said to close the door to your room!, not to go forest bathing.
When you look at the actual spirituality espoused by Jesus and practiced by him in the Gospels it is utterly unfashionable by those who look to non-dual awareness, and “Christ Consciousness” "ground of being” as the ticket. No, nothing as ethereal as that! A Father in heaven, “pray to your Father who is there unseen”. Jesus was by no means ashamed of the old man and talked about and to him a whole lot. God speaking in an audible voice, expectation of specific even miraculous answers to prayer, lifting eyes in prayer, a robust intensely personal God the Father that isn’t you, but you can know, and directly know his love for you as an individual.
Jesus on the cross cried out “My God, my God why have you forsaken me” far from being a cry of abandonment it was act of teaching and prophetic proclamation – which was a part of his job at the time, it was a quote from the first line of Psalm 22 which contains prophecy of what was happening at the moment, and was a statement of deep faith and knowing.
I could go on and on with more examples from all over the Bible of this wonderful dualistic experience of the Living God. The Father made us as individual humans and intends to keep us that way. This is all very childlike as Jesus says we are to be. I know vigorous attempts have been made to squeeze this knowing of the Father and the Biblical record into a new orthodoxy of a “wiser” quasi-Buddhism.
However The final state presented as the ultimate is us embodied as individual humans even as Jesus is now, in the presence of God, in a new physical creation of multiplicity, filled with the Holy Spirit, not generic vanilla pudding non-duality. Sounds like fun to me, which all children delight in.
By William Blake - we shall hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice. . . . . . And round the tent of God like lambs we joy . . .
Great post; I've been pondering that loss of "porosity," as you call it, quite a lot. It seems to be innate, and yet so many have lost touch with it. Then again, my wife was only the other day casually telling me that when she senses angels or other such things in the vicinity, she can in fact see a kind of haze or "thickness" in the air. So it's still around, of course, and in my experience more frequently among women.
Visionary appearances of Jesus to ordinary people I know have occurred over the years. It is much more common than people realize. One story - A elderly Jewish woman from an orthodox background I have known for 30 years (now 98) had one 40 years ago. Her son had become a Christian. He had been giving her a standard evangelical message - Jesus died for your sins, he is the son of God, believe in him for eternal life and so on. One day Jesus appeared to her, she exclaimed, “Lord, you’re younger than I expected!” She then felt his love settle on her and she cried out, “ You love me like I love my grand children” She has walked with the Lord since. When she saw her son next she chastised him for not clearly telling her about the love of Jesus.
Do a bit of online research and you will see that visionary and dream appearances of Jesus have been happening to Muslims in the Middle East resulting in conversions.
You may enjoy this. Something I wrote years ago.
Michelangelo and William Blake were right about God.
From a Biblical perspective the nature of God is seen as reflected in aspects of the created order. Yes, God to a certain degree does have the nature of space, wind, emptiness, mist, air, sky, force, energy, light, darkness so congenial to Buddhist/Hindu/New Age types. However humans as being made in the image of God, are the best representation of what God is like – especially a human at their highest development, a mature, wise, good, vital 50+ man or woman. I knew a dynamic, spiritual woman in her late sixties, another one in her eighties. They both reminded me of a female God the Father carrying personal authority and full of love and kindness and approachable.
To me saying God is NOT like a man – Our Father in Heaven - is dumbing God down, making God less than what he is, flattening the divine out, a less than human gas. In a true sense since humans are made in the divine image, humaness is intrinsic to God, God is even MORE human than we are, as our humanity is but an image of that which is being imaged. though divine humanity is an infinite multidimensional cube compared to our simple flat squares. God is even more perfectly human than us who are echoes, a flatter image of him.
There is much wisdom and truth in Michelangelo’s and William Blake’s depictions of God as a dynamic, active, wise older man. Far from being simplifications of God they point to his personal depth, his danger, his joy and love and perfect humanness and the familiarity and commonality we encounter when we meet him for he is like us for we are patterned after him.
In all this talk of a wild Christianity I see no talk of the wild spiritual life of Jesus had with God the Father. A wild life we can also have as being fellow sons of God filled with the Holy Spirit – John 1:12, Galatians 3:26, 4:6. A wild Christianity with the Father because it is empowered by the Holy Spirit doesn’t need nature immersion to happen, though having the privilege of nature immersion I suppose may be a useful adjunct for many. After all when Jesus gave prayer instructions in Matthew 6 he said to close the door to your room!, not to go forest bathing.
When you look at the actual spirituality espoused by Jesus and practiced by him in the Gospels it is utterly unfashionable by those who look to non-dual awareness, and “Christ Consciousness” "ground of being” as the ticket. No, nothing as ethereal as that! A Father in heaven, “pray to your Father who is there unseen”. Jesus was by no means ashamed of the old man and talked about and to him a whole lot. God speaking in an audible voice, expectation of specific even miraculous answers to prayer, lifting eyes in prayer, a robust intensely personal God the Father that isn’t you, but you can know, and directly know his love for you as an individual.
Jesus on the cross cried out “My God, my God why have you forsaken me” far from being a cry of abandonment it was act of teaching and prophetic proclamation – which was a part of his job at the time, it was a quote from the first line of Psalm 22 which contains prophecy of what was happening at the moment, and was a statement of deep faith and knowing.
I could go on and on with more examples from all over the Bible of this wonderful dualistic experience of the Living God. The Father made us as individual humans and intends to keep us that way. This is all very childlike as Jesus says we are to be. I know vigorous attempts have been made to squeeze this knowing of the Father and the Biblical record into a new orthodoxy of a “wiser” quasi-Buddhism.
However The final state presented as the ultimate is us embodied as individual humans even as Jesus is now, in the presence of God, in a new physical creation of multiplicity, filled with the Holy Spirit, not generic vanilla pudding non-duality. Sounds like fun to me, which all children delight in.
By William Blake - we shall hear his voice.
Saying: come out from the grove my love & care,
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice. . . . . . And round the tent of God like lambs we joy . . .
To lean in joy upon our Father’s knee
Great post; I've been pondering that loss of "porosity," as you call it, quite a lot. It seems to be innate, and yet so many have lost touch with it. Then again, my wife was only the other day casually telling me that when she senses angels or other such things in the vicinity, she can in fact see a kind of haze or "thickness" in the air. So it's still around, of course, and in my experience more frequently among women.
I have had some mystical experiences as well and it has taken me a very long time to process. I used to be an agnostic.
Thanks for this, Michael. I recently picked up a volume of Underhill’s writings. I can tell already that I will get a lot out of them.
Did you and your friends mance any tulpas?