A Jesus Christ Series – Part 1
Several years ago in a conversation with Donovan Thesenga about Jesus Christ (a topic I initiated with Donovan) he expressed his sense that I would someday know Jesus Christ in a profound way. He himself has had several encounters with Jesus Christ, and from the reality of these experiences felt pretty sure that my inquiry and seeking would lead me to similar realities regarding Jesus Christ. I hold this out as a possibility for me. I would say it is my positive intention to experience such a relationship, but I am equally aware of my negative intention pushing away the Light of Christ. And here I stand.
Over the past years I have addressed my wrestling with Jesus Christ in a number of these blog entries, and over the past several weeks I have experienced another Jesus Christ wave coming over me, drawing me deeper into this exploration. This particular wave began with Brian O’Donnell, a senior Pathwork Helper residing in Ann Arbor, MI. Over the past few months I have participated in several Pathwork Helper meetings that he skillfully supervised. At the beginning of each meeting he would begin with an attunement that usually included inviting in the presence of Jesus Christ. I remembered another Helper meeting he facilitated several years ago, and there, too, he openly invited the presence of Jesus Christ. Obviously he has a relationship with Jesus Christ that is not familiar to me, so I was drawn to have a personal helper session with Brian on the subject of Jesus Christ. The time set for this session was 3:30 Thursday, July 11, 2013.
Merely setting this meeting up with Brian began bringing in more Jesus Christ energy it seemed. On Wednesday, July 10, the day before the meeting with Brian, Pat and I had a session with Sage and Anthony, and then my regular session with my helper Moira was from 2:00 to 3:00 on July 11, leading right into my session with Brian at 3:30.
This Part 1 of this Jesus Christ Series includes parts of our session with Sage and Anthony on July 10. For the Skype session with Sage and Anthony on Wednesday Sage and Anthony seemed to be in a different place than usual, a setting unfamiliar to me it seemed. Actually it turned out to be Sage’s office in the kiva where Pat and I had had actually slept during our intensive two weeks earlier — I just was not aware at that time.
Of course for the call Sage and Anthony sat along side each other, but I noticed in the background right between them a picture on the wall that reminded me of a picture of 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple with the Scribes and Pharisees around him. I had seen that picture somewhere in my elementary school days at St. James Lutheran Church in my hometown of Quincy, IL. Early in the call I mentioned that the picture on the wall reminded me of this familiar picture of Jesus. To my surprise, immediately Sage said it was, actually, that very picture. It was indeed the young Jesus in the Temple. The synchronicity of this coming up now, the day before my call with Brian O’Donnell (recalling that I had not even noticed when we were staying in her office two weeks earlier) was not lost on me, and I shared how I was preparing to speak to Brian the next day about my relationship with Jesus Christ.
Sage explained how one day she found the picture in an old antique store near the Pathwork Center in Phoenicia and said to herself, “Oh man, I have to have that!” Sage: Isn’t it funny that it is right here between us! I love it. Gary: So familiar from my youth – and tomorrow I have a session with Brian on his relationship with Jesus Christ – I am wanting to ask, “Brian, what is that all about?” – this is the subject of the session. Then just this morning during my exercise walk I listened to Pathwork Lecture 19 Jesus Christ. From this lecture I see how, in my dark aspects I push against the Light that Christ is, “cringing at the Light of Christ” as this lecture says in ¶5 of Lecture 19. I ask myself, “What is this resistance in me to the Light of Christ all about?” Sage, I do not want to detract from our session here, but it seems so providential that this picture hangs there between the two of you and that I now am noticing it. Sage: So why do you push away any of the beautiful parts of yourself? That pushing away from the Light of Christ is a part of this bigger picture of pushing away beautiful parts of yourself.
Anthony: When you were drawing our attention to this picture I was associating this with how Sage and I think of our work with each other and with couples. What we call our work is Reverent Relationship. That’s what we are really attempting to live in our own relationship, but also that captures some of what we want to convey to the couples with whom we work. So it seems that that picture of the Christ between us could speak to that also, how to preserve the reverence of the Temple, the spiritual place of relationship, how to preserve that, or safeguard it.
Sage: I think another aspect too, Gary, that may be relevant here, is that for me, when I ask why am I drawn to that picture and why do I want it in my life, not that I didn’t grow up with all of those images and the deeper meanings of them, but that picture in particular shows the young Christ, and it’s the young Christ trying to bring the new teachings to the “old farts,” the ones who were entrenched in dogma and entrenched in beliefs that are very harsh and negative and dark.
Sage: So the Light of Christ is trying to come to those fixed dark negative ways of thinking and being. Just as I said to you earlier, just as a thought for you to consider, intra-psychically, see wherever you have those Scribes and Pharisee, those rabbi places in you, and internally consider that possibility of bringing in that Christed One, that One of Light, that One of the Shining up against those dark rigid negating beliefs in you that previously wouldn’t allow for that Christ, would crush that Christ, deny that Christ.
Gary: That is extraordinarily relevant. Perhaps it is the twelve-year-old Christ I am looking for rather than the adult Christ. Just wanting that Light of Christ as part of my life and wanting what Lecture 19 speaks of as the Light, the Light that Christ is. This Pathwork Lecture 19 Jesus Christ was given on December 20, 1957, the first year of the Guide’s teachings. As I listened to this lecture this morning I was gripped by my pushing against the Light, the Light of Christ which the Guide said the people of darkness rebel.
There is a place in me in which this picture gets set up – I have my 12-year-old Christ with freedom and joy and light and peace, and I have my inner dogmatic piece – and these two energies are fighting against each other. It’s like my 12-year-old Christ is trying to get a foothold in facing all this rigid dogma that I have been in for these 70 years of my life. Yes, the synchronicity of this experience at this time is not lost on me.
And thank you, Sage, for sharing how meaningful the Christ is for you. This is very relevant for where I am just now. Sage: I love sharing Christ things. Pat: I’m glad to hear that! As we talk about that picture or the very evocative things that are in the kiva of your offices, or the things that are up on my altar, or even other people with whom we come in contact – there is a level, or a dimension, where we are people on the earth and in bodies, but there are all levels of living that we are, all at the same time – like when you speak of the Christ, sometimes I have this sense that the Christ energy, or the movement of the Christ arises here, just like Lucifer does. I would say to you that is not foreign at all, it’s not a story, it’s not a figment of my imagination, it’s a living thing that goes on here. … I’m loving it that you are both shaking your heads, “Yes!” Sage: I love that you Know that. And I love that what you are saying is that it is beyond any theological concept, rather it’s a Knowing, it’s a Feeling deep inside, it’s an experience. Pat: Right … Right … Right!
Gary: And in Pathwork Lecture 18 Free Will, right before this Jesus Christ Lecture there is a section that talks about Faith as that inner Knowing rather than faith as an intellectual belief or statement. It’s a deeper Knowing that’s beyond words. And you don’t have to give voice to it. You just Know it and you bring that Knowing energy into your Life. (open this short Pathwork quote on Faith) The idea is that Love and Knowing and Wisdom are all One. Sage: Yes, along with Truth. Pat: Yes, Love and Truth are the same thing, you’ve said that before, Sage.
Pat: Which cycles us back to this place of Reverent Relationship. I get a glimpse of all levels of living and yet here are Gar and I bumbling along, groping, the Guide says groping a lot. I’m really amazed that I get to be in this relationship with Gary. Even though being in this relationship throws everything up, all your stuff up – blindness, resistance, denial. When I open up and see, I can feel the power of my resistance, or the power of my denial. Gary: This resistance and denial contribute to the contraction, but it is a Knowing within the contraction that the contraction is OK. It’s not fighting against the contraction but just being aware of how much resistance there is in me to a deeper connection with you, Pat, … and with you, Sage and Anthony, and of course with Christ, and, in the end, with myself – just to be face-to-face with that resistance. There is a perplexity about why am I so resistant when I at the same time I long so much for Love and Connection – for a Reverent Relationship. Just to be right here, facing this conundrum. … The session with Sage and Anthony went on for another 40 minutes.
Later Pat and I Googled the painting and when we found it we shared this with Sage and Anthony. … Hi Sage, Such synchronicity. I found the picture on line and ordered a 20×16 print. It was painted by Heinrich Hofmann in 1881. He also painted the most popular painting of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Continuing the search, Pat found out that these two paintings and one more by Hofmann were purchased by Rockefeller for the Riverside Church in New York City (the church of Harry Fosdick fame).
Sage responded… including these references: Gary, you may know of these two books but if you don’t, I wanted to suggest them. I know…you don’t need more books! But, in my own journey to reconcile the Christ I am in love with and feel the presence of..with what I was taught, I found these two books. Love Without End and The Keys of Jeshua. Both are written by a woman named Glenda Green. She also has a website and offers meditations each Sunday. I found both of these books so kindred to my own mystic. The words of Jeshua offering to me a deep and soothing sigh. Ahhhh, that’s who I always knew you to be. … Yes, Jeshua is definitely seeking you as you are obviously seeking Him.
Shared in love, Gary