Clothed with Power

In this new age, this ascension age, as these times are being called, we are reaching for a renewed understanding of what is real - really real.  Often I think through a very modern lens, one that combines science, physics, ancient writings - known and newly discovered - and yet so often come right back to where it all began for me - in the Gospels.  I've asked myself a million times, "Do I honestly and authentically believe that Jesus is the Christ and what does that mean?"  

And, I have sincerely come to answer with a resounding, "Yes."  As I move in and out and around so many different schools of thought on all the metaphysical information and other religions, including  scientific and religious thought - all of which I cherish for its brilliance - I return over and over again to an increasingly beautiful awareness that this precious man who lived among us, who himself was clothed and filled with power, was indeed the full human manifestation of God, born to bring us into the selfhood of God, spiritually and consciously.  

We never left God.  We have only slept in this dimension, this illusion which it is often called, unaware of who we are.  It is the power of our mind, the ability to consider something larger than all this, that allows us to open up our minds, awaken our sleeping imaginations and receive a new thought, a new idea of who we are.

When we begin to awaken, a new electrical charge surges through us, enlivening us.  It is the awakening itself that allows us to open and in opening, we receive.  I think there are a couple of ways to approach or engage with this new awareness.  One is to accept that this man, Jesus, is indeed the full expression, manifestation, of God and yet He is not the whole ocean of God.  He is a gathering of the substance of God.  If we could wrap our minds around that idea, I think we would be able to enter into his "army of light," for lack of a better metaphor at this moment. It is an army that heals, that brings life, that resurrects our sleeping souls from this soup of madness that currently presents itself as "real."

Is there another image that may work better for our modern minds that has been overburdened with church language for so long that we are immune to its meaning?  

Greg Braden, a kind of modern guru of the quantum physics / spirituality movement, drawing from some of Albert Einstein's thought, says the universe if filled with an energy field.  That energy field is like a fabric, a web, which is responsive to human thought and emotion, especially emotion.  It is creative, intelligent and powerful, which are the qualities of consciousness. That "web" is conscious.  Our modern minds can receive that. 

Now, look at the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Several years ago in an Education for Ministry class in my parish in East Aurora, NY, I asked one of the leaders, "What exactly is the Word?" His response was a bit flippant.  He said, "You know (you idiot!)  The Word is words, language."  Clearly, I knew that's not what The Word was.  It was more than that.  Our world is a babbling swamp land.  All that babbling isn't The Word. Since then, I have reflected on what exactly, the Logos, The Word is.  I have come to realize The Word is that very substance of God that fills the universe.  It is the Body of God and the Wisdom of God, which is the Spirit of God.  It is The Christ. How can I express this?

Putting on my 3-D spiritual vision glasses, I look out into the universe and it is no longer dark and vast with a sprinkling of stars.  Now, it is a glowing, sparkling, golden ocean filling the entire universe. I can see it undulating, surging rhythmically with a musical tone and radiance.  Its power is awesome.  It is heavy and light at the same time.  It breathes and exhales.  It is alive in some really awesome, yet incomprehensible way.  Maybe that is The Word.  

Now, as I step back a bit from the intensity of this awesome vision, I can see it surging and moving and forming, by its own will, into a kind of ball of fire - but it's not fire, although it's bright and brilliant like fire, it's not destructive, rather its creative.  Then I see it emerge into the form of a human body of light.  As I look more carefully, I can see that it is a very familiar light form - perhaps it is The Christ who is being formed and is stepping out of that oceanic body of light.  

Ok, so now, maybe the opening line of the Gospel of John makes a bit more sense ... let's hear it again ... "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God."

As I see Him, brilliant, sparkling, His presence is powerful, in a way that is impossible for me to convey.  This light being, in all His God-ness and all his power and light, then enters our humanity through his miraculous birth through the Blessed Mary.  (So far the Church story and language works with this new idea.) 

So often He said to us during His time among us, that his teachings "are for those who have eyes to see."  What did he mean? Possibly he meant we could see who He is and from which (Who) he came only through those special 3-D glasses, which are our spiritually awakened eyes and imagination.  What he said and taught and did only makes sense through that awareness.  Soon you come to realize that it was never about worshiping him in a Golden Calf kind of way.  It was learning how to see the way he was teaching us to see and then and only then could we understand who he is.  Although He now has returned to his Source, yet He continues to be as he was. 

One of the things He said to the woman at the well, "If you drink the water (wisdom from the source) that I give, you will live (eternally and authentically)."

“Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” John 4:13-14

It is His knowledge of this great truth of who He is and who we are that will open our minds and in that opening, we will become eternally conscious. It is His knowledge that is The Word.

And, even more awesome.  He said we were like him.  We are these amazing brilliant, powerful, light bodies.  That is who we really are and yet we can't see who we are.  We couldn't handle this because it challenged our worldview so heavily.  It meant everything would have to change.  We would have to grow up spiritually, open our minds and live with the power that is there - His power, given to us, by virtue of our innate creative being.  

It has been (and still is) our natural response to want to worship Him and yet in worshiping Him, as we have done for the past 2000 years, we continue the separation. We have to be careful not to commit idolatry. We must, rather, allow Him to clothe us with His power. We must open our minds and engage around the idea of who He really is, and then open our hearts - which is what he is asking us to do - and allow Him to fill our hearts with His light, power, brilliance.  Maybe it is there already and we have to open our minds to see it and that unleashes it. This is grace, an act of God to open us to receive who we really are, to remove our veils that blind us to the truth of who He is, from who He comes, and who we are, children of the Living One that fills the entire Cosmos with His Being. 

I think it is through an awakened understanding, found in the imagination, that we can embrace this idea, open our minds, step away from the world's gluttonous table, and walk with Him, listen to Him, learn from Him and then join Him in His campaign to bring the entire human race, and all of creation, into alignment with the power and light of what only is real, which is this vast ocean of intelligence. We can open our minds, unleash our power and ignite our heart light.  We will find that the intelligence of the universe, that living power is God's being of which he and we are part.  

Then, as I looked back at that vision, I saw human beings doing that.  I saw them opening their minds and as they did that, each one began to glow from inside themselves until their entire beings were transformed into that sparkling, glowing light power.  They expanded and radiated, they lifted up and were so joyous that I could feel their joy as clearly as I could see their light.  I saw that they had been clothed in power, just as he promised he would do at the end of the Gospel of Luke.

What could be more wonderful?  What could possibly be more wonderful than this?  that thought is the one that opens the door to Him and the rest you already know.  We all know this because we've all been there since the beginning and somehow we all - one by one - will remember.  It's not a religion thing.  It's a truth thing.