Six years ago...

Perhaps quite pertinent here is this journal entry:

11/8/01:

Jesus...(in the place of God Whom we cannot see) [is] being (that is) localized.

Six years I've been wrestling with this. Six years. Though I will say through this the struggle has sharpened my intellect, my focus and my faith walk which, in turn, is changing my heart. My heart has been hidden behind my intellect, my intellect a shield protecting what is really just a child's wounded heart.

It may sound strange but the deeper into the theology I plunge, the less important it becomes and the more I realize that, while it may provide a foundation, it is not the essence. But without the foundation, without that hedge, there is too much room to stray and it is easy to miss the essence.

12/2/01:

I keep having visions of the Throne Room of God...

I 'see' Jesus, taking me gently by the hand, leading me in to the Throne Room, smiling as if to say 'it is ok, this is for you, this is for every man, this is God's desire for all. Stop working so hard, allow the life that is in me to live in you. I've done the work for you, follow me. This is yours to share with me.'

I want to look upon God's glory but am afraid. I am so small, so unclean, so unworthy. My heart desires to see Him, to touch Him, to be with Him. Jesus smiles as if to say, "I know. Walk with me and you will. Come and see..."

And yet I will continue through many phases. Finalizing a degree in comparative religious studies. Islam. Jose Miranda's Marx and the Bible. Daoism. Zen. Islam. More Daoism. Interspersed throughout, of course, is my Christian walk. A Jewishness of Jesus phase, digesting Second Temple literature, immersing myself in the works of Geza Vermes, Shalom Spiegel and other Jewish scholars who provide their perspectives on Jesus.

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. I can't escape him. I may struggle with the exoteric component of Christianity and the other faiths but always seem to long for the 'esoteric' as used in Henry Corbin's understanding, the inner essence of the 'exoteric' of any religion.

This is not the bogus, Oprahfied dichotomy of 'spiritual' vs. 'religious' as without a religion in which to find spirituality all you are left with is the self. 'Spirituality' of this sort is thus really nothing more than a religion of Me. No transformation there just validation of what is already believed.

So it is that no matter where I go sooner or later I encounter Jesus...laughing, smiling, correcting, always present.

If I didn't know any better, I might think I was mad.

And thus the strengthening of the visions, the concreteness of understanding of the Trinity and, slowly, ever so slowly, the surrender.