Posted by Roberta Grimes • February 25, 2023 • 82 Comments
Jesus, The Teachings of Jesus
Who can I turn to When nobody needs me?
My heart wants to know.
And so I must go Where destiny leads me.
With no star to guide me. And no one beside me.
I’ll go on my way and, after the day, The darkness will hide me.
And maybe tomorrow I’ll find what I’m after.
I’ll throw off my sorrow. Beg, steal, or borrow my share of laughter.
With you I could learn to. With you, on a new day.
But who can I turn to If you turn away?
– Anthony Newley (1931-1999) & Leslie Bricusse (1931-2021) from “Who Can I Turn To” (1964)
The modern western world is full of desperately lonely people. And many of the loneliest are the newly adult, where the family unit seems often to be amazingly reduced to just one person, a situation that when I was their age would have been altogether unthinkable. And sadly, too, this situation seems to be hardest of all on the youngest men, more than sixty percent of whom are likely now to remain single even into their thirties. And since historically it was during our twenties that nearly all of us were paired off and married, this situation does not bode well at all for these single young men’s happiness for the rest of their lives. People lived until very recently in vibrant multi-generational families. We lived in the same area for generations, we went to church, and it was simply assumed that we always would take care of our own. Against that backdrop it has begun to feel now, and oddly to someone who has reached her mid-seventies, as if our society is tattered and unraveling. I spoke last week about growing up in the fifties. My experience of light happened in 1954, and back then my family attended a church that on Sundays was always packed to the rafters. People tend to assume that the future is going to be some better version of today.
And so we are coming to realize that when we compare our present society to the familial security of the nineteen-fifties, we have gained so much in the past fifty years, but there also are things that we have lost. We were so eager to throw off that old fifties stuffiness for our nineteen-sixties experiment in freedom! And oh, how good it all felt at the time. My generation was right at the leading edge, and while I fortunately was able to avoid allowing the sixties youthquake to ruin my life (although I did drink a lot and smoke pot in college), I thought at the time that our experiment in letting-go was overall a positive thing. I recall that in Freshman biology class at my female college, we were taught that there were certain preferred species of trees to plant when we were on three-planting committees. And then, amazingly, in my Junior year the talk was all about “Women’s Lib,” and we were being urged to go to graduate school and all but commanded to choose “men’s careers.” That was literally how fast it happened!
Of course. women should long since have been liberated. I was a member of one of the earliest classes at my law school to graduate women in any numbers. We were fifteen percent of that class, as I recall, and I have loved my men’s career so much that after two failed retirement attempts, I now am sure that I never will retire. On the other hand, my husband hated being a physician, but he enjoys shopping and creative cooking so he retired at fifty-five and this reversing-roles thing has worked out very well for us!
But for all that we have gained, I realize now that some very important things have been lost. As I think back to the idyllic church where I grew up, I think especially of the boys my age, nearly all of whom were married in their twenties. In particular, it is occurring to me now to wonder how important a roll that church community might have played in their lives. Boys are less social by nature, and having that community structure in which to marry would likely have been important to them. Most of them remained for life in or near the same town where we grew up, while here I am, living with all my children and grandchildren fully half a continent away. But the decade of the sixties with its Women’s Liberation and its Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War turned out to be amazingly disruptive to America’s longstanding social norms! We might glibly say that there is no gain without at least a modicum of loss. But the loss of half of our young men of this present generation is a much greater loss than we should be willing to bear.
Still, I cannot regret the decline of Christianity now. Absolutely for the sake of that beautiful Being whose spiritual movement was stolen from Him after it had thrived for three hundred years, and who has spent the past seventeen hundred years loving the hundreds of millions of victims of Roman Christianity into emotional and spiritual health. No, I cannot now regret the fact that the Christianity of my nineteen-fifties childhood is well and truly dying at last.
Thomas still takes me along on some of his frequent visits with Jesus in the astral plane. He tells me that there are other guides who accompany me on most nights when I am out of my body, because he is sufficiently protective to make sure that I am never out of my body alone; but Jesus is my Thomas’s first priority. He assumes that I need no apology for that. And sometimes he simply takes me with him with amnesia for the experience, and I feed the fish or pat the deer or simply hang around while he and Jesus converse by mind. Thomas is helping Jesus to maintain His human balance. I feel like an idiot about tagging along that way, but Thomas gives me no choice in the matter. He feels responsible for me as my spirit guide, and He feels responsible for Jesus, too. On this past Thursday night, though, Jesus had a question for me, and so He called to me, and He also graciously granted to me the right to remember our meeting. This memory gradually came to me during the course of Friday morning, beginning with the memory of Jesus’s voice in my mind.
“Little One? Little One? Come here and tell me about your day.”
I was briefly confused, and then I realized that I had been sitting maybe ten feet away from them, and somewhat behind them to give them privacy. I stood and went to sit beside Jesus. It felt amazing to be suddenly basking in His glorious, silken energy. My astral body can stand up and sit down easily and gracefully, which is nice. I seem to have adjusted by now to the power of Jesus’s presence; and anyway, He seems to be remembering to tone it down a lot for me. Beyond Him, I could see that Thomas was leaning forward around Jesus to give me his stern “Don’t embarrass me by saying something stupid” look. And Jesus was looking at me the way He looks at people, as if at this moment nothing else in all of reality matters to Him, but I matter very much. He was using spoken words for English practice, so I used words as well; I find His mild, unguessable accent simply adorable. I don’t remember very much about our conversation. I was so dazzled just to be unexpectedly there with Him, and so close to Him, looking into His eyes. Omigod. Jesus was trying to learn more about what it is like to go through a normal day in America in the year 2023. But I was not a very good reporter, because what I mostly do all day long is writing and legal work. Although we have kittens now. I told Him about playing with them. I told Him how our recent ice storm broke the trees. And as happens whenever I have just been with Jesus, more and more intensely throughout the day on Friday I had that glorious sense of Jesus like a lingering, luscious scent, His silken energy and the overwhelming love that He is. All day long on Friday I was lifted and smiling.
But I think about this now, and I realize how extraordinary it is. Omigod, I know Jesus personally! I mean, to talk with Him! Isn’t this unbelievably wonderful? I don’t have to just believe in Jesus, because I know Jesus as my actual Friend. I know His mannerisms. He strokes and manipulates His sash with his fingers and looks briefly upward and away when He is thinking. He smiles that slight smile very often when He looks at you, as if the two of you are sharing a secret. Jesus gives you the sense when you and He are talking that He has all the time in the world to give to talking with you, and I know how hard that must be for Him to do when almost right away He was transforming into pale church-Jesus again, and going to greet more newly-dead Christians. His eternal life is nothing but love and service.
And meanwhile, what I have come to think of as Jesus’s Future-Church experimenting still goes on. He is speaking to the hearts of many of the young, and with results that are flat-out astonishing to see; and wherever this is going I cannot imagine, but it is clearly delighting my beautiful Friend, and therefore it is also delighting me. His mind is a great deal more powerful now than it was two thousand years ago, and young people are responding to Him with love and joy. Jesus has not been on earth as a human being for two thousand years. Instead, He has been patiently working to heal the suffering of hundreds of millions of people that Christianity has damaged. And my Thomas, and others who are close to Him have meanwhile been carefully helped Him to keep in human balance. The resulting Being is extraordinary, as I can personally attest, and as we are seeing now as He sparks all these revivals.
While at the same time, people who love Roman Christianity are still trying to find some way for it to survive. And the more I have thought about it, the more I think that Jesus’s idea of simply creating a new and genuine Christianity that is free of fear and based on His teachings alone, and housing it in some of those empty churches, might after all make the most sense. It certainly is worth a try. It would be different if Jesus was talking about only tinkering around the edges of Christianity. But, my god, Jesus’s new Christianity is so altogether different from the old Christianity that it would be a complete departure. Teachingsbyjesus.com is apparently so satisfactory to Jesus now that He didn’t even mention it when I saw Him on Thursday night, and I am told that the developers have finished their work and the website will go live in this coming week. So if we call Future Church a whole new Christianity – which of course it surely is going to be – then that will ease the transition for those who want to still call themselves Christians. All I can think is that perhaps this gives us the only chance that we still might have left to create a new beginning for a healthier Christian community. And perhaps we then might rescue some of the lives of this foundering generation of young men from their awful state of terminal loneliness.
The picture that heads our post this week is of my childhood church. It has wonderful antique stained-glass windows, and its most beautiful window takes up the whole back wall behind the preacher. It shows a brilliant life-size Jesus, resplendently dressed in red and talking with the Samaritan woman at the well. As a child, I would spend each Sunday morning adoring resplendent Jesus in His window with all its bold saturated colors as I listened to Reverend Turrell’s gentle sermons being preached as if they were coming directly from Jesus. There never was talk of judgment or hell, or ever the slightest reason to fear. That whole experience was such a beautiful exemplar for our coming Future Church!
And maybe tomorrow I’ll find what I’m after.
I’ll throw off my sorrow.
Beg, steal, or borrow my share of laughter.
With you I could learn to. With you, what a new day!
But who can I turn to If you turn away?
– Anthony Newley (1931-1999) & Leslie Bricusse (1931-2021) from “Who Can I Turn To” (1964)
Hi Roberta,
“Who can I turn to” 1964 Beautiful
I was born in 1951 in Urbana, IL in a poor section of town.
It was wonderful. We left our windows open and didn’t
lock our doors. NoTV. We had a radio and sometimes Mom let me listen to opera with her late. Often the lovers died
, but Mom said they lived happily ever after. They sang in
Italian!
The 60’s were full of emotion: I wore jeans, handmade
Hippie tops, and lots of beads Organic almonds, grains,
and Tab, lots of Tab!
The 70’s .. We still had a tinge of Eden Vietnam Watergate
The air was still sweet but waning. I did TM
We were kicked out of Eden in the 80’s Technolgy stole
our innocence. I hated computers–ugly and not part of Nature.
I started teaching English in the 90’s Taught for 20 years.
I asked for a Bible when I was 6-my parents got me a Dell
paperback for 50 cents!
I never met Jesus but I knew He existed. I didn’t care about anything but love, Love
I knew Jesus was made of Love I wanted His kind of Love
Thank you Roberta for bringing me closer to Jesus.
Oh my dear Erica, you do make me smile! A Dell paperback Bible? Who ever heard of such a thing?? And yes, my beloved friend, Jesus is indeed made of love. Being with Him, He makes you think that nothing else even makes any kind of sense, really.
Dear Roberta,
I don’t know if maybe some of Jesus’ silken energy comes along with your blog, but I sigh when I get to the end of the post! Today, especially, I felt like I was “there” in your memories, and Erica’s too. (If I knew how to make a heart emoji on my computer, I’d insert one here. ) I have siblings your age, and I like to listen to their memories. I agree that even though there are exciting and good things that arise from each new decade, we also may lose some good things that never need to be tampered with. In addition to the revivals we are hearing about, I am also thinking of the “rediscovery” of daily living that has given rise to blogs, vlogs, and posts (mostly called “hacking”); rediscovering canning, preserving, cooking, sewing, foraging, etc. At first, I rolled my eyes, “this is not new, my mom taught us all that”. But for the new generations it IS new. I had forgotten that along with urging women to “get out there” into the world of “men” for jobs, etc., some of that knowledge was put aside, and a world of “convenience” opened up. To my delight, my grandson sent me a video of him proudly showing me his homemade butter yesterday! My daughter and son in law are very attuned to nature and earnestly try to “home make” most of their food. This may not sound “spiritual” to any of you, but in a way, it is. For every new idea, invention, law, religion, whatever, has far greater reaching effects than just it’s primary intention.
This morning, I’m feeling that this new “Jesus Movement” isn’t just about religion, it’s about Life Itself. And to me, that makes it a REALLY BIG movement. Love and Blessings to you all, Fran
Hi Fran. <3
Hi Ray!
Aha…is that how you do the “emoji”? LOL. Thanks!
<3
Oh yes, my dear. what I really crave now is my mother’s pickles. How stupid is that? She used to make what she called bread-and-butter pickles every year, and you have never had anything like those pickles. Not dill. Not really sweet. They were crisp and they went with anything and you could eat them right out of the jar for a snack. I don’t even have her recipe. I think we all have something from our childhood like that, both symbol and totem of a lovely past now gone.
Thank you Roberta for your weekly words of wisdom. Born in 1950 and like you, raised Catholic and attended Catholic school. Now as a senior and no longer attending weekly mass (for at least 7-8 years), I no longer have the guilt that often plagued me by missing that Sunday morning obligation.
Being told that unless I confess my horrible sins to a priest to seek forgiveness, that I would forever burn in the fires of hell. Those and many other “Catholic” doctrines never felt quite right.
Roberta, I enjoy your writings immensely. How fortunate you are to astral travel, spend time with Jesus and Thomas and I’m grateful that I discovered you and your work during this lifetime!
Oh my dear lovely Susan, believe me, I do understand how rare and precious it is, what a gift it is that I sometimes get to spend those few moments with Jesus! I have just now made a few corrections to His website – I am working for Him – so there is that. But I would work for Him anyway. Just since April of last year – and I can’t believe that it has been only a year – I have known Jesus personally. Or, more particularly, Jesus has known me. He has a pet name for me, and we are personal friends now. Boggles the mind.
Dear Roberta,
This is a strange “aside” but I want to ask if in your emails and such, that people are expressing an increase in thoughts about “death”. I was wrestling with it this am, and thought, “I can’t be the only one”. I have been finding that with the increasing changes, the swirling and whirling of a multitude of world wide stories and news, I get at least one time in my day that the “idea” and worry of death takes ahold in me. Sometimes, I get very depressed and scared and pray earnestly.
It has been suggested to me that it is connected to “ego death”, and since we are all one, this means the “collective ego” is rearing up as well.
I feel the same way, Fran
Dear Frn and Lola, The orientation to thought about dying is a natural function of aging. The turbulence of the times also promotes such concern, such as news of attrocities from the Ukraine warring, and violent lawlessness in the States. But of course the good news here is that we all are eternal spirits who are here on Earth for an education with the hard knocks not available in our eternal home.
Oh my dear Jack, thank you for this. I can remember what it felt like to be afraid to die, and I cannot bear to have Fran and Lola feeling that way, when their lives really are eternal!
Oh my darling Lola, I am sending you the biggest hug! Your life is eternal, my dear one. and it really is possible for you to be living now with the absolute certainty of that. Perhaps try seekreality.com?
Oh my dear precious Fran, I would never want you to worry about death at all! To answer your question first, no, I am not getting more questions about death now – fewer, actually, since Craig is doing death-duty now while I am doing Jesus-duty. But my much-beloved Fran, being afraid of death is such a terrible thing! I can remember what it felt like, and I don’t want you to have to feel that way! Please consider joining seekreality.com? There is a cost, but it’s a small one. And there is an effort, too, in learning the truth, but so did Craig and I have to put forth some effort to learn the truth! Dear Fran, believe it or not, I am in my seventies now, and the older I get, the happier I get! One day closer! YAYY!! Just imagine feeling that way, dear! KNOWING that your life is eternal really does make ALL the difference!
Dear Roberta,
Your opening raised a profound question about the purpose of life, presupposing the memory block that leaves us to start out from birth with a tabula rasa, entirely innocent without meaning, purpose, and direction for living. I am reminded of a simple incident when I was a Sophomore physics major at Carnegie Tech involved in pledging; an especially bright Freshman who was considering pledging out of the blue pondered out loud about why we were pursuing physics, or for that matter doing anything at all with our lives, as we would all be dead in a few years if only from old age. Why get out of bed and do anything? By the way, he did not pledge, and I do not know how he lived his life.
You described conventional society well circa the fifties as including the nuclear family with multiple generations close in physical proximity, and anchored by community attendance at a Christian church; through associations with other church members, young men found it natural to get married, and young women looked forward to spending their lives as Mothers, and Grandmothers. By contrast, as these conventions waned, so did marriage and church attendance. Never married, or divorced and sad over that, many now live futile, lonely lives. Single parent families typically lack a Father figure who naturally served to create respect for their family, others, and the law.
By contrast, our dystopian society is about as bad as those of Brave New World and 1984. While advanced technologies, to include ample supplies of energy for power plants and transportation, have dramatically raised living standards (now to be discarded by the new Green religion), suicide rates have accelerated, and many live miserable lonely lives. My intuition is that bad as it is in the USA and in the Western Nations of Europe, it must be worse in Communist China and N Korea, and also worse in Africa from poverty and tribal strife. Perhaps the Moslem world is best off with their conviction that Paradise awaits the faithful, so hardship in life is more of a mere nuisance than any hinderance to a good, virtuous life.
It is unclear to me how Jesus will be repositioning Western society for the living the good, meaningful lives of America lost after the 1950s.
Hi Jack,
After reading the Blog and your post, I’m wondering if the 1950’s were less materialistic compared to now.
The single, younger men discussion has been of interest to me. I’ve been seeing quite a few stories on this lately. Some want partners as successful as they are which will limit the pool of choices. And it seems that many younger men are being left behind when it comes to higher paid jobs and education.
This type of mentality may be coming from our natural survival instincts that put priority on resources. Or it could be our Ego not wanting a partner less successful. Probably a little bit of both.
Maybe meeting at Church lessened the materialistic side of ourselves and allowed us to develop connections based on personal character?
Hopefully we can be nudged away from the materialism and move more towards deeper meaning.
From what I have observed, it looks like the natural trajectory is a focus on materialism when younger and then moving towards “meaning of life” as we get older. It would be nice to move towards meaning a lot sooner.
Forgot to add, no doubt social media has had a negative impact. Seeing others live (or pretend to live) lavish lifestyles will have an effect on the choices people make. One of them being getting married and having children when younger.
Dear Thomas, I do not know, but can only speak from personal experience. At 36, I had a PhD (after having been a High School dropout), and was being successful at work. I was always looking for the perfect mate (and my boss at the time always reminded me that any like-minded woman would pass me bye too), and was not even dating, being so choosy.
But I had a chance meeting with a bank clerk, and was immediately smitten. After only about two months dating, we got married 48 years ago. But there may be a wrinkle to what happened. My Mom in her Hospital bed moments before passing in 1968, 7 years before I met my wife, said that I ought to start thinking about getting married; I was finishing up on my PhD, had become a workaholic, and was not dating at the time. She added after looking up at the ceiling that the girl could even be “kinda Chinese– very strange for my NYC Jewish Mom to say. It was not until some 35 years later after marriage that I recalled the incident in light of whom I had married– my wife is Filipina, Chinese, Spanish.
Wow, incredible story Jack!
Thanks for sharing.
Sounds like you and Mrs Jack was pre-ordained.
What a great story, Jack! Wonderful!!
Dear Thomas, yes, I think it is indeed true that we are more materialistic when we are young and we shift toward becoming more spiritual in our second stage of life. It’s actually a well-known phenomenon. And the fifties were pretty materialistic, but that was right after the war and they didn’t have much. I recall that my family had two bathroom in the new house they built, and two cars and that was a huge deal.
Well, and my dear Jack, you pretty well describe the mess that our society is in now, post-fifties! Even back to caveman days, the extended nuclear family worked well. There is no acceptable substitute for it, and certainly the government as a substitute for a father in the poorest homes has turned out not to work at all.
I don’t know what Jesus has in mind now. He doesn’t confide in me! And I suspect that He might not really be sure Himself. I think that for now He might be experimenting….
I am SO glad that your blogs now appear in my regular mail instead of my spam e-mail. It makes it SO much easier to find, as I look forward to them every Sunday.
Dear Roberta…. Thank you for the work you do! I look forward to reading it every week along with all your kindred spirits who post their thoughts. Christi Pitliangas
My dear Christi, you make me smile! I love our little family here as well, and I so much enjoy looking forward to seeing what everyone will have to say. It really is most of the fun for me!
We are currently out driving and this song by Lifehouse came on:Hanging by a moment: Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I’m closer to where I started
I’m chasing after you
I’m falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I’ve held on to
I’m standing here until you make me move
I’m hanging by a moment here with you
Forgetting all I’m lacking
Completely incomplete
I’ll take your invitation
You take all of me now
I’m falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I’ve held on to
I’m standing here until you make me move
I’m hanging by a moment here with you
I’m living for the only thing I know
I’m running and not quite sure where to go
And I don’t know what I’m diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you
There’s nothing else to lose
There’s nothing else to find
There’s nothing in the world
That can change my mind
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I’m closer to where I started
I’m chasing after you
I’m falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I’ve held on to
I’m standing here until you make me move
I’m hanging by a moment here with you
I’m living for the only thing I know
I’m running and not quite sure where to go
And I don’t know what I’m diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you
Just hanging by a moment
Hanging by a moment
Hanging by a moment
Hanging by a moment here with you
———
My heart just flooded with love toward Jesus.
Hah! I love it! So beautiful, my wonderful Fran!!
Dear Fran, I wasn’t planning to write about this, it is so out there, and could sound a bit pretentious, or just deluded, but your experience with that song prompted me to. I’ve found that my guides and/or angels use song lyrics fairly often to answer questions or give me messages. They just start going in my head, maybe just the tune, and the song will be something I haven’t heard or thought of in years, that I can recall, bit when I look up the lyrics, the message is pretty clear. Recently, because of inner communications that seem to support what Roberta has been writing about recenly regarding Jesus’s possible new movement, I asked my angels to send me a message through my wife, as a sort of validation, since she seems to have a knack for that, and in one of my readings with the medium Susanne Wilson, she said as much too. Then I seemed to get a message in meditation from Jesus, and maybe even another from Mary. Yikes, am I going crazy, or is this just wish fulfillment? Maybe, I don’t know, so I thought to myself, “I’m going to need a really good sign to validate this!” I got the message “We’ll see what we can do.” The next evening, my wife turns to me and says a song has started in her head that she doesn’t recall hearing or thinking about recently. (She doesn’t even play the radio in her car these days, like you were doing.) She had the strange feeling it was some sort of message! The song was, “I’ll be there” by the Jackson 5. When I googled the lyrics, the very first verse seemed to sum it up:
You and I must make a pact
We must bring salvation back
Where there is love, I’ll be there (I’ll be there)
When I played the song for her, it was like my wife was in ecstasy, and this isn’t really her genre of music. She’s more of a rock n roll fan. I thought, wow that is pretty amazing. It doesn’t get too much better than that without some actual physically manifested sign. I wondered if this is how the second coming will be, through these sorts of inner communications, like what you and your friends have experienced with Jesus, not to mention what Roberta is experiencing. Will it be an inner second coming, heart to heart, mind to mind, Him spreading His love like that candle flame he told Roberta he wants as his symbol, from Him to us, from wick to wick to wick, influecing minds? Now Roberta is wondering if the second coming might be something more manifest, maybe a “Future Church?” It sure is pretty mind blowing to even contemplate, especially since it previously seemed Jesus didn’t want anything at all to do with churches!
This is a good thought, Scott, and would explain why certain songs or words just pop into our heads. What a good way to communicate! I’ve had this happen many times
Dear Scott, you are not “out there” with your experiences! I think more and more people are experiencing the music/song, license plates, sign on highway, dimes and pennies, etc as messages/signs, and are no longer seeing it as weird, recognizing there is a connection. And people want it. Your experience is so cool! Thank you for sharing it! I try to stay attentive to signs-not looking for them, just allowing myself to notice and pay attention to my first intuition as to who is sending, etc. I almost half thought to not share the lyrics, but I was so amped up, and noticed a sensation almost like a bright energy was pouring in. I don’t usually listen to the radio in car anymore. My husband had it on. 🤭
That’s a good point Fran. I’m trying to be more watchful for those seemingly random things that may snag my attention, and see if that may be guidance of some sort, and also to be “listening” more for guidance or intuitions, which means trying to keep a quiter mind – hard to listen if you’re constantly jabbering in your mind. I also have started doing periodic check-ins during the day just for a few moments to see what guidance or message might pop in. It does seem to create a more dynamic and interactive relationship with the guides when they see I’m paying more attention. I’m glad you honored the love energy you felt and shared those lyrics.
Wow, Scott, that is really amazing!! Jackson Five was a little past my time, but I remember that song and maybe it would make a good frame at some point.
That is usually where our frame-songs come from, actually. Thomas plays the first line or two in my mind… and now he has just done it again, with a song for next week.
It really was amazing, Roberta, and you have such an amazing relationship with Thomas, something to aspire to with my own guide, and I’m looking forward to that frame verse and blog next week. It is always a highlight of my week to read, contemplate, and be educated by your latest collaboration with Thomas, and your interactions with Jesus are so heart warming, inspiring, and exciting!
This is very sweet of you to say, my dear Scott! I always watch our post go live – at four in the morning here in Austin – and I say to Thomas, “Well, we managed another one. Who knows if we’ll be able to do it again?” But he always pulls it off, sometimes almost at the last minute.
Hi Everyone,
What I am going to express is not to hurt anyone!!!!
I have decided to leave the blog for good and the reason, like everyone or most of us, church damaged me big time!!! As I child I suffered OCD thinking!
I took everything literal that the church instilled in me! I was either going to Heaven or Hell.
I felt like I always had to STRIVE for SALVATION by being a faithful church goer, receiving the holy sacraments and of course going to confession.
It felt like I was ALWAYS trying to Attain something! My OCD got so bad that I never learned to live life! I was too afraid of hurting someone feelings, I took abuse and always forgave thinking that what Jesus would do..
I finally left the church, but, to be truthful the messages on the blogs also spike my PERFECTIONIST OCD!
I feel all this LOVE AND FORGIVE perfectly so one cane make spiritual progress is also another trap of trying to ATTAIN the UNATTAINABLE!
I don’t feel free, I still feel the stress of ATTAINING! I have often wonder if my behavior was done unconsciously out of fear of the eternal wrath?
IF Jesus wants his website to teach us Perect Love & Forgiveness and to possible start a NEW church!!
These are just words! What would be the difference between what Helen Shucman channeled in a Course in Miracles?
What more can be said that Helen Shucman already channeled? That is if you believe she did channel Jesus!
In the meantime for my own sanity, I will bow out and thank all of you for your kindness!
Dear Litsa,
I know you said you are leaving for good. Still, I pray that you will be enfolded in the warmest, kindest, safest loving energy.
You do bring up good points. Some of us were raised in much stricter and even at times, unkind environments.
Part of your message hits home to me-“perfectionism”. I suffer it at work, in relationships. I remembered randomly yesterday, telling my husband I don’t understand what instilled such a responsibility and sense of duty in me even at an early age. I felt I must protect my family, the underdogs at school, etc. I was and still am, small. The smallest in my family but strangely…fierce.
I will keep you in prayer, sister. May you know peace. ❤️
My dear beloved Litsa, of course we want you to do whatever makes you happy, but certainly nobody here is putting any pressure on you to do or to be anything at all, so leaving us will only be leaving a source of genuine love and kindness, which seems to me – and it seems to Thomas – to make little sense, my darling. Constantine’s Christianity may have damaged you, as it has damaged so many hundreds of millions of people, but Jesus’s new website will be entirely free of all of that. If you even can imagine such a thing!
Dear Litsa,
One of the most reliable, consistent reports from folks who experience the trauma of temporary cessation of heart and brain activity, but are then resucitated, is a dramatic life review in which they get to review not only what they did, but the feelings of joy or hurt that they caused others. If God were to be pushing us to be any better than we are, then such pressure would be apparent during the life review. However, without exception for the over 6000 NDE life reviews I’ve read, God never, ever applies any pressure–we are accepted and loved just as we are. The pressure comes from our own desire to be and do better, and that is an eternal journey. I pray you will accept yourself just as you are with God surely loving you as His Creation.
Thank U Fran! I have religious OCD ans I believe lots of the saints had them too.
I stipped believing Helen Shucman A course in miracles cause at the very end she too suffered from physcosis and didnt want the book printed..
I do not want to go down the same path.
I remember on the after life forum it was not necessary to believe in Jesus..
Now he is channeled with a message to all.
It is all too complicated for me and I do not want to be the Doubting Thomas of the blog.
Again Thank U for your prayer!
❤️love you, Litsa.
Litsa, it somehow doesn’t quite sit well with me that even in the afterlife we are compelled to want more (spiritual growth). That could be interpreted as pressure to achieve. I wish you the best and love you as you are.
Ah yes, my dear Ray, we do still want to grow spiritually even after we have gone home! Which is why it is such a good idea to work at while we are here – because here it simply happens so much more effectively!
Well, my dear beloved Litsa, I channeled Jesus for His website. The whole thing. Every word. And unlike Helen, I remain on such joyous terms with that beautiful Being who is the literal personification of love and light that I continue to visit with Him in the astral plane, and I am happy to defend our work to all comers. Truth is truth! Jesus is the world’s longed-for salvation. I truly believe that. At this point, nothing less will be enough.
Hello Roberta,
I was about to start writing in my journal, and saw a message that came out, after I had expressed a concern about taking steps back with “churches” being used again:
“It’s the PEOPLE who will change the “church”, NOT the church that will change the people.”
Just wanted to share that.
Fran
Ah yes, my dear Fran, but Jesus’s “Future Church” will not be the “Church” of old, simply changed. It will be an entirely new creation, from before Constantine’s “Church” was ever born. You’ll see!
Hi Roberta,
I’ve been trying to show gratitude, in the mornings (mostly), and include you, Thomas and Jesus when doing so. Appreciate everything you the three of you have done for us.
Thank you, dear precious Thomas! And I’m sure that I spead for our precious disembodied Friends as well!
Hi Roberta,
I hope I did not offend you! And thank you fornyour response.
I guess what my OCD mind is wondering, how different is Jesus’s message will be compared to A Course In Miracles?
Hi Litsa,
It sounds like you may be having a temporary panic attack at the idea of a new Church. Please forgive me if I’m wrong.
I think for most the initial idea was a tad off-putting.
Now I think of it as something we have right here. A great group of people, having interesting conversations with no fear of judgement. Just people wanting to help others.
Thinking of it that way has changed my mind.
Definitely take some time off to process everything. When If feel panic, I try to breathe it out. Works surprisingly well. Not to mention I shoveled a lot of heavy snow yesterday and it made me so tired I couldn’t panic. Haha
We’ll be here if or when you decide to return. You’re always welcome.
It is be completely and utterly different, my precious Litsa. To start with, ACIM was channeled over a number of years and it comprises a thick book with tiny print, while TBJ was channeled over just perhaps six weeks and it comprises a website of rather large print that you can read in an evening. I gave two years of my life to doing ACIM with a study group, and I still didn’t do even half of it; while you can read and make TBJ your own in one sitting. I realize now – which I didn’t know beforehand – that Jesus sees His website as His concentrated message to the world.
Hi Thomas,
Thank U for your advise. I will still read the blogs but hold back at the postings
Litsa
You’re doing great Litsa, I’m proud of you. Many times I need to take a step back in order to work things out.
Hi Roberta,
I am in the new stages of becoming “spiritually awakened” and came across your website after seeing you being interviewed on Youtube. I am a 64 year old female, married at 19, had 3 children and thought I was married for life. But it ended in divorce in 2000. I was raised in a Protestant church but stopped going at age 16. I always prayed to my heavenly father trough Jesus and felt a deep connection but did not attend any formalized religeon because all I saw was corruption and felt it did not follow the bible. And to tell you the truth I really didn’t even really understand the bible. I remarried in 2010 but now am going through another divorce. My soon to be ex is a Jehovah’s Witness. I studied and was baptized in 2010 and learned a lot about the bible but was “awakened” November 2021 when I realized how unloving and fear mongering the JW organization is. It has torn families apart and caused such pain for so many people with their shunning practices. I came to the point that I was disillusioned and thought maybe I was an athiest but that has changed again. I believe in a loving creator of the universe. Thank you for affirming my belief that the bible does not correctly report Jesus’s intention of His coming to earth. I look forward to your new website directly from Jesus and can’t wait for it to be up and running. It has only been since December 2022 that I have delved into learning about vibrations, frequencies, out of body experiences, reincarnation and astral planes and spirit guides and your relationship and meeting Jesus, all of this is so fascinating to me. I have recently started meditating but need to work at it becoming a routine and know I need to make more of an effort. I really want to get in touch with MY spirit guides and learn more of my purpose here on earth. I was a nurse practitioner and specialized in internal medicine and cardiology and loved what I did but became burnt out with the bureacracy of big business, pharmaceutical and insurance companies. I retired at age 62 during the pandemic and moved to Costa Rica and filed for divorce in May 2022. My soon-to-be ex-husband said he refuses to leave the Jehovah’s Witnesses and I came to realize he was using it to control me. But I feel a very strong pull to learn who my authentic self is and worked with a practitioner who has helped me to accept my life which has been full of struggles and pain like everyone else here on earth.
I apologize for the length of this post, but my question is, will I meet my spiritual guides if I keep up my meditation practice? I think I know the answer but would like affirmation because I feel so lost sometimes. I have made many beautiful new friends and feel my life has opened up to me and I am full of gratitude to be where I am now but long to have a relationship with my spiritual guides and Jesus and find myself crying a lot , sometimes with gratitude and sometimes for an empty feeling in my heart that I have a soul mate on earth that I have not met yet but maybe I have to accept that I might not during my lifetime on earth.
Hi there Karen. I’m so happy you found your way here. Some of my story is similar to your’s. I left Protestant Christianity at about seventeen, after learning of NDEs. I had the idea that I wanted that experience without dying. After some searching, I found a path that focused on OBEs. It also taught about reincarnation, consciousness and the universal mind. As you, I was on the verge of atheism when I found Roberta’s site. I am forever grateful.
She has a couple of posts about spirit guides (May 4, 2019 and May 18, 2019). You can type Spirit Guide in the search bar at the top of this page. Roberta will explain about meditation. The important part seems to be to get the brain to chill so we can listen, as Thomas Belknap said.
P.S. Roberta and Dr R Craig Hogan’s site seekreality.com as well as their books will provide much of the information you seek.
Hi Ray,
Thank you so much for your reply, I will look up the older posts, as well as seekreality.com
Hi Ray,
I’m still trying to get my spirit guide to speak to me. I probably made their job far more difficult than needed and they won’t respond. haha
Well, my dear Karen, you have found a spiritual family here with us! The thing about the spirit guide relationship is that it is subtle – as it is developing, it doesn’t shout. Quite simply:
1) Ask your primary guide to step outside you brain so you can more easily recognize his voice (he is probably male). He will move to just behind your dominant shoulder, and you can start talking to him back there. Thomas is generally behind my left shoulder, since I am left-handed.
2) Ask him for a name, then assume that he has said “You give me one,” and give him a male name that you like and start referring to him by that name.
3) Ask him to start giving you signs. Thomas gives me lots of number signs – 333,444, 555 on my computer clock, for example. That is big, since it is almost impossible to catch exactly those numbers randomly.
4) Start asking questions before you go to sleep, and looking for answers in your mind first thing in the morning. Be patient, since it can take awhile to get this set up to work just right.
5) Thomas and I have a strong working relationship in doing these blog posts. If there is work that you and your primary guide can do together for God or for Jesus, that really will help to build the relationship, so perhaps ask your guide to suggest something?
Dear Roberta,
Thank you so much for your reply! I appreciate all your suggestions and am looking forward to finding out what happens. To tell the truth it will probably freak me out if/when I make contact with my guide(s) so I need to prepare myself for it but I presume it will still be shocking at first.
Intrestingly enough I met a Doctor yesterday who uses a technique called neural organization technique to heal the body’s neural pathway from previous trauma that I find fascinating. I don’t think it was by chance I met him. I’m meeting him again today and hope to find out how I can learn the technique myself, and even better , he is looking for students to teach! Maybe this is the work I can do, I don’t know yet but I believe in ask and you shall receive. Yesterday I was feeling so lost but after meeting this doctor I almost feel my prayers are being answered. Thank you Roberta for your website and sharing your communications with your guides and Jesus.
Dear much-beloved Karen, you are already in contact with your guide! It is just that the contact is so subtle that you just don’t realize that fact. Simply talk with your guide in your mind as if you are already in contact – which you are – and listen for, and imagine his responses, as you follow the steps that I gave you. Soon enough, those responses really will be there!
Hi Roberta,
Thank U for your response and I agree with U on A Course In Miracles…Well maybe Jesus website will be easier to take in.
Dear Litsa,
You are definitely dear to us in this blog family already. Your struggling with these deep things is so, well, so human. We seekers of truth are so earnest about Jesus, Spirit and the greater reality and we want to see clearly.
Many of us struggle with the same and similar things as those you suggest.
To be quite frank – your struggle is a noble one. You simply care so much.
Please have a (virtual) hug from me.
🙏🏼❣️🌹
Oh my dearly beloved Efrem, each comment made here feels like a hug given to all of us!
Hi Thomas,
I tend to be generous early in the morning.
l wake at 5am and love fresh cool air and lack of zoom,zoom,zoom!
I am thankful, especially. for Roberta’s blog.
I really like
your ironic tone. It lightens up deep topics
And you encourage us Thank you
Thanks Erica, I appreciate that!
I have whacky sleeping hours since I work from home. Sometimes I am going to bed when you’re waking up. I hate it, but do try to stick to a routine when I first wake up no matter when that is. I do enjoy laying there and listening to all the zoom as you elegantly put it.
I don’t know why, but I love the sounds of the trains far off in the distance. Hopefully I can get my sleeping schedule back on track where I’m going to sleep and waking up at decent hours.
Hey Thomas,
Any routine is okay
I listen to the distant-4!-trains. They are on their endless rails, slightly above our world. I feel safe, cause they
are so punctual.
They come through before the world gets going.
Could someone please give an overview of ACIM compared with TBJ?
The former sounds a weighty tome, requiring students to give considerable time and effort whereas the website-to-be looks likely to be a comparative lightweight to study.
Are they truly comparable?
My dear Mac, ACIM is a Post-Doctorate-level course in forgiveness that was channeled by a team headed by Jesus. TBJ, also channeled by Jesus, is the teachings of Jesus as He originally delivered them 2000 years ago, with a little side course in what parts of Christianity did not come from Him (in fact, all of it).
thank you
I’ve not looked into ACIM hence I did not appreciate the course was only about forgiveness or at such a high academic level. Post-doctorate meaning higher than PhD level?
ARE the two comparable?
Two entirely different topics, my dear! ACIM concentrates intensively on a narrow cutting-edged topic today, while TBJ takes us back 2000 years and erases everything that came afterward.
Hi Efrem,
Thank you for your kind words! I think Asperger’s plays a big part in all this as well, I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone! I have so many questions, but, again, I don’t want to come off as a “doubting Thomas”!
I will check out Roberta’s TBJ website and see what is next!!!
You and I both, dear Litsa!
I will check out Roberta’s TBJ website with great interest. And we have the distinct pleasure of just seeing what we feel when we read TBJ. Just looking at it from our hearts. There is nothing better, or more honest…
Who cares what cradle-to-grave religious dogma or anyone else says. There is no one between each of us and God anyway! Jesus just loves us completely – as we are.
You know I find that after all the strong emotions that arise in us eventually settle down, the ‘yes!’ moment comes. Resolution comes after a while. Sometimes it takes me time to get there. I’d quite enjoy reading what you have to say when TBJ comes out, my dear. 🙏🏼❣️🕊
As I had surmised after your earlier response. I had no idea ACIM was so narrowly focused. (it appears to me)
Why has it (apparently) gained such importance when it deals only with one subject, do you think? And who would need to study it at post PhD level?
Mac, I think your this is a valid question your raise! I briefly looked over a ACIM and I can’t say I have every read it or worked through the book.
I think it gained so much importance because of it being channeled as the word of Jesus! Also, Marianne Williamson promoted it on Oprah as well.
I don’t want to “hog” the blog from what Roberta has discussed and if this is off boundaries, I will not post answer’s like this…
Hello. Don’t worry about being a “doubting Thomas”. I can also be one on this blog sometimes. I am taking a look at A Cource in Miracles, have made it up to Chapter 10 in the text. I am looking at it to see patterns, principles, what might be useful. I also figure it might be useful to see the philosophy of the Course before trying to do the workbook. But don’t worry about doing any of that. I just enjoy doing that. I will be later on doing the same thing to Plato’s The Republic.
I have been there with the whole idea of trying to Gain something, to Attain something, through spiritual practice. You are Here, where you want to be is There, and it seems like such a far distance. I refrained from giving advice last week because this is Roberta’s blog, But this week, why not? Let me be the black sheep.
I have seen A Lot of methods, both East and West. There is a category of methods that would be called Allowing. These are ways where you are not trying to gain or attain anything. Here is an example. Sit in a quiet space. Wear comfortable clothing, and sit in a way that is comfortable, such as a chair. Now, close your eyes, relax and breathe. Slowly draw air into your lungs, then enjoy the comfortable release of the air. As your mind wanders, gently release any thought, or at least do not encourage it by pondering it further, and refocus upon your breathing. Do this for 15 minutes.
I chose this to contrast this with Meditation. Notice what isn’t here. No long hours of sitting and gazing at one’s navel. No attempt to crush mind by mind. No attempt to gain awakening or enlightenment, no trying to achieve Heaven or Nirvana. Not even TRYING to raise one’s vibration. Simply Letting Go and Letting God, or Letting You Be You. There are multiple ways to express the principle of Allowing, so I am sure that Roberta or some other people here could come up with an Allowing practice that is more aligned with Teachings By Jesus.
I hope that is useful. I don’t have time to waste on spiritual narcissism and I wouldn’t encourage it for anyone else.
My dear Jason, the easiest forgiveness practice by far is making forgiveness balls. I explain it in The Fun of Growing Forever. I don’t have the patience for meditation, and while I did do ACIM with a study group for two years because My Thomas made me do it, I didn’t really have the patience for that, either. But you’re right: you do have to have a forgiveness practice of some kind, as ACIM says right at the start: whether you do it in this lifetime or 200 lifetimes down the road, you will do it sooner or later!
Hello. Thanks for the response. I was reading Litza’s comments from both this week and last week, She had been looking at various methods but was having difficulty because they all had the aim of gaining something, of attaining something, the struggle to get from here to there.
I stepped in this week because it appeared she had looked at your methods and was having the same problem. Therefore, I wanted to let her know there was a different way. A way that uses the analogy of the soul as a cork in water, that is held down by negative thought patterns. Instead of struggling, trying to claw your way up in the water to the higher energy levels, just Allow, let go and let God, and the cork will naturally rise up if you get out of your own way.
https://teachingsbyjesus.com/
mac. Thanks for the link.
my pleasure – I’ve been waiting to view it for some time.
Dear Roberta. So the tenet of sin is part of the New Christianity?
Oh my, yes. My dear Ray, it is just that the definition of sin is quite different. It isn’t the breaking of arbitrary old-style, Old Testament rules like the Ten Commandments, but rather now sin is the breaking of Jesus’s Commandment. It’s the breaking of God’s Law of Love. I had trouble dealing with Sin as a Core Teaching on teachingsbyjesus.com, and I’m sure I’ll be doing more with it later on, but Jesus has accepted what I said there for now.