{"id":4517,"date":"2014-12-17T11:01:52","date_gmt":"2014-12-17T16:01:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4517"},"modified":"2014-12-19T14:45:22","modified_gmt":"2014-12-19T19:45:22","slug":"conversation-with-jesus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/?p=4517","title":{"rendered":"Conversation with Jesus"},"content":{"rendered":"

My take on Jesus is that he is no more the \u201cSon of God\u201d than any of us, that we are all children of god.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter to me whether the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection are true or false.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure this world contains many things that don\u2019t fit in our Western culture\u2019s limited world view.\u00a0 It would not surprise me if there were many virgins who gave birth and many people who rose from the dead.\u00a0 I don\u2019t believe every word that was put in Jesus\u2019 mouth by the gospels, I know they were coming from a particular political take of the early church.\u00a0 On the other hand, I\u2019m sure he was a very great human being, that he brought a message of forgiveness and the love of god for all of us.\u00a0 He did his best to help those who were outcast, sick, poor, crazy, whatever.\u00a0 He pointed out the hypocrisy of the wealthy who didn\u2019t help the poor.\u00a0 He was very compassionate and very kind and very angry about injustice.\u00a0 He was crucified because he was a danger to the Empire<\/a>.\u00a0 I do believe that cry from the cross \u201cMy god my god why hast thou forsaken me.\u201d\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine someone who believed Jesus\u00a0was the son of god making up\u00a0those words.\u00a0 Once, when I was in a very painful place in my life, thinking of suicide, etc. I was at a friend\u2019s house and there was a picture of Jesus, probably on the cross because his head was hanging to the side, and I realized that he knew the depths of human misery.\u00a0 He understood exactly what I was feeling.\u00a0 I can\u2019t imagine any other god in all the pantheons who would know about that.\u00a0 They all sit on thrones up in the sky and are very holy.\u00a0 So Jesus has become a very important person in my life.\u00a0 Sometimes I call on him and he\u2019s right there.\u00a0 Other times I don\u2019t hear him, and I think that\u2019s when there\u2019s something closed in myself.\u00a0 Often he comes when I don\u2019t really expect him.<\/p>\n

Just had a conversation with Jesus.\u00a0 He heard my misery about failing with Damien, and that I had been trying to follow Jesus and maybe he was disappointed in me.\u00a0 He appeared next to me on the couch, looked at me with such kind eyes and told me I was forgiven.\u00a0 He reminded me that everything I did was motivated by wanting to help Damien.\u00a0 \u201cI was trying to follow you, and I failed.\u201d\u00a0 You did not \u201cfail,\u201d you just don\u2019t have the resources that I have.\u00a0 \u201cBut didn\u2019t you tell the disciples to heal just as you did?\u201d\u00a0 They had been living and working with me.\u00a0 They had what they needed to heal others.\u00a0 \u201cCan\u2019t you just heal if you really want to?\u201d\u00a0 That is an unfortunate notion of your control-obsessed culture.\u00a0 It\u2019s true if you understand \u201creally want\u201d to be with your whole being, and also are able to let it go to the Healing Power.<\/p>\n

Afterward I was thinking that it\u2019s true that I wanted what was best for Damien, but that when I decided to take him, I left myself out of the equation.\u00a0 Sharon Salzberg<\/a> shows how that\u2019s a mistake, how we can\u2019t do good for others if we don\u2019t take care of ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My take on Jesus is that he is no more the \u201cSon of God\u201d than any of us, that we are all children of god.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t matter to me whether the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection are true or … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-guidance","category-present-day","category-spirit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jennydeupree.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}