Anyway, I then found a ACIM study group that was near me on meetup.com and I thought that maybe in this setting I would feel differently. It did change things some, but I realize looking back, that the core, metaphysical-truths of ACIM were never discussed. However, one member of the group had the book “Disappearance of the Universe” and it looked interesting. She (the other member) had started reading it several times, but now just carried it with her to ACIM group! She told me I could just take it because she wasn’t reading it.
Well that was the beginning of a firestorm in my life, it was 2009. I couldn’t put the book down and I began to try and study ACIM, but I still had so much trouble understanding it. However I kept trying because of “Disappearance…” In this group there were several people that had done Vipassana meditation and I thought that sounded cool. The good thing that had come out of my stint with Buddhism was that I had become a “meditator” and had been meditating over 10 years at that time. So Vipassana sounded very cool. I decided to lock myself into my house for two weeks and only meditate or read ACIM. I wanted no distractions, even the distraction of food, so I prepared a big tub of beans and rice to eat for two weeks. I shut my phone off, locked the door, parked my car in the back and went into the house for two weeks. I sat and read… when I would come to a particularly confusing sentence, I would stop, read the sentence over and over and if it still didn’t become clear, I would just meditate on it. I spent long periods meditating on some passages. In two weeks, I completed reading the entire “Text” and “The Manual for Teachers.” I spent little time on the “Lessons.”
Yes, I was startled! But as the feeling of being startled grew in me, the more translucent this guy became. He said that he didn’t want to scare me, and wanted for me to know that form had no reality. As he became almost ghost-like, I calmed down and started to feel the emotional wave engulf me again. He began to laugh heartily and I intuitively knew that it was Jesus. I had recently read “The Shack” and Jesus appeared to me like I saw him in my mind’s eye reading the that book. I had just read “Disappearance…” so I started laughing with him and calling him J. Gary Renard called Jesus J in his book. The emotional wave grew even more and we talked and laughed and talked and cried… I can’t even remember what was said then even shortly after, I could only remember the feelings of love, peace, contentment, satisfaction, respect, humor and excitement all balled into that emotional wave.
Now this started a wonderful beginning to the rest of my time in the house, with much I could share, but I just wanted to introduce you to J. J and I have talked ever since. Constantly for 10 days and then occasionally for quite a few months and now constantly again.
That is the condensed version of my experience meeting J. There were some breathtaking and wonderful things that transpired over the rest of my “lockdown” time with J, but I wanted to share just the basics.
Image of Savannah’s Jesus doll. She used to not be able to even say the word Jesus, for almost a year she had to call him Jeez. Nothing to do with the story above, really, just was my (savannah’s) certainly less stellar encounter with Jesus, giggle)
