Abiding

[I was not thinking about the Enlightenment or the Illuminati, or any such thing, when out of the blue, as it were, I heard Him say],

You are only as enlightened as your last illumination.

[Obviously He intended me to ponder that, so I did – and eventually responded]:

To receive illumination, one must abide in you. Then it comes as a matter of course, like physical healing.

When I walked the earth, each thing my disciples and I encountered became an opportunity for illumination, for those who had eyes to see it. Not all did.

Was the Bible filtered, to keep it simple – and profound?

You are asking if the Gnostics were right.

I did not realize I was, but as you say it, I see it. Part of me – the ego-driven part – wishes there were a hidden volume of secret wisdom, kept from us because, in the immortal words of Col. Nathan Jessep, “you can’t handle the truth!”

There’s a part of each of us that believes we can handle it, and that it has been purposely hidden from us.

Why would I do that? The other one entices the entice-able with suggestions that I or my Church have withheld truth, because it would make men like gods. Have you not heard that enticement before?

We have, Father. That was the temptation put to Eve. You had asked of her and Adam the same thing you ask of each of us: to trust and obey. Nothing has changed.

Why did I create mankind?

To become your companions for time and eternity – freely, of our own volition.

What would make a boon companion?

Someone who loves you enough to trust you, no matter what. Who will give you instant, exact obedience, regardless of what it might cost. Who has demonstrated under fire that you can trust them. And who never doubts your perfect love, even when it appears you have forsaken them.

Well answered, my son. Did it take great discernment or wisdom to arrive at that definition?

No. Anyone earnestly seeking you is going to wind up there, whether they are on clean-up detail in the kitchen, or a centurion in charge of a thousand troops. The lessons on the Way of the Cross are not hard to grasp. The difficulty comes in applying their simple truth to our complex lives.

Is there any hidden knowledge that would make it easier?

No. Everything we need for the journey is either known already or easily knowable. Your love – is where we begin. Your grace – encourages to believe we can do it, when the other one is doing his utmost to convince us we can’t. Your precious Blood – has already bought our souls for eternity.

And – we have each other. You put us on the path with other pilgrims who will be able to help us, when we need their help. Often, they will have surmounted obstacles now confronting us. Armed with the word of their testimony and the Blood of the Lamb, we can overcome – anything.

We know that in our heads. We are still learning it in our hearts. Each time you ask a new, seemingly impossible thing of us, we are learning that you would not ask, if we could not answer.

Book of Secrets? We have it already, though its contents are hardly secret. Your Word chronicles all that you have done with us – and are doing and will do. Easy to read, mark, learn, and inwardly absorb, it is a living entity that meets each reader at whatever level he or she chooses to enter. A young child laughs at its easy-to-picture stories. An aged scholar is overwhelmed, as with metaphysical tweezers he carefully lifts off each gauze-like layer of meaning.

At the end of his life, the great theologian, Karl Barth, was asked if he could sum up all he had learned in a lifetime of probing the mysteries of the Christian faith. He thought for a long moment, then smiled. “Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”

-David Manuel, Dec. 31,2007