That was the answer I usually gave to the born again “Jesus Freaks” who roamed streets and hallways looking for people to convert, back in the 70s. It would piss them off to no end.
These days, I'd say they had it all backwards. It's not a matter of you finding Jesus. He will look for his lost sheep, or so the Bible says.
This is part 1 of a multi-part series. Spirituality is important to overcoming crisis, and since our overlords seem intent on manufacturing one crisis after another ad infinitum as a means of maintaining power, turning to the spirit is essential to overcoming their assault. It's really a practical matter and I sm a pragmatist.
How Jesus Found Me
I grew up believing in God and Jesus, at least what little I knew of him. I was, by nature, spiritual, in an experiential way. In fact, back when I was still single digits, in today's terminology, you could say I identified as Jesus. He was persecuted. I felt persecuted. I made the mistake of confiding in my mother, who couldn't get on the phone fast enough with various relatives, to relate my confession and giggle and mock me. Never again.
My mother dragged us to her Greek Orthodox church every Sunday until she got tired of fighting with my oldest sister about it. Then declared us all heathens and went by herself. She was wasn't religious, to my recollection we didn't even have a Bible in the house. It was more of a social thing, and lasted until she alienated the entire congregation and they threw her out. Well, I doubt they could actually throw her out, but they shunned her out. It all started with the church bazaar, when my parents bought raffle tickets in each of our names and, miracle of miracles, my name was drawn. I had won a trip to Greece, immediately becoming the envy of the entire congregation. Members had dreamed their entire lives of visiting their home country. One offered me, through my parents, $800 for the trip. I was 15 at the time, so didn't really want to go with my mother, who suggested I take the money and share it with my sisters. That sounded fair to me, so I was about to ask if I should divide it evenly or if it would be ok to give them each $250 and keep $300 since it was technically my winnings. Too late, my mother said she had changed her mind, she wasn't giving me the prize. Instead, she was giving it to my sister to help “save her marriage.” Now it wasn't rocket science to know that a free trip to Greece would never save a marriage to an abusive alcoholic. But I also knew that 1. my mother always had her way, period, and 2. on the off chance that I won the fight, when my sister's marriage failed, which was inevitable, I would then be blamed for the rest of my life. So I let the prize go. It was “found” money, anyway. Not like I had earned it. Easy come; easy go..
My sister probably didn't even want the trip, but whatever. They never took the trip and back then, flying was not common and not cheap, and plane tickets were “use it or lose it.” So when the trip was literally thrown away, the congregation was angry. Really, really angry. “They're really mad at me,” my mother said, with an unusually solemn look on her face. One of the rare occasions in her life when she had consequences, and nobody to blame them on. I kept a poker face. I figured she was probably trying to figure out how to make it my fault. She never went back to church.
Anyway, that was long ago, and the extent of my “formal” religion. Over the next 50 or so years I explored hatha yoga, various forms of meditation, Buddhism, shamanism, Carlos Castaneda, new age, etc. I experienced various phenomena, including precognitive dreams, clairvoyance, animal communications, out of body experience, telepathy, angel encounters, and more I can't think of at the moment. I always believed in God.
And then everything shut down, about 6 months prior to 911. An astrologer/,polarity therapist friend of mine later told me her circle of “practitioners” experienced the same.
About 7 years later, my experiences started to return, sporadically and faintly.
And then Jesus found me. It all started when I was caring for my 8 angora rabbits, who live in my garage. I would play the radio, especially when cleaning their cages and grooming them, to energize me and keep me going.
70s rock & current hits on Moose 101 (I'm in Maine). After 2+ years, one day in 2018 the station changed itself while I was cleaning cages. I re-set it; a few minutes later it changed back. I re-set it again. It changed back again. This became the norm…it kept changing to a religious station called AirOne. After a couple weeks of this, I gave up and left the radio alone. Contemporary Christian. Whatever. I liked the sound. I liked the positive message. I got hooked.
I decided it was time I read the Bible. I started various times, but couldn't get past all the “begats”. I figured the old testament really was for Jewish people, so decided to skip ahead to the new testament. I read Matthew and started Mark, but found that between the tiny type size and the old English of the King James version, it was just too difficult. Then I saw “The Passion” translation mentioned somewhere, so bought that one. Phew! Not only in current English with normal sized type, but the translator provides comparative translations from aramaic, hebrew, greek and Septuagint, plus editorial comments here and there.
There's a real advantage to being introduced to the Bible late in life. There are parts that are incongruous, to say the least, that a child wouldn't recognize and then down the road it would all be rote and unnoticed. But they remained open questions for me, going forward.
I also started following a couple substackers who are writing on spirituality and religion. In the course of researching, especially when one wrote that there is absolutely no physical evidence that Jesus walked the earth, I stumbled across real, physical evidence.
On a Friday in 1980, a tomb in Talpiot, Israel was accidentally unearthed by a construction contractor. This happens a lot there. As it happened, the owner was a religious man, and notified the appropriate authorities. The son of a local resident, who was an archeology student, saw the entrance on his way home from school, and immediately ran to tell his mother. She too called. It was late in the day, close to the Sabbath, so they promised to send an archeology team first thing on Sunday. In the meantime, she and her son kept an eye on the tomb. So this was a rare occasion when s tomb would be first accessed not by thieves looking for relics to sell, but professional archaeologists looking for history.
That Sunday morning, they found 10 ossuaries, 6 with legible inscriptions: Jesus, son of Joseph; Mary; Judah, son of Jesus; Jose (nickname for Joseph); Matthew; and Mariamne also known as Mara. They were relieved to find the name Mariamne. No archeologist wanted the notoriety that would come with finding the family tomb of New Testament Jesus.
To be continued…
Hello from the UK
Many thanks for your post. "Have you found Jesus? Um, I didn't know he was lost ..." Very funny and quite the right response! There are 2 beautiful lines in the song by Bryn Haworth called "The gap".
I found Jesus, yes I found Jesus,
Or should I say that Jesus found me.
This may interest you re Covid 19.
https://alphaandomegacloud.wordpress.com/2022/08/17/what-is-the-flu-a-k-a-covid-19-and-why-vaccines-are-pointless-at-best/
Kind regards