The Light in Every Thing
Deeper conversation on the mysteries of Christianity with Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans, directors of the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America.
In this podcast we engage the great questions of life and do this through a spiritual approach to Christianity made possible through contemplative inquiry and the science of the spirit known as Anthroposophy.
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The Light in Every Thing
Seeing Christ with the Eyes of Soul: the “Clouds” & the Second Coming — Mission Series III
What if Christ’s Second Coming is not a distant, future event but is already underway—perceptible now through what the liturgy of the Christian Community calls “the eyes of the soul”? This radical perspective challenges both traditional Christian expectations and modern spiritual assumptions.
Jonah and Patrick explore the depths of the Ascension mystery, especially in its connection to the riddle of Christ’s return. Through close readings of Scripture and insights from the liturgy, they reveal that Christ’s reappearance does not depend on physical sight but on a new organ of perception—one cultivated through love and devotion. This is a seeing that can behold him in the “being of the clouds.”
But how can we come to see in this new way? The conversation turns to prayer and the mystery of clouds. Just as water rises, becomes cloud, and returns as rain, our prayers ascend as love-forces that can be gathered and poured out as blessings. When we direct these soul-forces toward Christ, we form the very medium through which he reveals himself—not in a single place, but like lightning across the heavens: a universal presence, made visible through devotion.
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The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
Thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together,” and the legacy of our original show-notes and patreon producer, Camilla Lake.
Morning Patrick. Good morning Jonah. Well, it's our last in-person episode. It's a threshold, it's a moment. Yeah, in the future we'll be doing this over Zoom. It might not be Zoom. Oh yeah, there's some other platforms, there's some other options that. I'm kind of excited about. Well, I always appreciate your technological creativity and expertise.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Otherwise I'd be lost.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sometimes you've had to suffer it too.
Speaker 2:Well, but you know, because I don't have it. I take the good with the bad.
Speaker 3:Like did he press record? Did he remember the memory card, the memory card? Does he know how this machine works? Why did it run out of power again? Because I certainly don't, yeah, but we didn't fire the tech guy. He kept with it, he kept it.
Speaker 2:Well, dear friends, welcome to another episode of the Light in Everything.
Speaker 3:This is a place, a digital space, and in this place we seek real conversation that wants to reach into the depths of Christianity. We begin our sessions here at the Light in Everything with a word from the Gospel of John, in the 8th chapter. Again, jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
Speaker 2:Darkness but will have the light of life. Yeah, so what's living in my heart from our past two conversations is this question of mission, and in our first conversation we talked about the general mission of the Christian community, of the universal impulse of Christ. Like a seed that is unfolding gradually and just as you don't see necessarily the blossom in the seed, nevertheless it's contained somehow in the seed and comes out later, or the particular leaf or the branch, and I thought that was just a really good image to then picture that Christianity as a whole can be unfolding from the seed of Golgotha and have different expressions along the way that unfold not only the general mission to become a full tree, but also a particular mission. Like the leaf has a particular purpose. Right, it's part of the whole.
Speaker 3:Right, but it's also unique. It's part of the whole Right. But it's also unique relative to the stem and the blossom.
Speaker 2:It has its own task within the whole. Yes, and I thought that was just a good way to differentiate the Christian community movement for religious renewal, which is our full title.
Speaker 3:Born in 1922. Right. So in a specific moment of time in a specific place in Switzerland.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 2:So we understand ourselves fully connected to the universal church, the universal body of Christ that was planted at the turning point of time on the hill of Golgotha, and like a leaf, we have also a particular task movement for religious renewal.
Speaker 2:And I think in the first discussion what particularly touched me was when you were talking about thinking and the new role of thinking in the development of Christianity that comes to expression in our service. Take this into your thinking, so live in our thoughts the new confession, the new faith thoughts. The new confession, the new faith Thus thinks in us Christ's suffering and death. And that this emphasis that we can now think as individual spirits, we can now start to think the cross, think the resurrection that, at least liturgically expressing itself through a sacramental liturgy that has a very unique expression in our movement. It doesn't find itself in other liturgical movements of the past. And then in the following conversation you brought this beautiful kind of universal mission of all Christians which comes from Matthew, matthew 26, I think 28, the last chapter Right the Great Commission, where Christ Jesus says to all of his disciples go and baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:That also touches on a universal every Christian is called to baptize in the name of the Trinity. And then yet we talked about how it comes to a particular expression in our liturgy where we're kind of collaborating with crossing our forehead and our larynx, chin area and our heart with the Trinity. Father God be in us, son God create in us. Father God be in us, son God create in us. Spirit God, enlighten us.
Speaker 3:Well, through you, you really connected up to that early church interpretation that's not the right word Knowledge, understanding. That's expressed certainly also in St Paul's writings, but also in, for example, the Gospel of Luke, where in Luke's Gospel, I believe, chapter 12, he looks at Golgotha and exclaims I have a baptism which I am constrained until it is fulfilled. I am feeling the pressure to go to this immersion, and it's an immersion in the mysteries of dying and death, and that's what Paul emphasizes. It's not about the water, it's about the dying through the waters. Through the waters, you submerge yourself in the waters and emerge to be newly imprinted. And so, you see, as we did in that beautiful conversation, we are invited to willingly put the cross upon ourselves at three places, to immerse ourselves in Golgotha, in dying to be opened, to be imprinted by the Trinity. Newly imprinted, newly made. It's just so beautiful, right, regeneration is what this is about.
Speaker 2:Death to the old human through the crosses and then imprinting with the God-imbued new human.
Speaker 3:And it's being, it's creating and it's enlightening. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, well, that's beautiful, patrick, because I was going to ask you if you had anything more you wanted to say about that part before I ask you another question aligned with mission.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think maybe just to emphasize that we also mentioned briefly that we have. What we have gained for the first time in the history of Christianity is a truly developmentally oriented child baptism of.
Speaker 3:Christianity is a truly developmentally oriented child baptism. That's a very specific ceremony and liturgy rite that is for the moment of coming to the earth of a soul and the blessing that they can receive to come into contact with their own body on the earth. It's an actual child baptism and the Christian church actually had only adult baptism in the beginning and then gradually developed a child baptism practice. But it was using the same formulas and the godparents stood in as adults on behalf of the immature human, so that when they were ripe they could kind of confirm what was started back then. So really, what's new is a child baptism in our movement. But what is not true is the strange statement that can sometimes be out there, which is we don't have an adult baptism, and that was. You brought that out beautifully through the ordination sacrament, where the single activity that the priest is taught.
Speaker 3:There's only one single activity, and that is baptism Gather, baptizing Whatever is happening at an altar can be summed up in the term immersion with Christ. The Christ is involved in dunking things into the waters and having them be remade out of that process, basically taking them back to a creation process. At the beginnings. There are the watery abysses, nice. You've got to go into that state and be remade and reformed out of the word of light of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, kind of like a butterfly, like you have to go into this mush, this immersion. Yes over and over a butterfly, like you have to go into this mush, this immersion Over and over Cocoon, and then be reshaped and reformed, unmade and remade as you like to say.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so Christianity is not a doctrine. Christianity is not a set of behaviors. It is, according to Paul, a new creation.
Speaker 2:I mean that we could just savor that for an hour, and we touched on that too.
Speaker 3:Also, again, you find that all back in the life of the early church, its practices, its liturgies, its letters, the gospels, and in the church's practice through the years, though liturgically, it is only in our movement where we ask and pray for the son of god to create in us, yeah, as a constant prayer when we cross ourselves. Son god create in us, that's just. Yeah. We're such a creation oriented, new genesis movement that's connected to the thinking element, which is this connection with the mysteries of john and the logos.
Speaker 2:All things are created through the word right, and that's also why it can sometimes seem like it's just a theology or a set of ideas, which Christianity is based on a new creation, a new life, a new transformation, and that new creation has a mind that inspires a new life that sometimes, then, can be dissociated or abstracted from the transformational process. And that's when, then, you get the kind of unhelpful belief systems and theories without the transformed heart.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, it's actually coming from a desire, in my experience, to stop all transformation and fix everything instantly, to know the doctrine, know the right behaviors and tyrannically make everything and everyone in the world instantaneously do this so that we can stop suffering. And if you want to stop suffering, then you want to stop the cross process.
Speaker 3:You just do, you just do and it's understandable, we talk about it all the time. But to discover that, and I discovered that in myself so deeply Amen, brother. It was very painful to realize I didn't yet have faith in his alchemical, transformational, generative, creative work in the processes of suffering, death and resurrection.
Speaker 2:And with us. Yeah, and I don't know about you, but I can imagine you would also agree like I continually find that lack of faith. It wasn't just a one-time thing.
Speaker 3:I mean, it had a like the foundations were eroded. Yeah, a new foundation was laid and I keep stumbling across old. Well, even better like oh wow, oh geez, I didn't do the basement yet, you know, or whatever like yeah, you should better said yeah, yeah, well, good, beautiful.
Speaker 2:I'd like to continue this mission theme as we wrap up for our year and take a summer break and I want to go a little bit into also the specific mission that we have in the movement for religious renewal and I want to bring it out in a question that's connected to the Ascension liturgy, because we're in Ascension right now still, even though we're almost at Whitson, almost at Pentecost on Sunday, but there's a very powerful liturgy that comes just briefly at Ascension time that we sometimes call that the inserted prayer in the middle of the consecration, where the priest's hands are raised up and we're speaking about then at the altar how Christ is revealing himself. And, of course, the Ascension celebration is that Christ is not necessarily leaving everything but uniting himself, dispersing himself kind of like a dandelion when it becomes the puffball, disperses itself into the atmosphere after raising like a golden orb. We're celebrating Christ's uniting with the sphere of the earth, uniting with the atmosphere, uniting with all of creation, and then that he's going to reveal himself in a particular way. And then that he's going to reveal himself in a particular way and it describes that our spiritual eyes and ears, the eyes of our souls will start to behold him. And it says this sentence or this phrase in the being of the clouds bestowing blessing. He will be blessing us from the being of the clouds.
Speaker 2:And that's the first element that I want to ask you about, because I know, you know and I also know that actually proclaiming that Christ is revealing himself in the clouds is a pretty radical statement in relationship to other Christian expressions. And we're proclaiming in our liturgy that that's happening right now and that that's available to the eyes of the soul right now. And the further piece of that in this liturgy is that we're meant to praise him in this revelation of his being coming in the clouds, which is traditionally how the second coming is described in traditional theology. So we're meant to worship, praise him and follow this course of his activity right now. And I wonder, patrick, with that kind of introduction, can you lead us into? What does this say about our particular mission and how do we begin to understand our task as the movement for religious renewal in that context?
Speaker 3:renewal in that context. Wow, thank you, jonah, that's wonderful. Yeah, maybe it's nice also just to bring in a text from Acts, chapter 1, where this ascension is described and why all of the Christian churches who live with the prophetic texts of the Bible have this connection with the word cloud, with Christ and his second coming. It's interesting to me how that is pretty well known, but how little is connected with the ascension. Interesting, right. It's just very interesting that people don't think, oh, there's a relationship to his coming and to the mystery of ascension. So the second coming, in its very appearance as an idea, is connected with the ascension and so there's a very special relationship to it. Just from the start.
Speaker 3:Again, this is once again I just want to point out. Again, I just want to point out I'm at this point in my life. Distinguishing between the great church of Christ and our movement does not feel rightful to me. I think the only way I can say it where it feels rightful is to say our whole mission and purpose is to be that in this world. Our whole mission and purpose is to be that in this world, our task is to actually express the fullness of that reality in a small form. It doesn't have to be a giant organization, that's not the point at all, but it's fullness and all of its aspects should come to expression and the new, or the things that were hidden for the first 2,000 years but were always there, that are ripe to show themselves new in our time, are visible in us, and those are those new organs of the plant.
Speaker 2:And not necessarily in other quote-unquote expressions, but I would never say we're just the leaf, no it's going back to our pictures.
Speaker 3:My experience is yeah, it's the whole plant, and some new elements are emerging that we hadn't seen as well, but that were always there the beginning, so do you then think that's contained in our full, because I would also agree.
Speaker 2:That's why we have the Christian community movement for religious renewal.
Speaker 3:It's amazing Like that our actual name really is the whole thing.
Speaker 2:It's the whole thing and a particular thing and a special purpose and mission emerging in our time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, I didn't hear you saying something different. Necessarily, okay, okay, but I just feel the desire to emphasize that because this is a great example. Again, in the Ascension piece, like in all of the history of Christianity, ascension has been celebrated as a single day, up until our movement, for example once again.
Speaker 3:But now, all of a sudden, we celebrate the festival of Ascension with the special liturgy and it lasts for 10 days until we get to Pentecost. So it's a season, for the first time in our history, to carry one liturgical mood and language and rite for those 10 days that we go through and do something on the way to. Then, when the fire comes on Pentecost, and that comes like a blast for three days and then we move into a different season. So that's already just very new, very new. But what emerges in that newness is this oldness.
Speaker 3:So, going back, what is it that we celebrate? We don't just celebrate that he elevated, we're remembering First. I'll just say what we're remembering is that he elevated. We're remembering First. I'll just say what we're remembering is that elevation was connected to a promise, right, very clear. So let's go back to Acts 2 and listen to that promise.
Speaker 3:So in the Gospel of Matthew, we go up the mountain that he is, we would think, going to ascend from, and he gives them this commission. But there's no description of the ascending. And so you have to go into the Acts of the Apostles, which is the first book after the Gospel of John. In the New Testament, in chapter 1, luke describes them going up this mountain and he also speaks to them and gives them a task to be witnesses. Speaks to them and gives them a task to be witnesses, and then it says in verse 9, and when he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up and a cloud took him out of their sight. So there's a cloud experience that they have as he's rising and that cloud actually veils him from. This, gets in the way you could say their vision is blocked from seeing him. So there's a cloud, and the cloud experience for them is that which obscures that's the word obscures him from their sight, but it's about seeing him and it's about clouds. And then there's this wonderful scene right.
Speaker 3:And while they were gazing into the heavens as he went, behold, two men stood beside them in white robes and said men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven. So we would expect a cloud, but it will be a cloud where he is emerging into sight.
Speaker 2:That couldn't be clearer in my mind.
Speaker 3:So that's the expectation In the same way we experience his ascending and then we receive at the first ascension, and then we receive the message he will be reemerging in a cloud experience, but now it will be for your seeing. The cloud blocked your site at the beginning. He will be returning right to appearance. The key is you'll see him.
Speaker 2:So right, and I think it's pretty clear that so many humans who confess Jesus Christ today understand that. Let me put it this way, in a more materialistic way. That kind of it's not just literal, because we're also very literal, but it's materialistically literal. Over the scene, right Like Jesus Christ, the human being, the carpenter guy, will come on a literal cloud, like materially, and descend. That seems to be a very common understanding. That seems to be a very common understanding, and yet in our liturgy it says the eyes of the soul behold. So we clearly have something that's not merely materialistic, with the sensory eyes going on here. That's happening, that the cloud will help to reveal, so to speak. Yeah, so the cloud must also be a not necessarily material cloud. Yeah, yeah, and I wonder what you can say.
Speaker 3:Well, it's just I mean we can't read the Bible and hope to understand any of it if we read it materialistically only and don't have an understanding that there are multiple layers of reality, that there are multiple modes of perception, that the angelic world can contact people in your dreams, for example.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean, it seems so clear. Also, again and again, Christ is saying if you have eyes, if you have ears, clearly he doesn't mean Anyone there have eyes and ears is cognitive, yeah. So he himself is talking about these eyes of the soul all the time.
Speaker 3:Or saying to the Pharisees in John john, chapter 9 if you knew you were blind, you would be well like this amazing thing. Like you have physical eyes but you aren't seeing, I'm standing right in front of you, that's so. He's talking about another set of eyes. So this inner, that the inner human being has organs of perception and that you see different things with those eyes and ears, hear different things with those ears, than you do with your physical eyes and physical ears. But what's key is you notice, in our litur of the earth doesn't use a language that is only soul natured as opposed to physical, but rather the being of the clouds. He will be interesting, the eyes of the soul will see him and will see him in the being of the cloud. So it affirms the cloud mystery. And what we don't have in our modern consciousness is the whole world all around us has fallen, and what that means is it's not bad, it's become something that is only matter to us and has no soul quality. Matter to us and has no soul quality, has no inner feeling, meaning, purpose, weaving in it and through it. But for those who have that second set of eyes opened, they look back at the physical world and go, oh my gosh, everything around us is an expression of an inner reality Every tree, plant, bug, every star, every river, ocean, every weather pattern.
Speaker 3:In the old days on the farms, if you wanted to check in with each other ocean, every weather pattern. In the old days on the farms, if you wanted to check in with each other, you asked how's the weather? Because we were so much more connected to the breath and climate and atmosphere of our planet. It was part of our soul and we still have it. It's like if you're going to do a scene in a movie and a person's sad, like, have it be gray, cloudy and raining, right, everyone will feel what they're, the character is going through and if you have someone full of hope and bright happiness, you can already see the weather.
Speaker 3:I didn't even describe it. There is a deep relationship to the entire soul world and the atmosphere of the earth, the ever-changing, ever like, from storms to calm days to a low gray cloud pattern that's just gray for a week, rays to a low gray cloud pattern that's just gray for a week. We can feel through to the inner soul pictures that are connected with the skies, that are between the starry worlds and the highest and the earth. So the whole atmosphere, world, the world of the clouds and this was just true in the ancient world, that was their worldview is that which weaves between heaven and earth, that which is the rising clouds and the falling rain, is in a rhythmic breath between the upper and lower worlds and is disregarding all borders and there for the whole earth.
Speaker 2:Beautiful. So you could also say that for Christ, then he's not just in heaven and he's not just on earth, so to speak. He's weaving in this bridge place between heaven and earth for all people, like the clouds.
Speaker 3:And the whole mystery of our prayer life can be understood by studying clouds. The whole mystery. For example, where do the forces of our prayers go? Why is it so valuable, from the perspective of the Christian practice of prayer, to pray for others? What is actually happening? Well, the same way in which warmth causes the water in the soil to evaporate and rise, the love in our hearts for another takes those forces in us of love and they rise up in prayer into the atmosphere of the earth, the soul, feeling, thought, atmosphere in which we live, and those can be rained down as blessing on another spot on the earth. Beautiful, yeah, just like this gets soaked up and that is taken by the clouds, aren't?
Speaker 3:that's not substance in the soul, spiritual world, it's beings right it's beings, just like the way in which you could say you could see like a cloud of little gnats. You know, from a distance it looks like a single kind of pod.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when you get up close, oh, it's a lot of flying beings not to say that the angels are gnats, but everything is being in the soul and spirit world and they carry those forces and can bless others. So he's reigning blessing because he has lifted up also into the heavenly realms all that he experienced on the earth, all his relationships with us. He takes that up and can rain down all more and more spread out over the whole earth and bless everyone everywhere at any time. So, seeing him now, because that's what it says in the being of the clouds.
Speaker 3:I think one of the ways that we can describe it is of the clouds.
Speaker 2:I think one of the ways that we can describe it is in the mystery of prayer.
Speaker 3:Beautiful that actually, he can now be seen directly in the experiences of prayer, and that's what I wanted to bring back Beautiful as a seed for you.
Speaker 2:I love it Right, because prayer also has that quality of offering up, just like the water is evaporating, you could say, and going up and becoming cloud, and then the grace pouring back down on something other, or yourself put it in that way that actually the doorway or the way to maybe generate this eyeball, this perceptive organ, the soul seeing, is to open the doorway of prayer and to begin to ask, ask him and through that interest and devotion that can become even love, that that becomes a form of seeing from the soul that can start to perceive his grace-bestowing. Being in this kind of in-between realm. It's not a material, it's not heaven, it's not the highest spirit, it's right here in the middle realm.
Speaker 3:So beautiful and for me that's just such an experiential thing. It's like my soul forces that I direct towards him towards God that I try to pour out in my prayer. They're soul forces, they're cloudy, they're of the cloud realm, that is to say that which constantly, is easily expanding and contracting the whole weather patterns of my soul, life, how I'm doing it, my emotional world. But I can direct those forces and I can offer them up and let them rise. That is then a substance into which he can reveal himself. He's always there. This is the thing.
Speaker 2:So it's like into those soul forces that are rising, he can show himself, which is a radical thing I think we're saying, which is, I actually am called to participate and also offer up or orientate my interest and my devotion, and even my love, up to him so that he can be revealed. It connects precisely also to the gospel of this time, which is the disciple Judas. Nodiscariot asks him in John 14, how is it that you reveal yourself to us and not to all the whole world? And he says something very it's actually cryptic.
Speaker 2:It's actually a mystery, it's a mystery and very clear, but it's clear in the sense that we're talking about. He says if you love me. Yeah. So, in other words, if you lift up this love cloud from your soul, then through that love substance he can reveal himself. It's very clear.
Speaker 3:And so now we're back to the mystery of organs of sight. How can I see the world that is revealed through physical light? Because I have an organ that is shaped and formed and informed by physical light itself the eye, the eyeball. Our eyes are formed in relationship to light, to the sun yeah.
Speaker 3:Therefore it can see light and it has receptors that have been built in relationship to those forces, and that happens to beings and organisms before they can see. They're forming in the presence of the light, before they can see the light. And so how else could we see the being of love except through organs made out of love? It's not possible. The desire to see Jesus with physical eyes is actually a kind of non-thing. He did that, and now in his new form, he's saying you will see my new physical, spiritual form, but it's made out of love. So the only way you can see it is if eyes of love are growing in you. So the prayer life with him is a love story, a love question. It's like Moses on the mountain.
Speaker 3:Let me see your glory, lord. What does he ask for? It's so beautiful. It's like he doesn't say, like it's really tough. You know, like being in the desert leading these people from an oppressive Pharaoh out here and all of the. You know ways in which they turn on me and turn on you. Let me have a nap. Let me have lots and lots of servants who do whatever I say. Turn everyone so that they do whatever I tell them all the time. You know he doesn't say any of those things. The thing that he longs for with longing, with desire, is to see God's glory.
Speaker 2:God's doxa, his revelation, show me your Appear to me. Yeah, appear to glory. God's doxa, his revelation, show me, appear to me.
Speaker 3:Yeah, appear, to me, appear to me so you could say, like what is the life of a Christian Really? It's a life born and lived in relationship with this longing to see him. I want to see you. What we're saying in our liturgy I think that's what is being said. What is appearing through our liturgy is you can see him again. It's time the forces are present in us where this can happen, but it's going to be in this cloud realm. It's not going to be in the physical. It's a new encounter with him. But I saw that stirred up some things for you. I'd love to hear what you're thinking about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I guess I mean. First of all, it's just beautiful the way you built that up and that that is so clearly a part of our mission, and of course, the general mission of this is the christian community. This is not some sort of side interpretation we can see that very clearly also from the gospel. But it is also a fact that in the midst of many different types of understandings of the second coming, we're making a radical yeah, statement stand yeah, that it's happening.
Speaker 2:Now it's happening now and it's not a material experience, and that's very clear.
Speaker 3:I consider the most important news we have to share. I think you're right. It is so decisive. If the church continues to proclaim that he's going to return physically, what we're doing is preparing the way for the enemy Right, because that's what the Antichrist will do and any kind of movements that are appearing and keep showing themselves that have a kind of you know. One term is Christian nationalism. The idea of a government run by Jesus and a world power that Jesus will show up and be somehow an embodied physical leader is the source of the greatest darkness and its coming, and many souls are given the lie that he will return that way and that is massively spread. I have to say it this strongly because the Spirit tells me that it's just like a prophetic word.
Speaker 3:No other lie is more dangerous that I know than to hope and expect to see him with my physical eyes and that he would be coming back the same way he was before and not realize, through all of the stories of every. If you take all of the Easter stories of Jesus' appearance after the resurrection and the Ascension stories and how he appears to Paul at Damascus, every appearance of Christ after the resurrection and all of the prophetic statements of him appearing in the glory of the clouds is very clearly not the same as his physical incarnation. That was a very specific act, a specific deed, and to hope that he will come back and be here physically is a terrible, terrible untruth. But we have, then, the burden to try to talk about and point to. Well then, where do we see him? Yeah.
Speaker 3:How is he appearing and how is his church going to be in relationship to this new appearing that's happening now. Let me just bring in one very simple example. Jesus says very clearly in the Gospels you will hear people say he's here or there. Do not believe them. Yeah.
Speaker 3:For the coming of the Son of man will be like lightning that goes from one end of the heaven to the other. It's an atmospheric event over the whole earth cloud lightning, light glory. It's in a totally other territory than here-ness or there-ness, which is the physical world's mysteries. It's not going to be here or there. It's going to be where he appears, in this territory between heaven and earth, the being of the clouds, beautiful, yeah, so yeah, we're a second coming movement. I believe, I know you believe. The only fact that we even exist is because he's newly appearing and wants to do new work, and you and I have been blessed in our story of our lives that he has shown himself to us, yeah, in the sacraments, in prayer and in our biography. That's his work, but something's happening in us as well, so that we see Exactly.
Speaker 2:This collaboration that's initiated by His grace. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beautifully said. Thank you for that prophetic word. I really am moved by it and I think what also comes up for me from a different perspective is this emphasis, when we talk about this new revelation, this new coming, this new perception, that it has to do with really cultivating a love for another, another being, and so much of the spiritual milieu that I encounter in my age group, I guess, or just around it has so much to do with detachment and trying not to desire, trying not to long for things, trying not to desire, trying not to long for things, trying to find a way that I can release my attachment from all relationships so that I can kind of be in a state where I'm conscious, but in a kind of bliss state, because all attachments cause suffering. Because all attachments cause suffering and I see so often my brothers and sisters trying to do inner work, like meditation and things like that, to kind of find this detached place. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Seeking peace.
Speaker 3:Seeking peace which, hey, you know, beautiful intention, overwhelmed by anxieties, pain, stresses, suffering, yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and it's striking me at this moment how different this orientation is, how different this path is. It's actually not seeking detachment. It's seeking a profound, beloved attachment to this being that rose from the grave, who's not in a material state anymore, but just beyond, in this middle realm, who's actually offering us peace.
Speaker 2:In me, you will have peace In me, you will have peace, us peace In me, you will have peace In me, you will have peace. So just the distinction of actually the longing in this Christian path, the longing and the proper attachment in love and devotion and asking for in prayer is the way that then an encounter and a bestowal, bestowing, blessing it says in our liturgy receiving the grace of that blessing, of that peace, that becomes the way it actually reminds me of. I did a lot of work with the Bhagavad Gita at one point it's actually if you look back at the ancient yoga paths, it's the bhakti path in a new form, which is not a detachment, it's devotion to a particular being and in that love and devotion Krishna reveals himself. So I guess I'm just, I was just struck by the difference of the path of detachment from the path of this love, of this being.
Speaker 3:I think that's a very moving word to hear from you in the context of ascension, because of the, the way in which I would say, a certain false understanding of what the ascension is has kind of developed and taken root, which is he leaves the earth, right byending, he is going up into the heavenly realms Again, because I think our minds couldn't yet do that, couldn't think these things yet we could only picture an individual being encapsulated in his skin, like we are going on a kind of physical heavenly journey.
Speaker 3:We had a soul feeling for it, but the pictures were like childlike yeah and then, as we matured in our minds and sent some spaceships up into space and they're like well, I didn't see jesus up here you know rather than well, maybe we were thinking about it wrong. Yeah, and he is there. But if you go in a metal machine with really good telescopes, that's not going to make a difference. That's not how he's seen. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we're in this process of like trying to catch up now. Okay, we had these kind of mythic images that are more childlike. Our consciousness became more materialistic or able to actually handle the matter of material world, be interested in the material world, that we can't bring the two together. And so now there's this new consciousness developing, which is like an advanced version of that childhood consciousness, a kind of new kind of dreaming, because if you think of the clouds, I think we naturally think of the dreamy world. Dreaminess lying on our backs and just looking at the clouds Sounds good. It sounds nice right.
Speaker 3:So there's a new dreaming, but it's a dreaming that is now permeated with wakefulness, and Rudolf Steiner, in his teachings, would call that imaginative knowing. So we need that, in order to find him in this new way, we need to be able to actually develop new kinds of concepts, to even name these different worlds. So then we go back to this thing of well, did Jesus leave? Did he go away? Only, if I imagine he's like this little person and he goes up to some throne actual physical throne, again, every one of those things are pictures. The throne is an imaginative picture.
Speaker 3:There is no physical throne in the skies, of course not, but there is a center of power, yeah, from which, like the heart within the body, all things flow to it and everything flows from it out to it. There is a center of the universe and the god human is now there. You can find him there. That means he's more here than he was before the ascension. Actually, right, the great pain of the incarnation is the shrinking of the divine soul into the boundaries of the skin and to just hanging out with Palestinians yeah, in one spot in the earth, those who were with him there and looking over there is Jesus.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so ascension needs to also be expansion. Yeah, we have to have an idea that he grows into the atmosphere of the earth, in his human spirit being Becoming more present. So he's more present and that is in our liturgy. It's so unbelievably beautiful. He's elevated to heavenly being for the sake of earthly being.
Speaker 2:Therefore, our hearts sound forth his praise, and may our song of praise follow his course. That we be those who confess him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, those who confess him. For me touches this relationship piece that you've touched on. Yeah, those who confess them. For me touches this relationship piece that you've touched on Like so I don't hope to ascend, like Christ, so I'm above it all. I hope to ascend like Christ. So.
Speaker 3:I can be further in it all. I want to grow my being so that all of my thoughts and feelings can rain down, along with his blessings, on my brothers and sisters elsewhere, in Palestine today, in Ukraine today. I want these attachments, like he has chosen to be attached to us Right.
Speaker 2:I see in him someone who has actually consecrated the attachment path Well said, well said, well said rather than the extraction path right he has consecrated the attachment path and made the place of suffering a place of grace yeah, and it's scary because it doesn't leave us alone.
Speaker 3:It's a sovereignty. That doesn't mean I don't experience what he experienced, but I see how he makes that the creative power of the world. So, yeah, to be on a totally different path, and thank God, I mean it's just so awfully lonely and dry and cold. A story that's about the whole goal is about how can I be free of all relationships and satisfied in myself, in my being, by having this new orientation that the goal of the path is being in a loving bond with the beloved and learning from that relationship what rightful bond looks and feels and tastes like. Then I can go back into every other relationship in a new way. My longing changes, my bonding changes changes. It's not like I then go back and I'm as needy in a destructive way as I was before.
Speaker 3:I think this is so key, right. It's like how do you experience jonah? Your love bond with him changes, how you bond with your wife, how you bond with your children, how you bond with your work, how you, how you had to, for example, that you can have unhealthy bonds with your Christian calling work, and that he can show us that and show a new kind of bond. It's just, it's a consecration of the bonds, it's not. Yeah, you can just keep doing the same bonds. It's the same way.
Speaker 2:It transforms them into what I would name as love distinct from bliss. Now, of course, one could understand that love has a blissful quality, but very often this self-contained, no attachments is seeking a kind of bliss that actually is not love. That's become very clear to me because I've also traveled that path. And this path of Christ to redeem and renew and consecrate, as you said, our bonds actually is love, because love is in relationship with other beings. That's what it is. It's not on its own.
Speaker 3:Just to support this direction that you've taken us here at the end of being drawn to think about the non-attachment practices as so core to people's orientation a really huge one right now, really huge and it's not. It doesn't even get presented, actually, as a spirituality. It gets presented as like success kind of literature, basically, or how to just manage your life. Well, cut out all the people in your life that drag you down. Yeah, and there's a whole studies that recently come out. Children are doing this with their parents. Just cut them out. Just cut them out. You're being hindered, you're being hampered by the people in your life that drag you down. I understand, I understand, and this can even be an important moment. Yeah, it can be really essential.
Speaker 3:Please don't misunderstand me, dear friends. Yeah, if you're doing this in some way to get to your strength and health, right, please, I don't want to say that there isn't a place in life for, like right now, I can't be in your proximity and be sane. Yeah, so I'm going to be leaving now that this is a thing we have to do sometimes, but we should never pretend that's the end goal or that that's the way to true peace and true attainment of our goals as humans. It's just where we are right now and for me, how I get to it's like it's.
Speaker 2:I don't have the spirit, strength to be in relationship with you right, which is different, that I need to make a boundary or take a break so that I can gather my strength to bear more. That's a different than I'm going to cut all things that give me pain so that I can be blissful, self-realization blissful, and successful, successful.
Speaker 3:That's part of the tick tock spirituality of our day. Instagram's rich it's just there, you see it. You need to cut them out. You know and you can feel there's a certain, there's a certain power in it. Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Right, I'm all wrapped up in this and I need to just free myself of and focus on my goals. There's a lot of real valuable wisdom here and for a lot of different circumstances, yeah, where we can be obsessing about relationships and stuck. But again I just want to say the aim is different. The aim is different. The aim is different. That's how I find my freedom in him and then have the strength to because what I see is he's loving that same person.
Speaker 3:I'm cutting out of my life. That's what I discover when I go near him and I come into his heart. I find at his inside. His heart is every single human. And so my all of my methods of cutting out and cutting off I'm cutting off, reveal themselves as not part of him yeah and I can see this is a thing I've done to survive and navigate through him. I'm going to begin a new journey back into relationship with everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good distinction. Yeah Well, wonderful conversation again. Patrick, I'm so grateful and thank you all for your care and attention to our work here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and may the promises of his appearing draw near to all of our listeners at some point in their story.
Speaker 2:Amen.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Patrick, Thank you. Patrick. Thank you, Jonah. ©. Transcript Emily Beynon you.