2/1/12

I suddenly invited a big change into my life and it has been really good for me. Now sit back and wonder why I couldn’t see how I missed seeing the rut I was in. Perhaps it was the inertia that can grab hold of any of us if we let it. Now, because I had no choice but to make changes to my schedule, I feel better and am getting a lot more done. I suppose we all need to be jolted out of our compliancy once in a while. This even applies to my visits with Jesus. The nature of our visits has changed over the years because I changed. I did tend to get stuck once in a while, bored with the rosary or with prayer, but any slight change seemed to revive me. Jesus tolerated my whims and changes and just smiles knowingly when I talk to him about it.

Today I said, “Thank you for putting up with me.”

His smile was so all conclusive I felt his attitude of patience surround me like a mist, deeply comforting and loving at the same time.

“How can you be so tolerant of our faults, ”I asked.

Jesus said, “I have had moments of anger.”

“I remember once expressing fury but can’t remember why.”

Jesus didn’t elaborate and I didn’t care about specifics. We humans do a lot that would cause anger in anyone, let alone the Son of God who loves us most of all, a great love we should all be thankful for.

2/1/12

I wish I could explain to people how much all the bad publicity about Detroit exaggerates the danger. The perception is that all events in Detroit are close together because it is the same city. Not true. If there is an incident at 7 mile and Hoover, on the city’s east side, it is so far away it would take me 20 minutes to drive there, and I live on the east side. It would take me even longer go drive to some event at 7 mile and Southfield. Both of these areas lay on the outskirts of the city while I live towards the bottom central. The point I am trying to make is that people hear the news of shootings and other serious events and become afraid to come into the city when they shouldn’t. Detroit is really big compared to most other cities, 136 square miles big. Even New York is smaller at 301 square miles.

Not the meadow Jesus and I walked in. Only my yard in summer.

I can’t wait for the flowers of spring.

2/3/12

As I walked with Jesus in the green meadow this morning, I thought about the many places we’ve been and I saw a snake wiggle across our path in the tall grass and suddenly realized something important that I hadn’t thought about before: Even paradise worlds have snakes and bugs that can be harmful, but they are not harmful because they can be controlled by the human’s who live there. God is everywhere on such a world, but still, nature is nature and so must run its course. I am guessing that every world must have its fungus and viruses and predators and victims. The difference between danger on earth and a paradise world is the people’s power to prevent danger, and their power comes from God. On earth we have learned to use science, a hit or miss solution.

I remember not too long ago sitting with Jesus on another planet, Angel World, amid mosquitoes and I was able to keep them off me. But when I tried the same thing in my own back yard, I wasn’t successful. I suspect that a person could be more successful if they were more apt at focusing and controlling their mind. I wonder if the monks who live sheltered lives in God and seem to me to be walking in a paradise world while in their monastery could ward off mosquitoes. Maybe possible, but not for most of us. This small bit of understand doesn’t seem important, but who knows, it may be worth knowing someday. When I have these sudden understandings, they always surprise and delight me, no matter how small them seem when I write them down. Jesus didn’t elaborate about dangers on other worlds, but he didn’t dispute the idea either.

2/5/12

I need to write what happened in church this morning right after mass. On one Sunday a year, the priest uses a cross made out of candles to bless our throats in honor of St. Blaise. Like Father says, “Even if we don’t have a sore throat, enough ugly words has probably come out of our mouths throughout the year that we all need the blessing.”

We all laughed, shamefully, because we recognized his statement as true.

So we lined up after mass to go up and get our throats blessed. When I stood before Father Thomas and he put his hand on my shoulder to give me the blessing, the spirit flowing from him was so strong I could actually see it flow from him into me like a white cloud covering his hand. I felt the blessing enter me from Jesus through Father Thomas. I was amazed because I had never witnessed such a blessing as this vivid before. I am so glad now that I went up to have my throat blessed. We never know where or when Jesus will give us a spiritual experience.

2/11/12

My mind seemed to keep expanding during meditation this morning. I told Jesus that I was going to try and keep my mind silent. He told me I couldn’t. Of course, he was right. We humans have unbounded potential and our greatest one is inside our own minds, which can never be still. It is as if we could live a whole life inside one moment. As I thought about this I imagined how it would look if we did. I saw each life as a bubble hanging on a line of time, each self bubble expanding outward and filling our world as the now.

Amazingly, God sees it all at once. I witnessed more than a single bubble vision, but most of it was so esoteric that I can hardly understand it let alone write about it. I was shown things beyond our ability to comprehend. We are still primitive and have much room to grow. But we will, that is the beauty of the path God gave us to walk. We have it all in front of us.

Jesus mentioned that soon he is going to take us visiting to a place where we will learn a great deal. A place where we will keep going back to visit again and again. He didn’t give me a hint of what it will be like, but I can surmise that it will be similar to earth. Most rocky planets are. He did say it was for us to travel to as a group and the children would enjoy the world and join us to visit.

The idea of going back again and again to a single place causes me some trepidation. I am not sure why. I think what if someone from another planet were to visit this city for a short few minutes, this occurs more than people know, what would they learn of our culture? Very little. Every world has weather variations and numerous styles and cultures that change with time. Plus, with mental travel, who can say what period it is? What if someone traveled here to Detroit a hundred years ago? What a different view. We can hardly take in enough information during one short visit to know what we are seeing. It helps to have Jesus as a guide because he will often send us mental bursts of information; other times, not a word. He leaves it up to figure it out what we are seeing ourselves. At least, we aren’t mere tourists flipping here and there on a whim. Jesus has his own rational and subtle purpose that we might pick up on later. No matter, the suspense gives weight to our sense of adventure.

2/13/12

This morning we gathered and went to a place Jesus wanted us to see. We walked up the sky-tunnel and as I put my hand on its side, I felt a blanket of luxurious moss, soft and tingly to my fingers. It smelled of earth and I realized that even as we learn so does our sky tree, changing on its own path over the years.

We reached the edge and Jesus said, “Follow me.”

So we did. Suddenly we stood in a large green field of grass surrounded by mountains, an idyllic scene that one could find on any world,

Jesus nodded and smiled, showing us that this was his intent. Normal helps us orientate when we first arrive at a new world. Then we moved across the land, over a swiftly flowing river and up towards the mountains.

Everything looks so normal” I said, thinking if this was the world Jesus intended to take us to again and again, it seemed almost too similar to earth.

Jesus said, “Wait and see.”

I don’t know what I was expecting but it wasn’t a grass hut half way up the mountain. A man was walking in front of the hut. He was thin and had dark, leathery skin, and wore little clothing. I think the weather was spring warm because lush greenery grew between cracks in the dark rock, some like bunches of flowers. I was sure this wasn’t all that Jesus intended for us to see, so we continued to follow. We kept climbing up into the higher mountains, an easy task when the body is a spirit, until we came to a cave opening.

We entered the cave and met a man who was bone thin, later I learned it was from age, not starvation, who also wore only a short tunic type shirt. He pointed to a stone bench carved out of the wall and motioned for us to sit with him. A small fire was burning and various vegetables were set aside on a blanket next to the cave wall. My impression was that it wasn't unpleasant, just very low key.

Then I realized that the man had spoken to us and could see us. I should have been surprised by this, but wasn’t. A very strong sense of intelligence emanated from the man. He also had a white beard and I couldn’t help smiling at this-- the holy man of the mountain. I was also reminded of the fanatics who used to live in caves during biblical times.

The man welcomed us and smiled at me in return, which embarrassed me. He was aware of my thinking. I watched him speak to Jesus silently, then we left and went into other caves and met others like the first man Surprisingly, each had various shades of light to dark skin but all of it looked tough like leather, I suppose from exposure to the elements.

I asked if there were women and we went into a cave where a women lived. I smiled because she had flowers inside her cave and the running streams that ran mostly outside the other caves ran inside hers to form a small pool. Typical of a women to dress up her cave as best she could even with little to work with. She also wore little and her skin was drawn and wrinkled, but her mind was sharp and quick. She surmised our visit before we did because she had the right number of rugs set out to sit on.

As we were leaving, Jesus explained that I was partly correct about it looking like biblical times, but with a one big difference.

He said, “These people run the world.”

I was flabbergasted by this news. This idea was hard to grasp, those men and women lived like hermits. The seemed to own nothing. After thinking about it for a few minutes, I realized that they might own a quite a bit if you consider that they had flowers and grass and gardens growing all around them, running water, enough food to keep an old body alive, and a lot of time to meditate and think, and run a world with those thoughts. Amazing.

There were aspects of their life any one of us might envy. I forgot to write about one man who glowed as he sat in contemplation. Jesus didn’t tell us this was a paradise world but I suspect this mountain range, at least, was paradise to those living in it, just as the monks in a monastery might think the same of their home where they provide a small sane spot on our busily, crazy world.

We will be going back to this same world a number of times so we may see how they run the world and the results of such wise leaders.

2/17/12

As I sat and meditated with Jesus I had a sudden understanding of how fate works. Even though we might be born into certain circumstance, our whole effort in this world is to overcome those circumstances for the better. Of course, everyone knows this, but I had been thinking of rebirths and other stuff and this helped me put it into perspective. Fate and change goes all the way back to Jesus dying on the cross, Jesus changing the fate of the world, Jesus deciding that we don’t need to destroy ourselves and our civilization. His intervention has come down to us through history and taught us that we should be a moral and generous people.

One night many years ago, after I complained, and asked Jesus once again, “Why did you need to die so horribly?” Jesus showed me what the earth would look like if he hadn’t come to us and died on the cross for us. Earth was a burnt cinder rolling through space with only long red cracks evident on its surface. It wasn’t the sun that killed earth and its civilizations, but humankind.

The sad thing is that Jesus and his angels still need to help direct us away from harming ourselves. We humans are a stubborn race. But so far, we have managed to produce more good in the world then bad. Our nations believe in working together more than they work apart. Most of us love and give and find peace in a life that we share with others. In all, the world is a good place to be, and we have Jesus and other great prophets to thank for this.

On a personal level, it is almost like we get the choice of expanding or contracting our minds. We can follow Jesus and grow emotionally and mentally, and some of us are learning to expand beyond the earth into the universe or we can go in the opposite direction by becoming narrow minded and selfish. Some people shrink down to a single need such as dope or drink. On the one hand, heaven, on the other, a self created hell.

Well, I have used extreme examples to prove a point. Our destiny is more a malleable clay than a hardened concrete. Of course, everyone knows this, but sometimes during meditation, certain ideas stand out vividly. I laugh because some morning, like this one, I am so overwhelmed with new vivid ideas that I can’t stay with the prayer but need to stop and write and then go back to the meditation. Jesus doesn’t mind that I do this, I am doing what he wills, learning and teaching and growing.

2/17/12

I am just now learning that comedy is probably the hardest part of a culture to share with a person from a different country. It takes living in a culture to pick up on the little bits and nuisances that every one knows to laugh at. An example is the comedy of The Big Bang Theory. It is ripe with quips from science and Science Fiction, which delights me. But the other day a character made a reference to Frankston’s monster, a item of folk lore that everyone knows by the time they get into grade school; yet, a person from a different culture would not have this knowledge, silly as it might be. It is probably not something a person would learn in a language or history class.

I find that having a young person in my home from another culture has opened my eyes to new ideas and understandings. I am learning so much, I wonder who is getting the most from this exchange.

2/18/12

I can’t get over the phrase: Our minds tethered to the earth. I thought of it last night as I lay in bed waiting for sleep, hard to come by until the thought was completed. Tethered by choice, by culture, by our jailer, a warden intent on turning us backward instead of forward.

This idea came to me as I thought about how we are swimming in technology and communication today. I wonder if the ability to quickly contact another person with a plastic gadget will forever prevent most people from learning to speak with the mind. Is this another way to keep humans down? We are deaf and blind compared to mature races that Jesus has shown me. We can’t see that other beings are able to roam at will throughout the universe. But is this because we are still primitive or because we are being driven backwards? The answer seems clear because war is not natural in a mature civilization.

Well, all these thought come from thinking of humans as being tethered like a horse to the rail, but even so, many people rise up and stand apart, as if out of the muck, to show courage and endurance and greatness. Think of saints, great prophets, ordinary people who stand against the wave or follow a different drummer. There is something valuable in ourselves that Jesus knows and works to bring out. Maybe one day he will accomplish this for all of us.

2/20/12

While I was talking to Jesus this morning during meditation, I almost laughed out loud at what he said to me. I was telling him how I would like to show people who are clueless in my own family about him, also that I call many children to join us but they don’t come.

Jesus said suddenly, “Now you see my predicament”

It was so true, I couldn’t not laugh. I remembered the bible statement that says “Many are called but few are chosen.” And how Jesus has been calling us for thousands of years and now I understand his plight. Jesus offers us so much, a cornucopia of everything, yet we turn away. What is wrong with us?

I got off the subject because that isn’t what my meditation was about this morning. We gathered together and joined a friend in a Zen garden. There I stood in silence observing the waves in the sand and the rocks. In that simple landscape there is still so many things to see, the grains of sand as they shape the wave, the bends in the rocks, etc.

I stayed still for a short while, but then my mind wandered away and I was back standing with Jesus in a meadow, one of my favorite places. I told Jesus I was sorry that I wasn’t ready to travel this morning and he answered that there was no hurry. His patience is like his love which sends feelings of warmth through my body and mind. I thought about our travels and how Jesus is leading us into a new age. Then I realized something new. Jesus had this planned from the beginning. He knew he would call certain people at this time, in this age. Now, he is already preparing us for a future age. When we finally learn how to travel to the stars in space ships, we will take Jesus and our knowledge of him with us. One day, far from now, humans who travel outwards will refer to Jesus as The Universal Christ.

Flowers from my garden last year.

Wish I could take pictures from my mind.

2/24/12

I was just sitting and thinking before I meditate this morning and decided to write my thoughts about mind-travel. It is very hard for us humans at this point in our development to travel with the mind because everything we know and feel pulls us downward and back into what we call reality. Someday, children will learn at an early age how to travel between what we consider known reality and places beyond our immediate scope. They may learn how to transport their bodies as well. Jesus has shown me people in the future who can do this. To make it possible, their whole environment speaks of the possibility and tells them such things are normal. Different people will have various talents they use and accept in others.

We live in just the opposite type of environment, it screams at us that such things are impossible. Yet, most of us have let our minds float away in day-dreams, which shows potential, but a day dream is not the same as directed mind travel, like the gulf between a silly dream and a vivid one.

Well, it might take us a very long while but I know eventually we are going to learn how to utilize our minds more fully than we do now. It will be a joining of science and the spiritual. Ha. Maybe science will finally grow up and face reality.

2/24/12

During meditation we gathered on top of a high mountain. I let the fierce winds blow my cloak and knew I wouldn’t be able to breath if I were truly standing this high up in the atmosphere, well I wouldn’t be standing either because the wind would have blown me away. Still, I liked the illusion as we formed a circle on top of the world. We each called a few children to join us. Some of us felt the light pour out of us and gather in the center, with God from without flowing to meet the God within in so doing intensifying our feeling of love energy to tremendous heights. So much so, that we all felt the need to turn around and send the light-energy out and away from us to circle around the world in mighty waves like an ocean made of light rolling over the earth.

Then we entered the sky-tunnel and walked up its length. As we did, each of us rubbed our hand on the smooth mahogany surface in a gesture of gratitude and to give honor to the living tree that supported us. We stood at the edge and followed Jesus onto a green meadow. On one side were the mountains with the holy people living on the surface who ran the world, on the other side of us was a tall forest in the distance and that is where we headed.

As we walked into the forest, I kept seeing a rope bridge in my mind, but kept walking on the floor of the forest for a while. It was a deciduous forest like we’d find on temperate areas of earth. Jesus explained that their winters were mild. He told us that it was not a paradise world, but close to it, and may become one.

I couldn’t understand the difference between a world with God filling the air and a world with holy spiritual leaders running it. Jesus tried to explain it to me but all I got was that the holy ones were in touch with God all the time, but not all the people.

So far, everything looked normal except for a swarm of small monkey type animals with four arms and hands that kept jumping from tree to tree. In fact, they seemed to see us and be leading us forwards. So we let them. They were funny little things, almost looking like miniature people running sideways. They delighted the children with their hear and there antics.

Finally, we climbed up into the trees on a slanted rope ladder that led up to a bridge made out of tree vines. Jesus explained that this was their city, if you could call it such because there was no metal or steel anywhere. Everything was made out of wood. We kept walking high over head and came to a huge opening. We saw that huge nuts, the size of our cocoanuts, grew along the bridge and now we saw a slide where the nuts were rolled down to the ground. We also saw a large group of people, normal looking in every way, gathering nuts and other food items or sitting around. No one seemed to be in any hurry. We were close to a tall waterfall with a rainbow mist filling the area, people walked back and forth from the waterfall. I won’t say the people seemed joyous but they certainly seemed content.

I felt about ready to leave when I noticed something that surprised me and all of us. None of the wood was cut. You couldn’t really call it wood because it was all made out of living tree. Even the woven sides of their city, as tall as the high bridge, was alive, growing into the ground with leaves growing at the top. The bridge we walked on was alive as was all the housing.

This was amazing. A whole city, well by our standers, a large village, with the structures as alive as the people living within it. But now that I am writing about this I remember other places where the fauna and trees are kept alive for use. On Cotton World people resided inside living trees, with even a knotted hump growing up from the floor that use as a story telling seat and treasure greatly. On other worlds we have seen grass huts with living flowers on them. It seems to be a trend for contented people to use what is available to the best advantage of both species.

I forgot to mention what we learned about the little things with the four hands. They are eyes of the holy men. That is why they saw us and lead us to the people. The people could detect us but not see us. Perhaps they were told about us by the little four handed things with the big eyes, like computer bots, but biological.

My scattered real garden last summer. Can’t wait to put it in order this spring.

2/25/12

I have taken a new look at entertainment in America and I am appalled at the amount of fighting and maiming that goes on, as if the idea is being driven into us that war and fighting is good. I look at pg-13 shows and see half the film is filled with one side fighting the other. Why happened to the idea of protecting children? And then I watched a movie last night rated R because someone swore in it. The worst thing that happened in this mild film was nightmares and red rain at the end. In my opinion, even the movie Avatar which everyone loved, was cheated from being a truly great movie by the excessive violence at its end.

I have to ask, what is wrong the writers of today or should the problem be laid at the directors or producers feet? Do they think that no one will watch a movie unless it shows fanatics fighting excessively to the end or machine gun battles or cars racing each other down the city streets.

We don’t have much choice in our movies, either we watch a overly loving religious movie that is almost silly with sweet voices or a violent one. It is as if no one is standing back and taking a look at what is being produced. Or are they? Is it a way of preparing Americans for more war? On the battlefield or city streets? Or is it the last stand because the ideas have finally wrung dry? Surly people have had enough. Surly common sense means something? Or am I just old fashioned?

What I saw in the sky didn’t look like either of these because it was much smaller and had a blue background.

2/25/12

As anyone could tell from the above writing, I was upset last night early in the morning when I couldn’t sleep. My painting had went bad which set me off into one of those nights where I ask, what is wrong with me, what good am I, what am I here on earth for if my paintings and writings aren’t any good? Etc etc etc. All this time knowing full well that by morning my troubles would clear up, and they did.

But not completely, which is why I decided to sit quietly, turn off even the rosary and visit with Jesus in silence. I wanted to still my mind and rest, find my center of being. First I had to get rid of the doldrums and collection of silly worries hanging around inside my head, so I imagined them as huge snow flakes falling off me into a pile that I could leave foot prints in as I walked away. It worked. Now I felt fit to visit with Jesus.

We went to a beautiful garden with stone benches and pots filled with flowers. I sat next to lilies and touched a snow white petal. I told Jesus that I couldn’t travel this morning, that I needed this time for myself. He understood, and as I sat and began to feel better, I began to look around.

I rubbed my hand across the rough stone of the bench, smelled the perfumed air, closed my eyes and felt the sun on my eye lids, then smiled into the breeze that wafted past. When I opened my eyes again I looked up into the sky and saw a galaxy sparkling behind the blue of the sky.

Amazed, I looked at Jesus for an explanation.

“It is an actual galaxy, though not as close as it looks.”

“Like looking at pictures of the Milky Way.” I said, amazed that something like this could actually be seen through a daylight sky. I couldn’t imagine how.

There are so many strange and wondrous things in the universe you could not imagine then all. This is only one of them.”

I hope I remembered his exact words, if not, I know I got the sense of them. We shouldn’t assume that we know what is normal. All things are possible. And I know something else that Jesus didn’t say today, but has in the past. He enjoys showing off the strange and wonderful things in the universe, which is one of the reasons why everyone is invited to walk with Jesus and enjoy this feast of plenty, like love, free for the taking.