Manoah
Member
Yesterday was Good Friday 2019, and I felt as though I communicated with people from many different worlds: a priestess who is helping me understand interactions with Odin, my Messianic sister who was holding a Passover Seder, a Chinese professor who told me the bread of Christian communion literally turns into the body of the physical Jesus, a Canadian pastor who explained how Christian baptism came from old Jewish rituals that symbolized washing away of an old life to start a new one—for example, beginning a life as a king or husband or priest or new convert.
The “Many Worlds Theory” appears in science fiction stories where there are parallel universes co-existing and where people sometimes travel from one to another. Yesterday gave me this feeling as I felt these different experiences and perceptions converge.
A Chinese friend was being baptized in a home swimming pool at our Friday night gathering. Tao spoke beforehand and told how he always knew there was a wisdom or power in the universe but he now felt it calling him through the Bible. At the same time, this Good Friday 2019 was his biological birthday, and on the table next to the bread and wine of communion was a birthday cake. Good Friday this year was also my wife Kristin’s birthday, and the Jewish Passover. Yesterday I also felt led to request my first monthly reading from a priestess-healer, feeling this may be a time of breakthrough as I finish my second round of Prednisone prescribed by a medical doctor to clear out gout once and for all. The sacred and mundane, the spiritual and physical seem intricately woven together.
I thought back to my baptism, the day before my own biological birthday in 1991, when I first broke free of alcohol, self-destruction, and despair. Although recently I am expanding spiritually, I do not want to forsake the gifts and grace that have been given me, the foundation on which my life has been built.
As I participated in the baptism and communion with people from China and America, with people from at least four different churches, I still felt a part of my sister’s faith, of the priestess’s beliefs, and of Tao’s wife Dixie who still has agnostic doubts. I find value in the Chinese professor with the literal ideas about communion and believe that his expression accesses some spiritual truth that his heart needs.
Somehow these “many worlds,” these flowing perspectives within me, within any group, or within the world are like the river of Heraclitus. The river is the physical water and place but is at the same time the ever-changing current and the reflected rays of sun and warmth and the relativity of time itself. There is something here among us all that is absolutely the river, but perhaps a river of many worlds.
Have you all had any experiences with interfaith or multiple perspectives during the converging holidays?
The “Many Worlds Theory” appears in science fiction stories where there are parallel universes co-existing and where people sometimes travel from one to another. Yesterday gave me this feeling as I felt these different experiences and perceptions converge.
A Chinese friend was being baptized in a home swimming pool at our Friday night gathering. Tao spoke beforehand and told how he always knew there was a wisdom or power in the universe but he now felt it calling him through the Bible. At the same time, this Good Friday 2019 was his biological birthday, and on the table next to the bread and wine of communion was a birthday cake. Good Friday this year was also my wife Kristin’s birthday, and the Jewish Passover. Yesterday I also felt led to request my first monthly reading from a priestess-healer, feeling this may be a time of breakthrough as I finish my second round of Prednisone prescribed by a medical doctor to clear out gout once and for all. The sacred and mundane, the spiritual and physical seem intricately woven together.
I thought back to my baptism, the day before my own biological birthday in 1991, when I first broke free of alcohol, self-destruction, and despair. Although recently I am expanding spiritually, I do not want to forsake the gifts and grace that have been given me, the foundation on which my life has been built.
As I participated in the baptism and communion with people from China and America, with people from at least four different churches, I still felt a part of my sister’s faith, of the priestess’s beliefs, and of Tao’s wife Dixie who still has agnostic doubts. I find value in the Chinese professor with the literal ideas about communion and believe that his expression accesses some spiritual truth that his heart needs.
Somehow these “many worlds,” these flowing perspectives within me, within any group, or within the world are like the river of Heraclitus. The river is the physical water and place but is at the same time the ever-changing current and the reflected rays of sun and warmth and the relativity of time itself. There is something here among us all that is absolutely the river, but perhaps a river of many worlds.
Have you all had any experiences with interfaith or multiple perspectives during the converging holidays?
