Natepod The weblog of Nate Cull

The Colour of the Wheat Fields

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields."

-- The Little Prince

(I know I posted this a while ago, and I can't find where.)

My copy of Regina Dawn Akers' The Holy Spirit's Interpretation of the New Testament has arrived, and I am starting to read it, beginning with the commentary for Mark, the most direct section.

It is a challenging read. I am getting all sorts of emotional mixed messages: I like it, and I'm disturbed by it, and I'm not sure if I believe it, or not. It's definitely in the A Course In Miracles vein, but ACIM was much clearer to me. This one... bugs me.

And yet. Looking at Regina's Yahoo Group, I see this:

Last summer, I had a dream. I was standing and looking at a wheat field that stretched as far as the eyes could see. As I looked on the wheat field I heard a thought, "The cover of the book is to be this color." A few weeks later, I had the same dream again.

I am not an artist, so I called Phil Frisk, who is. I asked him if he would design a wheat-colored cover for NTI. He agreed. We didn't talk about it again and a couple of months passed, then I had another dream. In this dream I was talking to a young man who seemed to have some authority over the cover of the book. I was telling him that the logo for the Foundation for the Holy Spirit needed to be on the cover. He disagreed. I told him that the copyright for NTI belonged to the foundation, so the logo must be on the cover. He said that wouldn't do. I continued to insist, and he continued to say no. Then, he reached in his files and pulled out a picture of a sheaf of wheat. He said that this was
the picture that was to be on the cover.

The symbol of the wheat and the harvest is hugely important to me. And then this blog entry:

I saw the seeds, which had been planted in every mind, as they began to grow. Happiness sprouted in bushes of light that grew from the minds of everyone. And soon, although we still walked and lived in this world, we were focused on our minds. We knew that’s where our happiness was. We knew that Love was in our minds, and we recognized that our minds were one. So, we walked within the world of form, but we did not pay attention to it. It was no longer of value to us. We valued only the Love, Happiness and Oneness of our minds.

It bugs me because this Sunday I had a similar mental image during the sermon; the parable of the Mustard Seed. All these people with seeds of light growing within them; all good acts forming trees which shelter the world. How much of our society has already been shaped and sheltered by quiet trees of righteousness that we don't even recognise, without which we'd be living in a harsh, dead desert?

It bugs me because I don't want to believe a false gospel. I don't want to believe something that's too simple, too easy, feels too right to be true.

This Jesus attracts me, even as he scares me, and I am desperately afraid that I will find out that he's only an illusion. What he says is too radical. 'God is within you' 'We are all God's children' 'I am only an elder brother'. 'The world is not really there' 'Everything you have done is already forgiven' 'You are one with God'.

How many Jesuses are there? What was the message he taught, really? When we strip away all the layers of human interpretation, what's the core of it? 'Say the Sinner's Prayer or you'll die and burn forever'? Or 'God loves you'?

This Jesus teaches like an Easterner. Is he even a Christian?

If this is real, there's something very interesting happening this decade. The Harvest that was promised to the Pentecostals might be beginning. And, for now, they're missing it. (Though perhaps the rain, to mix metaphors, is falling everywhere.)

If it's not real, the implications are too horrible to contemplate, and I've not yet entirely freed myself of that fear.

A voice inside me says 'fear is not the Way'. But...