'The kingdom of heaven is within you.'
'I speak these words that my joy might be fulfilled in you.' 'I came that you would have life and have it more abundantly.'
'Take up my yoke and learn from me. Your soul will find rest. My yoke is easy and my burden is light.'
'Take heed how ye understand. To the one that has understanding more will be given. From the one that does not what they have will be taken away.'
'If you know how to give good things to your children, how will your heavenly father, who is spirit, not give you the spirit that is holy when you ask for it?' 'Knock and the door shall be opened to you. Seek and ye shall find.'
'If you keep my words the heavenly father will love you. And the father and I will come and make our abode with you.' Jesus
(Note. As you must know, credible scholarship is in total agreement that god, heavenly father, jehovah, in Jesus day, was absolutely non-gendered. But they used the word father. Further, with similar agreement, it is known that Jesus and other serious jews, we're metaphorical in their thinking. The best information I have is that Jehovah translated in Jesus day, the almighty power, that everyone feels, but no one will ever be able to name. Christianity of course is totally perverted that, along with everything else associated with jesus.)
'You will neither see nor hear for fear of being converted and having to change your heart.' Jesus. And for all but one in 100 million since he spoke these words, his prediction has been correct. Including the christians. Especially the christians.
No one should read one more word of what I have to say, that perceives that Jesus was not the singularly enviable, ecstatically joyful human being in all of history. This was my perception from my earliest memory, and it has never left me, only gained strength.. And I don't know that anyone has ever shared my perception of this. But in case there is anyone, or could be, I write, travel, share, work, love, live, breathe....
Jesus found a way of being that was ecstatically joyful and abundant in life. And he gave his last years to show us, tell us, instruct us toward the same.
Lifelong I was drawn to him, though distracted in my middle years, and for the joy of it quite greedily following him for more than the last 20.
But it was only in my 71st year, the winter of 2022, that I found myself in the following dialogue with myself. James, you are fiercely drawn to Jesus since your earliest memory, correct? Correct. Okay, so do you have recall of all of Jesus words, instruction, teaching, found in the four canonical Gospels? Well, no. Hmm. And if you do not have recall of them, James, then how could you choose to practice them? And how can you effectively share what he offered us? Hmm. Well, I pretty much can't. That's right James. Maybe you have your work cut out for you now?
2022 November, December -January, I sat out in the high desert of Lone Pine California, using the Gutenberg four gospels translation because it is effectively public domain, went line by line, word by word, phrase by phrase, asking myself, James, is this instruction that Jesus was offering you? I did not ask, do I like this? Nor, do I agree with this? Just, is this instruction Jesus is providing you? And when the answer was no, because someone else like the gospel author was saying it, editorializing, or because it was just some geographic or other notation, I passed on. But when the answer was yes, I cut and paste into a list. And by the time I was done the list had about 1,010 elements. His words, instruction, and example in the four canonical gospels. https://www.jesianity.info/2023/07/jesus-1010-gospel-instructions-examples.html
And since then, roughly 9 months now, pretty much every day I study those, working to gain recall so that they are at my immediate disposal for practice, reflection, learning, deeper learning, and occasionally to share. Mostly, I have an Android reader, read them to me, in random order because studying such things randomized I can learn much much much much more deeply.. But I recognize that I am a glacially slow learner, glacially slow at everything. Consequently so far it has been only of the first 550, those that I judged to be those that Jesus would have considered the most important upon which I focus my efforts. https://www.jesianity.info/2023/07/500-among-most-crucial-instructions-and.html
Because it is a useful trick for my mind, I've had the mindset, James, if right now he were to give you a test, you want to do well on that, correct? For the joy of it, right? Lol. Well, James, better try and figure out what he's going to test you on. What he will count the most important.
Note. To a fault, among my near infinite faults, I'm not smart enough to follow, anyone, anything, any direction, any advice. Also to a fault I consider deeply anything deeply offered. Nothing that I treasure from Jesus or anyone was a consequence of following. I'm not that smart. Rather My endless mistakes at trying to maximize joy in life have often yielded to me, oh, James, that's what Jesus was trying to tell you! 😲
And so it continues. Stumbling forward using my own Notions and then reflecting on those of others, centrally jesus, I've yet to find anything that he said or did that I find is other than singularly correct. I'm completely open to discovering otherwise, but that hasn't happened yet. Quite the opposite.
Something else that occurred several months ago, quite shocked me. It is said that fish are the last ones to discover water.
Throughout my adulthood there have been hundreds of great souls that I have been drawn to learn from, that I have studied deeply. About 5 years ago I decided to create a website so that what I was learning was available to others. Www.lsgiabeing.com. Point being, my interest has been in learning how to maximize joy, for myself and others, anywhere and everywhere credible expert authoritative substantially proven useful instruction was to be found. This work intensifying ever since I became a biological parent many decades ago, and wanted to do my best to make the path to Joy available to my offspring. And my other dependent. And even before then as a business leader I realized that opportunity for joy was the ultimate fuel for extraordinary organizational achievement, which time after time I was catalyst for.
After all this, only a few months ago in mid 2023 did it hit me. James, are you glad for your extensive study of dozens and hundreds of great Souls throughout history? Answer, I am! But it's been many many months or years since you have thought of or studied them. Why is that? Answer. Because everything that I found from them, I find more effectively stated and exemplified in the words an example of the man Jesus in the gospels. Everything. Everything that I have found of value in them points to what he offered, but he offers it in a most powerful way, in one place. Still amazed.
This was an amazement to me. The fish are the last ones to discover water. For some souls in history, which I find to be great, their relationship to the words and example of Jesus are like moths to a flame. Moths don't know why they are drawn to the flame, but they are. And the likes of tolstoy, schweitzer, bonhoefer, David dellinger, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King Jr... Have been drawn with that same total ferocity to Jesus and I will say that I don't think they knew why. But it was the consuming, animating, force in their lives. And so it is for me.
For the joyful abundant Life of it.
'Call no man your teacher except one, me, Jesus.' Beware of those that will come teaching in my name. And that is exactly what we've violated with all the force that Christianity and Christians, pastors, preachers, popes, televangelists..., could and can muster. More than 2,000 years now.
Why am I writing this to you? Why aren't Jesus' words and example in the Gospels sufficient? They are. To my shock and amazement I have found that in all of human history they are all that is sufficient to individual, and collective, joyful abundant Life. Except, they are not available. They are buried under 2,000 years of a perverting way of teaching and being, an opposite way of teaching and being, christianity and it's partner, rampant materialism, greed, selfishness.
So the reason for my writing is attempting to provide a bridge, a doorway, a finger pointing, at the words and example of Jesus in Mark Luke Matthew and john, that I call, Jesianity. And the degree to which I deviate from that, is the degree to which I have betrayed you, in the same way that Christianity and our materialistic cultures have betrayed you. I very much work to avoid that betrayal. I hope I have some success in it. I hope you catch and call me out when I fail.
James Mcginley
Ps. This will be integrated in the long introduction above, but at the moment I can't see how to do it. It seems clear to me that Jesus did not lay out a thousand and 10 teachings so that we would use them as some sort of crutches or prosthetics or bars in a cage. He provided them as assists, characteristics, pointers to the one unifying, the central goal, of his life and instruction. And of course to his very being. And that is, that among the many many many spirits we are born with, biologically, neurologically, one of them, can I be understood as a spirit that is holy. And the entire purpose of his life, the thrust of his life, the use of his life, was to work to have that spirit be the complete animator of one's life. He succeeded, I am finding some success toward the same, for the infinite absolute collective and individual joyful life of it.
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