Henry J. van Dyke and the Other Wise Man

It's just that time of year, and I like to think about Henry J. van Dyke, and make sure he's not forgotten. The book has been variously published as The Story of the Other Wise Man or the Fourth Wise Man. You can find an on-line version here: http://www.classicreader.com/book/593/1/ , or as a download here: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/10679, but this book is definitely worth owning in book form. Idea for a Christmas present?

The reason I'm discussing this little gem of a book on this blog is simply this: as much as I am interested in the story of the discovery of the Thomas gospel and all that goes with it in terms of clarifying what he was saying before later editors turned him into a proto-Christian, it is always important to remember that Jesus speaks the language of the heart, and people have found their way to him at any time, and regardless of theological limitations. I personally find little appeal in the Christian theology which Henry J. van Dyke obviously embraced, but when I read this story, I know in my heart that this man had a very clear understanding of Jesus, to be able to express it in this deeply moving story.

The Story of the Other Wise Man is all about giving up all of our notions of what it will take to come to Jesus, for in the story it is blatantly clear that the fourth wise man does not find him until after he has given up even the last bit of what he thought it would take to come to him, and only when he does, he finds that in what he thinks is abject failure, he meets him, stronger yet, in that instant he is face to face with him.

This theme is worked out in A Course in Miracles in a different way, for there Jesus makes it clear that essentially we need to forgive him, for NOT being the idol that we made of him, which is essentially the same point that Henry van Dyke makes in this wonderful story: what will keep us away from him are only our own concepts about him, for as long as we are busy telling him who he is and what to say, we are evidently listening to ourselves and not him. It's that easy. Once you catch on, it is easy to spot the problem, and once you spot the problem perhaps some day you can let it go...

    
I have great need for lilies, for the Son of God has not forgiven me. And can I offer him forgiveness when he offers thorns to me? For he who offers thorns to anyone is against me still, and who is whole without him? Be you his friend for me, that I may be forgiven and you may look upon the Son of God as whole. But look you first upon the altar in your chosen home, and see what you have laid upon it to offer me. If it be thorns whose points gleam sharply in a blood-red light, the body is your chosen home and it is separation that you offer me. And yet the thorns are gone. Look you still closer at them now, and you will see your altar is no longer what it was.  (ACIM:T-20.II.4)

In short as long as what we offer him is framed in our own concepts that the ego and the separation are real, that is tantamount to slamming the door in his face. It is only by letting all that go, that we can let him in, and in fact the minute we do let that go, we will be face to face with him. This is why the Course speaks of "removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence." (Introduction) That is the fundamental lesson of forgiveness. In the Thomas gospel, this same notion that we let stereotypes and past expectations blind us to the living reality of him, is expressed beautifully in Logion 52:

The disciples said to him, " Twenty-four prophets have spoken in Israel, and they all spoke of you."  He said to them, " You have disregarded the living one who is in your presence, and have spoken of the dead."

A Rose by Any Other Name: J, Jesus, Jeshua, Yeshua?

Are the names truly all the same? Yes and no.

Gary Renard's teachers tell him in The Disappearance of the Universe, to use the name J instead of Jesus, in order to avoid confusion with the Jesus of Christianity, both in the positive sense of Christians who see Jesus in the Pauline mold, or for Jewish people who may have negative associations with that name. All of that makes sense, and Gary's usage of J certainly works for his books. Notice also that in Pursah's version of the Thomas gospel, she uses "J said"  instead of "Jesus said." It gets downright funny when he speaks of the "J Underground" as a name for the movement that is not a movement, but simply a practical collective term for those who are learning the thought system of the Holy Spirit as the Course expresses it. Reviewing and teaching those concepts in the terms of day to day living is the essence of Gary's books. 

Jesus is the latinized version of the Hebrew name Yeshua, or Yoshua, meaning God Helps, God Saves, etc. so it is a very symbolic name, as indeed many names from that tradition were. That meaning is also in line with the notion of Jesus as the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, as he presents himself in the Course, as follows:

Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him. The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or spirit, is eternal and has never changed. He was "called down upon the earth" in the sense that it was now possible to accept Him and to hear His Voice. His is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form. This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him. (ACIM:C-6.1)

and here, speaking in the first person:

I am the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, and when you see me it will be because you have invited Him. For He will send you His witnesses if you will but look upon them. Remember always that you see what you seek, for what you seek you will find. The ego finds what it seeks, and only that. It does not find love, for that is not what it is seeking. Yet seeking and finding are the same, and if you seek for two goals you will find them, but you will recognize neither. You will think they are the same because you want both of them. The mind always strives for integration, and if it is split and wants to keep the split, it will still believe it has one goal by making it seem to be one. (ACIM:T-12.VII.6)

One of my favorite ways of expressing this whole idea comes from Ken Wapnick, who says it as follows: "Jesus is a What, who looks like a who, as long as you think you're a who." By this time we the clearly have a concept of Jesus that is more "docetic,"  as it has been called in Christian theology, to describe a concept in the early literature which was dismissed by the church, which clearly implied that Jesus could appear differently to different people, as reported in the Acts of John, and an experience which Helen Schucman, the scribe of the Course, also had when she once dreamed and encountered a male figure who to her feeling clearly was Jesus, but who looked like Bill (Thetford), her boss at work, and her collaborator with the recording of the Course. When she queried Jesus on the issue of how come he " looked like Bill," the answer she got was: "Who else would I look like?"  as reported in Ken Wapnick's Absence from Felicity.

While I think that all of these considerations are valid, some people will have more of a problem with Jesus than others, and I've certainly had my share of them. At the moment my preferences would probably be J or Yeshua, or Jeshua, but Jesus is OK too. Studying the Course simply forces you to come to grips with the fact that he presents himself differently there then what you may be used to from Christianity, but clearly he's not to hung up on what you call him either, maintaining only that he can help us more if we do believe in him.

So in the end, it boils down to suit yourself, whatever name makes you most comfortable, it could even be Buddha, or Quan Yin, Krishna, or anything else that represents that symbol of total and unconditional love to you.