This affirmation of the resurrection has become very important to me over the many years.  It became a go to remark at funerals. It speaks to the hope in us that nothing in all creation or history can “trump” resurrection and grace.

Frederick Beuchner writes, “The New Testament proclaims that at some unforeseeable time in the future God will ring down the final curtain on history, and there will come a Day on which all our days and all the judgments upon each other will themselves be judged. The judge will be Christ.  In other words, the one who judges us most finally will be the one who loves us most fully.”

In hope in spite of the facts.  John

Nine Characteristics of the Mystical Experience


Every person’s mystical experience varies in length and intensity. Have you had a mystical experience? Here are a few defining characteristics:

1. Conscious Unity

The boundaries of where you perceive your individual consciousness and identity (ego) to begin and end vanish. Instead you’re left with a boundless and infinite union with all that is around you.

2. There Is No Time or Space

With a lack of a definable identity or spatial recognition, your sense of time feels infinite. You go from perceiving time from moment-to-moment as a static individual, to perceiving it as a stream of eternal present moments.
Without time space is endless.

Because your sense of identity is gone, your ability to separate “your” (now non-existent) surroundings into individual “spatial” elements also disappears.

3. Objective Reality


Without a discernible identity comes a sense of greater “objectivity” as though you’re experiencing a much more intricate and profound reality. Everything doesn’t just feel perfect, everything “is” innately perfect.

4. Gratitude

Much of your ecstatic feeling comes from an immense sense of gratitude. This gratitude is an overwhelming sense of awe at “your” (now non-existent) insignificance in comparison to the vastness of existence.

5. Life Is Seen As Sacred

In fact, your sense of gratitude is so vast that you feel almost undeserving of having the opportunity to experience such a miracle. You develop a new sense of respect for the sacredness of life that allows you to be here.+


6. You Understand Paradox

Our sense of self or identity creates duality in our perception of reality (“I” am separate from “That”). However, the moment this separation disappears, you’re left with a non-dual reality which your intellect finds paradoxical in comparison to what it is accustomed to.


7. The Experience Is Indescribable

The overwhelming magnitude of emotions and intuitive understanding you embody makes the attempt to even describe it feel limited by language and insulting to the depth of the experience.

8. The Experience Is Temporary

The very nature of a mystical experience is its transience. Eventually you end up returning back to your habitual way of life, but the experience changes something deep inside.


9. The Experience Is Life-Changing

After experiencing such a state, suddenly death isn’t as scary as it used to be, and the beliefs or ambitions that you once held to be so important immediately lose their meaning. In fact, the mystical experience often awakens a thirst to try to bring as much of that experience back into our regular day-to-day lives as possible.

The Mystical Experience Is Only A Taste

There’s a useful term in the Christian doctrine known as “Grace.” This word basically means that we receive mercy and love from the divine because it wants us to have it, not because we have done anything to deserve it.

Many people confuse having a mystical/spiritual experience with actually cultivating a spiritual life. To me, however, these experiences are brought by grace, but our appreciation of them is directly proportionate to our development of soulful maturity.

If the grace of a mystical experience is given to a 10 year old child, they will no doubt feel the experience but the degree in which they experience it will vary compared to someone who has undergone maturation; the deep exploration of their psyche, and who has learned to live life from the seat of their soul.

For the child it will be a great experience that will eventually fade and become a distant memory. But for the man who has dedicated his life to cultivating soulful maturity; to tilling the soil of his soul, this experience becomes the seed that is prepared to blossom. This might be the very tipping point that leads to the ultimate spiritual awakening.


This is precisely why I emphasize so much the necessity of soulwork and the journey of soulful maturity. Without widening the gap through which we connect to Soul, the mystical experience has no deep long-lasting impact on us. But with it, we taste the fragrance and essence of eternity.

Lonerwolf website

An inalienable right to a good time!


We were not put here to have a good time and that’s what throws most of us, that sense that we all have an inalienable right to a good time.

”A Conversation with the Real Woody Allen” Rolling Stone, 1976

Living Out Grace

Alfred C. Krass

Alfred C. Krass

In his book, Evangelizing Neopagan North America, Alfred C. Krass states that Evangelism will arise out of the community, which lives out the message of God’s grace.  At first glance this statement seems obvious.  “Of course we live out the message of God’s grace!”  But do we? If we do how do we know that we are doing so.  What does it look like?

 The word evangelist means one who bears good news. It is always used in a context of joy, at least from the point of view of the messenger. Here we gain a significant clue.  Grace always travels with her companion joy.  Grace is the good news that salvation of God in Christ Jesus is free!  It is a gift that cannot be earned.  It can only be accepted never gained by any effort on the part of humanity.  As one reflects on the mystery of such love joy is the authentic response of the heart’s delight in the love of God.  Joy is the state of being of one who has experienced the message of grace.  There is movement in the imagination of the soul and such movement produces outward effect.

Joy makes the bearer of good news attractive and draws the hearer.  Joy comes from the heart and communication from the heart will penetrate the shell around other hearts.  I have always be suspicious of those who felt it was their duty to inform me of God’s law and the consequences of not receiving their “good news” on their terms.   No

Grace imparts joy and grace plus joy = gratitude.   If we want to know how we are doing in our soul’s journey we need only ask, “Are we grateful?”  For gratitude is the sign of grace and joy. .

Note: The angels appearing to the shepherds in the Christmas gospel bring news of great joy.