It has been at least six months since I wrote the ‘Lydia Aello’ thing, it was a way of tying a few things together, to see how they looked on paper and screen. It is a good time to add something to the business of experiencing whatever it was that I experienced.

All my bridges were burning, there was no way out of this horrible mess that my life had become, death was my only option. I had gone over my situation repeatedly, had burned out a number of therapists in attempts to find a solution to the depression and anxiety that destroyed all that I might have been. I truly believed that I was going to use the setup I had made, that I would no longer be alive in fifteen minutes, no hope was left unturned.

It was the absolute belief that nothing I held important was useful, no cavalry troop was going to ride in from off stage at the last minute; no smooth, moist thighs were going to open as a safe harbor; that is when I began to sense something else, I now call it ‘Presence’ even though it was and is not a thing, a presence. It is more like a verb than a noun, and it has no character other than it was through me, about me, it was me and more than me, I would never be alone again.

In the months and years to follow I went through James’ Varieties of Religious Experience, fought my way through a number of Tillich’s books, listed myself at the University of Wales, Lampeter where religious experiences can be registered. I have come to believe that I had what those others have had over the millenia, and it has led me to a few notions:

Jesus couldn’t have experienced the ultimate transcendence if he had not been brought to death by the Romans, Jesus the man teaching what all men can know.

That the guy who stood on the dessert and said ‘God is God’ pretty much said it all, and I empathize with his experience.

That people who have spiritual knowledge did not all stop two thousand years ago, there is no reason to think that there is less opportunity to know the divine than there was in Palestine back then, no reason at all.

That it is the goal of everyone to have this knowledge, whether that goal is expressed or kept hidden, there is intuitive knowledge of what it is.

I will post this as is, even though I know its inadequacy, know that what was experienced can never be portrayed accurately and fully: not by Bach, Jackson Pollock or Jesus, but we feel the need to try.