That so many worship Jesus, and yet fail to have a spiritual experience, should lead us to a truth:

Jesus is not God,

God is God,

that Jesus understood this is the instrument for our knowing the divine.

That God is ineffable was known from the beginning, the reason that everything written about what is holy must be metaphor, that is the only way of understanding and passing along that knowledge of the divine; whenever we take one of these descriptions or persons literally we are in trouble and we know it; the energy of defending the interpretation, aggressively promoting it leaves us, in the end, ignorant and in pain, there are innumerable examples of this in each one of our lives, it is the principle reason that so many discard the church, and we leave in disappointment and anger. The inherent desire to be part of that that is divine, has not been destroyed, it is that the force to obey literal expressions just doesn’t work, it doesn’t bring spiritual growth and joy.

Even the label ‘God’ is a metaphor.

When Jesus asked why God was not protecting him—he came to know this great truth—that God is not about the mundane, it was then that Jesus could leave the worldly mantle and could be infinitly transcendent. He knew intuitively that he must be rejected and killed, his great courage asked assistance for this to take place; he knew that he had to carry the cross each and every step himself, that he had to feel the torture and be awake while his murder place:

This is the great truth that may assist us know transcendence, and to understand the holy that can never be uttered, known yes, described never.

I don’t see God as a noun, it is more of a verb, the Wellspring of Being works best for me; Tillich’s term is the ground of being; I cannot ignore that other term of Tillich’s–God is ultimate concern.

The search for the right term is proper, it is a tool for looking within oneself for the truth, taking that kernel of intuitive knowledge and making it relevant for the self.

Our intuitive and ultimately true task is that search, it has always been so.

Memorizing and repeating the writings of those who have had the spiritual experience doesn’t work, it has never worked, but it is easier than introspection, and so lies the reason so many do it; it takes courage to look for oneself.