Sam - One Year Later
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A telephone call and surprise visit and a message ...
One year after I had the visit and conversation with Sam, I received an unexpected telephone call from him. During this call Sam said there was something very urgent that he wanted to discuss with me. He said he wanted to meet with me the following Saturday morning at the same location where we enjoyed our last visit. I asked him why he wanted to meet and why the importance of a meeting in a few days. He explained that he preferred to speak with me in person and share information; he didn’t think he could arrange any other time but this Saturday to meet with me.
I didn’t go into details with Sam because I felt he was determined not to say anything more to me about our proposed meeting. Fortunately, my schedule was clear and I agreed to meet Sam as he requested.
Sam did mention that he purchased two of my books, Faces of Joseph and Gentle River Flow, and read them both. He also said he was able to look at the blue book which I recommended, A Course in Miracles. After reading most of it he said that he chose not to purchase his own copy.
If Sam did not resonate with A Course in Miracles, then what possible reason would he have to want to meet with me? To say the least, I was very wedded to the Course, as I tried to show Sam in our first visit. If he had looked at the Course and found nothing there to attract him, what possible interest does he now have to want a meeting with me?
I became increasingly curious to hear why Sam wanted to meet with me. I could not determine from our short telephone conversation what his specific intentions might be. My mind certainly conjured up all sorts of scenarios, but I was finally able to lay aside my thoughts and accept the fact that Sam merely wanted to talk about something he considered extremely important.
Saturday - My Second Visit with Sam
Spring weather finally arrived in the mountain country of Arizona. Trees were bursting with fresh green colors; fruit trees were in blossom and the bright yellow flowers of the forsythia bushes were already falling to the ground. Because the morning air was warm I decided to walk the mile and a half to the city square for my nine o’clock appointment with Sam.
The timing was perfect. As I rounded the intersection and crossed the street to the park, I saw Sam approaching from the opposite direction. We met at the park bench practically simultaneously.
Sam had the biggest grin on his face and spoke first. “Hello, Joseph!” he said.
“Good morning, Samuel!” I replied as we greeted with a firm handshake and hug.
“Your town is very beautiful in the spring, and it is such a lovely day,” he said as we sat down.
Sam’s grin and cheery disposition were infectious; I laughed and said, “I love our spring weather too; life is bursting everywhere…and it seems to be expressing itself in you too!”
“Yes, I suppose I am a bit excited today, and the season of spring certainly helps, I agree. Joseph, please excuse my apparent rush; I don’t want to delay our conversation and the reason I asked to meet with you. This may be the last time I will have the opportunity to visit with you, so I want to pack in as much as I can. Do you mind that we proceed?”
“No, I certainly don’t mind; I suppose I am as excited to listen as you are to speak. The last time I did most of the talking; today I feel it is my turn to listen. But, first, a quick question; why do you say this may the last time we may have an opportunity to meet?”
“I prefer not to take time to speak with you about this. It is not important. Now, if you please, allow me to begin.”
I respected and honored Sam’s desire not to answer my question; so I settled down to listen to my friend.
Sam began by saying, “Joseph, I like calling you by this name instead of Joe. I feel this suits you much better, especially in your older age. I liked reading both your books and many parts in each really got me thinking, especially where you write about the Bible and how it came to be handed down to us in its present form. I felt a freedom in your words that I admire and it stirred me to think in a fresh way about so many different subjects. You gifted me with a freedom to examine truth. I love how you bring this gift to the reader without doing it with a sense of condemning other people and their long-cherished beliefs. So, first, I want to thank you for this gift, Joseph.”
“Why, thank you, Sam!” I responded. “I never thought of my writing in this way of giving a gift to readers. I am grateful to hear that you experienced this.”
“Joseph,” Sam continued, “Let me tell you what happened to me as the result of reading your books. When you wrote what you did about your past life regression, I nearly missed a blessing. Because of my beliefs and prejudices, I considered passing this chapter by ignoring it. Several months after I read it, I became very curious about the character you identify as the centurion who stabbed the side of Jesus when he was on the cross. I began to do research about him and found many strange and awful stories about the centurion that I could not bring myself to accept. The point, however, is that I kept doing research.
“During a particular research I was doing on the Internet, I came across information about Pilate that I had never seen before. As it turned out, the source of this information came from a channeled source, which astounded me. It was claimed as having been written from Judas Iscariot through a process called automatic writing.”
“Yes,” I interjected, “there is such a thing as automatic writing. But I am not familiar with this Judas source.”
“As I dug further in this research I discovered this type of writing is a continuation of a process of automatic writing through someone called James Padgett, though Padgett did not himself do the Judas-writing. Have you heard of James Padgett?”
“No, I can’t say that I have,” I answered.
“This is something that you will need to look into, Joseph. Here,” he said as he handed me a card, “I have taken the liberty of writing down the website where I found this information.”
I looked at the card Sam gave to me; it was a three by five index card, and written on this card were the words, new-birth.net. I recognized the reference as being an Internet site. The “new birth” threw me off and I was about to comment on this when Sam continued.
“Joseph, when I first saw the reference to new birth I thought I had stumbled into a Baptist church web page, but I was mistaken. This website has information and messages supposedly from the hand of Jesus, using James Padgett as the medium.
“I read many of the messages and, surprising myself, I began to like what I was reading. I know that if I had come across these messages early in my ministry, I am positive I would have rejected them completely. These messages were written between 1914 and 1923 by James Padgett. Mr. Padgett was a lawyer; I believe he was a district attorney in or near Washington, D.C. His writings were not generally made public until many years later. Almost one hundred years later they still are not well known.”
“What is it that attracted you to these messages, Sam,” I interrupted. “Why did you continue to read them?”
“This is hard for me to confess, Joseph, but it seems very clear to me now that I was wrong in many of my beliefs as a Baptist preacher. I can hardly believe I am saying this to you. Please read this material for yourself, Joseph; then you may be able to understand what I am about to tell you.
“In these messages Jesus tells how—except for a few exceptions—he was completely misunderstood by people, even the disciples he chose to be closest to him. He said that as events and teachings were eventually written down long after his death, very few of his true teachings and actions were recorded correctly. As the years went by and the distance grew further from the actual events, the scribes recording the teachings and actions did not understand the messages, and consequently distorted them again, until there was practically no association at all between his teachings and the final version we find in our scripture.
“The closest record we have to Jesus’ own words is found in John’s Gospel,” Samuel continued, “but even that book contains too many distortions to allow a complete and confident understanding of Jesus’ teachings about salvation.
“Joseph, I can’t begin to tell you how my spirit shook when I read this. I think I felt this way because I saw my errors when I saw my beliefs in the greater light of what I was reading.”
My friend was very overcome with tears in the telling of this story to me. I did not think he would be able to proceed. But after a few minutes pause, he did continue.
Sam smiled at me and said, “Joseph, I am too old to start again and do it right. But I can do what I can about correcting my own beliefs before I die. I want to take something of Jesus’ truth with me when I lay down this old body. From what I understand, Jesus teaches that I will have opportunity to change in the spirit world, when I lay aside my physical body.”
I then asked him, “But what is it that you hope to take with you? Is it this merely new head knowledge, Sam?”
“No, Joseph, it isn’t head knowledge. The truth of the Gospel of God’s Love is not a belief about sin and the vicarious suffering of the Son of God on the cross. You helped me to understand this, Joseph, when you talked to me about the one true Son, and our common identity as a Son of God. We are not the depraved and lost children of God. You know how I used to preach sin and damnation, heaven or hell. This is not true. I no longer believe this. Let me tell you what Jesus has to say about my favorite verses in the whole Bible. I lived totally and completely by the words of John, chapter three and verses one through twenty-one., but especially verse three and verse seven, where Jesus says quite clearly that we must be born again. These verses are the bread and butter for all good Christians, but especially for Baptists.
“In the teachings of Jesus, he brings clarity to the subject of the new birth. Yes, I still believe that we all need to be born again, but the meaning is now completely changed for me. Here are Jesus’ own words which he said he taught when he was on earth.”
Sam pulled out another index card from his shirt pocket and read:
“I say unto you, except a man be born of God’s Divine Love by the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
“These words change things completely,” Samuel continued. “We are not changed by receiving the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes when we seek and ask the Father for His Love; and then the Holy Spirit brings to our soul the inflowing of the Divine Love of God. It is the presence of this Divine Love which brings the new birth.”
I said nothing, but allowed a time of silence to continue; I was definitely listening intently to my friend’s words.
“Joseph, I have started a process to correct my erroneous beliefs, and I have started to earnestly seek and ask God to open my soul to the inflowing of Divine Love. The Holy Spirit has come and is already beginning to give God’s love to my soul. I have never felt anything like this before in my life. This Divine Love Jesus talks about in his new messages is definitely real, Joseph.”
I asked Sam, “Do you suppose this is anything like the experience I had thirty years ago when I turned to the Pentecostal pathway?”
“I have no idea, Joseph. This is something you will have to answer yourself. I may be wrong, but I think it is not the same. Your experience had more to do with the doctrine of receiving the Holy Ghost and speaking with other tongues as the evidence of the new birth. Am I not correct?
“Yes, you are—although we certainly did experience a great deal of love too.”
“I am wondering if you actually received the Divine Love Jesus speaks about. Perhaps you did, but I do know your Pentecostal friends still preach a great deal of sin, hell-fire and damnation messages along with other things about the Holy Ghost.”
I said, “That is precisely what led me to eventually leave the Pentecostal church. It didn’t seem to me to be right to go around condemning people and thinking we were the only one going to heaven. Does the message of Divine Love condemn people who do not have it?”
“As far as I have read thus far, I find no burning hell doctrines.”
“How does Jesus teach that people receive Divine Love?”
“It is so simple it is almost too good to be true,” Sam answered. “Jesus teaches that all a person need do is begin to long for it in his soul or in his heart. Though prayers are suggested, words are not important. Preachers and priests or mediums of any kind are not required. They are unnecessary. This is an individual thing between God and each person. It is the Spirit of God Who brings the Divine Love. The Spirit is active everywhere and with everyone. His influence is constantly present. I have a feeling that many receive the inflowing of Divine Love and do not even know it. It is tied in with a deep longing within the soul of a man. It is not an intellectual thing; it does not involve joining this or that church. Rights words and right thoughts and dogma are non-essential. In fact, thoughts and beliefs often get in the way of the inflowing of Love.”
“Is this the same as human love?” I asked Sam.
“No, Joseph,” he answered. “Human or natural love is ours just by virtue of our birth into this physical existence. Divine Love is completely different. Human love is natural; it is does not need to be acquired. Divine Love must be acquired; the individual must seek and ask for It. But, as I already said, this asking may merely be the silent and earnest longing of an individual’s heart.”
Sam looked down at his watch and explained that he was already late to meet his son.
He stood up and said, “Joseph, I apologize; I must leave. My son and I are leaving shortly to return to California.”
Then my friend added, “When we met the first time on this bench one year ago, you gave me information to seek. Today it is my turn; please research what I have told you. Read the Padgett material for yourself. This may be exactly what you were looking for thirty years ago when you sought the Pentecostal way; this might also have been what you were looking for when you became a student of A Course in Miracles. This message is much simpler and certainly easier to understand than the Course. I am not asking or suggesting that you stop your work with A Course in Miracles. I am just asking you this: Will you promise me that you will at least look into the Padgett messages?"
“I will do this, Samuel. I promise you that I will investigate what you have shared with me today.”
We shook hands and hugged each other.
When Samuel hurriedly walked away from me something in my heart said that we would never meet like this again. But then, a different feeling leaped in my heart ... I felt that I would meet my friend Samuel again.
___________________________________
Postscript
Shortly after this I began to read the Spirit Communications received by James Padgett and and made the choice to turn away from A Course in Miracles. That was over six (6) years ago and I haven’t looked back. I became a publisher of the Padgett Messages, and in 2012 I wrote and published a book with the title The Choice, which showcases the decision that I made in 2006 to embrace the way of Divine Love. Even though this book is my own work, nonetheless, I say that it is an important and inspiring read; I highly recommend it.
I didn’t go into details with Sam because I felt he was determined not to say anything more to me about our proposed meeting. Fortunately, my schedule was clear and I agreed to meet Sam as he requested.
Sam did mention that he purchased two of my books, Faces of Joseph and Gentle River Flow, and read them both. He also said he was able to look at the blue book which I recommended, A Course in Miracles. After reading most of it he said that he chose not to purchase his own copy.
If Sam did not resonate with A Course in Miracles, then what possible reason would he have to want to meet with me? To say the least, I was very wedded to the Course, as I tried to show Sam in our first visit. If he had looked at the Course and found nothing there to attract him, what possible interest does he now have to want a meeting with me?
I became increasingly curious to hear why Sam wanted to meet with me. I could not determine from our short telephone conversation what his specific intentions might be. My mind certainly conjured up all sorts of scenarios, but I was finally able to lay aside my thoughts and accept the fact that Sam merely wanted to talk about something he considered extremely important.
Saturday - My Second Visit with Sam
Spring weather finally arrived in the mountain country of Arizona. Trees were bursting with fresh green colors; fruit trees were in blossom and the bright yellow flowers of the forsythia bushes were already falling to the ground. Because the morning air was warm I decided to walk the mile and a half to the city square for my nine o’clock appointment with Sam.
The timing was perfect. As I rounded the intersection and crossed the street to the park, I saw Sam approaching from the opposite direction. We met at the park bench practically simultaneously.
Sam had the biggest grin on his face and spoke first. “Hello, Joseph!” he said.
“Good morning, Samuel!” I replied as we greeted with a firm handshake and hug.
“Your town is very beautiful in the spring, and it is such a lovely day,” he said as we sat down.
Sam’s grin and cheery disposition were infectious; I laughed and said, “I love our spring weather too; life is bursting everywhere…and it seems to be expressing itself in you too!”
“Yes, I suppose I am a bit excited today, and the season of spring certainly helps, I agree. Joseph, please excuse my apparent rush; I don’t want to delay our conversation and the reason I asked to meet with you. This may be the last time I will have the opportunity to visit with you, so I want to pack in as much as I can. Do you mind that we proceed?”
“No, I certainly don’t mind; I suppose I am as excited to listen as you are to speak. The last time I did most of the talking; today I feel it is my turn to listen. But, first, a quick question; why do you say this may the last time we may have an opportunity to meet?”
“I prefer not to take time to speak with you about this. It is not important. Now, if you please, allow me to begin.”
I respected and honored Sam’s desire not to answer my question; so I settled down to listen to my friend.
Sam began by saying, “Joseph, I like calling you by this name instead of Joe. I feel this suits you much better, especially in your older age. I liked reading both your books and many parts in each really got me thinking, especially where you write about the Bible and how it came to be handed down to us in its present form. I felt a freedom in your words that I admire and it stirred me to think in a fresh way about so many different subjects. You gifted me with a freedom to examine truth. I love how you bring this gift to the reader without doing it with a sense of condemning other people and their long-cherished beliefs. So, first, I want to thank you for this gift, Joseph.”
“Why, thank you, Sam!” I responded. “I never thought of my writing in this way of giving a gift to readers. I am grateful to hear that you experienced this.”
“Joseph,” Sam continued, “Let me tell you what happened to me as the result of reading your books. When you wrote what you did about your past life regression, I nearly missed a blessing. Because of my beliefs and prejudices, I considered passing this chapter by ignoring it. Several months after I read it, I became very curious about the character you identify as the centurion who stabbed the side of Jesus when he was on the cross. I began to do research about him and found many strange and awful stories about the centurion that I could not bring myself to accept. The point, however, is that I kept doing research.
“During a particular research I was doing on the Internet, I came across information about Pilate that I had never seen before. As it turned out, the source of this information came from a channeled source, which astounded me. It was claimed as having been written from Judas Iscariot through a process called automatic writing.”
“Yes,” I interjected, “there is such a thing as automatic writing. But I am not familiar with this Judas source.”
“As I dug further in this research I discovered this type of writing is a continuation of a process of automatic writing through someone called James Padgett, though Padgett did not himself do the Judas-writing. Have you heard of James Padgett?”
“No, I can’t say that I have,” I answered.
“This is something that you will need to look into, Joseph. Here,” he said as he handed me a card, “I have taken the liberty of writing down the website where I found this information.”
I looked at the card Sam gave to me; it was a three by five index card, and written on this card were the words, new-birth.net. I recognized the reference as being an Internet site. The “new birth” threw me off and I was about to comment on this when Sam continued.
“Joseph, when I first saw the reference to new birth I thought I had stumbled into a Baptist church web page, but I was mistaken. This website has information and messages supposedly from the hand of Jesus, using James Padgett as the medium.
“I read many of the messages and, surprising myself, I began to like what I was reading. I know that if I had come across these messages early in my ministry, I am positive I would have rejected them completely. These messages were written between 1914 and 1923 by James Padgett. Mr. Padgett was a lawyer; I believe he was a district attorney in or near Washington, D.C. His writings were not generally made public until many years later. Almost one hundred years later they still are not well known.”
“What is it that attracted you to these messages, Sam,” I interrupted. “Why did you continue to read them?”
“This is hard for me to confess, Joseph, but it seems very clear to me now that I was wrong in many of my beliefs as a Baptist preacher. I can hardly believe I am saying this to you. Please read this material for yourself, Joseph; then you may be able to understand what I am about to tell you.
“In these messages Jesus tells how—except for a few exceptions—he was completely misunderstood by people, even the disciples he chose to be closest to him. He said that as events and teachings were eventually written down long after his death, very few of his true teachings and actions were recorded correctly. As the years went by and the distance grew further from the actual events, the scribes recording the teachings and actions did not understand the messages, and consequently distorted them again, until there was practically no association at all between his teachings and the final version we find in our scripture.
“The closest record we have to Jesus’ own words is found in John’s Gospel,” Samuel continued, “but even that book contains too many distortions to allow a complete and confident understanding of Jesus’ teachings about salvation.
“Joseph, I can’t begin to tell you how my spirit shook when I read this. I think I felt this way because I saw my errors when I saw my beliefs in the greater light of what I was reading.”
My friend was very overcome with tears in the telling of this story to me. I did not think he would be able to proceed. But after a few minutes pause, he did continue.
Sam smiled at me and said, “Joseph, I am too old to start again and do it right. But I can do what I can about correcting my own beliefs before I die. I want to take something of Jesus’ truth with me when I lay down this old body. From what I understand, Jesus teaches that I will have opportunity to change in the spirit world, when I lay aside my physical body.”
I then asked him, “But what is it that you hope to take with you? Is it this merely new head knowledge, Sam?”
“No, Joseph, it isn’t head knowledge. The truth of the Gospel of God’s Love is not a belief about sin and the vicarious suffering of the Son of God on the cross. You helped me to understand this, Joseph, when you talked to me about the one true Son, and our common identity as a Son of God. We are not the depraved and lost children of God. You know how I used to preach sin and damnation, heaven or hell. This is not true. I no longer believe this. Let me tell you what Jesus has to say about my favorite verses in the whole Bible. I lived totally and completely by the words of John, chapter three and verses one through twenty-one., but especially verse three and verse seven, where Jesus says quite clearly that we must be born again. These verses are the bread and butter for all good Christians, but especially for Baptists.
“In the teachings of Jesus, he brings clarity to the subject of the new birth. Yes, I still believe that we all need to be born again, but the meaning is now completely changed for me. Here are Jesus’ own words which he said he taught when he was on earth.”
Sam pulled out another index card from his shirt pocket and read:
“I say unto you, except a man be born of God’s Divine Love by the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
“These words change things completely,” Samuel continued. “We are not changed by receiving the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes when we seek and ask the Father for His Love; and then the Holy Spirit brings to our soul the inflowing of the Divine Love of God. It is the presence of this Divine Love which brings the new birth.”
I said nothing, but allowed a time of silence to continue; I was definitely listening intently to my friend’s words.
“Joseph, I have started a process to correct my erroneous beliefs, and I have started to earnestly seek and ask God to open my soul to the inflowing of Divine Love. The Holy Spirit has come and is already beginning to give God’s love to my soul. I have never felt anything like this before in my life. This Divine Love Jesus talks about in his new messages is definitely real, Joseph.”
I asked Sam, “Do you suppose this is anything like the experience I had thirty years ago when I turned to the Pentecostal pathway?”
“I have no idea, Joseph. This is something you will have to answer yourself. I may be wrong, but I think it is not the same. Your experience had more to do with the doctrine of receiving the Holy Ghost and speaking with other tongues as the evidence of the new birth. Am I not correct?
“Yes, you are—although we certainly did experience a great deal of love too.”
“I am wondering if you actually received the Divine Love Jesus speaks about. Perhaps you did, but I do know your Pentecostal friends still preach a great deal of sin, hell-fire and damnation messages along with other things about the Holy Ghost.”
I said, “That is precisely what led me to eventually leave the Pentecostal church. It didn’t seem to me to be right to go around condemning people and thinking we were the only one going to heaven. Does the message of Divine Love condemn people who do not have it?”
“As far as I have read thus far, I find no burning hell doctrines.”
“How does Jesus teach that people receive Divine Love?”
“It is so simple it is almost too good to be true,” Sam answered. “Jesus teaches that all a person need do is begin to long for it in his soul or in his heart. Though prayers are suggested, words are not important. Preachers and priests or mediums of any kind are not required. They are unnecessary. This is an individual thing between God and each person. It is the Spirit of God Who brings the Divine Love. The Spirit is active everywhere and with everyone. His influence is constantly present. I have a feeling that many receive the inflowing of Divine Love and do not even know it. It is tied in with a deep longing within the soul of a man. It is not an intellectual thing; it does not involve joining this or that church. Rights words and right thoughts and dogma are non-essential. In fact, thoughts and beliefs often get in the way of the inflowing of Love.”
“Is this the same as human love?” I asked Sam.
“No, Joseph,” he answered. “Human or natural love is ours just by virtue of our birth into this physical existence. Divine Love is completely different. Human love is natural; it is does not need to be acquired. Divine Love must be acquired; the individual must seek and ask for It. But, as I already said, this asking may merely be the silent and earnest longing of an individual’s heart.”
Sam looked down at his watch and explained that he was already late to meet his son.
He stood up and said, “Joseph, I apologize; I must leave. My son and I are leaving shortly to return to California.”
Then my friend added, “When we met the first time on this bench one year ago, you gave me information to seek. Today it is my turn; please research what I have told you. Read the Padgett material for yourself. This may be exactly what you were looking for thirty years ago when you sought the Pentecostal way; this might also have been what you were looking for when you became a student of A Course in Miracles. This message is much simpler and certainly easier to understand than the Course. I am not asking or suggesting that you stop your work with A Course in Miracles. I am just asking you this: Will you promise me that you will at least look into the Padgett messages?"
“I will do this, Samuel. I promise you that I will investigate what you have shared with me today.”
We shook hands and hugged each other.
When Samuel hurriedly walked away from me something in my heart said that we would never meet like this again. But then, a different feeling leaped in my heart ... I felt that I would meet my friend Samuel again.
___________________________________
Postscript
Shortly after this I began to read the Spirit Communications received by James Padgett and and made the choice to turn away from A Course in Miracles. That was over six (6) years ago and I haven’t looked back. I became a publisher of the Padgett Messages, and in 2012 I wrote and published a book with the title The Choice, which showcases the decision that I made in 2006 to embrace the way of Divine Love. Even though this book is my own work, nonetheless, I say that it is an important and inspiring read; I highly recommend it.