Chapter 61: By The Eternal Word

in Him
all in
all things
hold together

from nothing
word
father
glory of God
manifestation
man
fully alive

Eucharist
presence priest
sacrament worship
summit alter

world of miracles
host to flesh
wine to blood

world of doubt
flesh to image
blood to blood

transubstantiation

source sanctification sign
of unity
bond
of charity

initiation completion
thanksgiving

spirit source
every good giver
creator
cooperative hand

pure heart spiritual
life to sinners

Chapter 60: Priority of Suffering

To gaze upon an image of a man who was tortured and crucified is to be faced with the wretched darkness that resides in the soul of mankind.

How tiring life can be. How exhausting the toll taken from all the loss, pain, and suffering. Perhaps our anguish, the impossible loss, the tortured times we endure, spring from a misguided priority of suffering, one of the human-made kind.

We make our own strife and sorrow every time we project onto the sacrifices Christ made for us, the sacrifices we in turn must make for Him.

Suffering and sacrificing ourselves for Him is different than depending on Him...on His grace and on His abundant blessings and no other, including our seemingly undeniable self.

The complete surrender of Christ to His father's will is immortalized on the image on the Shroud. The mystery of total dependency on God is animated in this image that has no explanation.

It is ironic whenever we prioritize our worldly suffering as a way of maintaining ego control, rather than surrendering our independence to God and fine tuning our lives to His will. Our suffering is His entrance into us. Why shroud ourselves in the protective cocoon of the human ego?

In obeying ourselves as master, we inflict true pain and suffering on ourselves and those around us. Whereas, in depending solely on God, we enter into a place of obedience and sacrifice that, while it may require a lot from us, does not take its toll on us in the same exhausting, debilitating way. For we are fed from within the will of God, as opposed to any short term accomplishment or accolade we earn through egotism and self reliance.

That grace, that power is a gift we ourselves cannot initiate in and of ourselves. For to do so only leads to acts of kindness and charity that we tend to boast about and use as an excuse to reconcile our own inner demons. Our ego is clever enough to steal the spotlight.

Jesus was dependent only on the Father. Whatever pain, torture, suffering He endured, he was able to do so through total surrender and obedience to God's will.

Christ's total surrender results in an image so faint and yet so multi-dimensional and holographic in nature that it at once captures both the fragility and depth of all existence.

We depend on science to solve the mystery of the image. We put all our eggs in the basket of fact...proof..empirical review...evidence. Where is our dependence on God for explanation, meaning, mystery and marvel?

In depending on science for answers, we form hypothesis, theories, conduct experiments, and do a lot of arguing about who is right and wrong.

The swelling of our ego is the diminishing of holiness. God initiates the reflection of His glory in us, through us and all that surrounds us. But we ignore His surrounding glory because we think we understand it, deserve it, are it.

But what would it look like to depend only on God for solving the mystery of the image? What does it mean for us to wait, listen, surrender, and obey where this image is concerned?

It is much easier on us to entangle ourselves in the tangible theories we entertain than to hover in the faint, tenuous unknown that supports each particle, each fibril of what is beyond our limitations.

Are we being guided to the science or are we superimposing it? Do we glom on to certain theories only because they better encapsulate our views and beliefs, thus enabling us to exist in a context we find safe and comfortable?

The image on the Shroud beckons us to consider that salvation is initiated outside us and is realized in us only through Christ.

We are not in charge as to when, how or even if God will call us. Acts of grace are bestowed upon us and are not necessarily dependent upon our belief in Father, Son, or Holy Spirit.

Squared in by convictions and controversies, God invites us to both faith and skepticism. We all serve God, even when we are not trying to or are actively and adamantly denying Him. Perhaps this is why skeptics and believers alike continue to strive in vain to test and prove that the Shroud is not/is Christ's burial cloth. Perhaps believing and not believing are nothing more than independent reactions to the image.

The Shroud has called us all to pro and con. One cannot be without the other.

the gift of doubt balances the gift of faith
the gift of faith balances the gift of doubt

sin cannot be without salvation
salvation cannot be without sin

We can only perceive His glory if He lets us. The image on the Shroud is His tactical invitation. He initiates the conversation. The mystery of His entering into our lives is the mystery of the image. If we said yes to God, to depending solely on Him for guidance and answers, where might He lead us?

When you weigh the amount of energy in the world spent on the self, the ego, against the amount spent on God...imagine if all that energy went towards serving and praising God.

Do all our questions spring forth from God's eternal baptismal fountain? The beauty of our inquiries as to the origin of the image is that we can look at the totality of creation for answers.

Is the image:
A prayer?
A road map?
An answer?
A way in – to God's will rather than our own?
A way out of our own ego?
The cradle of Christ?
Our opportunity to walk with Him?
Surmountable suffering?
A passing Passion pain?
A testament to the power of surrendering our pain and existence to God?

What if the image only has mass as it is creating mass, thus rendering it a “living” entity?

What if it forms, solidifies, and then bursts open into new particles of mass?

What if, within that process of creation, its mass is undetectable?

Is this, perhaps, how the “God Particle” (Higgs boson) functions?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Many types of relationships have an understood reciprocity of love, yet how one sided we are with our love of self. The irony – we do not love ourselves enough to remedy our suffering.

Why is it so difficult for us to look at our own image and remind ourselves of the simple truth that belies each one of us:

it's not
all about me
in fact
it's not
about me at all

Chapter 59: Water Wind Spirit Light

[John 3:1-21; 7:45-51; and 19:39-42]

If we believe what the Scriptures testify – that God reveals His plans and works through His people to accomplish His purposes – then it stands to reason that, wherever Scripture meets Shroud might contain clues about the image.

We know that Joseph of Arimethea provided the linen cloth. But Nicodemus is also mentioned as being involved in the burial. Why him?

Nicodemus first came to Jesus in the dark, likely to avoid being seen with Him. He affirms to Jesus that he believes:
“...thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.”

The mention of miracles.

Jesus responds:
“...Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

Nicodemus asks how a man can be born again and Jesus explains:
“Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God... that which is born of the flesh is flesh;
and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit...”

Born of water... as in an image born from some dehydration process? Is the clear, watery substance on the Shroud that flowed from the spear wound symbolic evidence of this water? Are the water stains more than just a result of extinguishing fire?

Nicodemus, still marveling, requests further explanation – as to how being born again is possible. Jesus uses an analogy:
“The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.”

Wind...air...as in the result of some oxidation process?

Born of the spirit... as in an incorporeal consciousness that communicates to us through an image, the origin of which no one can define?

Explanation of the invisible miracle.

But Nicodemus still has trouble understanding the “how” of it.
Jesus defers to Scripture to give him the clarification he seeks:
“And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have eternal life.”

Moses' bronze serpent, lifted on a pole, becomes the foreshadowing of the cross as the remedy for the curse of human sin. All that any Israelite who had been bitten by the serpent of death had to do was look up at the bronze serpent of life on the pole in order to be saved. We have only to look to the cross for our salvation.

It all comes down to believing...in the rising of Christ...and in His image on the Shroud.

What Jesus said next – to Nicodemus of all people – is the essence of Christianity:
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son,
that whosoever believith in him should not perish,
but have everlasting life.
For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

God, working through Jesus, accomplishes His purpose – our salvation.

Jesus then warns Nicodemus of the consequences for those who do not believe that the world can be saved through the son of God.
“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world,
and men loved darkness rather than light,
because their deeds were evil.
For everyone that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved.
But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.”

Light...as in a short, intense burst of VUV radiation? As in an image that cannot be seen in transmitted light because the transmission of the light waves does not occur (is not absorbed) because the frequencies of the light waves match the natural frequencies of vibration of the image? Light that, like the wind, cannot be tied to any particular plane rotation or source of direction?

Living by truth brings us into the light. Living by truth is what enables the light of God to be seen through us.

Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, out of human darkness, believing somewhat in, yet also questioning Jesus. Nicodemus is gradually and methodically drawn to the light of Christ and undergoes a transformation. But that transformation happens incrementally, not all at once (just as it tends to happen to us).

Nicodemus is only mentioned two other times (again by John). Once, at the Feast of Tabernacles, when he comes to Jesus' defense by stating the law concerning Jesus' arrest:
“Does our law condemn a man without first hearing him
to find out what he has been doing?”

Nicodemus, the Pharisee, ruler of the Jews, member of the Sanhedrin bends his authority to defer to Jesus' truth.

Nicodemus is mentioned one last time (& most significantly regarding the Shroud), as having assisted Joseph of Arimethea at Christ's burial.
“And there came also Nicodemus, which at the first came to Jesus by night, and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about an hundred pound weight.
Then they took the body of Jesus and wound it in linen clothes with spices,
as the manner of the Jews is to bury.
Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden; and in the garden a new sepulchre, wherein was never a man yet laid.
There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day; for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.”

Certainly it is no accident that, of all people who could be present at the burial, Nicodemus (whose name means "Victory of the People") was the person there assisting Joseph of Arimethea.

This man, who tentatively approached Jesus in the darkness of doubt and disbelief, was perhaps predestined to be transfigured into a believer in the light of Christ. This man anointed the dead body of flesh of the Son of God, the first one to be reborn of water and spirit and to rise to sanctify all humankind by His light.

Is Nicodemus' presence at the burial Christ's way of reassuring us that the image on the Shroud is indeed proof of the water and spirit womb where Jesus is born again?

Should we not take Jesus' word for it? Word that is revealed to us in the Scriptures during his encounter with Nicodemus. Word that explains the resurrection process. Word that establishes God as working through Jesus for our salvation. Word where God can work through us so we can reflect His truth just by believing...


darkness and light
Nicodemus by night
water wind
spirit flight

Chapter 58: Opt In and Rise

A Zen kōan posits:
“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional.”

The faint image on the Shroud whispers a paradox of its own:
“Suffering is inevitable. Salvation is optional.”

By voluntarily opting in to suffering, Christ covers us under the blanket of His forgiveness.

By rising in each of us, our suffering transmutes into His inevitable promise of salvation.

Chapter 57: Image of Assimilation

We all sin. And even if, with maturity and some modicum of wisdom, we sin less and less as our lives progress, still we sin.

The image on the Shroud is our “insurance policy” to protect us from ourselves. It embodies the reassurance that, buried beneath the burden of our sins, a blueprint of redemption is already in place.

The Shroud image holds Christ's eternal and internal residing presence. In and beyond time, He loves and forgives us by enduring human suffering and dying a human death.

Through His image, Christ unifies, releases, and sustains the vibrant and continuous dance of the particles of sin and shame and their anti-particles of sacrifice and love.

His manifestation of both the evil of sin and His loving remedy for that evil is a place of equanimity. A place where we are made whole, to be a new creation, to live in perfect unity with ourselves, each other, and God.

His image frees us to never deny our sinfulness nor our goodness, because in doing either we compound His ongoing suffering on the cross.

By accepting ourselves, we coexist in the serenity of His image. Our flaws and failures, as well as our goodness... all are assimilated by the gifts of His grace.

No more fear. No more death. Just His holy design, the original blueprint for the forever creation of humanity.

Chapter 56: Just Beyond Violet

the word Jerusalem
lives in our lexicon like a cave
a safe place where we return
again and again
to a larger and unified event
our foundation

the heart of a world of completeness
whole and sound
guiding pillar of vision
protection of the righteous

rain of peace of Lamb of God of salvation

exalted above the hills
the Lord shall see

~~~~~

If I could place myself anywhere back in time it would be in the sacred cave, the tomb where death became holy.

I imagine the walls of this cave, orthorhomic crystals of travertine aragonite deposited from springs. Magnetizable metallic iron oxidizing in the moisture, occurring naturally in the blood of Christ. Evaporation forms while soft, silvery white strontium oxidizes and ignites spontaneously in air, turning yellow.

I would yearn to wander just beyond violet in the visible spectrum, ending at the beginning of X-rays, where space time curls up and a range of invisible radiation wave lengths hovers in this sacred vacuum cave, protecting itself from being absorbed by air.

There I envision the physical body of Christ, lying covered on both sides by the Shroud, His blood spilling onto the cloth. I conceptualize that, in His mystery He becomes something akin to a human semiconductor. An atomic lattice of three dimensional quantum dots, tuned beyond visible light into the infrared or ultraviolet, a polymer backbone of cross linking, self-assembled nanocrystals.

I fancy the cave to be some kind of Casimir cavity, a relativistic environment wherein the plates, rather than made of metal, are wafers of cloth with no charge. The two layers of cloth, the cloth above and below the corpse, are perhaps acting as thin slices of semiconductor material formed from a crystalline substance, imprinting His image through some process akin to photolithographic patterning.

Here, inside the vacuum cave and wafers of cloth, I picture Christ's body becoming a gap, an area of lower radiation due to its limits on wavelength. I dare to perceive that, as this gap, He could render that space between the taut layers of cloth empty of matter, with zero point energy.

In this quantized field, I envisage that the net attractive force between objects in the vacuum cave, caused by quantum mechanical vacuum wave fluctuations, would create radiation pressure, thereby pushing (from the outside) the wafers of cloth towards the body of Christ. Here His atoms stick together, creating friction in the nanoworld, and He becomes the force that attracts because the radiation pressure of the field outside the cloth is greater than the pressure inside the gap.

At this point, I imagine the Casimir-like cavity has negative energy density. Now acceleration in the cave is reduced on the spatial axis because space time is bending in the opposite direction, thereby accelerating time (relative to us) and perhaps accelerating the linen aging process of the Shroud.

In my mind I see in the Casimir-like cavity that the wafers now define an abrupt boundary that breaks the isotropy of space time. The cavity now creates a depletion zone, thereby producing acceleration in a method opposite to an event horizon.

But then... I frame a picture of everything reversing.

The Casimir-like force now switches from attracting to repelling. It becomes a force that is due neither to electrical charge nor to gravity, but to fluctuations in the all pervasive energy fields in the intervening empty space between objects. Here I behold Christ's body becoming the vacuum, a force that pushes the wafers of cloth and the cave (which is now the gap) away from Him, rendering Him friction free and holding His molecules aloft to levitate and rise.

And so goes His light...

I wonder if His body produced vacuum fluctuations that started an amplified spontaneous emission where the luminescence went in all spatial directions. I imagine this isotropic scattering to be with identical, uniform physical properties that radiate the same intensity of light in all directions, thereby instantly and evenly imprinting His image on the cloth. Then, like an X-ray where scatter is relevant, the intensity of the two dimensional image contains three dimensional information about the body.

I conjure up a picture of His body hovering in parallel between the top and bottom of the cloth with no trace of gravity. Acting as an interface, he designs an exact relationship between the gradient of the image and the distance between body and cloth. Perhaps he transposed His image through electron quantum holography – nanoscale writing in electron wavelengths. And perhaps now, by dividing space time, the information in the nanoparticles He imprinted between the two sides of the cloth cannot communicate.

I try to grasp that His message has no measure of lost information. That it is fully transmitted onto the cloth, without the help of gravity but with the help of something far more brilliant. Perhaps gap and vacuum fuse and time collapses to absolute zero time.

Perhaps cryptographer and message become one.

But what is the message? It seems to me that there was something else inside that cave, namely the totality of the past, present and future sins of humanity. The Lamb of God takes away the sins of the world by both dying and rising. But in the cave, before rising, what happens to the infinitesimal energy and information of all that sin?

Perhaps the entropy of sin reverses and Christ's alchemy of faith causes the isolated system of evil to collapse.

I contemplate the idea of a singularity emerging and new patterns of information taking hold, information that is not tethered to time or space. This information is living in the nanoscale on the Shroud. Arriving to us from the future of the forever Resurrection, the waves of a free communication of information that transcends light. Living waves, that can linger without threats from field or force or space or time.

Building castles in the air, I wonder if the image we see of His blessed corpse, locked in time on the cloth, is perhaps not locked at all but is alive with the impulses of a larger, unified event. Perhaps it is His body continuously and directly controlling matter on the atomic scale. A body that has already burst through the boundary of the space time singularity. A body already risen beyond the cave, already exalted above the hills...

I imagine the Resurrection process creating a new gap, a singularity that can both attract and repel simultaneously because it is both contained in and free of the isolated system. A fusion of the two event horizons, perhaps it sparks with a completely original duality regarding time and space.

In this duality, a whole and synchronized blasting of space spreads its powerful information field, while simultaneously the continuation singularity of time thaws, recovers, and encodes the image on the Shroud. Thus the image is both frozen, recorded in time, and is continuously rebooting into living impulses of the Resurrection.

Perhaps the sacred tomb is the place where the heartbeat of death does not negate creation, nor does the heartbeat of creation negate death.

~~~~~

perhaps the Shroud is a lens
through which we can at last see
the invisible and undisturbed river
Christ's everlasting and marvelous light waves
flowing around the cold stone of our sins
that are so disturbingly visible
in His image of suffering and death

Chapter 55: Gratitude

sent by your father
you came here
to be more like us
so that you could teach us
to be more like you

through your Passion
you demonstrate a remedy
for us
an opportunity
to have great compassion
for your suffering

folded on a shroud
the reflection of all human pain
an ethereal hovering
of an image ascending

father
sacrificing son

son
human holy

holy
spirit mystery