By Raphael Awen

(This is Day 9 (Part 2 of 2), of an ongoing series, to begin at day 1, go here: https://goo.gl/CgrWXZ)

Today’s episode tells the story of three separate encounters with Christian Pastors where I shared with them that ‘I no longer held Jesus as my personal saviour,’ which is of course tantamount to blasphemy to everything that is holy and sacred for a Christian. I wasn’t trying to be prickly. I needed to own my truth.

Thank you for tracking this series. We’re off to see the Demiurge, the Christian God, Yahweh, or Jehovah, to see and feel what we and he is ready to.

Here We go. Day 9, Part 2 of 2:

Metatron: I so can feel that peaceful Merkabah suspended out in space that we are having this meeting in at the moment. It’s like an instant retreat center, with infinite dial-a-setting options. Right now, I’m seeing those tall evergreens holding the space for you that day on the hiking trail when you chose to let go of every bit of your life that couldn’t make it through the bottleneck and portal of your own arising truth. I’m feeling you should keep on with your story, Raphael. It’s an incredible story. I even know it, and yet, I’m on the edge of my seat for you to share the rest of it.

Raphael: You’re all like the best audience imaginable.

Metatron: Why settle for anything less?

Raphael: My feelings exactly! If anyone has any guides that aren’t as sweet as you, I say, go looking for some new ones.

Metatron: Your story, Raphael, is forming the groundwork here. It is inviting people to feel the uniqueness and profoundness of their own story. You, or parts of you, rather, for so long, were not able to see the deeper uniqueness of your story. Other soul aspect parts of you, like Rhodes, could see it and get messages to you through the fog, including the Christian fog, the Demiurge fog, and the fog of 3D in the 21st century.  Each stage was necessary and sacred, just like the present one. My sense is that as you continue to share your story, from your comfy seat here in the space Merkabah, it will unfold the pieces of grist we need to feel and see to face the Demiurge soon enough. He’s not quite ready yet for us either for that matter. And I’m feeling, as you mentioned, there’s Martin, Arthur and Animalea that want to be in on all this yet too. All that can unfold naturally as you share.

Raphael: Wow, Okay, let me see where this wants to go today. I’ll see if I can dial in all of the precious gift of your curiosity and allow that to alchemize a direction.

So, I believe we left off with me making this declaration to my world, and allowing both the unpredictable, and the predictable chain reactions begin to happen.

One of the first things to unfold was a routine contact by the Family Pastor from the church Mar-yam and I had been attending, after he heard news of our separation. I actually saw Pastor Frank in the early mornings from time to time as we both shared an extra early morning penchant for empty Tim Horton’s coffee shops. He called and asked if we could meet, and so we naturally chose the same coffee shop, where we had seen each other, but had never sat down together. It was easy speaking with him, being a kind and caring, softer, genuine man, well suited for his role in a large church. He was direct to reach out after hearing the news, and got right to the point, asking if there was anything he could do to help. Thank god, he spared himself from telling me that I was deceived and going to hell, as that was so not his deal. I got right to the point as well, feeling I needed to. I took in a deep breath and told him that I no longer held Jesus as my personal savior, in those words. He got it all, the short story and the longer story. He could feel my sovereignty speaking and simply acknowledged my choice, and we wrapped up the conversation amicably as he invited me to contact him further if the need arose.

Another similar meeting occurred a year or so later, this one by chance, in another Tim Horton’s coffee shop, with me stopping in mid day, where I bumped into ‘Pastor Nelson’. Mar-yam and I had been a part of his church for a time as well, decades earlier. We had become quite close, being in the leadership team of his church, and even going in together on a home building project when he was building two homes for his daughters and their husbands, as he was also a former contractor. Catching eyes with him in that moment, I knew he knew my story. News like that would travel in a matter of days and it had been over a year.

As we sat down and wobbled around some very uncomfortable small talk, I knew I needed to lead with my truth. I changed the subject, and said ‘Nelson’, deliberately not using the ‘Pastor’ title, as that had always annoyed parts of me how Pastors hid behind that, “The truth is, Nelson, I no longer hold Jesus as my personal saviour”. He scrunched up his face as if he had a demon spirit confronting him and said, “I’ll pray for you”. I get it, on one level, how big of a kick in the gut this would be for him, and yet, it took me everything I could muster to not tell him to keep his prayers to himself. Nelson could project a warm fatherlike energy, and that was part of what had drawn me to him, given my dad wounding this life. But he also was very protective about his true feelings when you got close to him, always focused on ‘building the kingdom’ or some other such rhetoric that covered an untouched burgeoning mountain of depression. He wasn’t interested in hearing another word of my story. I knew I needed to not sit another moment in that energy, so I wrapped up and left, a little annoyed, while at the same time feeling the gift in this synchronicity for me, to declare my truth, now a year out into this choice.

You get into Christianity by a public confession of your faith, eventually through a baptism focused church service. There is, however, no comparable exit strategy or ‘sacrament’ of observance should you choose to leave Christianity. I knew the universe and the true Divine was giving me the equivalent in its own way and time. A sacred service of declaration, acknowledging a death and rebirth.

I knew tons of people who’d left Christianity, but never heard of a single one making any kind of declaration they were no longer a Christian. Even though I didn’t have any conscious struggle with being outside Christianity, it must have been that other parts of me still needed these moments. When I say, parts of me, I can feel that was true for parts of me related to this life, as well as other lifetimes, in my Metasoul. I can feel a rumble in you, Martin, as well as in you, Arthur, as I share this, and I so welcome your feelings and thoughts as we go.

There was yet one more such incident that arose eight years or so after leaving Christianity, and this one involved the very Pastor who had baptized me some 33 years prior. This day, I was doing a small repair paint job in a country area, not far from where I used to live. Oddly enough, the few hour paint job I was working on was a call out by an insurance agent’s repair service to paint a wall and a door that had been cleaned up and repaired after a man had killed himself. I had to actually fill the bullet hole in the wall prior to painting the wall. Needless to say, I was feeling a bit surreal.

Luckily, I had my big blower fan with me so I could power dry everything and get my second coats on and be done with the erie assignment. Parts of me definitely found solace in the focus of my contracting work as the one outer thing that survived my big life changes. I noticed as I was leaving the job that day, a large enclosed swimming pool area, that had fallen into disuse, exactly like the ones small churches would borrow to host baptism services from time to time. I stood there seeing such a gathering for a moment. Baptism in Christianity is all about death and rebirth through identifying with Jesus’ death and resurrection, symbolized by immersion in water and arising from the water. Death and rebirth. Here, at this house was a big reminder of both, through someone’s literal taking of their own life, as well as this covered pool.

I was glad to know of an out of the way, small, but very quaint, country home-style cooking soup and sandwich place not far from there, where I felt to go to shake off the weird feelings of where I’d just been, as well as to linger a bit longer in the area that day, before making the hour and half drive back home, now living in North Vancouver. Being back in this old geography from my previous life was a big deja vu, that felt good to feel, to take a moment to let in who I was now, and who I was becoming. Surprise. The multiverse had one more piece that day.

The place was mostly empty and I chose an out of the way table after ordering a hearty soup and sandwich. As I was almost through a great lunch, who walks in, but Ron and Bernice, the founders of the chandelier swinging church where I’d been baptized, where Mar-yam and I had met, and were soon married by them. Ron and Bernice both had significant health challenges by this time in their seventies, but were always known as energizer bunnies, keeping on, keeping on, for Jesus, and the gospel.

Mar-yam and I’s first big mission trip overseas was with them, as graduates of their Bible School, to Hong Kong and then on to the Philippines, where they continued to serve in a missions and evangelism role associated with our church and a number of others. I finished my sandwich having gone undetected by them, but knew there was no way I was going to be able to exit without engaging as they sat right next to the door.

Instead, I worked up my nerve and walked directly to their table. “Marvin!”, Ron exclaims extending his hand, as Bernice is getting adjusted to the surprise. Ron soon asks in his usual upbeat evangelistic demeanor “So, where are you attending church these days?”, knowing full well my story. It’s not 20 seconds into the conversation and I’m again repeating the familiar line. “I no longer hold Jesus as my personal saviour,” I said slowly as I looked at them directly and openly, feeling decades of life and story fold into this moment.

Bernice surprised me for the first time in these kinds of conversations by asking, “Well, then, how do you see Jesus?” seeming even a bit curious. I gathered myself and said, “I still feel a deep connection with the divine and I see Jesus as a dear ascended teacher.” Now, Bernice’s curiosity dried up and she responded with an incredulous look on her face, “the divine?” Part of me could so feel what she was biting her lip from saying, ‘Sorry, pal, wrong answer! It’s ‘God’ you are talking about, and ‘Jesus as saviour and Lord’ or it’s to hell with you and all your kind’.

Rhodes: Could I interject here, Raphael?

Raphael: Go ahead, Rhodes, sounds like you already are…

Rhodes: I so wished we could have just told them in their nice Christian bullshit faces to fuck off.

Raphael: There wouldn’t have been anything wrong with that, Rhodes, except a part of me at the time had the upper hand of not wanting to appear to them any more demon possessed than they were already assured I was.

Rhodes: I get it, we had enough on our plate.

Raphael: Well, we can still send them a heart open ‘fuck you’, as long as we acknowledge that we love them and are them at the same time, as we are all one ultimately, even as we need others to differentiate from at the same time.

Rhodes: Fair enough. ‘Fuck you’, Jesus sellers! I needed you, and I must still need you, or I wouldn’t still be feeling some of this anger. Thank you, Raphael and solemn witnesses. I needed that.

Raphael: It so takes what it takes, Rhodes. I don’t want to deny the anger we feel with a spacious oneness picture. The shit pile they are selling is a shit pile, born out of deep self unworthiness and internal unfelt agony. Until parts of them are willing to feel and admit any of this, there can’t be any movement to real healing, or escape from the Demiurge’s reign.

So, that wrapped up that conversation that day in the quaint countryside, as I continued my reminisce on the longer commute home that afternoon, digesting one surreality on top of another. Funny, this would definitely have qualified as a ‘divine appointment’ testimony for a Wednesday night service, back in the day. I’m sure, Ron and Bernice shared their end of the story of bumping into me with several others in the days ahead.

I’m still able to dial in easily the internal feeling reality of what we sometimes as Christians called the ‘knowing that you know’ feeling; that the Christian reality really is thee reality, thee ‘absolute truth’, while feeling not a single conscious doubt of anything to the contrary.

Ron and Bernice were classic ‘lifers’ in this way, but so was I, until, surprisingly, I wasn’t. It was a few-year slow-motion surprise, but a surprise nonetheless to parts of me. I can feel too, several other lifetime trajectories of being an ‘all in’ Christian, as in the red letters of Jesus in the new testament, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life, no man cometh to the Father, but by me’ variety, and using that superiority to slam people with, and to hold my sense of self together. My parts and I needed to feel our own remorse for all this, each in our own way, and time, for participating in the harming, as well as being harmed.

But, I’d also say, Rhodes, that we were messengers to Ron and Bernice that day, humble servants of the divine, seeding to them a lifeline for when the Demiurge’s deal really falls apart even for amazing die hards like them. And the open-hearted, non-superiorizing ‘fuck you’ we just sent them etherically, we trust will be a part of love’s face-to-face no-bullshit reality as well, for whenever they are ready to be moved by it. They were actors in our life story, moving us into our next places and they had a final scene to wrap up a chapter, for this life that is. I see a great coming together where every last one of us from Hitler to St. Theresa will debrief the roles we played and the reasons why.

Metatron, can you tell me why it felt important to share all this stuff about renouncing the Christian Jesus?

Metatron: I could, but you so got this. I don’t want to steal your thunder.

Raphael: Okay, I’ll give it a go. It’s just that my head is spinning a bit, reliving all this. I’m sure, my head is needing the spin, or it wouldn’t be what life is giving me now.

What I was able to realize in all of this is that life was asking me not to just wander quietly out the back door, hat in hand, to a few people’s disappointment, but instead to claim an exit, just like how I entered on my own volition, steam, and claim. I needed to exit in the same way that I came in, by declaration and choice, and at a price as well. There were other lifetimes, that I can feel in my Metasoul, where I fell short of owning my own truth, and felt so much remorse and regret for letting myself wallow in the grip of the Demiurge system, and for where I allowed others to suffer where I could have opposed, or even possibly relieved their suffering. This life definitely had this backed up pressure to go all in, and then bake in the fog just enough to alchemize the ejector seat, and then pull the trigger, just as soon as I was ready. The ejection though wasn’t fully complete the day I decided to leave my marriage and the faith. It wasn’t complete, the day I told it to Mar-yam. It wasn’t complete the day I spoke it to any of the three pastors I just told you about. It’s not complete even today.

Maybe, it’s never complete, in any kind of final sense. None of us are home till every last one of us are home. Ron and Bernice are equally as important and loved by love itself, and necessary to love self-realizing itself, as me, or anyone reading this story. I know I needed the journey through Christianity, through the Demiurge’s all too real reality. I needed the struggle of leaving, and of owning my truth as it unfolded and I still do today. I need this struggle to return to face the Demiurge now. It’s not easy, but it feels so worth it.

Merlin: What’s the worth in it, Raphael?

Raphael: Somehow, I knew you were going to ask that, Merlin, wanting me to feel this a bit deeper, thank you.

Let me see what comes.

While there remains the tiniest bit of consciousness that is unawakened to loves fullest and widest domains, be it in a person, place, or thing, including the Demiurge, then there is a way that none of us get to fully be in love’s domain.

The worth I am in pursuit of is of my own self interest in the most truly selfish kind of way. This is the magic of love…the more you get for yourself, the more there is for everyone else.

This is what I couldn’t see and feel for so long this life until I could and this changes so much. This is what my Metasoul lineage has also been up against and is now awakening to. I feel Martin and Arthur awakening to this now, and that speaks of great things to come.

This is what opens out the relationality pieces that kept tripping me up this life. The days of pretense for God finally get to be let go of, really let go of. I get to know and feel heart open real relationships with other men. I get to know and appreciate and partake of feminine beauty in myself and around me too.

Yeah…

And beyond that, Merlin, I can only imagine what lies ahead in terms of the worth that awaits our experience and embrace.

Merlin: Sounds perfect to me, Raphael. I am so glad to be your unicorn, Raphael. Too many other people just don’t want to learn and grow and explore like you do, at least not yet.

Raphael: And I’m so glad to have a unicorn, let alone, you as a unicorn. I feel like I know the tiniest percent of you.

Merlin: And that’s the cool thing. Percent doesn’t apply anymore as in parts out of a hundred. Infinity has no measure, just feelings and experiences. I’m guessing we’re all about ready for the surfing lessons experience, and the cute instructors. My goodness, Animalea is warming things up in here. I’m just warning you all, I can’t be responsible for everything she might say or do, with beaches, sunsets, surf, and beauty.

Raphael: Yes, please, Merlin, take us away for now to all the beauty we can bear. Animalea will help us out a bunch with that. She always does. We’ll rest up and continue on soon. That was big today! Thank you all to all those dialed in, for your desire, your angst and your dreams. May they all come to the light of your love.

Raphael Awen is co-creator, teacher, and facilitator of the SoulFullHeart Way Of Life. Visit  www.soulfullheartwayoflife.com for more information about Weekly Sessions, Live Streams, Videos, and Community.

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