Q. Why would God appear to you in such an overwhelming (and painful) manner?

A. I believe that the actual essence and Being of God is so inconceivably mighty and powerful that even to glimpse the most infinitesimal atom of His Reality makes it existentially impossible for a human being to withstand or survive (as is expressed biblically in Exodus 33:20).

After all, just think of the energy (in the form of intensely explosive power) inherent in a single atomic nucleus, released at its division, via the unspeakable "Deus ex machina-mechanism" of a hydrogen bomb.

Q. So, if it is impossible to see God - even for only 20 seconds, and live - how could you have seen Him?

A. After losing 20 days of sleep at the age of 20, while uprooting traumatic experiences and deeply questioning existence, it's possible that I literally "broke through" into a realm of pure consciousness - without "un"-consciousness.

Therefore, I had no "place" to "disappear" or "dissolve into." -- Nowhere.  'Now-here.'

Or, it's possible that what we believe to be consciousness is actually only a shadowy, veiled, dreamlike (or nightmarish) state of "being." 

Without a true awareness of God, "Being" in the gyroscopic center of our lives - as a righteous force (or counterbalance) for Good - we are all, in "reality," dead or unconscious, so to speak.

As I discovered, when God - Goodness (the absence of evil) - is uppermost in one's consciousness, everything has meaning. Everything has a purpose.

Paradoxically, when everything has meaning, "nothing"(-ness) has meaning.

The reason that nothingness (or death or unconsciousness) "exists" is because, through self-righteous pride (and attendant evil), we stubbornly refuse to place God at the center of His own Creation, thereby "creating" a vacuum or "blind spot" in the very core of our existence - "experienced" as death.



Q. But, why would the actual sight of God, or even a vision of God engender so much pain - isn't God a god of love?

A. Well, there are a number of perspectives from which to answer this question:

1). Yes, God has an infinite "number" of infinitely powerful attributes, including, foremost and most meaningfully - Love - and its power to create, "re-member," recreate (and resurrect).

And, as previously mentioned, God's ultimate and intimate, infinite and eternal, preexistent and preeminent, immortal Nature beyond all nature(s) is so overwhelmingly inexpressible and ALMIGHTY that merely to look upon His Face causes an all-too-finite and mortal human being instantaneous pain and unconsciousness - similar to what one would experience if looking directly at the world's most powerful laser beam, for example.

2). By (the self-evident truth of) His own definition of omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence, God has endless flexibility and "sense"-ability to "Man"-ifest in whatever form He wishes.

"I shall be what I shall be" is now often referred to, by many Hebrew and biblical scholars, as the closest English translation of God's proclamation to Moses: "I am that I am." (Exodus 3:14)


3). Since, God forbid, I may have unknowingly transgressed or entered into His Holy presence with an imperfect, unwhole or "unholy" conscience (or consciousness) - it is possible that He was angry with me and showed His unforgettably indelible and painful, furious Countenance.

(May I add that I am eternally grateful to God that, although this memory is Itself everlasting, the actual EVENT did not last forever - for that would surely be Hell!)

In this regard, it might have been the clash of like and unlike - in other words, that which is imperfect cannot enter into the realm of Perfection.


4). Or, as it is also written in the Bible: "And It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this is the judgment." (Hebrews 9:27)

The next verse is an even more significant one, for I believe it offers the only Hope.

The Hope that we can "escape the inescapable" cause-and-effect retribution from our own conscience, from the world's "vicious circle" and from the wrathful Face of God: "So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him he shall appear the second time without sin unto salvation." (Hebrews 9:28)



Q. Hasn't God commanded that there be no graven images of Himself?

A. Yes, God, in His farsighted wisdom, has commanded that "thou not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth." (Exodus 20:4)

What I believe I have, as accurately as humanly possible, described in my book, does not fall into any of the categories God has proscribed - simply because His Countenance is truly, truly impossible for any human being to imagine or conceive - and transcends any-"thing" within the created universe.

Any image of any thing which can be conceived is, by definition, conceivable.

God is, by definition, beyond conception, inconceivable - or rather, conceivable only by Himself.

And even though I have depicted an Image - or, in essence, "clothed a Thought" recurrent throughout Godyssey in various forms, via words and pictures - it is still absolutely impossible to convey the magnitude of His Ineffable, ALMIGHTY (<- that is the best word I have found) Power. 

Q. What do you hope mankind will learn from the experience you are communicating?

A. That all forms of "prime-evil" pride, greed, theft, jealousy, abuse, bigotry, hatred, murder, war and inhumanity must cease.

Through the painfully self-evident, karmic realization that when we commit evil acts we are una-"void"-ably and retroactively caught in the web of our own weaving - in the bonds of our own binding.

We cannot fool God - or ourselves.

Let's be 100% honest with ourselves and see with crystalline clarity that it is pride - concomitant with the rejection of any force higher than oneself - which "elevates" a person to a false and dangerous position of power, from which a painful, often fatal fall is inevitable -- from such "dizzying heights."

We know in our hearts what is Good and what is evil.

If evil is consciously chosen, and Good is consciously rejected, the path inevitably leads to pain and destruction.

Without escape.

UNLESS one turns, in genuine humility, to an Intermediary, to a Savior - to Jesus Christ - and therefore changes the course of his or her own "train of thought."

The tracks of which we have been steadily laying down, throughout our lives, leading to a self-created, hell-"bound" concentration camp of unimaginable horror.



Q. So you believe that the man captured (or, possibly, en-"Raptured!") on videotape, walking down the hill, followed by a naked child could really be Christ and could have saved you from "the second death?'"

A. Yes.

Q. How could a barefoot man with long hair, wearing a contemporary T-shirt, be Jesus Christ?

A. I suppose if I had a preconceived image of Christ's Second Coming, as we all do, it would be something like: a supernaturally glowing, brighter & larger-than-life, white-robed figure of the holiest Man Who ever lived - trumpeted forth by gloriously-perfect angels, resplendently surrounded by every resurrected saint who ever existed, instantaneously enveloping every atom of the universe, the Earth and every creature upon it - this Holy Spirit of God in solemn judgment, simultaneously accepting believers and rejecting the unfaithful.

And, although this could be the way it ultimately 'supersonovas,' just prior to our own individual death - or the world's collective, twinkling-of-an-eye destruction / Transfiguration in the form of a universal Armageddon - perhaps, just perhaps, we have been given a second chance. 

-- To awaken ...and 'trance-end.'

-- To accept Jesus Christ at "His Word," so to speak, as the sacrificial Son of God, in all His down-to-earth reality, in whatever outward "clothing" he chooses to appear to humanity - possibly even in the form of a barefoot, silent Man walking down a hill, followed by an unashamed, naked child.

Maybe this is why it is also stated in the Bible that "in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh." (Matthew 24:44)

-- To give us a second chance to believe. --

-- To admit that we are powerless to face God - Who, in essence, represents our own inescapable Conscience - without protection.

The vital protection of an Intermediary between a sinless, Good and Holy Creator and His prideful, violent, oftentimes evil children who continually choose, of our own blessed, free will to become, essentially, the opposite of Good - that is to say - Godless.

An empathetic Intercessor, our older Brother, our Redeemer, the Son of God - of the same Perfected or "Good Nature" as God - Who has already paid the incalculable debt, accruing "with infinite interest," that our sinful (imperfect) nature must eternally owe.

Debt = Death.

Paying = Pain.

(Owe = Oh!)

And, Love is "For-Giving." 

Therefore, whoever refuses the gracious gift of a free and self-sacrificial, Loving repayment of debt, shall, undoubtedly (and indebtedly) have to repay it themselves.

Also undoubtedly, Christ, our Redeemer and Savior has, once-and-forever, broken the chains of cause and effect which have bound us all to the wheel of "strife and death" - taking the unspeakable Wrath of God in our stead. 

When, in a childlike and open manner, one wholeheartedly accepts the Reality that our Father in Heaven could "conceivably" incarnate in the form of a visible, personified Individual - is this not like being born again?

Could this naked, innocent Child - REBORN "in a sense" - be you?

Or rather - us?

May God Bless you,
Now and Always.

With Christ's Love,
D.S. Fine

Thursday, July 7, 2005

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