I have always struggled with paranoia, but when I was a child, though blameless, I was truly terrified of God, or at least, of His Son. I would cry to my mother, "What if Jesus appears to me?" And she would, unsuccessfully, tell me that I would not be afraid, that I would feel warmth and love.
And today I know why I was afraid - because I would be really fucked up when he would come. I was unemployed, and I was so intoxicated all the time, I couldn't even make it to my out-patient rehab sessions. But when Jesus actually did come to me, yes, I did feel love, or at least compassion. I was coming off a really bad drug, trying to manage it with weed. I was in a beautiful wooden two-story house in midtown, in a really strange position with a young man who would die of alcoholism a couple of years later, only in his early forties. The building has since been torn down for condos. I miss my time in that house, and I miss that man very much. They are gone forever, now.
But I digress. I won't describe how Jesus appeared, it was almost like a mirage, and it's hard to explain in a delicate manner, so for now I will just end by claiming that Jesus comes to us with Life when we are dying. It is in our darkness when He appears. This is why we follow Him. This is why we never wander. Because even though we may try, He always comes and finds us. Always.
"'I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.'" John 11.25-6
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