Peace be to this house…

Peace be to this house…

‘Into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace be to this house. And if a son of peace be there, your peace shall rest upon it; but if not, it shall return to you again.’  Luke 10:5-6

Dear S., good morning, how are you :) ?!!

Last night, while taking a walk after my evening meal (consisting of my own home-made bread, a goat cheese with the linden honey on it, and dry figs on the side!!!), I had an internal conversation with you… quite lively one … and this was, as usually, a sign for me to ‘put on the paper’ those ‘thoughts’ that I was ‘receiving’…

***

I had a visit yesterday, friend of mine came to spend an afternoon with me…

Weather is still very nice… so after preparing a fresh apple juice in my juicer, we went outside straight away… and we were walking in the wood… talking… and sometimes, when situation allowed us, taking a sun-bath…

This guy I met let’s say a two years ago, he was present and intrigued when I was preaching something about healings… to my Muslim friends… later on… his mother was miraculously healed through my assistance and medicine advices… from her heart disease… which through the years no doctor could achieve… neither four surgeries… neither any alternative method…

But since that time, in his own words, ‘she is not just feeling better, but she is completely healed, she does not even visiting the doctors anymore’… and we are talking about the women who was living half of her life at the verge of death…

Since that time we become friends… although main reason for this was of course his own connection with me… his so to speak religious attitude… in another words, he was truly ‘hungry’ and ‘thirsty’ when I met him, and ‘right food and drink’ were ministered to him via me… which had a great effect on his soul…

From the first moment we spoke he so to speak ‘felt’ the presence of Christ in me… and used to say… ‘just being near you I feel like I am in heaven… everything else just disappears!’

He accepted Jesus Christ… and become a Christian…

Ok… this was a short ‘intro…

***

This summer he called me after let’s say few months of ‘silence’… saying that in the mean time he was ‘down’, passing through the worst period of his life… also, that he failed in his relationship with God… adding that something happened which completely destroyed him… he said all of that somehow penitently…

I embraced him warmly of course… and two weeks after that, I arrived here, in Zagreb… and then he told me the story about that girl, friend of mine also… who suddenly, like nothing ever happened with/between them, and they were the best friends for years, just quit their relationship, not even calling him anymore…

This was a hard impact for him… he could not understand that at all… especially because he discovered in the mean time = during that ‘action’ of her… that his feelings for her are much deeper than he thought … that ‘she was actually his great love and so to speak a FIRST TRUE LOVE!’

He was devastated because of that … you know what I mean, like a teenager who was dumped from the girl who was his first love… for him all world was falling apart … and for more than 5 months… he could not eat… sleep …. being unable to work also… I mean, this is a classical ‘being broken hearted’ situation… but for him was ‘the end of the world’… which means, a very very serious problem…

In this state I found him when I come here …. and, to be honest, he looked very bad physically!!

Second thing… his mum, to whom he is attached very much... whom he loves tenderly… now has another problem, this time of mechanical nature, namely, her backbone is deranged, and consequently one or many vertebrates are pressing on some nerves in her spine… so she is in great pain most of the time… and sometimes for weeks she cannot stand up from her bed…

It is not enough to say that this ‘eats him’… or that he is extremely unhappy because of that … it will be more accurate to say that he is ‘unable to bear that situation’, which places him in the miserable condition most of the time!

Third thing… his boss, at the work… who promised to him many things when he quit his old job, now pays him not his wage … and he is working so much… and he is so unhappy with his work that he lost all his life-enthusiasm because of that daily-labour (not to mention that none of his promises were fulfilled by him!!)…. i.e. 6 days at the week constantly driving somewhere and basically not having a rest (sort of ‘mail-delivery service’)….

Not to mention that he has also a loan to pay… which means, if this month also he would not receive his wage, he will be in a great trouble…

At the top of it… two or three days ago, while driving into another place, down to our coast, someone on the highway was driving at his lane from the opposite direction, and they, two of them were in the car, escaped death miraculously because he already hit the wall with his car a little bit…

Not to mention that he was and still is ill (fever, gripe and similar things) half of the time… also, that he had a small motor-bike incident this summer which now left him with badly healed finger… which of course also disturbs him!!

With him in this state or with this state of affairs I was dealing dear S. … during my stay here we spent not more than let’s say 5-6 hours only… because he never had enough time… when he heard me ‘preaching about Christ and His Gospel’, also he could feel His Presence  radiating around me’…

***

Yesterday that very man (32 years old) come to me…  showing a great change in his posture, on his face and most of all in his whole sphere of life… he indeed seemed completely changed to me… I could also feel the difference!!

He said, that since our ‘talks’ and ‘instructions he received from me’, also ‘since feeding in my presence from my own sphere’, his soul entered into such a peace that absolutely nothing which now happens in his life, and all above mentioned things are STILL HAPPENING IN HIS LIFE, is not disturbing him…

That in his soul he is in perfect PEACE IN THE LORD JESUS CHRIST!!!

(adding to this that my ‘advices’ were also more than truthful, although at the time of receiving them they were somehow ‘hard’ to accept! :) )

***

Now, this is happening just two days after the following:

My lady landlord, ever since I met her (3 weeks since that time = my arrival here), was unhappy person, I mean truly unhappy, and restless...

... both of her parents just recently died... after long and painful illness during which she was ministering them at her home... this of course left some fresh scars on her soul...

Than, her husband was an alcoholic... he is still an alcoholic, as far as I understood, but in the lesser degree... because he is also ill, which means, she must handle their whole property, which is quite a big one, almost alone...

Than, her son, only son, just get divorced from an unhappy marriage with the woman who supposedly has an schizopherenia... there are no adequate words to explain in what manner she is in pain because of that and his 'coming back to live here with them again'...

Also, daugher of his, her only grand-daughter, already has some problems with her mind also... and parents of her ex-wife, especially mother, are, in her own words, 'a very evil and abnormal people'... doing her/them much mischief...

At the top of it, her son now become an alcoholic also... his business with photo-copy shop was very bad so they also lost this summer their summer house at the Croatian coast = they sold it so they can pay his depths... and this house was her great love.... also her 'refuge and sanctuary'... someting that she dreamed of to be there in her old days...

And as a cream on the top... she even suspects that he is taking drugs ... because of his behaviour ... his look and loss of his weights ...

In this state of affairs I found her...

***

We spent some time together in these three weeks.... let's say few nights... two-three hours each time .... and I realized how sensitive she is... but also good in her soul... and most important... a religious in her heart...

My presence, and my words had a great impact on her from the beginning ... after awhile, during our 'time', she would be completely changed from her 'normal' unhappy and restless state into something that can only be described as 'heavenly joy and peace in the Presence of Christ Jesus' whom I brought with me every time we talk and I preached to her...

In the mean time, following my advices and teaching, she started to pray to Him as to her Only God and Heavenly Father... and she accepted my advices in relation to her everyday life when His will is the subject under discussion...

Now, two days ago she said to me when I visited her in her house, 'Lorens, since you gave to me that bread (I bake a bread, 5 loaves, that day and I gave her one, and she loved it, saying that this was the best bread she ever tried!! :) ), something happened to me, I am changed... everything seems to fall apart around of me... but in my heart I feel such a wonderful peace that absolutely nothing from the outside can disturb me!'

Can you imagine that :) ?!!

Too bad that these words of mine cannot picture to you in what manner this 65 years old woman is changed... but her state was and is changed in such a manner that I can desribe that only as a 'passage from hell to heaven,' that is how big her change is!

I explained to her that night how this 'peace' comes not with and in my bread, although this was not the first time that my 'food' had that impression on the people :)... but with the Presence of Jesus Christ in her heart... through her RIGHT prayers = right faith in Him and proper communication with Him.... also with the correct attitude to His will in her everyday life...

... also through the WORDS OF HIS that He puts into my mouth when I spoke with her (Matthew 10:19, 20; interesting to note that I took as my 'working manual' with me a small compilation that I compiled for my own use which consists of this Matthew 10 chapter newly translated from the original Greek by a great Swedenborgian minister, late J.Clowes, and chapter 365 from E.Swedenborg's 'Apocalypse Explained'... and this compilation is with me mostly because of the 'peace issue' we are discussing now and about which we read in the verses 12 & 13!!!!; please read that E.Swedenborg's chapter at http://www.theheavenlydoctrines.org/ because my prayers were directed in this direction and these two stories are but answer to them!; this chapter is also of extreme importance because of some other things in relation to the Word of God, our understading of it, and conjunction with the Lord Jesus Christ by the means of it!!)... and of course from my surrounding sphere from which her 'thirsty' and 'hungry' soul (= discharged battery) fed (= was charged) when I was in her presence...

Also, prayers of mine were answered... and prayers of another person who, when she heard about her situation, on her own initiative started to pray for her (talking about that 'another' person, which is also something that is quite 'acutal' now... this was also another 'miraculous' intervetion of our Lord and Heavenly Father Jesus Christ to which I was witness, namely, when I met her, and we met on the street during my stay on Tenerife island, she was an atheist, and in extreme misery... unhappy and ill in her soul; crying a lot, but silently in her soul, because nobody around her could understand her; now, after few of our 'meetings', a longer one's, she become a Christian, a true believer, and she is also able to interceede for another person! She started to pray for my landlord lady alone, without me saying or asking anything, because she can truly feel in what manner Jesus Christ changed her own life; following are just excerpts from her last few letters I received during my stay here: 'First, I want to say thank you for your always beautiful letter it gives me so much that you want to write, and help me so much, but I can tell you I have never been more happy in my life thanks to you, my dear grandson, I feel even now that I forhåbeligt is been a little better human being even though I have always thought about other than myself, only now I can really feel how much free and happy I am about to be juhu juhu, I hope you understand... but dear Lorens I still feel we have much to talk about now when I have a whole new life with God the Father so nice, I have never thought I would be believers in my life, but this has given me so much in my everyday life now that I will never give up now, hope you understand me this is the best I have done for myself and I am happy... I feel happy again even if it is so dark I take my special light it helps me very much so I'm not so sorry about it more, and asking for Jesus Christ it helps me and makes me happy'; she is from Danmark and her English is bad, but I am sure that you will understand the meaning of these words!! :) )

With an peaceful and angelic expression on her face, and in her eyes, she was listening to me for two-three hours ... explaining to me in her simple language how she feels 'never better in her life, like in heaven'...

... calling me 'My Jesus!!'

And I am talking about person who up to recently was saying to me that 'she never felt worse in her whole life!'

I was indeed touched with that situation, dear S., and that change... because I felt like I was in the middle of some wonder = miracle of Jesus Christ about which I read and meditate daily.... had so strong effect on me also (= this is indeed one of the strongest spiritual experiences in my whole life!!)...

Afther I left her with a kiss and blessing... I come to my little house... which is on the same property but up on the small hill... and I opened a new book which I downloaded from the internet that very morning ... and in it I read for the first time the following words (from B.H. Streeter's 'Sadhu Sundar Singh' book):

III A MYSTIC'S PEACE

THE PEACE OF GOD

To have spent an hour with Sundar Singh is to have received an unforgettable impression of calm and joy. "The peace of God" shines in his face and seems by his mere presence (!!) to be diffused around. To him Heaven has already begun on earth ; and he would have it so for others also. It was, he believes, of this experience that St. Paul spoke (Eph. ii. 6), "He made us to sit with him in heavenly places, in Christ Jesus." The existence of this Peace, this "Heaven on earth," and the possibility of attaining it, are to the Sadhu of the essence of the Christian message. And potentially it is a gospel for all men. A sentence by Miss Evelyn Underhill 1 would exactly express his attitude: "Without being geographers we can enter into the spirit of landscape, and without being philosophers or theologians we can enter into Heaven, if we start in the right direction (!!!); for Heaven is a Temper, most simply understood as awareness of the indwelling Christ (!!!)." This Peace took hold of him from the moment of his conversion. "When I was converted by the vision of Christ a power like electricity entered my soul and took possession of it." He naturally expected to find other Christians enjoying this Peace, and not merely that but being transformed by its influence. His expectations were not fulfilled. "Have you been disappointed with Christians?" "Yes ,"said the Sadhu, I was at first. I had thought they must be wonderful if they possessed this wonderful peace." But long ago he has discovered that Christians as well as others need to learn its secret. "It is a wonderful peace. I wish I could show you this peace. It is impossible, because people cannot see that wonderful peace. We cannot tell others: there are no words to express that peace, but those who have had their spiritual eyes opened can understand it." The inadequacy of his knowledge of the English language, about which he often speaks, is not the difficulty here. "I have no words, even in my own language, to express that wonderful peace." " It is not the sort of thing you can show others : it is a hidden peace." But what mystic ever has found language adequate to describe experience ? Indeed, William James would make " ineffability " one of the four characteristic marks of mysticism.' The Sadhu constantly emphasises how entirely different are the peace and joy about which he speaks from the enjoyments of wealth and home in his younger days. " The luxuries of home could not give me that peace." " My soul is like an ocean. On the surface there may be waves and tempests, but deep down there is undisturbed calm." When he sees the sin and suffering of men he is sore troubled, but in the depths of his nature Peace still remains. During his early years as a Christian he was so struck by the unusual character of this Peace that he thought it might be, to quote his own somewhat obscure expression, " some hidden power of his life "meaning, no doubt, some undetected physiological or psychological idiosyncrasy in his constitution ; or, again, that it might be in some unexplained way the effect of self-hypnotism. One result, as we have seen, of the great Fast was to clear away this doubt and to convince him that it was a peace born of heaven. But this Peace is a thing which, though hard to explain, it is possible to attain (!!!)." This world is full of sorrow ; our body is the abode of misery. This being so, many argue that so long as we are in this world possessed of this body heavenly joy is impossible. Once on the Himalayas I said to another traveller, ` Here are some hot springs .' He thought I was mad and said, ` It is a lie to say that in this cold place where even water freezes there are hot springs .' I took hold of him and led him and made him dip his hand in a certain spring. Then by means of personal experience he realised the truth of what I had said. Then he tried to offer a scientific reason for the fact. In the same way, only by personal experience can we know that even in this world full of sorrow we can have a heavenly joy." " I met a man in Tibet who was a wonderful man. He showed me his scars when he took off, his clothes. He said he was so happy in being persecuted for Christ's sake ; and he told me the story of his conversion. ` When I first saw a man martyred,' he said, ` it made me think over these spiritual things. He was being tortured to death by being exposed to the sun sewn up into a wet yak's skin, and as I saw him I thought, " What is that thing in his life that makes him so happy ? " The Lama said, " There must be an evil spirit in him." " If an evil spirit can give such a wonderful thing," I said, " I pray to God to give me that same evil spirit." It made me think about it and I became a Christian. The martyr's name was Kartar Singh. He showed such wonderful peace and joy in the midst of torture that his persecutors cut out his heart to find the exact nature of that peace, but they found only a piece of flesh.' "

Christians who do not appropriate to themselves this wonderful treasure of peace and joy which is within their reach are like a beggar whom the Sadhu heard of in Nepal some years ago. "The man had been a beggar for twenty-one years. His ambition had been to become a rich man and yet he had died poor. After his death it was discovered that under the spot where he had sat and begged for twenty-one years was a buried treasure, containing jewels and other valuables which had belonged formerly to a king. The beggar had not been aware of the endless riches over which he had been sitting. Even so there are many Christians who go through life without enjoying the peace and happiness which are accessible to them in Christ Jesus (!!!!).

"People who have received that peace and joy and happiness do not need to be told to go and tell others ; they cannot keep quiet. There are many Christians to whom I say, ` Why don't you go and tell of Jesus Christ to others ? If you have seen something, you cannot keep quiet." (!!!! :))

The terms "peace," "joy " and "happiness," used by the Sadhu when speaking in English about the nature of this experience, are not, we elicited by a question, intended to express three different kinds of feeling. In the Tamil addresses only two, peace and joy, are mentioned. What he speaks of is a single movement of the soul, combining in ineffable harmony a calm, profound and indisturbable, which he names " Peace," and a radiant fullness of life and light which he calls " Joy," and which is to him not only the evidence, but the actuality, of personal union with Christ (!!!!).

An especially interesting characteristic of this " Peace " is that it is for him a condition of intellectual illumination and the faculty of insight into spiritual problems (!!!). "Would you say, Sadhuji," we said to him one day, "that this peace which you have is the same as that which St. Paul describes as the peace which passeth all understanding ? " " Yes ," he replied, " it is a peace which not merely passeth all understanding but which enlighteneth all understanding (!!!)."

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE CROSS

His Peace-and perhaps this is its most notable feature-not merely abides with him in moments of comparative ease and comfort, but becomes most intense amidst suffering and persecution. " What is the use," says he, " of a religion which does not help us under trying circumstances ? "

On one occasion we asked whether his peculiar experience of Peace had thrown light for him on anything in the Bible. He at once quoted, "I am filled with comfort, I am exceeding joyful in all our tribulations " (2 Cor. vii. 4). Sometimes, under the sternest circumstances, Peace has been raised to the pitch of exultation. This may be illustrated by an adventure, already cursorily alluded to, which he related when in Oxford . At a certain town he was ordered, under pain of heavy punishment, to give up preaching. He disregarded the threat, with the result that he was seized and cast into the common prison along with a number of murderers and thieves. In such company and in the horrible surroundings of an eastern prison he wrote in the fly-leaf of his New Testament, "Christ's presence has turned my prison into a blessed heaven: what then will it do in heaven here after?" He started preaching to his fellowprisoners, and many heard him gladly and began to turn towards the Christ he preached. The authorities, hearing of this, took him out of the prison and brought him to the market-place for punishment. He was stripped and was forced to sit on the ground all that day and the following night without anything to eat or drink; his feet and hands fixed in a kind of stocks, and leeches were thrown upon his naked body. A mocking crowd stood round enjoying the spectacle. When the authorities saw him the following morning, still alive and bearing a calm face, they were afraid that he was possessed of some supernatural power and let him go. He fell down unconscious, but after a while came to himself and with the greatest difficulty crawled away and found friends, secretly Christian, who nursed him back to strength. But all the while, he assured us, he enjoyed an experience of intense inward Peace. And Mrs. Parker records that, in telling this same story to her, he added, " I do not know how it was, but my heart was so full of joy that I could not help singing and preaching." 'This last incident makes it clear that the real meaning of the Sadhu's Peace cannot be seen except in its relation to his Philosophy of the Cross. Between renunciation and satisfaction there is a psychological connection which is conditioned by something in the fundamental constitution of human nature. This shows itself in every act of choice. Choice at its lowest level presents the problem, " You cannot both have your cake and eat it " ; but until we have made the decision which pleasure to renounce -a decision always irksome to unredeemed humanity-disquiet reigns within. At a higher level than this, the experience of life has taught most of us that peace of mind can be bought only at the price of some renunciations. Only when some alternatives have been resolutely excluded-always a painful process,-and the whole self thus directed along one straight, high road of thought or action, is inner conflict ended. It was of this world, not-at any rate, not in the first instance-of the next, that the words were spoken, " Straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leadeth unto life." Renunciation, however, so long as it is felt as such, involves in itself an element of inner conflict. But remember, the Sadhu is a Christocentric Mystic ; realise that to him, as to St. Francis or St. Paul, partnership with Christ is a passion and a privilege, and therefore transforms labour, hardship, loss, from something which is to be accepted negatively as an unfortunate necessity, into something positively to be welcomed for His sake-and you will understand a little of the secret of the Sadhu's Peace. Si crucem portas portabit te ," Bear the cross and it will bear thee." It is of his Heaven on earth that he speaks when, recalling this passage of the Imitation, he says From my fourteen years' experience of life asa sadhu for Jesus Christ I can say with confidence that the Cross will bear those who bear the Cross until it lifts them up to Heaven into the presence of the Saviour." The Sadhu has an enthusiasm, one can only call it that, for suffering-not, like the Ascetic, for its own sake, nor for the sake of any spiritual profit he may hope to gain from it, but in the service, in the steps, in the companionship of the Beloved. This explains at once the intense interest he takes in anything connected with martyrs and martyrdom. Like many, of the early Christians he would himself prefer a martyr's end. But he longs, not only for the joy of sharing with Christ the extremity of persecution, but also for the opportunity of " bearing witness " to His power and for His cause. The latter motive is shown by a remark of his that once, when, bound to a tree in an uninhabited forest and left to die-until released in what he regards as a miraculous manner-he was only sorry that he was going to perish in a way which would prevent his death being an act of public witness for Christ. The importance he attaches to what one might call the " propaganda value " of martyrdom-and did not " martyr originally mean just " testifier " ? -is in a line with his doctrine that suffering is not a thing to be sought for its own sake, as the typical ascetic thinks, but to be welcomed when it comes in the way of, or as a means of service to, the cause of Christ (Madame Guyon!).

I mean, I am used to this ‘Divine Providences’ so to speak, but every time this happens, I am astonished and so to speak in marvel… and I cannot but praise my beloved Jesus Christ for His wise and loving guidance!!!

***

                           Dear S.,
I will leave you now with the hope that this short 'info' letter of mine
                                                                                             will throw some further light on my last teaching to you (= 'I came not to call the righteous')!!!
You have all my love in Christ Jesus
                           May His peace and joy become your share also!
                                                                                                                       Lorens :)

p.s.  In one of your last mails, dear S, after reading one teaching of mine, you said: 'Prayer is the key!'

In above text of you could read about changes in the lives of another people… but, I must confess that my own life is also greatly changed due to my constant communion with our beloved Jesus Christ… in prayer and through selfless service for another people!!

Truly, I never ever felt such a peace in my whole sphere of life!!

‘The soul that is faithful in the exercise of love and adherence to God above described, is astonished to feel Him gradually taking possession of their whole being: it now enjoys a continual sense of that Presence, which is become as it were natural to it; and this, as well as prayer, is the result of habit. The soul feels an unusual serenity/peacefulness gradually being diffused throughout all its faculties/thoughts and emotions; and silence now wholly constitutes its prayer; whilst God communicates an intuitive love, which is the beginning of ineffable blessedness.’  

Madame Jeanne de la Mothe Guyon ‘Experiencing the depths of Jesus Christ through Inner Prayer – 12’

(October 13, 2008)