When Love Perceives

“O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?”

I grew up with those words from 1 Corinthians 15, King James Version of course. They were part of a story I knew well: Humanity had fallen into sin, sin brought death, and Jesus came to solve the problem. Through his perfect life, sacrificial death, and supernatural resurrection, the debt was paid and death was conquered. Well, eventually anyway. Someday. If we get things right and make it to heaven.

But I’ve always had trouble with the accounting. It’s too transactional. How can 33 years of one perfect life balance out billions of tragically sinful lives? More importantly, if God truly forgives us, why does somebody else still have to pay? When I forgive a debt, I don’t find someone else with enough money to cover it. I erase the debt. 

So… if Yeshua’s remarkable lifetime wasn’t to satisfy a legal transaction, what was it about? 

A few days ago, I indulged in a 4-day camping trip in Rocky Mountain National Park. Between the grand vistas, bugling elk, tumbling streams and glowing aspens, nature was at her finest. 

One afternoon, I sat in the forest, enjoying one of those quiet moments when nothing particularly profound is happening. I felt the stillness of the trees, the warmth of the sun after the rain, the simple pleasure of being in my body, present in life. And I loved it, every bit of it. 

Not because my life is always wonderful; there are plenty of aches and annoyances, issues and uncertainties. It was all wonderful because I loved it.

Then, as my mind settled, some of the really big questions wandered in. I started pondering life, death, Yeshua, and love. 

Curiosity about death was actually one of the first things that led me beyond the religion of my childhood. I’ve read about near-death and out-of-body experiences, explored other perspectives, and experienced enough anomalies of my own to know that the standard explanations of reality leave out quite a lot. And over the years, a desire has steadily grown to somehow prove that death is not what we think it is. I mean, imagine what could happen if humanity’s greatest fear simply dissolved! How might the world change if someone actually showed up again after dying?

Wait… 

I think that’s already been done. Unfortunately, it was completely misunderstood. 

But that doesn’t mean it’s the end of the story…

Adamus has discussed this too, alluding to the possibility of leaving the planet and later returning without going through the usual birth-and-childhood routine; something about taking our biology with us and then re-manifesting as desired. Which, again, sounds kind of familiar.

Sitting there in the forest, I pondered the possibilities: Could I someday leave this life, and then bring the human expression of myself back into physical reality just to prove I still exist? How might that actually work?

Then a realization dawned. If I dislike my body, resent its limitations, judge my appearance, regret my choices, and generally don’t much like being human, why on earth would I do it again? More to the point, how could I possibly bring something back that I’d just spent a lifetime rejecting? Doesn’t really seem plausible.

But wait… what if I loved her? I mean really loved my human self completely? 

What possibilities would that bring?

In that moment, something vast and deep gently opened up in me, and I am still trying to gather the feelings into words. 

In Love 2.0, Adamus defines love as “awareness and acceptance.” 

Can I love my human self – this body, personality, quirks, scars and wrinkles, wisdom, foolishness and all – so completely that nothing is rejected? 

Can I love my human life so deeply that nothing about it needs to be fixed – not because I finally got everything how I want it, but because I love it as it is?

The question was no longer just about coming back after death. Now it was also about love, so I followed the sparkling thread that seemed to connect them. 

Everybody knows Yeshua taught love. But rather than being merely one of his teachings, what if love was the fundamental thing? 

In a world steeped in tribalism, hierarchy, punishment and rigid ideas about righteousness, here was someone talking about loving your enemies, forgiving endlessly, caring for the rejected, responding to cruelty with grace, and finding the divine within. No wonder he was seen as a radical. And when humanity finally did its worst to him, he still did not reject anything or anyone. He simply remained what he was… love embodied. 

That was the seed we planted as the Yeshua Collective. But, because the fruit rarely resembles the seed, it took 2,000 years and a lot of unhappy detours to finally get to this time of harvest. Now love becomes real, and it changes everything.

The next day we went on a long hike, and my feet began to hurt. One in particular was complaining loudly because I’d forgotten to put a supportive pad in my boot. Limping along with miles still to go, I decided to explore this love stuff.

The first impulse was familiar: Give my foot some love, and maybe it would feel better. But right away I knew that wasn’t it. This deeper sense of love I’d glimpsed wasn’t just another way to fix stuff I don’t like. 

Instead of directing love toward my foot, I shifted toward perceiving it as love. Not pretending the pain wasn’t there or trying to transform it. Just… how does love itself perceive my foot?