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As a child, youth, and young man, I trusted I was never alone, for Jesus was with me, and sometimes I thought of this as God or the Holy Spirit. As a freshman in college, I would travel to classes in my 1978 Cutlass Supreme, a forty-minute ride, and enjoy talking to Jesus next to me, friend with friend. Never was there a doubt I was talking to him. This was as natural to me as breathing or seeing, and a fruition of the intimacy with Grace nurtured in my childhood home and church. For us, what we trusted in was not an idea, but a real Presence, as real to us as is the Presence of Christ, body and blood, to many in the reception of the wine and host. And in this somewhat simplistic faith shone the beauty of a simple and life-giving Love. Whatever was correct or incorrect about it, this faith was a living reality for me, not merely religious or even merely spiritual.
This Presence, conceptualized from what I had been taught, was not consistent, rather coming and going experientially. The Presence was with me, yet not close to me usually. Often the experience was a comfortable familiarity, not a closeness. At times, a sense of closeness would arise, usually in worship with others, at times this closeness was overwhelming, and would recede soon. I associated this Presence with particular feelings. To be intimate with this Presence, meant to feel intimate, to have an emotional sense of closeness. When I did not feel the nearness, I trusted, anyway, and I waited for the return of that sense.
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This earlier experience transitioned to a more intangible sense of Presence, but stronger. Now, the experience was less an idea, more visceral, like I could feel deeply something with me all the time, like surrounding me with its palpable but spiritual self. This rarely, if ever, dissipated, though it could intensify. Also, at times, I would sense another presence, meaning a someone or something I could not name. Once, during a difficult phase in the pastorate, when I was under strong opposition from a group in my church, including a false accusation from a staff member, a presence was present for several weeks, intimate and deeply loving. The presence would manifest strongly during my times of sitting in Silence alone. So, in this time, there were experiences of the ongoing intimacy and periodic senses of a presence. I saw these as different, one Presence, other presences. Most of the latter were fleeting encounters. And that other presences would be sensed near, that did not concern me, as I had always believed in a seen and unseen, that this material manifestation is only one manifestation, that we are spirits embodied for a time.
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