A friend invited Marianne Williamson to an art museum to view a famous painting, the Salvator Mundi. She shares the following, in The Mystic Jesus, of an opening, or revelation, she received while standing before the painting:
Within a moment, I was stunned.
Here was a painting of Jesus, dressed in blue Renaissance robes, making the sign of the cross with his right hand and in his left holding a clear crystal orb signaling the celestial spheres of heaven. I gazed at the painting, and it was beautiful, of course. But as I continued to gaze at it something mysterious began to happen; the painting turned into something more.
I have never had an experience quite like it. I’d seen Leonardo’s Mona Lisa and Michelangelo’s Pietà and David, plus many other great pieces of art. I have visited some of the greatest museums in the world. But I had never seen anything like what I saw that day. I was somehow delivered beyond the painting. Salvator Mundi became some kind of portal to what lay behind it, to what Jesus is on some level that had never before been revealed to me. I saw something I didn’t even know existed.
It sounds kind of silly, but it was words that I experienced. It was as though I was transported inside two words, as though they were not just words but somehow realms of experience. The words themselves were simple enough: they were “tenderness” and “power.”
I saw that Jesus is both those things in infinite degree. He is a gentleness more tender than the kisses of a billion babies, and at the same time a power so powerful it creates and manages universes. How such things exist I do not know, but I saw them when I looked at Salvator Mundi.
I was left alone to stare at the painting, the last person to see it before movers came to take it away.
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In reflecting on Williamson's words, one may be helped to remember she is not a Christian. She does not ascribe to a Christian dogma. She has relied on A Course in Miracles as her primary source of inspiration. Yet, she experiences what some Christians call the post-resurrection Jesus, or Christ.
"Christ" can refer to more than the historical man Jesus. For a person, however, the continuity between the historical Jesus and the post-resurrection Jesus, or Christ, may remain in place. I have times of feeling a strong connection to Christ, yet, I sense it is more than the historical Jesus I was raised to love and adore, and still do.
I have times of a sense of the same subtle, yet clear, connection to "Buddha" and a growing sense after assuming an official connection with a Buddhist Sangha and path. Is it the same Reality conveyed to me through "Christ" and "Buddha"? I sense it best to, first, receive this, not over-analyze it.
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I am not sure Williamson would want us to think too much about what she has written. Her experience cannot be put into our or her words. As one Sufi Teacher, Bahai Sahib, noted, whatever one can understand is not of the eternal (Irena Tweedie. Daughter of Fire).
Whatever we say is already mis-said, whether talking of God or a pumpkin. Yet, to share experience, we say. We can share what a lovely day we see outside the window, and we have stepped back from its loveliness. Still, it is inviting to say, "Wow! What a lovely day!" Saying is a way we share, inviting others into our experience.
The intimate experience of the lovely day, as that of the opening Williamson experienced before the painting, is primary. Her words, secondary, are like a painting of the painting. Spiritual sharing is poetic, both in form and spirit, even as all spiritual experience is poetic.
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In our spiritual walk, it is as though new insights and experiences jump up from the path and challenge us to see newly, to open to what we had not recognized, what we were before not prepared to acknowledge. Spirit is disclosing itself based on our readiness. To surrender to the Path, we welcome these revelations. We do not seek them. We walk the Path consistently, in fidelity to the Way. We will be given what we need to see, when we need to see it.
And usually, if not always, these unveilings happen to our surprise. We see, but we do not see anything not previously present. We see what we could not before see.
When these openings arise, we integrate them, and this takes time. The integration has been happening before the seeing, and it continues after. We may go through a time of confusion and doubt. We may fear the consequences of admitting we see what we have been shown. But once seen, we cannot undo the seeing. We can be patient with ourselves. We can be willing to see differently and acknowledge what we did not know existed.
And, as with Williamson, it might sound silly to others. And it might sound heretical. Those close to us, including family, friends, and faith community may disagree. We need to discern, also, whom to share with and when to share.
Regardless of what others think of what is shown to us, the truth does not conform itself to us; the truth conforms us to itself. To serve the Truth is to recognize and honor truth, even when it appears to contradict what we have held to be truth prior. The Truth has many faces.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024. Permission is given to use photographs and writings with credit given to the copyright owner.
*Brian practices Zen Buddhism in the Plum Village tradition and attends Open Heart Sangha North, in Bath, Maine. He is a clinically-trained interspiritual chaplain, specializing in facilitating groups in correctional facilities and remote spiritual care.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love.
