I had an experience in 1996 when I decided that I would yield to fate respecting a career change that was being imposed on me at the time. I could have resisted change; I could have declined the offer and waited for something else, or I could have quit and sought work elsewhere. It was a stressful time for me, but I decided to “go with the flow”. It also came into my mind at the time, that as long as there is need in this world, there will always be employment. A person might have a cash flow issue, but unemployment is really a state of mind. So I did not resist, one door closed on me, but another one opened. I would not have linked it in anyway to Christianity at the time, but in hindsight I honestly feel it was a pivotal moment in my life where I loosened my grip on “self”. Since then I have been blessed in so many ways I will not even list them all, but the greatest of them is my coming to recognize what I believe to be the working of the Holy Spirit. Since then I have been moving in a direction of surrender such that today I recognize that every issue we grapple with in this fallen world is a spiritual issue and needs a spiritual solution, and that solution is His Word. So this relates in my opinion to your thoughts on proximity, because if we release our grip on everything we think we need to hold on to, the gravitational pull of Truth will sweep us into God’s open arms.

You are right in seeing that through the scope of religious practice Christianity has a smaller group following compared to that of other world perspectives. This is no surprise to me. However, I personally do not see the connection of the measure of truth being objectively recognized through a democratic or “my group is bigger then your group” practice of acceptance. This is again a misconception to the picture of proximity which I was trying to articulate.

Jesus’ question was personal, intimate, and contextualized by the fact that only the individual can answer it. My hope is that we can all answer it within an authentic manner; one which is not tainted by religious, political, denominational, organizational, or dogmatic ideologies (Christian or not!).

Let’s look at it for a moment from the other side. What brings Jesus into the proximity of YOU? If we quantify Jesus by the traditional religious construct of “Church” and ritualistic right then we can measure it by the distance between you and the closest church building. This seems to miss something though when we consider the understanding of proximity which I wrote about earlier. Where is the energy of an incarnational movement? Where is the personal and intimate connection? Jesus asks the question of “Who do YOU say that I am?” and he does not want the Churches answer; the accepted dogmatically correct and “right” answer! He wants YOUR answer with the underlying understanding of the movement behind it in any given moment or situation!

The beauty of this question comes in its holistic transcendent understanding or nature that it has in constantly being asked throughout each and every day of our life. I can read a Buddhist text and again the question comes up, “Who do you say that I am?” Watch an entertaining movie with my wife and again, “Who do you say that I am?” Or as above, go to a concert with my friends and again, “Who do you say that I am?” No matter how far or how close I am the personal and intimate connection is always present!

Is Jesus just a human being or is he something more? Is he “superhuman” as you said? I wasn’t attempting to answer either of these in my description of the potentiality of movement in proximity to spirituality. But since you brought it up, how would you answer those questions? What shapes those answers? How do those “shaping” elements/identities affect the proximity or energy of movement to which you and an understanding of life, faith, spirituality, and personal identity have? What is the difference between those elements/identities and that of the character and life of Jesus (human or superhuman)?

If you are familiar with Sun Tzu’s philosophies I might compare it to his principles behind direct and indirect energy. Be careful not to find yourself guarding the back entrance (indirect/full) expecting God to come from a philosophical distance when you might miss the open front gate entrance (direct/empty) that he may have already taken (Phil 2:1-11)!

I really thank you for your thoughts and would enjoy hearing your reflections to these questions. I realize that often our proximity to suffering (physical challenges) can be both inspirational and challenging when considering our own individual spiritual walks. It is truly a “gospel” encounter when we find fellowship within that nature!