thank you Ray Edwards

There are some people I've met on this planet who radiate a calmness I feel as spiritual bliss. I felt a similar energy with R. Buckminster Fuller. I felt this energy from Rinpoche Tarthang Tulku and George Schoenman, my English teacher at Fairfax High School.

I get this same energy feeling from Ray Edwards. Some readers will have to pardon me for writing about the energy feelings I get. I know my discussions of energy are disconcerting to some. Forgive me.

Ray Edwards was texting with me when I was blessed with a gift from Jesus. I was driving from Texas to Atlanta, embroiled in some perturbation I wasn't conceptualizing as the best thing to happen for me when I glimpsed a new level of self-acceptance from Jesus' wisdom, "Forgive them for they know not what they do." In that instant, I let go of a lot of thought debris and mental baggage. Because once I was able to truly forgive others who had agnosia about their impact on me, somehow I simultaneously began loving myself more. What happened is that I forgave myself for mistakes I had made, because I knew not what I did back then.

Ray Edwards lovingly showed me how small minded and self-contricted I had been. Not that this was Ray's intention. His lessons work automagically because when it comes to compassion, Ray appears to me as a maieutic teacher, bringing out larger realms of being in those who he touches.

Ray fascilitated me seeing how closed-minded I was being. He read my book and loved me as I was. I later learned of Ray's faith and found myself surprised and judgmental. A gift Ray gave me was holding a bigger space for me. Ray niether made me wrong, nor expected me not to make him wrong. "Wow, how does he do that?" I remember asking myself. The answer I discovered was grounded confidence in terms of knowing what he knows, being okay with others seeing things differently. I discovered my own intolerances, and a psychic crimping that had been contorting my consciousness began to release.

Thank you for leading me towards pronoia Ray.

With love,

Ben