An Experience from the Word

Helen didn't always understand the significance of the Bible. She shares this week about the things in her life that led her to a new interest in religion and ultimately to the Writings. She explains some of the biblical passages that are only clearly explained and made accessible through the Writings and describes the difference this makes to her understanding. -Editor.

In 1974 my father passed away, and I felt a lack of religion in my life because he had been a very spiritual man. But at the same time, it felt like he was in my heart with me, nudging me to believe in something more than myself and the world, and so I started going to church again. By the end of six months, I had grown tired of the ordinary Mass the Catholics had, and joined a group of Charismatics who were seeking more feeling, more emotion, more meaning from the Catholic religion. After a few months of going to the meetings, I picked up on one of the things they were stressing, which was the importance of reading the Bible. Catholics hadn’t been taught to do that. I started reading it every day, and when coming to the book of Micah, something popped out from the text for me. It was about people going up the mountain of the Lord and coming down again (Micah 4). In that moment I realized it wasn’t talking about going up a mountain but about our minds going up to the Lord, communing with him, and coming back down again. During those light, magical moments I was aware that a very loving and extraordinary Being was reaching out to me. After, I kept reading the Bible hoping for the mental expansiveness to come back. The rigid way my mind usually worked had given way to something very moving and more loving than I ever experienced before.

Within weeks I was introduced to the Writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, who talked about the Bible and explained that it had inner meanings. Only he called the Bible the Word. And now, after reading his works for so many years, I’ve learned the truth of what he says, that all of the Word is written in correspondences (Apocalypse Explained 110). In his Writings Emanuel Swedenborg explains that

Correspondence exists between the things belonging to the light of heaven and those belonging to the light of the world. (Arcana Coelestia 6225)

It is through correspondences that the natural words can contain spiritual thoughts and ideas, and the Lord can say things to those who are listening. One place I listened was in the book of Leviticus.

“It’s so dense,” you might say.

“I may as well start with a hard one.”

“Why?”

“Because I remember a father once saying that his daughter loved hearing it read. If it was that moving to a child, it must be special.”

“Oh.”

“And Swedenborg shows that the laws in Leviticus contain very holy things.”

Both the little girl and Swedenborg made it sound more intriguing than intimidating, something I’d want to read rather than sloughing through a book filled with laws and instructions on how to perform sacrifices. I came to understand that the offerings and sacrifices correspond to, or symbolize, the parts of our mind that need to be purged from sin in order to make a clean offering to the Lord. Often it is said the animals need to be free from blemishes in order to be acceptable as a sacrifice, as in Leviticus 3:1. This all became very interesting to me. A little later Chapter 3 talks about making a peace offering.

And if his offering is a goat, then he shall offer it before the Lord. (Leviticus 3:12)

According to Swedenborg’s inner meanings, often the symbolism of a goat is with faith that is offered alone (Arcana Coelestia 4169:4). Certainly we need to offer our faith, but stop resisting, or being stubborn like a goat. In the next line, the priest “is to lay his hand on its head and kill it” (Leviticus 3:12). This represents coming alive, contrary to what the literal words were saying. The priest laying his hand on its head showed we are to be in inner things (head) and bring them more into our external life (hand).

”Aaron shall sprinkle its blood all around on the altar” (Leviticus 3:13) - the truth (blood) is to be used in our everyday life (sprinkled around). And when that happens, then it is “an offering made by fire to the Lord” (Leviticus 3:14).

The offering of the goat (faith) is to be made with fire (love), showing that the Lord only accepts offerings made that way.

”All the fat that covers the entrails…” (Leviticus 3:14) Interestingly, ‘fat’ which modern medicine teaches us to shun in our food today, has the correspondence of the “inmost or highest heaven” (Arcana Coelestia 353).

Only the inmost part of our spirit is able to go up to the Lord, as I learned in my first experience with the Word. A little later the chapter reads, “an offering made by fire for a sweet aroma” (Leviticus 3:16). Our sense of smell goes directly to the brain, not being processed through the spinal column first. A perception is similar; it goes directly into our minds without being processed through our thinking; we feel it immediately, just like a smell registers immediately in our brains. ‘Aroma’ has to do with perception (Apocalypse Explained 324).

As we progress, we reach the point where we can see that “All the fat is the Lord’s” (Leviticus 3:16). All the love (fat) comes solely from the Lord, not from ourselves. To receive these things we need perception (aroma), the perception getting past our stubborn will, or the goat that resists any kind of rational thinking. Then our minds can see eternity as this shall be “a perpetual statue throughout your generations” (Leviticus 3:17).

Then we can truly believe and accept that the source of love, always and forever, is the Lord. This is a sacrifice for our stubborn minds, not a sacrifice to be taken lightly. The Lord can always overcome our recalcitrant nature, but his terms always insist on love being involved. So in the end, who is more stubborn?

Helen Kennedy

Helen has been writing for many years. Currently she is the editor of Theta Alpha Journal, a General Church women's journal. When not working on that, essays and fiction are her main focus. She finds the material in Swedenborg’s Writings packed with unique and interesting ideas, and has developed a real affection for them.