Walk on the Water — How Many Popes Have Done It?

Pope John Paul II in Brazil, 1997. Did he ever walk on the water?

Two thousand years ago, several men set out in a small boat to cross the Sea of Galilee and ran into what they thought was a bit of bad luck, for their boat was not storm-worthy. What happened next became one of the most important stories of humanity’s history.

Though in his lifetime, Peter held no such position, the Catholic Church counts him as their first pope. After all, he had been given the name “Peter,” from the Greek for “rock,” because the founder of Christianity had said that upon this rock he would build his church. Sounds like something a cult leader would say. Some cult! Close to one third the population of Earth has been counted as members of that once tiny church.

Part of the story of Christianity is the miracles. Arguably, they were every bit as important as the self-sacrifice given to us by that founder. Why? They were not meant as a PR trick to dazzle the masses, though perhaps they did have that effect at times. They were meant as an inspiration for us to change our point-of-view.

I’m not talking about cult mental programming, here. I’m talking about moving the center of consciousness from the false, mortal self to the true, immortal self. And what the heck does that mean? Glad you asked. Humans have a dual identity, sort of like Clark Kent and Superman, only better. Genesis 1:26 says that Man was created in God’s image. If the image of God is that of a non-physical, spiritual and immortal source of creation, then we are inherently non-physical, spiritual and immortal sources of creation. Yep, baby gods! And even Jesus had to remind his enemies of this. It’s not an easy concept to swallow. They were about to stone the Nazarene for blasphemy, but reminding his enemies that the Bible says, “ye are gods,” stayed their hands.

Do we each have the ability to walk on the water?

Dual identity? So, where is this other part of Man? Genesis 2:7 says that Man was created again, but this time from the dust of the ground. Dust is primitive code for physical matter or ordinary chemicals. We’re talking about Homo sapiens, but that’s not the totality of this other part. The contrast is striking—a non-physical, immortal half and a very physical, mortal half. There is another physical component, though intangible, which is every bit as important as the physical body. This is the ego, the center of the false, mortal self, mentioned earlier. When you feel rage or fear, this is ego talking. Ego likes to be right, and feels injured if made to feel wrong. Ego is subject to the same laws of the physical realm obeyed by the physical body. Ego is vulnerable.

When someone lives in the spirit, they are viewing the world from the point-of-view of their true self—the invulnerable immortal. From this point-of-view springs such things as inspiration, true and full forgiveness, and the creation of what the uninitiated would call “miracles.” This point-of-view exists in the realm of creation.

An interesting parallel can be found in the world of computer programming. A bit of code cannot break the laws of the machine. A computer program cannot control devices to which it is not attached—say the apple sitting next to your keyboard. Oh, I guess a piece of fruit is not a device, not in the computer programming sense.

You can’t break the rules of the Matrix, unless your name is Neo, of course. In the second film of the Matrix trilogy, Neo finds that his powers of control extend outside of the Matrix. He manipulates not only the code of the Matrix computer program, but also the code of physical reality. He finds that he can bring down the enemy in the real world by thought alone.

No purely physical object can break the laws of physical reality. A cog in the machine cannot redesign the machine. Our physical bodies cannot create miracles. Only something superior to the physical can do such a thing. Only a child of God—a spiritual and immortal source of creation.

This painting by Amédée Varint shows Christ walking on the water of the storm-tossed Sea of Galilee.

When Peter and his fellow disciples find themselves in a storm-tossed boat, they fear for their lives. Their mentor had remained behind to take care of some business, but when he shows up, they think they’re witnessing a ghost. Why? Because he is walking on water, and not just any water. It’s storm-tossed water.

The scientist who suggested that Jesus was walking on a block of ice must not believe that miracles are possible. Also, he did not read the story very carefully. It would be a miracle to push a block of ice across the sea toward the small boat, and another miracle to stay balanced on the slippery devil amidst the rocking waves. Plus, it would be an additional miracle to bring along another block of ice for Peter to step on. No, there was no ice. The miracle was walking on liquid water when the laws of physical reality say that such things are impossible.

Peter asked this ghost, “If you’re really our master, tell me to come out onto the water with you.”

Can the new Pope Francis walk on the water? Photo: Casa Rosada (CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikipedia.org.

The reply, “Come,” left Peter with a momentary lapse in reasonable judgment. And that was a good thing. But don’t get me wrong. Reason is a good thing, too, within reason. The next moment, Peter stepped out of the small boat, and walked on water with his master. For that moment, his faith was complete. He was not living in the ego—the fearful, vulnerable self. He was outside of himself and in his true self—the fearless, invulnerable self.

Living in the ego is too familiar, too well practiced. It takes time, patience and persistence to cultivate living in the true self. Like a baby learning to walk, you pick yourself up and keep going.

Later, Jesus sent his followers out to perform miracles and to get others to perform miracles. It’s sad that so many people today feel such miracles are impossible or only for that ancient time, two thousand years ago. One Christian minister, on his website, advises that Jesus did not mean it literally when he said that we could do the miracles he did and even greater ones. Obviously, that minister has never created a miracle, otherwise he wouldn’t say such a thing.

Many people have created miracles, some every bit as awe inspiring as Peter walking on water, or Moses parting the sea. I speak from personal experience.

Shortly after Peter stepped out of the boat and stood on the water, before doubt set in. Painting by François Boucher (PD), via Wikipedia.org.

Creating is effortless. However, finding one’s self in the spirit is something that happens far too infrequently, for some of us. It takes practice. Abandoning reason can look like delusion, but it can also be transcendent. I’m not talking about the same thing. Delusion and being in the spirit are on opposite ends of a very broad spectrum. Despite their apparent similarities, they are worlds apart.

When Peter walked on water, he found himself in that other world—no longer viewing reality from the mortal ego, but from the immortal, true self. He created a miracle by his faith—a combination of perfect confidence and perfect humility (or subjugation of the ego). How many popes have ever achieved this? Perhaps only God knows. From all I’ve ever read, Peter was the only pope to have walked on water. Perhaps it is time that changed.

How can anyone walk on the water? How are miracles possible? Any ideas?

This article was published earlier as “How Many Popes have Shown They Can Walk on the Water?” 2013:0616 on https://www.the-love-of-god.com/blog/ and originally published as “How Many Popes have Walked on Water?” 2010:0410 on Blog.AncientSuns.com

Miracles — God Wants Us to Be Active, Not Passive

Jesus and the sermon on the mount. He taught us not only how to love, but also how to do miracles. Artwork: Carl Heinrich Bloch (PD), via Wikipedia.org.

Miracles are not merely something that happened long ago in the past and cannot occur in our modern world. Anyone who tries to tell you this is lying or speaking from ignorance.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Jesus told us that we can do the miracles he did and even greater. He sent out his disciples to do exactly that. Jesus never came back to tell us to stop performing miracles. We need to do as Jesus did—perform miracles to the glory of God. And he did a great many miracles: raising the dead, healing lepers, healing the blind, healing the sick, healing the crippled, healing the insane, turning water into wine, feeding thousands with very little, walking on water and even calming a storm.

I just watched a YouTube video by Sid Roth where his guest related a lifetime of miracles, healing all manner of ailments, including restoring missing limbs and her own missing upper lip.

 

I have experienced numerous miracles in my own lifetime. What I had not realized, until today, is that I was going about it all wrong. I was waiting for inspiration to strike me.

Inspiration can be good, but if we don’t take it up and do something with it, we are being lazy. God wants us to be active with His gifts, not passive. After more than 50 years of experiencing miracles, I finally figured this out! Okay, so I’m a bit slow. But I love the fact that I finally woke up.

Misconceptions About Miracles

One of the chief misconceptions about miracles is that they ceased after the founding of the Christian church. Nothing could be further from the truth. Some Christians believe that “signs and wonders have passed away.” This is a belief called “Cessationism.” Some believe that we are not worthy of miracles. Others believe that God made it a temporary blessing in order to allow the church to be built, but then withdrew that blessing. Sorry, no. This are false ideas.

Miracles have continued. They never stopped. And those who do not believe in them merely have not experienced them or have not asked for them with sufficient faith. You need to throw yourself at miracles fearlessly. Hold nothing back. Show the same enthusiasm for miracles that King David showed for the Heavenly Father. Be excited about the love and generosity you can share with others through miracles.

I remember reading on one Christian pastor’s website that he believed Jesus did not mean what he said—at least not literally. He said that the strength in numbers of Christians allow them to do, as a whole, things that would be considered a miracle for an individual to do. I find this to be a cop out. Having faith in numbers is like having faith in physical reality. That takes no faith at all. That’s laziness. That’s passive.

 My Own Experience with Miracles

Sandhills near Monahans, Texas, near where I lived as a child and experienced my first miracles. Photo: Wing-Chi Poon (CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikipedia.org.

My earliest experience with miracles didn’t look like much, even to me. I did have some doubts after they happened, but I also felt buoyed by them—uplifted. On a hot, West Texas day, I would whistle up the wind to cool me off. Sometimes it didn’t work as well as I would have liked, but it worked often enough to let me know I was on the right track.

When I was 8, while visiting a 13-year-old cousin who lived in Laredo, Texas, I asked him if he believed in God. He told me that he didn’t. I don’t know why I said what I did, but I told him the he would not be able to climb to the top of his own backyard playground equipment—a “jungle gym” set made of metal pipe. He laughed softly, certain that he could master his own equipment, but then he found he couldn’t. He kept slipping. After the third time, he looked at me somewhat spooked and I reassured him that if he believed in God, he could reach the top. He nodded dumbly, accepting his new belief and promptly climbed to the top without slipping. I later related this story to my Southern Baptist minister grandfather to his perplexed chagrin.

In 1973, I had a revelation about the nature of creation. I had been studying comparative religion—not only Christianity, but Scientology and Buddhism. At that moment, I suddenly understood the relationship between the 6 days in Genesis 1 and God’s day of rest. I understood how the “resting” was an essential part of creation. Without it, a creation would not have the dimension of time, and those who might witness it, would no longer see it when that moment slipped into the past. God’s day of rest make manifestation of His creation possible.

Any conversation can be interrupted. I’ve seen dozens of instances where “vapor lock” of the brain gave way to miracles. Photo: Beatrice Murch (CC BY 2.0), via Wikipedia.org.

With this understanding, I immediately wanted to try it out. I felt all flush with confidence. The spirit bubbled up within me. We had in our home a fluorescent light bulb which sometimes did not turn on. Flick the switch and the light seemed to have a mind of its own. This time, I communicated with the entire circuit, from switch to electrical ballast. I then turned on the light switch, and then proceeded to reach for the toothpaste and my toothbrush, relishing, in my mind, the joy of cleaning my teeth. The instant I felt the thought move from my conscious awareness to my subconscious feeling (resting from the prayer), the light came on—not a fraction of a second before or after.

Such instantaneity would follow my experiences with miracles for the next several decades. Many of those miracles involved helping people remember where they had left off in a conversation. After an interruption (knock at the door, phone call or the like), I would merely get the picture of pleasant surprise on their face and then give that picture to God with full expectation that it was already done. The instant the picture left my conscious awareness, the person brightened up. This occurred dozens of times over the years.

Miracle on Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles

I’ve also experienced miracles in traffic. Naturally, a skeptic would say that one or two cars turning out of the lane ahead of you don’t amount to much of a miracle. But how about several hundred, all within a few short seconds and during the thick of rush hour? I had spent several minutes with building frustration over the slowness and danger of traffic.

Six times within two minutes, half a dozen different cars pulled into the tiny space in front of my own, threatening collision. Quick thinking and good brakes prevented any mishap, but each time added to my growing rage—except the last one.

Suddenly, I let go of the frustration. In fact, I took perfect responsibility for not only my own feelings, but also the actions of others that seemingly contributed to them. And, just as suddenly, I went from rage to bliss. That, in itself, was a miracle. Negative feelings usually don’t turn off so suddenly, but perhaps that’s only because we don’t take responsibility for them.

Traffic remained thick and sluggish, but now I didn’t care about getting to my destination any faster. It was perfectly okay. I felt humbled by all this. I also felt an abiding love for all of the drivers around me, including the 6 who had cut me off. I adored them and forgave them. Their trespass was forgotten—quite literally for 34 years.

The next moment, in a light sense of curiosity and fun, I considered “smooth sailing all the way to my destination,” and gave the mental image to God. Voilà! That’s all it took.

The next instant, the 6 cars that had cut me off were the first to move into the already crowded lanes left and right. Within 5 seconds, 2 miles of Wilshire Boulevard were cleared in the center lane, while the lanes left and right remained impossibly and doubly thick with traffic.

For 3 decades, I rarely mentioned this miracle. But then it seemed important that I take this light out from under its bushel.

Peter versus Jesus

Miracle: Jesus walking on water and rescuing Peter after his moment of doubt. Painting: Ivan Aivazovsky (PD), via Wikipedia.org.

When Peter walked on water, he may only have taken a few steps, but it truly was a miracle. He had left reason and all reasonableness behind. For those few moments, he was no more an “I can’t” kind of guy. He did not let reason or experience stand in his way. But then doubt returned and he promptly sank. He was being passive. He allowed the inspiration of the moment to boost his spirit to the level of miracles.

Jesus, on the other hand, had walked the long distance from the shore to where the disciples’ boat was being assaulted by the storm’s waves. His faith did not waver. He was actively creating it from moment-to-moment.

The nature of “nature” is that it is passive. It continues to persist with its continuity, from moment-to-moment, because God rested from His creation. But we need to follow God; not the passivity of physical reality. We need to remain active. We need to be of spirit constantly; not for only a few moments of inspiration. Certainly, we can have the faith to move mountains, but we should maintain that faith while the mountain is being moved, lest we drop it on someone’s head.

Three and a half years ago, I asked the then current Pope how many popes have walked on water. By my own estimation, only one “pope,” but Peter had never considered himself by that title. Sad that no other popes have risen to the level of miracle worker.

What miracles have you experienced?

This article was originally published 2013:0928 on The-Love-Of-God.com.