BEING JESUS

IN

NASHVILLE

FINDING THE COURAGE TO LIVE YOUR LIFE (WHOEVER AND WHEREVER YOU ARE)

JIM PALMER

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

Being Jesus in Nashville

Finding the Courage to Live Your Life (Whoever and Wherever You Are)

Copyright © 2012 by Jim Palmer

Cover Photograph Copyright © 2009 by Darla Winn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

To protect the privacy of individuals, some names and details have been changed.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4697-5833-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-5832-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4697-5831-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012901944

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 2/28/2012

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Postscript

About the Author

Also by Jim Palmer

Divine Nobodies:

Shedding Religion to Find God

(and the unlikely people who help you)

Wide Open Spaces:

Beyond Paint-by-Number Christianity

To Jessica Catherine Palmer

Acknowledgements

Special thanks goes to Zondervan Publishing for playing such a significant role in what ultimately led to the greatest discovery of my life.

I owe a great debt of gratitude to Yana Cortlund, Mike Willis, Gabe Castro, Kyra Gaunt-Palmer, Ryan Ange, Darla Winn, and Charles Wear for empowering, supporting, and assisting me with the writing, completing, and publishing of this book. My heartfelt appreciation goes out to Renee Zenaida, Brenna Darazs, and Kathleen Cortlund for proofreading the manuscript with lightning speed. Jamie and Amy Knox Jean have played a significant role in supporting and spreading the Being Jesus in Nashville message through video.

My social media network, especially my friends on Facebook, have played a key and critical role in my life, spiritual evolution, and writing since I published Divine Nobodies back in 2006. I invite you to become part of this network. You can start at divinenobodies.com, which will direct you to my Facebook page, Twitter updates, and the organizations and projects I’m supporting because they provide opportunities that empower each and every one of us to live our lives being who we are—Jim of Nashville, Donna of Denver, Maurice of Modesto.

I gratefully acknowledge the permission granted to reproduce the copyrighted materials included in this book. Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders and to obtain their permission for the use of copyright material. I apologize for any errors or omissions and would be grateful if notified of any corrections that should be incorporated in future reprints or editions of this book.

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE®. Used by permission of Rainbow Missions, Inc., http://WorldEnglishBible.org.

Scripture quotations noted ASV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, AMERICAN STANDARD VERSION. Used by permission of the publisher.

Scripture quotations noted YLT are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, YOUNG’S LITERAL TRANSLATION. Used by permission of the publisher.

Scripture quotations noted TNIV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, TODAY’S INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 2001, 2005 by Biblica®. Used by permission of Biblica®. All rights reserved worldwide. “TNIV” and “Today’s New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica®. Use of either trademark requires the permission of Biblica®.

Scripture quotations noted ESV are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, ENGLISH STANDARD VERSION. Used by permission of the publisher.

Scripture quotations noted MSG are taken from The Message by Eugene H. Peterson. Copyright 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group. All rights reserved.

Author’s Note

FEAR IS A REACTION YOU HAVE WHEN YOU’RE GETTING CLOSER TO THE TRUTH

Right now, I am lost in a photograph of my twelve-year-old daughter Jessica, taken when she was four. The framed four-by-six is lying next to my laptop as I type. I want to cry.

In the photo, Jessica is wedged between two friends on a park bench, her legs dangling off the edge. There she sits with her wavy, sandy-blond hair, ear-to-ear silly grin, and those eyes—big, beautiful, hazel eyes that melt and undo me inside. My love for Jessica is an ocean wide. At times this means I’m swimming in complete happiness, while at other times, drowning in unbearable sadness. I once walked into my mother’s bedroom and found her lying in bed, crying. I asked what was wrong, and she replied, “You’ll understand when you have children.” I think I understand now.

I wrote this book for Jessica.

For my whole life, I have carried around the story that I am a failure… that something is wrong with me… that I am not enough. The constant voice in my head—haunting and sabotaging my life at every turn—tells me, “Jim is bad.” The chains of this story were wrapped around me as a child, and then my religion locked them up tight and threw away the key.

Lately, when I gaze into those beautiful eyes and see the extraordinary young woman that Jessie is becoming, a new pang of fear pierces my gut. What if I pass my story on to her, and in turn, she adopts it? What if Jessica begins to judge, condemn, dislike, diminish, hide, question, and hate herself? “Jessica is bad.” No!

I keep my daughter’s photograph within my line of vision as I write. It’s a reminder that I can’t let this happen… that I won’t let this happen. I love Jessica too much. The story that I’ve lived with all these years stops with the release of this book.

There are several things about Being Jesus in Nashville that I’d like you to know—how it took four years for me to write it, how I survived two near-death experiences to finish it, how I was branded a heretic and lost my livelihood over it, how my journey was affected by some of the most extraordinary divine nobodies while working on it, how my life’s mission was altered because of it, and how it nearly didn’t get published. As you can see, many disheartening things happened, and yet this book is significant because the process of living, writing, and publishing it is saving me from that painful, self-diminishing story.

What you’re about to read is an account of how I traded in my Christianity for Jesus, and how this brought me closer to God in the end. This journey starts with a question, a familiar one. As a matter of fact, it’s the one question that has most shaped Western Christianity in our century: “What would Jesus do?”

For many years, I made the mistake of letting Christian religion answer this question for me, even though I was never quite settled with the response. Seeking to gain insight and perspective, I set out to explore the question by going straight to the source—Jesus. By the end of my quest, I’d learned that Jesus had an entirely different reply to the WWJD question… but it was an answer that wasn’t without controversy, and one that my Christian publisher could not accept.

It wasn’t an answer that was easy for me to accept either, for it contradicted the underlying premise of my life: “Something is wrong with me.” I had grown content with the “Jim is bad” story; it served me well throughout the years—providing me with the rationale to play the victim in life, or giving me an easy “out” from being the man I was created to be.

One reason Being Jesus in Nashville took so long to publish was that I had conflicting feelings about releasing what is essentially my first draft—the version I’d submitted to my publisher that was subsequently rejected because it did not “lie within the bounds of biblical, Orthodox Christianity.” Normally, a manuscript goes through several revision cycles before it goes to print. All writers know that the real work in writing a great book is in the rewrite. Yep, that’s me—the guy who wants to publish a great book. After all, I was the author once touted as the “next Don Miller” and “our next great spiritual writer,” with two “widely acclaimed” books under my belt. But the world turned, and now I am the author with no publisher who penned a rough manuscript under the duress of a conservative Christian publisher’s watchful eye and expectations. On top of this, I am also the guy who has been fully vested in the story of being a failure—who doesn’t want to provide more supporting evidence by publishing a book that is less than extraordinary, so he’s prepared to do anything within his power to prevent it!

I wanted to fix the manuscript. I wanted to rewrite the book—to reinsert my true voice wherever I felt that the “real Jim” had been silenced. At the very least, I wanted to send the book through the customary revision process: to clean it up and tweak sections that I felt needed clarification or further development.

A friend, however, shared a different view about the book that I had not considered. She felt it important to release the original manuscript—the one that had been rejected and deemed “unchristian”— and give the readers the opportunity to decide for themselves. I resisted. The guy terrified of failure who wanted to publish a great book took charge and fired off a litany of reasons that reinforced how publishing the manuscript “as is” would be a bad idea.

Disregarding my friend’s input, I rolled up my sleeves and got to work on revising the manuscript. Right out of the chute, I saw something in the first chapter that needed revision. I added a paragraph to that section to flesh out my thoughts a little further. I reread the section again, but felt it still wasn’t right. It occurred to me that the new paragraph might work better if it came a little later on, so I cut it and pasted it farther down in the chapter. Hmm… that didn’t seem to work either. Grrrr!

I decided, instead, to combine two paragraphs. That made it even worse! Then, I spotted that my word choice in a couple of places wasn’t exactly getting my point across. The word “deep” was bothering me. I felt that I was using that word too much—“deep connection,” “feeling things deeply,” “deep suffering,” “deepened my conviction,” “look deep within,” “deep impact.” What does the word “deep” mean anyway? I needed to be more specific! I started looking at synonyms for “deep,” and liked the word “profound.” But, what does “profound” really mean? And so, I started looking up synonyms for “profound.” I liked the word “weighty”; it seemed to have some real—well, weight to it! So I tried it out: “In time, Matt and I uncovered a weighty connection.” Huh? Weighty connection? That sounds lame! I suck! I suck!! I suck!!! I am such a fail—

And there it was… I am such a failure.

I’d been resistant to publishing my original manuscript because I thought it represented failure. Not only was it more evidence that my writing wasn’t good enough, it also proved that something was wrong with me since I couldn’t seem to fix it. It was that same old story repackaged: “Jim is bad.”

I glanced over at the photograph of Jessica. I studied it intently, noticing her sweet little hands resting on her lap, her white socks folded over her slender ankles. Suddenly, I realized that my predicament was actually a gift—an opportunity to do things differently, for both of us.

I’ve heard that fear is a reaction you have when you’re getting closer to the truth. When it comes down to it, this is why I’m releasing my first-draft version of the manuscript—because I’m afraid. And also, because I believe that on the other side of this fear, there is a truth I am getting closer to discovering.

Prologue

THE DAY I DIED

I should be dead.

Not a day goes by that the crash doesn’t cross my mind. I still get anxious when driving that stretch of highway at night. Sometimes I have flashbacks: I’m dangling upside down from my seatbelt, gasping for air, waiting to die.

I was on my way home that evening in May, after having dinner with a friend in downtown Nashville. The next exit was mine, Stewarts Ferry Pike. It was late, and there was hardly any traffic on Interstate 40. In fact, I remember only one car.

Glancing in my rearview mirror, I saw the distant headlights of that car behind me. I thought nothing of it. That is, until moments later when I looked again. The car was gaining on me rapidly. I checked my speed, 75 mph, and locked my eyes on the rearview mirror, defenselessly watching what looked like a missile barreling right at me—as if it were going to plow straight through my car.

I had no chance to react. The very next second, my life was changed forever.

At a speed that was later estimated to be nearly 105 mph, the oncoming vehicle struck the rear end of my car square-on, sending me into a tailspin. As my car spun out of control, all I could do was cling to the steering wheel. Before a thought could enter my mind, I had spun off the interstate into the grass, and was rolling down an embankment. Metal crumpling and glass shattering, my car tumbled over and over before finally coming to a stop upside down.

I was in shock. My entire body was shaking. I tasted blood in my mouth. Seconds later, I heard another violent collision. More cars were now involved. A second car sailed over the embankment; it came to rest close to mine, then caught fire. I panicked. Hanging upside down, I pushed myself up with one hand so that I could release my seat belt with the other. I grabbed my computer bag, pulled out my laptop, and tried smashing through the driver’s side window—but failed. I couldn’t breathe. Terrified, I began yelling, desperately begging for someone, anyone, to save me… but there was no one.

The frightening reality of the situation seized me. I saw the flames, heard the screams, and smelled gasoline. I knew that my car would turn into an inferno in a matter of moments, with me trapped inside. I felt a sharp pain in my side. Something was wrong within me. What was this excruciating pain? Was it serious? Did I have only a few minutes left to live? Why was I bleeding? Whether the result of suffocation, fire, or fatal injury, I knew I wouldn’t make it out of that car alive; I was going to die alone on the side of the road in the dark.

At first, I fought against this thought, frantically searching for a way out. As an ultramarathon runner, many of my friends referred to me as “Superman” in jest. Now was the time, if ever, to make good on that big red “S.” Apparently, I had no superpowers. After a few more minutes of struggle, something began to shift deep within me. My frenzied state gave way to resignation and acceptance. I stopped struggling. As I lay there motionless, the cacophony of horror outside my car faded away until all I could hear was my own breathing. Waves of deep emotion began surging through me.

My thoughts and feelings wrapped themselves around my eleven-year-old daughter, Jessica.

One after another, tender memories of Jessica rolled across the screen of my mind and tumbled down to the bottom of my heart. There was that silly way she giggled as I held her in my arms and kissed her little ears… and the way she put her tiny hands on my face when I had her strapped to my shoulders in the backpack carrier. I remembered how much she liked me to sing to her as I pushed her in the swing… and how often, while sitting next to her bed at night, I marveled at her angelic face as I watched her sleep, feeling as though my heart might burst with love. I watched myself pull Jessica on her sled through the snow-covered streets of our neighborhood… and saw her smile as I twirled her around while we danced together on the living room floor. And then, I recalled the exhilarating look on my daughter’s face when I finally let go and she pedaled off on her bike for the first time on her own, her sandy-blond hair blowing freely in the wind.

My Jessica. I loved her with all my heart and every cell of my being. The thought of being separated from her forever was agonizing. I didn’t want to die—to leave her with the gruesome reality of my death, forced to face this world without me. Did she know how much I loved her? Would she be able to feel that love and carry it inside her? But, how could she know? How could anyone ever truly know that you loved them that much? I wanted to see her sweet face one last time—to hold her tightly in my arms, to brush her long wavy hair, to laugh with her until we cried, to dance together to one more song on the radio. I needed to look my daughter in the eyes and tell her all the things that make her beautiful. Please! Just one more time…

But there was no more time.

Lying there in the darkness, I had to let these thoughts go. I had to let Jessie go—had to let us go—forever. My heart burned. Anguish climbed from the bottom of my gut up through my chest and throat, then erupted from me in a yell that stretched across every remaining moment of Jessica’s life that we would no longer be able to share.

It’s strange what comes to you when faced with your own death. Suddenly, I was summoned back through time, and I was once again a little boy on McBride Drive. I was Jamie, seated at our kitchen table, watching my mother arrange blue and yellow irises and white baby’s breath in a vase while she sobbed. Sitting there, I could see the beauty of the flowers with my eyes, but could only feel pain—my mother’s pain—in my heart. I reached out and touched her arm to calm her. It was at this very kitchen table that I learned how to cry on the inside without anyone knowing it.

I saw a picture next. One of six photographs that had survived my troubled childhood; a photo that I had kept tucked away in a box beneath my bed. It was a snapshot of me from high school—taken on the day I got my very first car, for which I had worked and saved for a long time. In the photo, I am giving my best tough-guy look as I lean against my dark maroon, 1972 Firebird 350 Coupe with black interior. I’ll never forget that day. Not because of the car, but because my depressed, alcoholic mother tried to kill herself later that night.

Contrary to the memories of my daughter, the recollections of my mother stung like salt in a wound—a wound that had been freshly reopened by her recent death. There had been no opportunity for me to see my mom before she was gone. She had slipped into a coma and never come out of it. On the very day my mother died, my sister held a cell phone to my mother’s ear, and I reassured her of my love despite everything between us. But, the words I spoke were hollow, devoid of any emotional attachment, for I had boarded up my heart those many years ago at that kitchen table on McBride Drive.

My mother’s unhappiness was the yoke of my childhood. Failing to rescue my mom from her depression was my greatest heartache. I hated myself. On the day she died, I had told my mother I’d forgiven her. And I had lied. There was a wound as wide as the ocean that separated us; loving my mom had always hurt. So, I pushed her death as far out of my mind and away from my heart as I could.

There are some things you want to take with you when you die, and some things you don’t. I knew I had to leave all the pain I was feeling in that car, and so I finally surrendered it. In a strange way, this act made me feel that my life was complete—that there was nothing else left for me to do in this world.

Faces and memories of others I loved appeared in my mind. Stretching back through time, I recalled the smell of burning firewood, the faint sound of rattling cowbells, the crisp, cool countryside air. How curious that Kenya should come to mind in a moment like this. As clear as day, I could see a fiery orange sun rising in the emerald Rift Valley sky, a swarm of pink flamingos taking flight off Lake Nakuru, and a throng of children yelling “Mzungu!” in the streets of Kitale. I felt more at home in that country than I have anywhere else. A part of me never left Kenya, and I’d always hoped to return to find it one day. Mary McLeod Bethune once said, “The drums of Africa still beat in my heart.” I would not have that chance to return to Africa, but those drums would be beating inside me as I drew my last breath.

I got to the end of a long ribbon of memories and found this place deep within me, a secret chamber inside my soul, where it became okay to let my life go. I let go of the people I cared for so deeply and released those who’d hurt me. All the good things in life I had experienced, all the dreams and desires that would remain unfulfilled—one by one, they passed through my mind like grains of sand in an hourglass.

I let go of the love I had gained, the love I had lost, and the love I would never find. Tears flowed from the well of my heart as I made my peace and said goodbye to Jim Palmer and to this world. I slid my hands beneath my head, and lying as peacefully as I could, closed my eyes. It felt as though time stood still, and then, it was as if I were no longer there.

Suddenly, my brain waves were abruptly reawakened and a thought crashed through my mind like a meteor hurtling out of the sky. A flash of insight struck, and my eyes popped open. It was an intensely lucid moment in the middle of the most horrifying experience of my life. Remembering the series of events that had taken place during the months leading up to this moment, things fell into place in my mind and took on significance in a way I had never recognized before. I finally had the answer to the question I had been seeking for so long.

For the past two years, I’d been caught up in a quest to resolve a question that had taken hold of me after writing Divine Nobodies and Wide Open Spaces. After deconstructing and shedding most of my Christian faith, I was left with this final question, one that I had to get to the bottom of for myself. It consumed me. I had to know the truth. I’d had a few hunches, and at times I’d felt as though I was getting close, but I’d never felt satisfied that I had come to a conclusive answer… until this very moment!

Why now? Merely a cruel irony? What was the benefit of gaining this understanding just moments before my death? It seemed senseless to have come to the most profound discovery of my life with no life left to live. Yes, I would go to my grave knowing the truth, but what good would come of that? What a waste!

A slight movement brought extreme pain, and my mind returned to my broken body. It hurt to breathe. No flash of insight could save me now; it was my time to die.

The Bible tells us that our lives are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away. May 26, 2010 was the day that Jim Palmer’s life would vanish and be gone forever. Finding a more bearable position, I closed my eyes again, shut out the world, and prepared to vanish away. However agonizing death itself might be, I knew that the process wouldn’t last long. Soon, there would be no more struggling, no more resistance, no more frantic search for an escape. There’d be no more thoughts or feelings, no more faces or memories… no more of anything.

But then, a voice cut through the darkness.

“Are you okay down there?”

Introduction

PARTING WITH RELIGIOUS TRADITION WHEN NECESSARY

There isn’t much left of my former Christian life. For the past few years, I’ve been breaking the rules of religion and writing about it. I began chronicling my spiritual journey in 2006, beginning with Divine Nobodies, my “shedding religion” story. Then, I wrote Wide Open Spaces, sharing how I took my next steps towards freedom by unplugging from organized religion and institutional church. To get the full picture here, it might be helpful to read those books sometime. Otherwise, it’s a little like walking into a movie midway through—eventually you figure out what’s going on, but it would have been so much easier to have seen the first part.

Despite becoming known as the “Divine Nobodies-guy,” I’m partial to my second book Wide Open Spaces, which covers that season of my life when I disassembled and scrutinized every belief I held about God. A few beliefs survived the process. Most didn’t. If you’ve acquired a taste for great works of literature, you’ll no doubt enjoy Wide Open Spaces, and will likely place it on your shelf next to authors such as Steinbeck, Bradbury, Eliot, and Austen. Now don’t be thrown off by that one Amazon.com review by some guy named Steve who wrote something about how he just knew that Wide Open Spaces would try to destroy two thousand-year-old Christian orthodoxy before he’d even finished reading the introduction. I think you’ll agree that Wide Open Spaces might very well be one of the most significant literary contributions to western civilization. Seriously, Plato’s The Republic is so overrated.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned by way of writing three books, it’s that being an author is like being a cow: you’re supposed to produce. You probably think a publishing house is a place with offices, computers, copying machines, and books. It’s not. It’s actually a huge barn where each author has his or her own tiny stall. There’s a hell of a lot of suction apparatus, stainless steel piping, and rubber hoses involved—all working to extract manuscripts from each author. Once transformed into books, they are whisked away on a conveyer belt to eventually find their way onto bookstore shelves and finally, into your home. I still have nightmares of Don Miller mooing uncontrollably in the stall next to me. Poor guy. Who knows what growth hormones they used on him!

Some days, I wish that I’d remained a carpet salesman. Life was so much simpler then. Admittedly, I invented new ways of injuring myself using a metal tape measure. I never did get the hang of correctly measuring stairs for the accurate yardage of carpet. Consequently, I had some explaining to do whenever the carpet ran out at step eight with three steps yet to go, or when there was enough carpet left over to cover two additional bedrooms.

However, no one expects a carpet salesman to save the world.

Just because I could explain the LotusFX Fiber Shield technology of Stainmaster carpet to my customers didn’t mean that they’d figure I’d have the solution to their suffering. I had spent twenty-five years in top Christian leadership positions where people looked to me for answers to the ultimate questions of life. This was a lot to live up to. As a carpet salesman, I was a big hero by simply showing up on the job site with a box of Krispy Kreme donuts for the installation crew. It was nice to be living out of the spotlight. For once in my life, I was a true blue nobody. It felt good to simply “be me.”

Unfortunately, my freedom didn’t last long.

Just as I was starting to enjoy my “nobody” status, I was becoming a “somebody” again. What happened? I became a published “Author” with a capital “A.” There’s a certain mystique attached to someone who gets a book published. On August 1 you may be a bum who eats Doritos and donuts and plays Xbox all day long in sweat pants that haven’t been washed in over six years, but if on August 2 you land a book deal, you’re all of a sudden special—which means you’re now subject to the scrutiny of the public eye.

Even worse, if your book has anything to do with God, you instantaneously become a candidate for guru status—a bum who eats Doritos and donuts, plays Xbox all day in sweat pants he hasn’t washed in over six years, and… is a highly enlightened spiritual leader.

For a guy who just wanted to enjoy his newfound nobody status, life took quite a turn. On the cover of Divine Nobodies one endorsement read, “Jim Palmer could well be the next Donald Miller.” Yikes! Talk about pressure! Later, the back cover of Wide Open Spaces proclaimed that I had earned, “widespread acclaim as one of our next great spiritual writers.” Huh? If I’m supposed to be one of the next great spiritual writers, then we are in for some serious trouble!

One day this William Paul Young guy contacted me, seeking an endorsement for a book he wrote about some shack. It seemed a little strange to me, but I have a hard time saying no. I read it. Wow, what a story! My endorsement appears on the first page of the book, which is the only explanation for why my books sell. Thanks, William! I’m hoping that the Eat, Pray, Love gal will want me to endorse her next book! Somehow, someway, I’m going to get on Oprah yet—or at least Jerry Springer.

Now that I was a published author, radio interviews multiplied, blog hits increased, I started a podcast, and my inbox was flooded with emails from readers. A few sports and entertainment personalities endorsed my books. My Facebook friend count swelled, and people followed me on Twitter as I broadcasted to the world super important stuff like which cereal I was eating for breakfast and how badly my body ached after running twenty-something miles.

In a bizarre twist of fate, I was becoming a somebody by being the number one nobody. The whole “nobody” idea began to take root as an increasing number of people identified with it. All of a sudden, being ordinary, quirky, edgy, unimpressive, unstable, marginalized, and written off was—well, a good thing. People began to realize that they didn’t need a seminary degree, leadership position, or even the structures and programs of organized church to do important things like giving unconditional love and acceptance to others—things a cashier, tattoo artist, or tire salesman could do.

Off the map and under the radar, a grassroots network began to grow as folks came together to share the belief that what this world needed most came down to people being real. Everybody was somebody’s “divine nobody,” and simply showing up for your life and doing the next thing was fulfilling God’s purpose for you. From Kalamazoo to Klamath, people of every stripe contacted me to say that they were “nobodies,” and proud of it!

Meanwhile, I accidentally managed to coin a term for which people wanted to make me an expert. The term is “shedder,” defined as “someone who sheds religion in order to find and know God.” I began receiving invitations to speak at conferences to present my views on behalf of those who wanted to know God and follow Jesus but who found themselves at odds with organized church because they could no longer identify with many of the traditional Christian beliefs and practices.

Interest in the “divine nobody” concept was further fueled by a line in my official author biography that read, “Jim Palmer pioneered a unique expression of church as a social network of people in the Nashville, Tennessee area”—which was really just the publisher’s fancy way of saying that I took the time to cultivate authentic friendships with people along the everyday paths of life. Soon, people from far and wide were contacting me regularly to learn more about this new, novel, cutting-edge, trail-blazing, humankind-saving way of doing “relational church.”

Besides achieving “guru” status, I had become a social-justice rock star for having traveled abroad with International Justice Mission to investigate cases of human rights violations such as forced child prostitution and child slave labor. I was frequently asked to speak on the topic of global injustice. After each talk, people queued up to meet the guy who had stared danger and evil in the face and lived to tell about it. I had practically become a celebrity.

Quite a bit of hoopla for a guy who’d pecked out two books while sitting in an ugly, blue rocker recliner in his ¾-car garage. Yes, I was an author, but I had not really come up with anything terribly original, and most often, was just pointing out the painfully obvious. I wasn’t trying to create a following or start a new religion, and it wasn’t important to me that others adopt my understandings about God, church, and being Christian. My books were merely about me telling my story. If that helped some people, great!

Making it up as I went along, I simply listened to and followed what I felt most deeply in my gut—the place where the voice of God and truth seemed most real to me.

Nevertheless, Jim Palmer, Inc. was born. I’d become a brand—a combination of Larry the Cable Guy and C.S. Lewis—“a writer of emotional depth, self-deprecating humor, gifted storytelling, and profound insight.” The big hero who’d exposed the insanity of Bible Belt Churchianity, given people permission to follow Jesus without being a Christian, and fearlessly pushed the boundaries of deconstruction as far as they could bend. My Jim Palmer, Inc. persona was your next-door neighbor pal, a shedding religion guru, an alternative church rebel, a social justice champion, a spokesperson for nobodies everywhere, and—as my social networking tagline promised—a “friend of all people.”

Whether they’d been attracted by my quirky personality, accessibility, or the lessons of my spiritual journey, people had signed up to see a certain Jim. I didn’t want to disappoint them. I felt pressured. After the release of Wide Open Spaces, my agent had prodded me to start considering my next book. At the time, I knew this much: I had a brand to protect and perpetuate, and high expectations to meet. Meaning, my next book needed to be good, like R-E-A-L-L-Y good!

While it was true that I was turning increasingly unchristian, simultaneously, my interest in Jesus intensified. Throughout my own shedding process, I’d found that I could not shed or deconstruct Jesus out of my life. But, I wasn’t entirely sure where he fit in either. The whole question of Jesus just sort of sat uncomfortably in my gut, unresolved.

One Saturday evening, I met some friends for dinner at the Spaghetti Factory in downtown Nashville. I parked in a public parking garage and walked down Broadway towards the restaurant, which was located on Second Avenue. The air of a summertime Saturday night in downtown Nashville is unquestionably electric, and the current culminates at the corner of Second and Broad. This busy corner is the heart of the city, and typically bustling with folks. People of all kinds pass through that intersection—locals who live or work in the city, tourists on their way to a restaurant or event, homeless people en route to the nearby park.

Making my way down Broadway, I noticed a teenage girl with a port-wine birthmark on her face walking in my direction. Her expression and demeanor seemed to convey a spirit of dejection. As we passed one another we made eye contact, and she quickly glanced away. Having my own preteen daughter who was becoming increasingly self-conscious, I imagined how difficult this birthmark might be for this young woman. In my mind, I profiled her as a kindhearted and caring girl—the empathetic friend, the one who listens, the one who drops everything when you need her, and the one you can always count on to be there and to come through—very much like my own daughter.

But, with a port-wine birthmark staining half of her face, I also imagined her to be a girl who suffered in silence—a girl who would trade anything for just one day at school when people didn’t stare or look away, or just one boy who would look past her face to see the person she was on the inside, or just one reflection of herself in the mirror that made her feel beautiful, alluring, and desirable. My heart sank deeper inside me as I kept walking.

Reaching the corner of Second and Broadway, I became part of a swarm of people waiting for the pedestrian light to change in order to cross. There was also a crowd on the opposite side of the street, waiting to come our way. Standing there, I began to study the faces across from me. Who were these people? What was their story? Like that teenage girl, I wondered what pain they might be carrying.

As the pedestrian light turned green, the two separate masses of people poured into the crosswalk, converging into a sea of humanity near the middle of the street. Was that man I brushed arms with a husband and father who was dying of prostate cancer? Was that woman in the Tennessee Titans T-shirt answering her cell phone to receive the news that her plan to adopt a child had fallen through again? Would that little boy who was being jerked along by his angry father be beaten as soon as they reached the family car? I wondered if the man standing on the curb might be homeless because he suffered from mental illness and could not get the treatment he needed.

I imagined all the hurt and heartache of this world crossing that intersection of Second and Broadway. And then, I had a strange thought. If Jesus were in Nashville, standing on that corner this very moment, how would he respond? Although I was only imagining the pain carried by this wave of humanity, Jesus would have seen straight through to the real suffering that people contained inside. Would he have merely passed through the crowd and done nothing? If Jesus had seen that teenage girl and felt her heartache, would he have put his hand on her face and dissolved her birthmark? Would he have intervened and rescued that little boy from his abusive father? Would Jesus have made sure that the homeless man received the help he needed? Yes. I could see Jesus doing all these things, were he to have been there that Saturday evening.

The following week, as I was clearing my shelves of unwanted books, I came across a small paperback that had fallen behind a row of hardcover books—In His Steps by Charles Sheldon. Finding this book stirred old memories. I had been the student president of our Campus Crusade for Christ ministry at East Tennessee State University when I’d first read it. In His Steps was first published in 1896, and to this day remains a best-selling novel. It has sold more than thirty million copies and ranks as the ninth best-selling book of all time. The full title of the book is In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? It is from this book that the infamous WWJD question originated. There has quite possibly been nothing more central to the past 115 years of Christianity than this book and this question.

Sheldon’s novel begins on a Friday morning when a homeless man appears at the front door of Pastor Henry Maxwell as he is preparing his Sunday sermon. Maxwell briefly listens to the man’s plea for help before brushing him away and closing the door. This same homeless man shows up in Maxwell’s church at the end of his Sunday sermon. He walks up to the pulpit, faces the congregation, and humbly confronts them about their lack of compassion for the homeless, like him, of their community. At the end of his remarks the man collapses and then dies a few days later. The following Sunday, Henry Maxwell, deeply moved by the events that occurred, presents a challenge to his congregation: “Do not do anything without first asking, ‘What would Jesus do?’” This single question, known as “WWJD” in brief, is central to the plot of Sheldon’s book. The rest of the novel consists of the stories of various congregation members and their quest to apply the WWJD question to their lives. I recalled the year that this very challenge became the focus and theme for our college ministry. All of us read the book and decided to pick one semester to devote ourselves to doing the same. The whole WWJD campaign stirred up much attention on campus, to say the least.

Rediscovering In His Steps twenty-five years later while purging books was interesting timing. In Wide Open Spaces, I had devoted an entire chapter to the WWJD question. In “A Divine Autopsy: Does It Matter WWJD if We Can’t Do It?” I wrestled with the maddening predicament of binding people to the WWJD standard while simultaneously maintaining the edict that being “like” Jesus was not possible since Jesus was God, and we weren’t. I put my seminary degree to work and constructed a biblical basis for the idea that we could live the life of Christ despite our fallen humanity. To be honest, it was the one chapter in Wide Open Spaces that never sat right with me. Somewhere deep inside I sensed that there must be more to this whole WWJD dilemma than what I had come up with.

Unfortunately, I did not have time to revisit this, as there was the pressing issue of my next book to deal with. And like those Geico money eyes, it had me under its watch. My agent had asked me to send him a list of book ideas. I racked my brain. Now that I had the title of “next great spiritual writer” to live up to, what book could I write to give Thomas Merton a run for his money? After this line of contemplation didn’t take me very far, I shifted my thoughts to writing one of those blockbuster books like The Shack. Maybe something like—hmm, umm—The Shed! But, it seemed too unchristian to steal William Young’s sequel. Although, I decided to buy the domain name—just in case.

My agent thought I should consider writing a “how to” book. Until then, my books had been telling my personal religion-shedding story, so the idea was to write a book with practical principles, guidelines, and steps for helping others through a similar process. But, this didn’t feel right to me. The thought of converting my personal shedding religion process into some sort of formula for others to follow felt more like advocating the problem of religious thinking instead of exposing it.

All the while, I kept thinking about Sheldon’s In His Steps. Finally, I realized that what I felt inspired to do was to press further into the whole WWJD issue and the unresolved dilemma I had with Jesus, which lingered from Wide Open Spaces. I had lunch with my agent and shared my thoughts with him. He wasn’t convinced. Admittedly, the idea didn’t seem to have much pop.

Then, genius struck!

As I bit into my black bean burrito, I had a flash of brilliance. (These flashes do occur every couple years or so, but I was well overdue.) I hadn’t really thought the idea through, but with In His Steps fresh on my mind, I blurted out, “What if I wrote a modern-day In His Steps?”

Now, how’s that for pop? After all, the book was a juggernaut Christian bestseller the first time around, and as far as I knew, no one had ever written another book like it. Instead of a work of fiction, however, my In His Steps would be based in reality. Intrigued by the idea, my agent asked me to flesh it out further.

As I continued reasoning through the concept over the following days, it made more and more sense. In Wide Open Spaces, I had tried to resolve the WWJD quandary on paper as a mental and theological endeavor and found it limiting. If I truly lived as Christ, however, how far could I go? It became increasingly clear that the answer I was seeking could only be found by living the question. For my entire Christian life, I had thought in terms of me and Jesus. But, what would it mean to live the truth of me as Jesus?

Hmm. As excited as I was, I also knew that this wasn’t going to be an easy pitch to my agent. Let’s see, “Gary, can I talk with you about my next book? You know how for the past few years I’ve written a lot about living in the ways of Jesus? Well, there’s been a slight change. Umm… I’ve decided to stop distinguishing between Jesus and myself as two separate people. What I’m trying to say, Gary, is that deep down I feel I am Jesus.” I could see right away how this might be a problem. Sane people don’t claim to be equal with the Son of God—that’s reserved for folks like that guy living in the mountains of Ukraine with a few too many wives.

I added a couple more details to the book proposal and sent it off to Gary anyway. He was slightly concerned about the theology of it all, but was intrigued by the idea of an In His Steps sequel. As we talked through the proposed premise further, it expanded in several different directions. Gary imagined all kinds of scenarios and dilemmas that I might encounter as I tried to “be Jesus” in daily life.

For example, when I went to the grocery store, did I “serve” others by allowing them to go ahead of me in line? And if so, for how many people or for how long would I do this? (Wasn’t looking forward to that; I hate lines!) Or, maybe I could pull over and help every person with a car problem or pick up hitchhikers? (Well, okay, but first I’d have to forget that I ever saw that gruesome film, The Hitchhiker.) Gary also raised the idea of how gripping it would be if I did something radical like sleep under a bridge or on the street with the homeless—maybe even live as a homeless person for a week. Since the original In His Steps began with a homeless man showing up on Henry Maxwell’s doorstep, how fitting it would be for my book to include this parallel.

After all was said and done, the final idea that emerged was for me to write a book (ala In His Steps) that essentially told the story of a one-year experiment in which I tested the theory that there is nothing truly preventing me from living as Jesus. And so, I crafted a book proposal around this idea, and my agent presented it to a variety of publishers. The concept sparked lots of interest, and three particular publishers began vying for the book.

Meanwhile, because I had pitched this In His Steps sequel idea for my next book, I figured I should take another look at the original book—especially since I had not opened it in twenty-five years. I turned to the poignant section that I had highlighted in college where Henry Maxwell delivers his impassioned plea to his congregation. It read:

“I want volunteers from the First Church who will pledge themselves, earnestly and honestly for an entire year, not to do anything without first asking the question, ‘What would Jesus do?’ And after asking that question, each one will follow Jesus as exactly as he knows how, no matter what the result may be.”

Back in the day, this seemed like such a radical idea. However, as I continued flipping through the pages, I grew increasingly disappointed by how the story worked itself out. One of the key characters, Clark, the managing editor of the local newspaper, speaks of Jesus as a “standard of conduct.” For him, WWJD meant not printing advertisements in the paper for alcohol and tobacco. Most of the examples fell under the categories of personal morality, business ethics, or social reform. It felt dangerously close to another list of dos and don’ts, and Christianity as a glorified behavior modification program—“Jesus is coming, get busy!”

This approach seemed off base. True, I had stripped most of my Christianity away, but I still knew in my heart that in some way, Jesus was at the center of what it meant for me to be free. But how? I’d dealt with the WWJD question in Wide Open Spaces as best I could, but was never satisfied with my conclusion. In His Steps only served to make matters worse. A key piece was definitely missing, and I had to figure out what it was. I was now a man on a mission! Imagine Indiana Jones, Benjamin Gates, and Professor Langdon all rolled into one—that was me. Well, maybe Jack Sparrow was realistically a little more my speed.

Ultimately, Zondervan signed on to publish my new book. There was a lot of buzz (and high expectations) about what this year of “being Jesus” would bring. As I saw it, there were really only two possibilities: I would fail miserably and prove my entire premise to be idiotic, or I would live one of the most profound lives that the world had ever seen. Either way, it would make for a compelling story.

The contract was signed. The title Being Jesus in Nashville was proposed. Zondervan went to work on a marketing plan. There was much excitement about the whole project!

But, there were also several troubling matters that popped up regarding my one-year experiment. The idea arose of shooting some videos of me being Jesus (in action) for YouTube, and tweeting my Jesus experiences on Twitter. I wasn’t exactly sure how I would squeeze being Jesus into a 140 character limit. I tried to imagine how this might go…

“@ hospital wanting to heal people but they won’t let me past the nurse’s station.”

“Trying 2 calm big storm blowing through Nashville 4 this afternoon’s big Titans game.”

“@ our neighborhood pond. Getting ready 2 walk Jack across 2 other side… ON water.”

Even though no one came out and directly said so, I sensed that it was silently assumed that there was no way I could really live as Jesus. This wasn’t a problem for my publisher. If I walked into a hospital and began miraculously healing people it would make for a great chapter, receive top coverage on CNN, and no doubt land me a slot with Oprah and Larry King. However, walking into a patient’s room and claiming that I could heal them, then trying to do so and failing, would also be a great chapter. In this scenario, I’d probably get arrested and be subjected to some sort of psychiatric evaluation. But on the bright side, it would most likely make the local news.

To be frank, it was all starting to feel a bit contrived. My books have always presented a genuinely honest snapshot of my spiritual journey. All the way through, it has been the real Jim writing and telling his story as it unfolded. Having not yet written one word of this new book, I was already feeling burdened and conflicted about all the assumptions and expectations that were being placed upon it. Was living under a bridge as a homeless person for a couple days or letting everyone go ahead of me in the grocery line truly “being Jesus?” And what would these acts even accomplish? Sure, it might make for an interesting book in the end, but the means felt manufactured, even condescending. How would a homeless man feel if he picked up my book and discovered that he was little more than a human guinea pig for my social experiments?

One morning, I was meeting a friend for coffee at Panera Bread and arrived about twenty minutes early. Pushing everything else out of my head, I decided to make a list of what I imagined being Jesus to mean. So I wouldn’t forget, I jotted my thoughts down on the back of a napkin and then reviewed them.

1. Being Jesus means parting with your religious tradition when necessary.

Check! I had already done this one; that’s what my first two books were about. Wow, this being Jesus thing was getting off to a great start—so far, so good! Okay, on to number two.

2. Being Jesus means seeing people as they truly are.

Hmm… where to start with this one? How do I go and “be Jesus” in this way? Trying to conjure up some situation to accomplish this seemed wrong. And what would I even “do” in my contrived scenario to fulfill this? Wow, maybe this wasn’t going to be so easy after all. Since I wasn’t going to manufacture something, my only other option would be to just start from where I was at the moment. Okay, now what? Maybe this is not so easy. Grrrr…

I leaned back in my seat and let out a sigh of frustration. And that’s when I noticed the same woman I’d seen many times before, sitting a few tables over from me.

Chapter 1

BEING JESUS MEANS…

SEEING PEOPLE AS THEY TRULY ARE

The Panera Bread bakery and café in Hermitage is a place where I frequently meet up with friends. In addition to the coffee and bagels, I’ve become a fan of their smoothies. I’ve been to Panera so often that I’ve come to know several employees and enjoy seeing them whenever I stop in.

Every now and again one of the Panera managers, Matt, would come out from behind the counter to join me for a cup of coffee and a chat. Most often, we’d get to laughing about one thing or another as we discussed the big news item of the morning or broke down an upcoming Titans game. But, there were also times when we found deeper connection with each other. Matt was fresh out of a painful divorce, living on his own, going to Alcoholic Anonymous meetings, and wondering if loneliness would swallow him whole. On occasion, other Panera employees would wander over and join us.

It occurred to me one day that whenever I dropped by Panera for my coffee and bagel fix, one particular woman was always seated at one of the umbrella tables outside. Morning or afternoon, there she was. While at first I thought little of it, figuring she most likely worked there and went outside for her breaks, later it dawned on me that I had never once seen her working inside. Besides, by this time I had pretty much met all the Panera employees and she hadn’t been one of them.

From a distance, it was difficult to draw a conclusion about this woman. She had long, wiry, sandy-blond hair, dark skin, and often wore a bright sundress accessorized with a necklace and bracelets. A contradiction in appearance, she was youthfully dressed but had a weathered face with deep lines and dark circles. Occasionally, I spotted her working on a laptop or talking on her cell phone, always alone. A few times, we exchanged smiles as we came and went.

One particular morning, a musician friend of mine, Daniel, and I were hanging out at Panera. We decided to sit outside to enjoy the pleasant temperature. As usual, this woman was sitting at one of the other tables. About thirty minutes into our conversation, Daniel went back inside to use the restroom. I heard someone say, “Excuse me.” As I turned around, I discovered that it was the woman who had spoken.

“I’m sorry but I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with your friend,” she continued. “Are you a writer?”

“Well, I guess so… sort of… yeah,” I answered.

“What do you write?”

“Books.”

“Really. About what?”

“Well, mostly telling stories of personal life experiences and how my understanding of God has evolved along the way.”

“Interesting! How could I get one of your books?”

“They’re in most bookstores. Actually, I have a few in my car. Let me give you a copy of my first book.”

Her wrinkled face smoothed into a magnetic, beaming smile. “Hi, I’m Pattie Chapman,” she said, sticking out her hand.

“Hi, Pattie. I’m Jim.”

“Thank you for the book, Jim. I can’t wait to read it.”

From then on, I would sit outdoors to chat with Pattie whenever I went to Panera. With each conversation, I learned a little more about her. Pattie had been involved in the media and entertainment fields over the years as a journalist and freelance producer. One of the more intriguing things she had done was to produce a documentary about homelessness.

After a few unexpected encounters with homeless people, Pattie was inspired to make a film showing the surprising faces of the homeless. She gave me a copy of the documentary, which I watched later that evening.

The documentary refuted many assumptions I’d held about the homeless. Homelessness is complicated. There are often many layers to the story of why and how a person becomes homeless. Most astonishing, I discovered that homeless people look just like you and me. Some of the homeless featured in the documentary had advanced academic degrees, while others had held high positions in the corporate world or were extremely creative and gifted individuals. There were also those who actually had jobs, but didn’t tell their employer or social acquaintances that they were homeless. Even in the cases where mental illness and addiction were involved, it wasn’t as black and white as I had supposed.

After viewing Pattie’s film, I understood that “homeless” was not a condition, but a person—someone’s life, someone’s story, someone’s heartache and suffering. While previously I had thought of a homeless person as someone who was sleeping underneath a bridge, pushing a grocery cart on the sidewalk, or holding a cardboard sign on the street corner, I learned that these people represent only a fraction of all those who are homeless. It was sobering to face the fact that the homeless weren’t just some unfamiliar subset of humanity, and to consider the possibility that I might unknowingly be crossing paths with homeless people every day. To my surprise, a couple of days later I found out just how possible that was.

My new friend Pattie was homeless!

Over the weeks of conversation at Panera, it had never occurred to me that Pattie might be homeless. What were the odds that someone who produced a documentary about the plight of the homeless would one day themselves be homeless? But she was. Pattie had been conflicted about revealing this to me. She valued our friendship, but she had also learned through experience that people suddenly looked at her differently, and relationships changed when she divulged that she had no home.

I admit that my knee-jerk reaction to what Pattie had shared was suspicion. Why was she homeless? Although she appeared to be a capable and stable person, was there a dark side to Pattie that I knew nothing about? I wondered what other skeletons were yet to come out of her closet. Could our entire friendship be a farce? Could she be playing me to get something?

Pattie explained the circumstances that led to her becoming homeless, which bore a striking similarity to the stories depicted in her documentary. Although I’ve always had compassion for the homeless, I confess that at times I’ve oversimplified the causes of homelessness. In my mind, a person was homeless because they were ruled by an addiction, mentally ill, grossly irresponsible, or otherwise incapable.

But many people who are homeless, like Pattie, are far from incapable—in fact, they are extremely resourceful. How else do you think they survive? What if I told you that starting tomorrow, you had to continue living with no home, no income or savings, no car, no idea where your next meal was coming from, and no family or friends to call for help? It would be like the reality TV series, Survivor, but for real. Not Survivor: The Australian Outback, or Cook Islands, or Fiji, but Survivor: Homeless in Boston, or St. Louis, or Nashville—where real people fight for food, water, shelter, and survival.

This is the life Pattie faced every day.

A table outside Panera served as her daytime office and resting place. A couple of compassionate Panera workers saw to it that Pattie had food to eat during the day and something to take home with her at night. Depending on the night, “home” for Pattie meant different things. She was one of the lucky ones who knew a couple of people who didn’t mind her occasionally sleeping on their couch. Each morning she’d walk to Panera; she had no form of transportation.

Pattie’s lifeline was her cell phone. She couldn’t afford a home or place to live, but she had enough money to pay for a phone, which she regularly charged with prepaid minutes as she could afford them. The cell phone not only offered her the chance of getting a call back from a potential employer, but was a reliable way of staying connected to the people she knew. She still had her old laptop from a prior job and utilized the free Wi-Fi at Panera.

From time to time, Pattie would bring a homeless friend with her to Panera. Janice was a single, working mother with a teenage daughter. She told me her story. A divorce had nearly wiped out Janice financially. Her hours at work were drastically cut, and she quickly went through her savings paying the medical bills for her daughter’s surgery following a car accident. She fell behind on her bills and could no longer make rent. She moved their belongings into storage and gave up the apartment. She decided that she and her daughter would sleep in their car until they had saved enough money to pay for something more affordable.

Could you ever see yourself forced into homelessness? Janice’s story made me wonder how many of us are just a few bad breaks away from living on the street or in a car, and waking up each day to another episode of Survivor. Maybe this sounds far-fetched. It did to me, until I knew Pattie and Janice. When we’re on the outside looking in, another person’s life and circumstances can seem cut and dried, especially when it involves people we label as we do the homeless.

While “homelessness” had long been one of the causes that comprised my social justice persona—I volunteered my time and gave money to the local homeless shelter, blogged about issues of homelessness in Nashville, and joined a Facebook alliance to end homelessness—now it was personal. Pattie and Janice were not “the homeless,” they were—well, Pattie and Janice.

Lying in bed at night, I worried about my new friends. Had Pattie found a couch to sleep on? Had Janice and her daughter found a safe place to park their car for the night? My heart ached for each of them. They were people, not projects.

As time marched on, Pattie and I became closer friends. We shared our journey with God, the joys and challenges of parenting, and our deepest fears and dreams. We laughed together; we cried together.

All the while, there was this “being Jesus” book I had yet to write. It was all well and good being friends with Pattie and Janice, but it was time to turn my focus back to the book; Zondervan would be expecting a draft chapter pretty soon. Pattie and Janice were homeless, but unfortunately, they weren’t living beneath a bridge. But even if they had been, it didn’t appear that my interaction with them would qualify as a chapter for the book, especially since I hadn’t really done anything. (I guess I could have tried sleeping in the car with Janice and her teenage daughter, but it would have been so crowded in there that I don’t think any of us would have gotten much sleep.) However, I continued to look for ways in which I might be able to help. I gave Pattie rides from time to time—although this seemed like merely a drop’s worth of help for an ocean-wide dilemma. I stopped by Panera to drink coffee and chat with Pattie almost daily. A few times, she insisted upon buying my coffee. Arggg! On these occasions, I left Panera feeling frustrated. I wanted to do something—fix something, solve something, change something—that would actually make a difference.

One morning when I stopped in to see Pattie, she was reading Divine Nobodies. I chatted with Matt at the counter for a couple minutes and then took my coffee outside to sit with her. I launched into a conversation about one thing or another, and midway through my rant, Pattie slid her hand over mine. Caught by surprise, I shut up. A tear trickled down her face as she said, “Jim, thank you.”

Thank you? I figured it had something to do with Divine Nobodies. It didn’t.

Pattie shared how much our friendship meant to her. She explained that one of the greatest needs and desires among people who are homeless is simple friendship—to stand on equal footing with another human being with whom they experience mutual love, acceptance, respect, support, and connection. She explained that organizations, agencies, and churches often do a good job of providing temporary assistance in areas such as shelter and food, but the need for authentic friendship remains unmet. I can’t pretend to have understood it entirely, but Pattie told me that there had been a time or two when she’d spent her last two dollars buying me a cup of coffee—and that I had simply helped her by letting her do it.

Pattie helped me understand that you can provide someone with food and shelter, train them in a skill for employment, even offer professional treatment for an addiction, but these acts don’t necessarily reach down to that place inside a person where fear, shame, guilt, hurt, and hopelessness wreak havoc. Pattie’s greatest need was to be seen, and then to be loved, accepted, and validated.

After explaining all this, Pattie paused and looked away for a moment before turning back to me to say, “Jim, I don’t know if you will understand this, but when we are together I don’t feel like a ‘homeless person,’ I just feel like Pattie—and that makes all the difference.”

A freight train of feelings rushed up from the bottom of my heart into my eyes. I wasn’t sure anymore who was helping whom.

I wonder if people were attracted to Jesus simply because he saw each person. In the Gospel of John, we read that one day a “Samaritan woman” went to a well to draw water (John 4:7). But to Jesus, maybe she was neither a “Samaritan” nor a “woman,” nor additionally, all the baggage those particular labels carried relative to Jesus as a Jewish man. To Jesus, she was most likely just “Pattie.”

Later that day, I pondered Pattie’s words. This whole being Jesus thing seemed to have been flipped upside down. I wasn’t quite sure how Charles Sheldon’s question applied. “What would Jesus do?” Pattie had shared that I’d truly helped her, but I really hadn’t done much of anything at all.

Maybe being Jesus is simply seeing people as they truly are.

Chapter 2

BEING JESUS MEANS…

LETTING IT HAPPEN,

NOT MAKING IT HAPPEN

I was speaking at a conference in Nashville when I met another person connected to people who are homeless. Brian had read Divine Nobodies and introduced himself to me after I spoke. It immediately caught my attention that he ran a local homeless shelter. He asked whether I might be interested in meeting him for coffee sometime. We met the following week, and he told me his story.

Brian had spent five years in prison, overcome a cocaine addiction, and survived a suicide attempt. While in prison, he’d had a spiritual experience—feeling a sudden and profound spark of hope that he could be different. And though Brian was not a religious person, nor was he generally interested in spiritual things, he recognized that this was God inviting him to start a new life.

Following his release from prison, Brian returned regularly to visit and encourage other inmates who were still serving time. Imagine yourself hitting rock bottom in life, committing a crime, doing time, losing all your family and friends in the process, and trying to start over with no resources or support system. Now, add to this a reputation in the form of a criminal record that you must disclose to all prospective employers. What do you do? Where do you go? For many such men, Brian was the one friend they could call for a ride to the DMV, the doctor’s office, or a job interview.

By helping these men, Brian became increasingly connected with others who were homeless. Word spread about Brian, and more people began seeking out his assistance. The necessity of having a stable residential arrangement in order to secure employment and establish a life of independence was immediately apparent to Brian. This realization led him to begin networking in the community to gain support for starting a homeless shelter. Brian succeeded, recruiting both the sponsors and resources necessary to open and operate a shelter.

Initially, Brian had planned to start a shelter for men, but then was confronted with a situation involving a woman who was homeless. At the time, there were very few shelters for women in Nashville, and most had a sixty-day or more wait for admittance. Brian came into contact with a single mom who had fled an abusive husband, and was currently living on the street with two small children. With no shelters available to assist her, what was she to do? Brian modified his initial plan and opened a women’s shelter instead—but continued to offer his help to homeless and displaced men on the side.

I wasn’t quite sure where all this was headed, but I didn’t miss the fact that in the span of about two weeks, I had befriended more people who were either homeless themselves or supporting the homeless than in all my previous years combined. Wishing to hear more, I suggested to Brian that we meet the following week at Panera. Plus, I wanted him to meet Pattie.

The three of us started meeting regularly.

We discussed the common challenges for people who are homeless, and contemplated the possibility of forming a group of people who were interested in being the support system for one homeless person. No organization or agency, no name or website—just a few ordinary people who voluntarily came together to offer their love, encouragement, and assistance to one person who needed help with establishing independent living. We imagined one person’s contribution in the group might simply be offering friendship, while another person might have a network of contacts that could be useful for helping secure employment. Yet, another group member could assist with transportation, or periodically offer a couch to sleep on.

The idea of forming a small community around one homeless person resonated with me. Throughout the years of working for social justice, I’d often questioned the effectiveness of institutions and bureaucracies as a means for addressing the deep-rooted causes of any social problem. I had once directed an inner city agency that worked with at-risk kids and their families. Of all the many programs and services we offered, the most effective thing we ever did was to support a group that had been started by one of the single moms in the program. This woman had battled through abusive relationships and drug addiction in an effort to regain custody of her children who had been removed from her care by the Department of Children’s Services. She started the support group to provide a place for moms in similar situations to share their pain and struggles, and to provide encouragement and support for one another.

Our plan to assemble a support group to help one person out of homelessness picked up steam. I sent an email message out to several people, explaining the concept and asking for willing participants. Brian agreed to select a recipient from the group of homeless men he worked with—someone he felt would benefit from this kind of support network. In the back of my mind, I was thinking about my one-year experiment. People expected my new book to have a strong social justice theme, and it looked as though they were going to get it. At least something was going right!

Well, unless you asked my daughter.

Jessica was quite disappointed when she learned that my being Jesus in Nashville didn’t mean that I could miraculously make Justin Bieber appear, rig American Idol so her favorite contestant would win, or magically turn our grocery store receipts into Disneyland tickets.

In all seriousness, if Jessica could have had one wish fulfilled as a result of my year of living as Jesus, it would have had something to do with me finding families for every homeless dog. We got our dog Jack from a local animal shelter, and Jessica would regularly check their website for updates on which dogs had been adopted. She knew them all by name. We’d be riding in the car, and she would say, “Guess what dad? Lucy was adopted!” Other times, she’d express her disheartenment that certain dogs languished on the list.

Becoming more involved with people who were homeless didn’t exactly make me a hero with Jessica. She was frightened by them. Her first few experiences with the homeless had been quite traumatic. Once, when we were downtown, a mentally unstable homeless woman began following us, screaming all kinds of obscenities. To Jessica, the homeless were crazed. On another occasion, while we were stopped at a traffic light, Jessica spotted a homeless man coming down the street approaching stopped cars. To Jessica, the homeless were scary.

It wasn’t uncommon for Jessica to remember these experiences at night, and therefore have difficulty sleeping. One question she would routinely ask before going somewhere unfamiliar was, “Will there be homeless people there?” So, Jessica wasn’t exactly leaping for joy when she discovered that this whole being Jesus thing meant dad palling around with homeless people. She was equally concerned that I might be bringing one of these folks home with me.

Like Jessica, many people have an unsettling image in their mind of “homeless people,” whether formed from particular life experiences or by how the media portrays them. Imagine approaching a homeless man who is seated at a table in a coffee shop. Most likely, you’re picturing a mentally ill man with a nasty knit hat, leathery face, teeth missing, a filthy, overgrown grey beard, and grimy fingernails. Maybe you can smell his body odor, or even the scent of urine. Now, sit down at that table and strike up a conversation. Feel awkward? Imagine the discomfort and unease you’d experience while trying to have that conversation.

It’s understandable. I’ve always imagined that I’d feel this way, which is why I found it very odd that on my first visit to Brian’s homeless shelter, my experience was quite the opposite.

While it made perfect sense that I’d visit the shelter, I didn’t know what to make of the fact that I felt totally relaxed and at home once I got there. Brian introduced me to several residents, and those interactions did not feel weird or strained at all. Instead, I felt light and free when making these new connections.

Brian had circulated Divine Nobodies among the residents, and a few made a point of sharing with me the specific parts of my story that especially touched them. Even these interactions about the book seemed different. The fact that I was a published author was of little importance to these folks. To them, I wasn’t Jim Palmer, Inc., the glossy author/guru. More significantly, I was someone who knew what it was like to endure abuse, someone familiar with the black hole of depression, someone whose most significant childhood friend was a dog, and someone who was acquainted with loneliness, rejection, and heartache.

At Brian’s shelter there were no pretenses, no polished personas, no brand management—just people being real with each other. Over the course of one afternoon, I forgot all the ways in which we were different. I was clearly one of them; they were clearly one of me.

There are times when it seems as though I have this computer-like program running in my head. Software that, once loaded, continually collects and analyzes any data regarding what people expect of me. After the analysis is completed, I receive a brief report that tells me which Jim I need to be in relation to this or that person, this or that situation. The “Run Program” command executes instantaneously and unconsciously. I’ll meet someone—or walk into a room of people, or be in the middle of a conversation with someone, or stand on a stage before an audience, or start interacting with a friend online—and the program will start up, assessing quickly which “me” I need to be. But at the homeless shelter, this computer program didn’t start running.

At the shelter, there was a weekly meeting where people who were homeless gathered to support and encourage one another. In addition to residents, other homeless people from the surrounding area would attend. After my initial visit, Brian invited me back to the shelter to share my story at one of these meetings, which I did. Afterwards, fishing for a reason to return, I suggested to Brian that he take a little break and let me continue to facilitate the meeting on Wednesday nights. He agreed.

For me, the most enjoyable part of each week’s visit was hanging out with people before and after the meeting. I’d arrive early and sit outside on a bench where the smokers would gather and shoot the breeze. There was Jeremy, the former gang member; Keith, the former accountant; and Marcy, the woman who’d escaped an abusive father to marry an abusive husband—whom she eventually left to move in with an abusive boyfriend.

There was also Mitch, the big, bald dude covered in dragon tattoos who looked like his rightful place would be on a Harley. Mitch had an alcohol problem. One Wednesday evening, he shocked everyone by arriving by car. No one seemed to care that it appeared to have just been driven off a junkyard lot—the point was that he had wheels! It was all legit; Mitch was borrowing the car for job interviews. He waved me over and invited me to hop in. Showing me the dashboard-mounted breathalyzer, Mitch proudly explained that it was an ignition interlock device that wouldn’t allow the car to start if it detected alcohol on his breath.

The homeless shelter had become my oasis. A place where I felt connected to my heart. There was no pressure to perform, no image to protect, and nothing to prove. No one cared about my current Amazon ranking, Facebook friend count, or how many people were following me on Twitter. At the shelter I felt real, human, and grounded. I eagerly awaited seeing this motley cast of characters each week. We laughed together, ribbed each other, affirmed and encouraged one another, and enjoyed each other’s company. Heck, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to help people out of the shelter or move in myself!

Friendships deepened, and I continued to feel a sense of belonging at the shelter. Folks were genuinely happy to see me each Wednesday, which felt good. I began arriving earlier and staying later. Slowly, I was learning the stories behind each face. Many of the women were haunted by feelings of self-hatred and worthlessness resulting from abusive relationships. Many of the men felt demoralized by yet another week of unemployment and addiction. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that the concept of God and Christianity these people held wasn’t helping matters any.

Because of the Wednesday night meetings, I was becoming more and more passionate about connecting spiritual truths to the hurt, wounds, and struggles that I knew were present in the lives of people like Mitch and Marcy. I wasn’t shy about pointing out the ways in which I felt that conventional religious logic prevented freedom, wholeness, and intimacy with God. Word spread among the homeless in the surrounding community and the group began growing. Soon, there was standing room only.

Wednesday night meetings were becoming the highlight of the week at the shelter. At first, our discussions started out with participants being somewhat closed-off, guarded, and hesitant to offer personal details about their lives. The more I shared the hurt and heartache of my own life, however, the more people felt the freedom to share their own wounds and struggles.

Fear gave way to vulnerability as people began to speak from the deepest places of their hearts. All guarded superficiality vanished one night when Louise shared her anguish over being separated from her children. She was living at the shelter as she desperately tried to pull her life together so that she could be reunited with her two daughters. Tommy shared the shame he felt for never achieving the most basic expectations for a man, such as having a job or being a father. Cliff confided to the group that he’d lost hope of ever being free from his drug addiction, and that he didn’t care anymore.

One week during group discussion time, I asked what it would mean to live in the present reality of God’s kingdom as a person who is homeless. I remember that night well. It was the first time Sarah had ever spoken during a group meeting.

Unlike my experience with most of the shelter residents, meeting Sarah for the first time had been extremely awkward. I discovered that she had a mental disability, which made her slow to respond in conversation. When Brian introduced us, I held out my hand to her and said, “Hi, Sarah. It’s nice to meet you.” She took my hand and looked straight at me, but no words came out.

It was as if the link between Sarah’s mind and mouth worked at dial-up speed—and we were standing there in limbo, waiting for the connection to happen. She continued to hold my hand for several uncomfortably long moments, her eyes locked on mine. Eventually, the connection was made and the words came out, “I’m Sarah.”

But at this particular meeting, while we were in the midst of a discussion about experiencing God’s kingdom of love, peace, and freedom, I spotted Sarah’s hand go up in the air. I quieted the group and called on Sarah to share. The room became so quiet that you could hear a pin drop. All eyes were on Sarah—she was actually going to say something. She turned towards me, and tears began trickling down her face. She said, “Some days it takes all my energy just to make it to the end of the day.” She paused for a moment and then continued. “My mind gets so tired—making my bed, taking a shower, opening the door, reading the clock, eating my food, walking in the hallway. How will I ever find God’s kingdom? My mind is too tired to think about anything else.” And with that, Sarah laid her head face down on the table.

A tidal wave of emotion crashed over me, and I had to apply every ounce of resolve to contain it. I didn’t know what to say or how to respond to Sarah. It was common for me to encourage people to “be still and know that he is God,” be mindful of God’s presence within them along the daily paths of life, and be alive to the present moment where God’s kingdom could always be found. But, this was the first time that I had been confronted with someone for whom it was necessary to marshal every ounce of concentration to simply execute the next task of human existence—like eating, walking, and especially, thinking. Given the degree of mental energy it took for Sarah to simply get from one moment to the next, it was no wonder that she was exhausted, or that the mere thought of applying her mind to know and experience God was overwhelming.

After Sarah spoke, the room remained silent. I knew that opening my mouth would only serve to burst the dam of my emotions, so I kept quiet as well. My heart ached for Sarah, but I was clueless. Neither my seminary degree nor previous pastoral experience could save me now. I felt that I should do something, being Jesus and all, but what exactly this was escaped me.

The hush lingered until Marcy stood up and walked over to Sarah. She slowly knelt down and wrapped her arm around Sarah. A few minutes passed, then another person quietly got up and went to Sarah. And then, another did the same… then another… then another. Soon, the entire room of people had formed a circle around Sarah.

The silence was finally broken when someone said, “We love you, Sarah.” Steadily, Sarah’s soft weeping grew to a heart-wrenching wail that emanated from the depths of her soul. I know that wail. I understand Sarah. There’s a string of deep hurts and heartaches that stretches out across the divide of our lives to connect us. We are all confronted by each wound as it happens, and deal with it in the best way we can. But, there are certain times when all the heartache accumulated over the years gathers up and rushes into a single, agonizing moment—and we become undone by our pain. It’s overwhelming, and in our despair we fear we might be swallowed whole. We feel as though we are dying, and there’s a part of us that wishes this were so.

We’re fortunate if we are with someone when these moments come. Deep down, every person wants to know that when they get to the end of their rope, to the end of their deepest hurt and heartache, that someone will be there—that empathy will be there, that tenderness and kindness will be there, that love will be there—to catch them when they fall.

Everyone stayed put around Sarah, expressing love, being love. It was a miracle. Sarah had been longing to find God’s kingdom, yet she could not find it through the faculties of her mind. Instead, she found it through a genuine expression of love sent forth from a huddle of homeless people, just like her. It was one of the most beautiful things I had ever been part of.

Hmm. Part of. Those two words really summed it up. I felt “part of” this group of people. While outside the shelter there were many different Jims that people wanted or expected, inside the shelter no one wanted or needed me to be anyone other than my true self. Just Jim—the real Jim. A Jim who was part of an “us” who gathered in a room where everyone belonged just as they were, no matter how imperfect that may be.

I was part of the wonder of Sarah finding the kingdom of God at the very end of her rope. I was part of that discovery—not the center of it. I hadn’t stepped in and saved the day. I didn’t produce any miracle. I was just… there. More of a witness than a participant. Wow, relating back to my What Would Jesus Do? quest, I really hadn’t done a whole heck of a lot! It seemed like these folks were acting more like Jesus than I was.

Driving home that night, I wondered what behaviors might qualify as “being Jesus.” The more I pondered it, the more the whole premise began to seem a little silly. Jesus was always Jesus, and he just did what he did. Once home, I got out my Bible and noticed something interesting about Jesus in the gospels. It seemed evident to me that Jesus was merely responding to people and situations as they happened. There was no list of things he had to do “as Jesus.”

Reading the gospels, you might get the impression that a day in the life of Jesus went something like this:

9:00 a.m. Heal blind man

9:10 a.m. Deliver sermon

9:30 a.m. Rescue adulterous woman

9:50 a.m. Feed five thousand people

If I were to write an account of your life as a short story, I’d have to select which of your life experiences to include. What would make the cut would be those I judged to be the most significant and defining experiences. From each selection, I’d have to further decide what it was specifically about the experience that I felt was noteworthy. Because of the obvious spatial constraints of the short story format, I’d most likely have to leave out many “incidentals.”

Who cares that you went through the Starbucks drive-thru moments before that big car accident occurred and you stopped to offer assistance? And there’s really no reason to mention the ten minutes of casual chitchat you were engaged in before you launched into that extraordinarily enlightening advice you gave your friend who was on the brink of self-destruction. If I’m recounting your life in a short story, all that minutiae is unnecessary filler.

What gets lost in the translation of the life of Jesus is this filler—the incidental things that Jesus thought, said, and did—that we will never know. It’s hard for us to imagine that Jesus’ poignant talk with the rich young ruler was a five-minute encounter on his way to lunch, or that after Jesus rescued the adulterous woman, he went on to have a twenty-minute conversation with her about some mutual friends, or that Jesus’ main motivation for accepting Martha’s invitation into her home was needing to use the restroom, and fast!

It hit me that Jesus’ life was filled with the same mundane realities as yours and mine. I could plainly see that being Jesus could not mean scripting my life in a way that resembled the specifics we know about him from the gospels. Jesus wasn’t always doing something like the daily schedule I came up with implies. Applying that standard, even Jesus would fail at “being Jesus.”

We will never have the complete and full picture of Jesus’ life. You can’t squeeze thirty-something years of living into thirty-five pages—which is about the length of each gospel. Heck, you couldn’t adequately cover a week of Jesus’ life in thirty-five pages. For everything we know about what Jesus did, there’s far more we don’t know.

At times, the pressure of writing a book as “Jesus of Nashville” caused me to want to go hunting for some great Jesus-thing to do, or tempted me to artificially insert people and cram causes into my life. But, my experience with Sarah brought me to a crossroads where I decided to allow myself to be Jesus in the less spectacular—but more poignant—way of simply living and responding to life as it happened. As I mentioned, my interactions with the homeless nearly didn’t make it into this book because it initially seemed that I had not done enough service that qualified as “being Jesus.” Since I vowed to let this year of being Jesus in Nashville unfold naturally, I could not violate the process by manufacturing situations. Whatever happened and evolved naturally, well—that was it. I wasn’t going to gin up the experiment by trying to make things happen.

Jesus wasn’t a “human doing,” he was a “human being.” Being human means that you are part of many things—part of a family, part of a community, part of humanity, and part of an endless number of experiences and circumstances that play out every day. Maybe being Jesus isn’t really all about me and only what I do. Maybe being Jesus means acknowledging that I am a part of—part of something beautiful, part of something miraculous, part of something bigger than just me. And maybe that’s the way it’s always been, and the way it’s supposed to be.

For the first time, I started to feel more solid about this whole experiment thing. Being Jesus doesn’t mean that I am always at the center, always doing something, always making something spectacular happen. Being Jesus simply means that I show up to be “part of” something.

Maybe being Jesus isn’t so much about making it happen as it is letting it happen.

Chapter 3

BEING JESUS MEANS…

BEING AT PEACE, WHATEVER HAPPENS

Every week, I looked forward to Thursday afternoon when I would have a full ninety minutes to unplug, kick back, and chill. This was the time of Jessica’s weekly tennis practice at the nearby YMCA indoor tennis center. She practiced on the far court while I sat in the bleachers with other moms and dads. When Jessie was off-court, I’d sometimes read a book or watch the match on the nearest court.

One particular practice, I felt restless and wandered back to the reception area to see whether they had anything to read. I hit the jackpot—ESPN Magazine. I grabbed a couple of the latest editions and took them back to the bleachers to read. Catching up on all the latest sporting news, I turned to a story about Los Angeles Angels pitcher, Nick Adenhart.

Adenhart’s life dream was to become a pitcher in the big leagues. Throughout his childhood and youth, baseball represented a special bond between Nick and his father. As it turned out, Nick was a gifted player. He made his way through the minor leagues and was called up to pitch for Los Angeles. You couldn’t have scripted a more magical scenario than when Nick took the mound for the Angels that first time. He pitched six scoreless innings as his dad watched from the stands.

Nick had a promising baseball career ahead of him, fulfilling his lifelong dream and passion. But, the story took a disturbing and heartbreaking turn. Just hours after his storybook pitching debut, Nick was killed by a drunk driver. He was only twenty-three. It was a tragic and shocking end to the life and dream of this special rookie pitcher. My heart sank to the pit of my stomach. These ninety minutes were supposed to be relaxing. I was trying to escape the insanity of the world, not be reminded of it! I quickly set the magazine aside and grabbed the other one.

Thumbing through this magazine, I came across another story that caught my attention. It was about horse racing. There’s a certain mystique to a horse that has always intrigued me—their strength, their beauty, their free spirit. I have a picture of a thoroughbred horse with the Arabian proverb below, “The wind of heaven is that which blows between a horse’s ears.” When I was young, my father bet on horses; I have memories of going with him to the track and feeling the thrill of the opening bell.

Jessica also loves horses. She and I have ridden together, and whenever we visit my hometown, Blacksburg, Virginia, we always make a point to go to the horse stables. When she was younger, she was addicted to the Pony Pals series of books that chronicle the adventures of three young girls and their ponies. Jessica read all forty-four books—twice! The ESPN article I began reading was about Lauren Canady, an equine veterinarian. (Another reason the piece caught my attention was that Jessica had told me numerous times that she wanted to be a horse vet when she grew up… as long as she never had to see any blood!)

According to the article, Lauren Canady was a track vet, which meant that it was her job to be on hand at the racetrack to aid horses should they become injured or, in severe cases, need to be euthanized by lethal injection. The article recounted one particular experience when Lauren had to euthanize a horse named Heelbolt at the track.

Apparently, there is a ten- to fifteen-minute window of time in which a horse that has suffered a fatal injury isn’t aware of it because the pain signals have not yet reached its brain. As Lauren approached, Heelbolt was standing on three legs and peacefully eating grass, unaware that his left front ankle was dangling and shattered, attached only by skin. She removed Heelbolt’s saddle and began to gently stroke his side as he nibbled on the turf.

Lauren calmly administered the injection into Heelbolt’s jugular. He didn’t flinch. Moments after receiving a lethal injection, a horse will typically feel a warming sensation, and then quietly assume a restful position on the ground. Not Heelbolt. He started to kick, whipping his broken ankle into Lauren’s chest, splattering blood on her jacket and knocking her down. A few more moments of thrashing sent Heelbolt to the ground, where he landed in a mangled mess at the foot of a fence—his nose buried in the dirt, his shattered and bloody leg hooked over a rail.

Lauren recalled how deeply upsetting and surreal the whole episode was for her. While other horses at the track gracefully trotted by—shiny, sculpted, magnificent thoroughbreds reveling in the attention—Heelbolt lay sprawled in the dirt, fighting for every shallow breath until his beautiful, once-alert eyes went blank.

When I finished reading the article, my eyes wandered back up to the title. It read, “The Final Furlong: Who hurts more, the injured horse or the person who has to kill it?” I wished that I had paid attention to this initially, as the story had been very upsetting. After reading about Nick Adenhart and Heelbolt, I couldn’t take anymore! Obviously, there was no escaping the heartache of this world, even at my daughter’s tennis practice. The two articles served as the final straw for me. I was tired of finding misery and sorrow hiding around every corner. Poor Jessie came bouncing over after tennis practice, only to find that her dad had turned into an emotional wreck.

Earlier in the week, a friend who I’d not seen for a while had called wanting to get together for coffee. I was really looking forward to seeing him. When we met, I was blindsided by the news that he’d attempted suicide and had to spend a week in a nearby psychiatric center. Meanwhile, another good friend of mine divulged that she had bulimia nervosa, and had recently suffered a few episodes of self-mutilation. Not in a million years would I have suspected this. I was stunned. How could this be?

Booting my computer up each morning, I encountered more agony. Because I have maintained a connection with several people who are involved in aid, relief, and justice work, Google Reader dutifully pipes in the latest news about child prostitution and slave labor, AIDS, and various humanitarian crises around the world. Whenever I check my email, there is often a message waiting for me from someone who has read my books and wants to share their story, which frequently includes deep pain. For example, Sheila wrote, “I lost my oldest son in November to suicide, and my faith has been completely shattered.”

I was constantly being reminded of the heartache and hardship of life. Whether it was revealed by my closest friends, reading audience, or ESPN Magazine, suffering seemed ever-present in one form or another. It was there when I checked my emails, and when I watched Jessica’s tennis practice. There was no escaping the pain and sorrow of life.

Something else hadn’t escaped my notice either. It had to do with the homeless shelter. Despite the personal relationships I was cultivating and the growing excitement for Wednesday night meetings, the harsh reality of the resident’s lives was not going away. They were still homeless, still unemployed, still suffering from mental illness, still carrying painful wounds and scars, still struggling each day to survive.

One day, on my way home from Jessica’s practice, I received an unexpected call from Donna Jefferson. She and her husband, Scott, were dear friends of mine; we went back a long way. Years ago, I’d started and then served as pastor for a church in Nashville. Scott and Donna Jefferson were the first two people to arrive on the morning of our first public service. While doing my microphone check, I noticed a couple sitting in the empty auditorium, and came down off the stage to greet them. Something seemed slightly off about the two, as far as couples go. While Scott was short and bald, and probably enjoyed eating donuts a little too much, Donna was slender, blond, modelesque, and stood about a foot taller than Scott. As I shook Scott’s hand, I had no idea that he would become one of the most important people in my life. The two of us met for coffee the next week, and soon we became close friends. He called me “bro,” I called him “Scotty.”

Scotty provided comic relief. With Scott around, you could go from the dregs of despair to ROFL (Rolling On the Floor Laughing) in a matter of seconds. He couldn’t help it; how Scotty processed life and what normally came out of his mouth was pure entertainment. Behind the comedian, however, was a man who knew those dregs of despair himself. Scotty had been orphaned at birth and pinballed around the foster care system all throughout his childhood and youth. His friendship was invaluable to me because he was the first person I had met who understood the two most powerful and unspoken fears I carried forth from my abusive childhood—the fear that I was never meant to be in this world, and the fear that my punishment for this infraction was to be alone.

I walked through fire with Scotty Jefferson. Not only was he there at my first church service, but he was also present years later at my last church service, when I resigned as pastor after discovering that my wife at the time had fallen in love with another man. Everything, including God, had been called into question when life as I’d known it collapsed. But, there was one thing in the world I knew for sure—Scotty Jefferson loved me. He wasn’t going anywhere, and was only a phone call away should I need him, which quite often included the wee hours of the night.

Although Scotty was the primary comedian, both he and Donna were quite amusing as a couple. Scotty had a knack for saying and doing things that totally embarrassed his wife, who was a shy and reserved person. But, everyone knew that Donna adored Scott; they were two peas in a pod. He meant everything to her. Scotty had rescued Donna from the streets of Miami—taking her into his home and helping her out of a life of prostitution. Donna used to say that she didn’t know what she’d do without Scott, and God knows that Scotty couldn’t have survived a day without Donna—as she kept him (and their life) on the right track. We were the closest of friends, but I was also their pastor. On more than one occasion, Donna shared that she was terrified of Scott dying before she did, and prayed that God would allow her to go first.

When Donna called that afternoon, she was hysterical. I had to calm her down to decipher what she was telling me. In the end, it all added up to Scotty being in a coma with very little chance of coming out of it.

Later that evening, I went to go see Scotty. When I softly knocked and entered his hospital room, I found Donna sitting bedside. As soon as our eyes met, the dam of heartache broke, releasing a flood of tears down her face. I don’t know how many times I have been hugged over the course of my lifetime, but there are four hugs that I will never forget, and this is one of them. Permanently recorded in my soul is this memory of Donna Jefferson holding on to me, weeping with a sorrow as deep and as wide as the sea.

Letting go of me, Donna stepped back and desperately searched my eyes. “Jim?” she asked. She wasn’t stating my name; it was most definitely a question. Although she’d only spoken my name, I heard, “Jim, does Scott have to die now? Why is he being taken from me? How can I go on without him? Why Jim? Why did God not hear my prayer? This can’t be real, can it? There must be something God can do! Do something, anything—please Jim. Can you bring my Scotty back to me? —Jim?” I was deeply moved in spirit and greatly troubled by this.

I loved Scotty. I loved Donna. I wept.

There really are no words to accurately describe the powerful surge of energy that emanated from my heart and coursed through every molecule of my being in that moment. I can’t remember ever desiring something so completely or so desperately as I desired to give Scotty back to Donna. Perhaps I wasn’t realistically in a position to do much for people dying of AIDS on the other side of the world, but Scotty was right there before me. I didn’t contrive or manufacture this scenario. It had unfolded in front of me, and it required a response. It was all well and good for being Jesus to simply mean being part of something, but this situation demanded direct and divine intervention.

How could I not act? I might be a nobody, but like Jesus, I was a “divine” nobody. It was time for me to step up and be Jesus in Nashville. This was my opportunity to act, to believe, to lay claim to my divine side—and heal Scotty Jefferson.

Prior to this moment, I had concerned myself with finding the answer to the question “Who is Jesus?”—which ultimately led to this experiment and this book. Despite my master of divinity degree and years of teaching the Bible as a pastor, I was not convinced that I had uncovered the true significance of Jesus.

For many years, the focus of my Christianity had been to “become more like Christ.” Even though my quest to find the real Jesus was still a journey in progress, I was slowly gaining confidence that Jesus wanted me to believe that there was no difference between him and me—that I already am like Christ. Back in Wide Open Spaces, I’d been hot on this trail. In the chapter “A Divine Autopsy,” I identified a list of things that I shared in common with Jesus.

Jesus and I shared the same biology—he got hungry, thirsty, and tired just like me. If a pathologist had examined Jesus’ corpse, they would have concluded that we shared the same human anatomy. (I wondered if Jesus had ever run or swum. Or whether he’d taken part in competitive sports, or challenged the physical limitations of his body. I wondered how many pull-ups he could do.) Just like me, Jesus suffered physical pain, sickness, injury, and ultimately, death.

Jesus and I shared the same essential mental functioning to organize plans and solve problems, and a free will to make choices and direct our lives. Our similarities also included Jesus’ emotional composition—he experienced joy, sorrow, anger, love, and hurt. I wondered what made Jesus laugh. I wondered what made him cry.

Jesus lived within the same human and earthly reality as I did. He worked, slept, ate, experienced family and friendship, and faced the challenges and obstacles of daily life. I wondered what kind of music Jesus enjoyed. Had he lived in Nashville, I mused, would he have been a Tennessee Titans fan?

Most importantly, in “A Divine Autopsy” I mentioned several Bible verses that hinted at the idea that we shared in Jesus’ spiritual composition. After writing Wide Open Spaces, I kept pressing into this question. Hebrews 2:10 says, “Since the one who saves and those who are saved have a common origin, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to treat them as family.” Hmm. So, Jesus and I have a “common origin?” I looked up the word “origin,” which is defined as “properties attributable to your ancestry.” Okay. Given that Jesus and I have the same origin, then according to the definition, he and I share the same ancestral properties—which would be God. Wow! It seemed to me that the point being made was that both Jesus and I shared the divine properties of God equally, which is why Jesus would consider me “family.”

And, if at a core level there is nothing differentiating Jesus and me, it would mean that there isn’t really anything I need to be or to do—as I have always been both divine and human. The only thing left was to believe it, express it, and live it.

Two millennia ago, there was Jesus of Nazareth on a hillside. Presently, there was Jesus of Nashville standing in a hospital room. No, I didn’t speak Aramaic, and I couldn’t build a table or chair if my life depended on it, but I knew the secret. The same fundamental constitution, the same oneness with God, the same power that Jesus had, Jim had.

As I turned my attention back to Scotty, the full implications of this hit me: Since the same healing power that enabled Jesus to give Lazarus back to Mary was available to me, then I could give Scotty back to Donna.

So, put yourself in my shoes. What if you became convinced that there was no difference between Jesus and you? How would you respond if you were the one standing in that hospital room with Donna Jefferson and it was in your power to heal Scotty? Would you do it?

Donna left the room to get some coffee, leaving Scotty and me alone. I walked over to my friend and gently placed the palm of my hand on his arm. There was still life in Scotty’s body, although that life had been severely weakened and was slowly draining away. But, what is the life force within a person if not the same energy that is alive and potent in the palm of my hand? Scotty and I were drawing from the same life-giving source that fills all living things.

I could lay the palm of my hand on Scotty’s arm and allow the vibrant energy within me to flow into him and strengthen those places within his body that were weak and compromised.

I knew in my heart that I had the authority to do this, that doing so would be an expression of the truth and goodness and beauty of the kingdom of God inside me, and that in this moment, God’s will would be done on earth as it was in heaven. The answer to the question, “What would Jesus do?” was clear, and I was going to do it.

I closed my eyes as I reached for Scotty’s arm. Then, summoning a desire strong enough to move mountains, I gave permission to that life-giving energy within me to enter Scott, heal him, and give him back to Donna.

But Scotty never regained consciousness. His breathing became increasingly labored, and soon he was gone. Instead of healing Scotty Jefferson, I watched him die. And part of me died with him. The sharp pain of anguish filled me. My God had forsaken me.

Standing at Scotty’s bedside, the painful truth slowly seeped into every pore of my soul: Life is suffering. It was the mountain that could not be moved; it was Superman’s kryptonite. Life was suffering, and being Jesus in Nashville couldn’t change that. There would always be a Nick Adenhart and a Heelbolt, suicide attempts and eating disorders, homeless people waking up each day to a new episode of Survivor, and loved ones being taken away in the clutches of death.

Scotty died while I stood there powerless; a man in a silly red cape. My heart was heavy. I felt depressed. Since “being Jesus” couldn’t bring Scotty back, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to be Jesus anymore. Maybe it was time to go back to just being Jim.

When I got home that evening, I went straight to bed.

Midway through the next day, something came to mind that had caught my attention earlier, when I’d been reading through the gospels. Charles Sheldon’s big question from In His Steps was, “What would Jesus do?” But, might it be equally important to consider what Jesus didn’t do? It was evident to me that one thing Jesus didn’t do was end suffering.

I also noted that Jesus didn’t heal everyone, and even those he did heal eventually grew sick and died. And Jesus didn’t change everyone either. Just as the sun melts wax and hardens clay, sometimes Jesus’ love melted and changed hearts, while at other times, it angered and hardened people. Jesus also didn’t put an end to the social injustice of his day. Ultimately, he fell victim to it himself. Jesus once fed five thousand people from a few loaves of bread, but he did not turn back famine in the land—which left scores of people without food. Jesus did not solve the humanitarian crises of his time and once remarked, “the poor will always be with us.” The more I pondered this, the longer the list grew of things that Jesus did not do.

I wrestled with whether it was a case of Jesus not being able to do these things, or Jesus choosing not to do them. I’m not sure it really mattered. Although, had it been the case of Jesus choosing not to do them, then apparently those kinds of changes weren’t of primary importance to him. No matter how I sliced it, the fact remained: Even Jesus being Jesus did not eradicate suffering. There were still many undesirable realities—disease, death, injustice, poverty, hatred—that remained unchanged in his day.

Just as there was no master list of “things to do” in order to be Jesus, it seemed that there was also no master list of outcomes to achieve. Jesus was always Jesus, and for him this meant living in a world where people laughed and cried, celebrated and grieved, lived and died.

Jesus once spoke of a “peace not of this world.” Maybe it was this sense of peace that gave Jesus the courage to get up each day and do it all again; to face this world of laughing and crying, of living and dying. Maybe true peace isn’t always about changing the way things are, but accepting them as they are. We do the best we can each day. We live. We love. Whether or not this changes anything, we keep living and keep loving—because that’s what it means to be Jesus. And when those moments of anguish come, we remember that maybe true peace is not something we find at the end of suffering, but something that carries us through it.

Being Jesus means being at peace no matter what happens.

Chapter 4

BEING JESUS MEANS…

PUTTING NO LIMITATIONS ON GOD

I don’t like drama. I steer clear of controversy. I avoid conflict like the plague. But, all three confronted me as I continued being Jesus in Nashville. George Bernard Shaw said, “All great truths begin as blasphemies.” It wasn’t long before I was accused of this.

There is a Jesus-line that you don’t cross in Orthodox Christianity. That line was pointed out to me when I was speaking at a Christian bookseller’s convention. After my presentation, the CEO of a major Christian bookstore chain hunted me down for a “friendly chat,” during which he grilled me on my theology. He made it crystal clear that if I ever compromised the divinity of Christ in any way, my books would never again appear in any of his bookstores.

Gulp!

Not long after this, a prominent, progressive Christian leader called to inform me of how disturbed he was by the premise of my book. (Apparently, I had progressed a little too far for his liking!) I was well aware that falling out of favor with this individual would cost me invitations to speak at certain Christian conferences and gatherings, for he held much sway in the Christian community. On top of this, I learned that two people who had endorsed my first two books would not be endorsing Being Jesus in Nashville. I felt like a marked man.

Then, things got even worse.

An email exchange with a former seminary professor didn’t go so well. And, after reading a rough draft of the first few chapters, my agent warned me that other Christian bookstore chains may also have a problem with how far I was going by stating the similarities between myself and Jesus, suggesting that I might want to tone it down a bit. I also began to notice how Facebook interactions with my Christian reading audience became strained whenever I made Jesus a little too human, or made myself a little too God. All of a sudden, Jim Palmer, Inc. seemed to be standing on shaky ground.

I was sure it was only a matter of time until my great grandma Gloria called from Italy to disown me. Thank goodness my dog Jack didn’t care about this kind of stuff, or he might have demanded that I take him back to the animal shelter we’d adopted him from!

Obviously, this was not the best-case scenario for a guy who wants everyone to be happy and to like him. It hurt. I felt misunderstood. With the heartache and confusion of Scotty Jefferson’s death still lingering, I felt rejected and abandoned. Deep discouragement set in. Everyone seemed so dead set against the path that I was on. I wavered. Maybe they were right. Maybe I was wrong.

More rejection came. I lost two very significant friendships. My experiment of being Jesus in Nashville became a very lonely one; there were lots of sleepless nights. At times, I wasn’t sure what to do or how to respond. I wondered if Jesus had ever felt this way. Did he always have it all figured out?

Despite my full awareness of the Jesus-line of Orthodox Christianity, with all the mounting opposition, each day felt like the hot-or-cold game in which something is hidden from you, and people yell “hotter!” as you move closer to it, or “colder!” as you move farther from it. Whenever fear entered the game—telling me that I was “less than” Jesus—I’d start to back away from that Jesus-line, and my gut would yell, “colder, colder, colder.” But, whenever I stepped closer to that Jesus-line, seeing Jesus as my brother, my gut yelled, “hotter, hotter, hotter.”

Even so, I was empathetic towards those who opposed my “being Jesus” premise. Admittedly, I had never once heard my postulate taught as the significance of Jesus or the point of Christianity. As a matter of fact, what I had been taught was quite the opposite—that it was sacrilege to view myself on equal footing with the Son of God. To me, this seemed to imply that by diminishing myself as a “sinner,” I was elevating, protecting, and even justifying Jesus. And yet, I didn’t see Jesus pulling rank in the gospels. He was all about raising people up, not putting them in their place.

Throughout my years of study, I’d come across many Bible verses that appeared to indicate that Jesus is a mirror in which I will find my own identity. With so much controversy surrounding my book, I decided to do some more intensive theological investigation. Having a master of divinity degree, I had plenty of resources to support in-depth research. I figured I’d better start at the very beginning—with God.

Thinking of that catchy “What’s in your wallet?” Capital One Bank slogan, I asked myself, “What’s in your concept… of God?”—and was surprised by my answer.

Despite the Bible saying, “God is spirit” (John 4:24 ASV), I realized that I’ve been operating within the “Sky-God” concept. The gist is this: God is a Herculean or Thor-like man who rides the sky and rules the world from above. Why else would David Ortiz point to the sky to give God credit after ripping a fastball over the Green Monster (aka the left field wall) at Fenway Park?

The notion of a clear division between the earliest nomadic and farming peoples and the Jupiter or Zeus of classical mythologies—the Sky-God concept—has not only held its ground, but interestingly, has gained traction from ancient through modern times. Of course, I never would have thought I’d believe such a thing, but when it came right down to it, I did.

It was a little disturbing to discover that I had managed to drag ancient mythological icons into my upstanding, evangelical understanding of God. Although in my defense, this wasn’t totally unfounded—as the personification of God in the Old Testament offers plenty of raw material for constructing a Judeo-Christian version of Sky-God. In the end, the way this line of thinking all shook out for me went something like this: There was a huge, powerful, infinite, holy God up there, and there was a small, imperfect, finite, human me down here. When I prayed, my prayers traveled up to reach God, and then God intervened down below—in whatever way he saw fit.

But, then I came across one particular verse from the Book of Hebrews which ended up starting a domino effect that dismantled my notion of Sky-God, and ultimately led to the discovery that Jesus and I shared the same essential nature. In the first chapter of Hebrews, a description of Jesus reads, “He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Hebrews 1:3 ESV). Yes, it sounded quite poetic, but what exactly did this mean? In what specific way was Jesus “the radiance of the glory of God,” or the “exact imprint of his nature”?

God is “spirit,” not human. This means that God has no gender, ethnicity, race, vocation, socio-economic class, political party, religion, culture, or family heritage. Since this is so, there must be some other part of Jesus—other than his human characteristics—that made him “an exact representation” of God’s being. How was Jesus the man an exact representation of God the spirit? I know what it is to be a man (I think), but I’m not clear on what it means to be a spirit.

“Spirit” is one of those words that Christians freely toss about, although its meaning is not very well defined. Defining “spirit” is like trying to nail Jell-O to a wall. First, I tried to define it for myself by using other words. I checked the thesaurus, which supplied me with synonyms such as “life force,” “essence,” and “energy.” But, the further I dug, the more abstract “spirit” became—which might explain why I had never explored it thoroughly. Concrete: Good; Abstract: Bad. This time, however, I made myself keep going.

The description of God as spirit seemed to depict God as a spirit being. In other words, God was analogous to energy; a formless life force that filled the entire universe. God wasn’t a Jupiter or a Zeus up in the sky; God was more like the particles of energy that underlie everything.

Wow! This was starting to sound like a Star Trek episode! “God, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Palmer. His one-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new realities, to boldly go where no sane man has gone before…” What was next, a Borg invasion?

And yet, it was all starting to line up. In Psalm 139:7, David asks, “Where could I go from your Spirit? Or where could I flee from your presence?” (Psalm 139:7). The point being—nowhere! There is nothing that exists outside God. And if there is nothing that has an independent existence apart from the energy that is God—the essence of everything—if you remove the God-part of anyone or anything, it would cease to exist. As I saw it, there were only two options—Option One: God, Option Two: Nothing!

Continuing to research the theory of God as energy, one specific line of a Wikipedia article jumped out at me: “Any form of energy can be transformed into another form, but the total energy always remains the same.” Hmm. This got me thinking about God and creation. I had always thought that God created everything out of nothing. It might seem that way, but this is only because we can’t see the something from which everything was made. We can’t see God, spirit, or energy. So, it would probably be more accurate to say that God took of his energy and formed it into a variety of different things. Every blade of grass, every raindrop, every animal, every human being, every biological microorganism, every molecule of wood that forms the chair I am sitting on right now—at its essence—is God!

Following the white rabbit, I came upon a principle of quantum physics that supplied a helpful analogy. Quantum physics asserts that the whole is present in every part. And furthermore, that every individual part is a genuine expression of the whole, and yet, no one individual part is the totality of the whole in itself. I thought about how the ocean illustrates this truth. I can go to the beach and scoop up ocean water in a Dixie cup. The water in the cup contains the same properties as the entire ocean, and yet obviously, that cup of water is not the entire ocean. In the same way, as spirit or energy, the whole of God is present in every part.

Which means that, in essence, everything is a Dixie cup of God.

Uh-oh. I recalled a professor from back in my seminary days warning us against the idea that everything was God. But, it made complete sense to me. How could anything exist outside God, if God is the energy that gives all things life and existence? With this being true, I could see how every single thing in existence would be sacred because it was made from the energy that is God. For me, this took away the dividing line between secular and sacred. If everything was a unique expression of the energy of God, then no one and no thing could truly be separated from God—for how can God be separated from himself? Again, the Wikipedia entry came to mind: “Any form of energy can be transformed into another form, but the total energy always remains the same.” Whether the energy that is God is organized into the form of a blade of grass or a human being, it is still the same energy—it’s still God!

While on one hand, using the word “energy” to illustrate the omnipresence of God made a lot of sense, on the other hand, it felt too impersonal to describe God as if God were some vaporous, molecular blob floating through time and space.

I could plainly see that the Bible also made God personal—“God is love” (1 John 4:8). I took this to mean that God has characteristics that I could relate to and experience as a human person. In all honestly, I couldn’t really picture God as some superhero sitting atop the world, throwing lightning bolts down from the sky. Nor did I believe that God was merely some impersonal field of energy that was floating through space. Instead, I concluded that God was the foundational energy underlying the universe, and that one of the ways I could experience God on a deeply personal level was through the feelings of peace, harmony, joy, and love.

God is the underlying essence and energy of all things, but Jesus was described as “the radiance of the glory of God” and the “exact imprint of his nature” because Jesus was an expression of the personal nature of God. This divine nature—that the scriptures indicated by stating, “God is love”—was expressed in and through the human personality and life of Jesus. The truth of Jesus’ identity was not found in his human form. Jesus’ life was the fragrance of love in this world, and if you were to trace the essence back to its origin, you’d find an intangible source—God.

Since the energy and nature of God could be organized into the human person Jesus of Nazareth, could that same energy and nature—that same God—also be organized into the human person Jim of Nashville? God—but with my body, my personality, my humanity? Was it possible that I carried the same fragrance, this essence that was traceable to the intangible presence of God? The big question finally hit me: Could there be… God as Jim?

The Bible answered my question in the affirmative. Yes, there could be God as Jim. The Book of Genesis states that I was created “in the image of God” (Genesis 1:27). At the most fundamental level, before I could do anything, I was an expression of God. Acts 17:28 proclaims, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also his offspring.’” Clearly, God’s being is the source of my being.

This brought me back to Hebrews 2:10, which further explains how this connects me with Jesus, “Since the one who saves and those who are saved have a common origin, Jesus doesn’t hesitate to treat them as family” (MSG). Jesus and I do share a common origin. He and I are linked by divine ancestry. We both come from God.

The verse from Hebrews that had originally started me down this path says that Jesus was “the radiance of the glory of God.” Therefore, Jesus’ words in John 17:22 particularly caught my attention. “The glory which you have given me, I have given to them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” Just as Jesus was an expression of God’s glory, I was an expression of God’s glory, and this assertion is the basis for the truth of Father, Son, and Jim being “one.”

The Bible is clear that, like Christ, we embody the fullness of God. Apostle Paul prayed for others to be “filled to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). In Ephesians 4:13, Paul states that we were meant to attain “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Paul reiterated this in Colossians 2:9–10, “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him ye are made full” (ASV).

At the end of my study, the evidence pointed to the conclusion that Jesus and I shared the same God-essence, God-fullness, God-nature. However, there was one big problem. Why had no one else ever come up with this before? The controversy that my book was stirring up seemed to imply that my premise was way outside the bounds of anything that could even remotely be considered true Christianity.

I decided to do some digging around in church history. The deeper I dug, the more I felt like Professor Langdon as he uncovered a religious conspiracy of epic proportions in The Da Vinci Code. My seminary history books were of no help; they only covered “institutional church” church history. I soon discovered that there exists a whole other church history that never made it into the official books.

Going back to the time of the very first Christians, there are tales of countless divine nobodies who lived as Jesus in community with others, outside the walls of organized church. Because their Christianity was practiced outside the structures of “official” Christendom, they were never legitimized as true believers and therefore left out of the history books. The beliefs of these Christians didn’t always line up with the politically correct theology adopted by religious councils of the institutional church, and so these free believers were often condemned as heretics and burned at the stake.

But, there were also theological controversy and division present inside the walls of Christendom, especially with regard to Jesus. The notion of humankind sharing in God’s essential nature had been common in early Christianity, and many early followers of Christ understood this to be the whole point of Jesus.

The Church Fathers were the earliest core leaders of the Christian movement following the death of Jesus. They were influential theologians, distinguished teachers, and powerful bishops. For example, Church Father Saint Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296–373 CE) was a renowned theologian who wrote extensively about the doctrine of the incarnation of Christ. In his essay De Incarnatione, Athanasius wrote, “God became man so that man might become God.” Interestingly, this was not viewed as some bizarre, minority opinion held only by heretics, non-Christians, and cults. Many later Church Fathers quoted and paraphrased Athanasius, and this particular statement remains part of Catholic and Orthodox teaching to this day. An earlier Church Father, Saint Irenaeus (130–202 CE), held a similar view. In his most significant theological work, Against Heresies, Saint Irenaeus wrote, “The Word of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, who did, through his transcendent love, become what we are, that He might bring us to be even what He is Himself.”

Fleshing this idea out further, Church Father Gregory of Nazianzus (330–379 CE) said in one of his many orations—which were preserved and considered authoritative in early church councils—that through Christ’s incarnation, “human nature is joined with the whole Divinity so that God has humanity in the way that the sun has rays, God has become human and humanity has become deified.”

Theological scholar, archbishop, and a prolific writer Cyril of Alexandria (c. 376–444 CE), was a Church Father who regarded the embodiment of God in the person of Jesus Christ to be so mystically powerful that it spread into the rest of the race, reconstituting all of humankind by returning its original divine nature. In his commentary on the Gospel of John, Cyril writes that through Christ, “human nature was refashioned […] to the original image according to which the first human had been made.”[1]

Poetic evidence of this same vein of thought can be found in the ancient writings of Symeon the New Theologian (949–1022 AD). He describes his experience of being one with God in Hymns of Divine Love, which he wrote in exile.

God rises in me, within my lowly heart, like the sun,

like the circle of the sun, appearing spherical, luminous, as a flame

thou hast risen at once in my darkened heart.

Thou hast descended even into me,

thou the sun before the ages.

Suddenly I behold thee having come to be wholly in me.

I move my hand, and my hand is the whole of Christ,

I move my foot and it shines as he.

Do not say that I blaspheme,

Thou takest us up with thee, wholly shining with thy light,

And makest us, from being mortals, immortal, and remaining what we are,

we become like thee, Gods seeing God.[2]

I found it interesting that an early Christian metaphor used to describe humanity’s connection with God was the sun. In his principal theological writing On the Holy Spirit, Church Father Basil the Great (330–379 CE) wrote, “It seems to everyone who enjoys the sun’s warmth that he is the only one receiving it, but the sun’s radiance lights up the whole world and sea and dissolves together with the sky. In the same way the Spirit seems unique to everyone in whom He abides, but all of His grace pours down on everyone. Everyone enjoys this grace to the greatest degree he is capable of, and not to the greatest degree which is possible for the Spirit.”[3]

And, if each one of us is created in “the image of God,” then there is a seed of potential within all humankind to fulfill this image. Basil the Great qualifies this potential when he tells us that, “Everyone enjoys this grace to the greatest degree he is capable of…”

Within a century of Jesus’ death, Christian leaders were teaching that others could share in the same relationship with God that Jesus of Nazareth had experienced. Peter wrote that it was possible for others to be “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). Paul was pointing to this reality when he wrote, “we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16). In describing his connection with Jesus, he says, “It is no longer I that live, but Christ living in me” (Galatians 2:20). Paul also states, “Christ is my life” (Philippians 1:21). This was an important distinction in my mind; it wasn’t that Christ gives us life, but that Christ is our life. Throughout the history of Christianity, there has always been a steady stream of mystics who spoke of experiencing spiritual oneness with God.

These writings reframed the significance of Jesus for me.

Looking through this new lens, I saw how the Bible was telling a story of increasing intimacy between God and people. In the Old Testament, the Sky-God view held sway. Then, God clothed himself in humanity—in Jesus—and lived among us. Jesus indicated that after his death, his spirit would live on inside us. There was no missing the progression—God came down from the sky, onto the earth, and into my heart. It all led to the ultimate realization that there never had been any separation between God and me. The final step was to claim my rightful identity as a true Son of God, endowed with all the ancestral properties of God. I might be a nobody, but in the truest sense of the word, I was a divine nobody.

Jesus was here to show people of the world that their humanity wasn’t a barrier that separated them from God. By demonstrating that God is simultaneously both divine and human, he wanted them to see that there was no problem to be solved. Jesus once said, “The truth shall make you free” (John 8:32 YLT). Was this “truth” he spoke of the truth that there is no separation between humankind and God? When Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6 ASV), was Jesus telling us that he was a mirror, and we could only know God by knowing ourselves as an expression of God?

Jesus was once asked to name the works God required of humankind. He answered, “That ye believe on him whom he hath sent” (John 6:29 ASV). Maybe “believing in” Jesus involved more than just holding certain doctrinal beliefs about Jesus. Perhaps it had more to do with discovering the truth of my identity in Jesus, or to be more precise, as Jesus.

After searching the scriptures, digging into church history, and listening to my own gut, I could not reject the truth I sensed I’d uncovered—even if it meant that some Christian bookstores would refuse to carry my book. Jim Palmer, Inc. collapsed, and I weathered the imagined wrath of great grandma Gloria in Italy. Since God could clothe himself with humanity in Jesus of Nazareth, why couldn’t he do the same with me?

The Gospel of Luke tells us that “nothing is impossible with God” (Luke 1:37 ASV). Nothing! I was a jar of clay that contained a great treasure. I might have been unaware of it or discouraged from laying claim to it by my religion, but I was born with that treasure—the nature, image, and essence of God—and Jesus wanted me to find that treasure within myself, for it was my birthright.

One evening, I took Jack for a walk down to the neighborhood pond. It was his favorite rendezvous point where he and his canine friends would leave little messages for each other on the bushes. Jack dragged me down the street like an Alaskan sled dog to get there. As usual, he went exploring around the pond, and I sat down on the bench beneath the big walnut tree. I started to shift down to a place of inner calm.

Blazing yellow ribbons stretched low across the sky and faded into a scarlet glow behind the clouds. A cool, gentle wind blew across my face, carrying the fragrance of freshly cut grass and softly rustling the leaves above me. All the clutter in my head was silenced, and I was able to just sit there and be fully present to the moment and my surroundings. The green of the grass, the blue of the water, the yellow of the heavens all became more vivid, as if someone had Photoshopped the scene to accentuate the colors. Being at that pond refreshed my soul. I sat quietly, drinking it all in.

Everything around me became silent and still. Feelings of deep peace, joy, and love passed through me. It was as if I were a human hologram, and these three blissful vibrations were streaming through every cell, molecule, and pore of my body. Closing my eyes, I basked in the pure, good feelings. They were more real than anything else in this entire world. In that moment, I got it. I knew without a doubt that what I was experiencing had to be what I’d uncovered in my research—the presence we humans are referring to when we use the word “God.”

Whether in the form of the walnut tree that stretched its limbs above, or me, sitting there on the bench, all things on this earth are an expression of the same energy, God. It was God, giving that tree and me our life, our existence. If there were no God within our being, neither of us would have been there at all. By simply being, the tree fulfilled its purpose. I was a man, a human being, and God’s being was the source of my being. I was meant to be Jim, a human expression of the personal nature of God. Those feelings of peace, joy, and love that passed through me were the very essence of who I am, and who I was meant to be.

Now, I knew too much. According to my opposition, I might no longer be a “Christian” because of it—but still, I wasn’t yet ready to give up hope on finishing out my year of being Jesus. My gut told me that I was on to something significant. Right then, I made a decision: I would not quit. Even if my experiment was too controversial, and my story never got published, I was prepared to fade into the woodwork and never be heard from again—because I had already been changed by this experience. I felt the truth of Jesus’ words, “With God all things are possible” in my heart. Sitting on that bench, I closed my eyes and spoke these words aloud:

“Being Jesus means not limiting God.”

Chapter 5

BEING JESUS MEANS…

LIVING WITHOUT SEPARATION FROM GOD

Even if great grandma Gloria from Italy disowned me, I’d always have a friend in Marlon the mailman.

Marlon was a middle-aged, African American man who worked as a clerk at the post office in the town of Hermitage, where I live. In my first interactions with him, he came across as a detached, gruff, poker-faced type of guy. It became commonplace for my then ten-year-old daughter, Jessica, to join me on my post office trips to mail off copies of my books. For some strange reason, Marlon’s station frequently became available when we were next in line.

Time after time, I would slide my packages up onto the counter, and without any eye contact, Marlon would robotically rattle off, “Does your package contain anything liquid, perishable, fragile, or potentially hazardous?” Now, it takes a lot of work to be this serious when Jessica is part of the equation, but Marlon held his line.

My daughter has a habit of staring, not at, but into people. She studies people inquisitively, wanting to figure them out. In Marlon’s case, it was a smiling-ear-to-ear-please-notice-me sort of stare. Once, while my receipt was printing, I caught Marlon giving Jessica a quick glance out of the corner of his eye. He seemed to be one of those people who are uncomfortable around children. Time and again, we’d place our books on the counter, and Marlon would fire off his question, weigh and post the packages, print out a receipt, and yell, “Next!”

But, all that changed one morning.

As usual, Jessica and I were next in line when Marlon’s station opened. I handed the books to him, and he began weighing and slapping postage labels on them. Jessica stood at my side, staring and smiling. Then, something unexpected happened: Marlon’s poker face began to change. He appeared to be fighting it, but suddenly this huge grin took over his entire face, and he looked down over his glasses at Jessica and said, “What’s your name?” In her sweet-little-melting-bashful voice, my daughter replied, “Jessica.” Still beaming, Marlon asked, “Jessica, would you like a sticker?” And so began our friendship with Marlon.

From that point on, whenever we were at the post office we would wait—motioning to other customers to go on ahead if necessary—until Marlon’s station was open. He always seemed just as excited to see us as we were to see him. My first impression of Marlon had been so off base. He turned out to be an extremely meek and kind person, and was just great with Jessica. Marlon invariably made a point of making conversation with her, once telling Jessie that seeing her smile made his day. Jessica always wanted to go with me to the post office.

Little by little, we got to know Marlon. One afternoon, we ran into him at the lake; he was out riding his Harley. From time to time, we would bring him a little surprise (Marlon especially liked chocolate). And once, he presented Jessica with a glass money jar, filled with coins that he’d been saving. The jar was decorated with butterfly stickers, and Jessica’s name had been written across the front—each letter in a different color. It sincerely touched me that Marlon had done this for my daughter. Jessica and her neighbor friend spent the afternoon counting the coins, which added up to a lot of Blizzards at Dairy Queen—$75 in all.

The Christmas season came, and while waiting in a longer-than-usual line at the post office, we noticed that Marlon had pinned up some sort of Christmas poster on the wall next to his station. As we approached his counter, we were surprised to discover that it announced “Merry Christmas Jessica” in big, bright letters. Jessica’s eyes and mouth sprang open! There was a little Christmas stocking attached to the poster. Marlon handed the stocking to Jessica; it had a Walmart gift card inside. Jessie was beside herself with joy seeing that Marlon had thought so much of her to do all this.

Funny thing is, we also had gifts for Marlon—a copy of Divine Nobodies and a Christmas card that contained a Kroger supermarket gift card. Whipping the presents out from behind her back, Jessica presented our gifts to him. Marlon was momentarily overcome with emotion. I had never seen him like this before. He was quiet for a few moments, and then said softly, “This is the best Christmas gift I have ever received.”

Wow! Marlon had been deeply moved for a reason I didn’t understand. Why?

One afternoon, I needed to make a quick run to the post office. Jessica was off playing with friends, and so I went on my own. The place was deserted, which gave Marlon and me some extra time to chat. Marlon told me that he’d just started reading Divine Nobodies for the second time, and shared how he felt he could have practically written the book himself.

When I asked Marlon if he’d grown up going to church, his demeanor noticeably shifted. He seemed upset, so I apologized, not meaning to have overstepped the boundaries of our friendship. But, Marlon opened up. He shared with me that he was regrettably familiar with the hypocrisy of Christian people, and that long ago, he’d parted ways with religion of any kind. The welling of his eyes told me that both my book and my question had touched a very painful place deep inside him. Marlon never spoke of having a family, had he lost them? Was it possible that he was also a survivor of childhood abuse? Had the sum of Marlon’s life experiences left him disillusioned with God and faith? Whatever the case, I had a feeling that it had been a very long time since Marlon had engaged in this sort of conversation with anyone.

Much of the interaction I have with others regarding my books comes in the form of emails, blog comments, and exchanges through Facebook or Twitter. (Although on occasion, I do receive letters sent by snail mail.) This interaction with Marlon was markedly different. There was no computer screen separating us, and we were not two avatars linked by cyberspace. This was flesh and blood Jim, standing face-to-face with flesh and blood Marlon.

Under the Sky-God theory, God was a third party, independent of both Marlon and me. Accordingly, in an encounter of this nature, my role and responsibility as a Sky-God believer would be to point Marlon to the third party, God. But standing across from Marlon, nothing seemed so misdirected as this. In those few minutes of conversation, Marlon and I had pressed into something far deeper than mere dialogue between postal worker and customer, or even casual friends. We were truly connecting on a heart level. It was hard to imagine passing Marlon off to God. Plus, judging by his earlier comments, Marlon didn’t really seem to be open to God. But right there, in that moment, Marlon was open to me. What made more sense and seemed more natural, was for God to reach out to Marlon right then and there as me—for God to listen to him, speak with him, and share his love for him—as Jim.

What I felt most deeply towards Marlon was love. It was a compassionate love, stirred by a wound that I intuitively sensed he was carrying. It was also a love that fiercely desired this man’s well-being. I wanted Marlon to be free—I wanted him to know that there was something real and beautiful beyond his pain; I wanted him to know love in its fullest measure. What I felt Marlon needed to know, experience, and taste, was an expression of authentic acceptance and love.

As I saw it, I had two choices. I could say to Marlon, “God loves you,” although that would be somewhat ethereal. Or, I could express love to Marlon myself, which would be more tangible. And wasn’t that the point of Jesus? Sure, he could have handed out a pamphlet on God’s love to the adulterous woman who was sprawled in the dirt, but I’m not so certain that she would have gotten the message. It was when Jesus, the human, reached down and helped the woman off the ground that she fully understood God’s love. The spiritual nature (or essence) of God as love was made real and tangible through the human person of Jesus.

Let’s say I did decide to go with the first option, “Marlon, I want you to know that God loves you.” Would Marlon truly experience that love? Because who is this “God” and where is he? Working with the “God is spirit” definition, we’re still left with some invisible God-vapor floating into Marlon—which is pretty abstract. Somehow, God would have to be expressed in a form that Marlon could experience and receive. It’s because God loved the world that he gave his Son, for what good is an intangible love—a love that cannot be felt, experienced, nor received?

Being God as Jim, I probably should say, “Marlon, I love you.” That seemed pretty clear. Wow. How could I possibly say something like that? Talk about living outside your comfort zone—this was dangerously close to living outside sanity!

It occurred to me that I might need to redefine my notion of “sanity.” For how is it sane to put love in a container of rules, limitations, and restrictions? Does love need to be controlled, legislated, regulated, and approved by some governing body? And who would that be? Because if that governing body was truly God, wouldn’t love flow freely and abundantly through the streets like a mighty river? Without rules or regulations, without limitations or conditions, without fear of what this or that person might think—just 100% pure, unadulterated, unrestricted, unrestrained love.

I’m pretty sure the problem in this world is not that there is too much love, or that we are too liberal in offering and expressing love. But there I was, back at that Jesus-line again—and fearful. The thought of turning Marlon over to “God” was more comfortable, especially since I knew that being Jesus to Marlon was risky. What if I said, “I love you,” and Marlon thought I was some sort of whack job? For all I knew, saying something like that just might have the opposite effect and I’d inadvertently alienate him. And what if others behind me in line heard me say it? What would they think?

I considered saying, “We love you Marlon,” thinking I could use the ole proverbial “we” to imply Jessica and me. But although this might spare both Marlon and me the uncomfortable scenario that could arise should I actually say that I loved him, the reality was that Jessica wasn’t present. There was no we—there was only me.

My next rationalization involved toning the expression down a notch by saying a quick, “Love ya Marlon.” This would eliminate the “I” part of the statement, thereby making it a little less intimate, less threatening, and maybe, a little more acceptable. But if I did that, would Marlon truly get it? If I turned what I felt I needed to say into some sort of casual closure, it would strip the words of their true significance.

As Marlon and I chatted for a few more minutes, I sensed that our conversation was beginning to wind down. Suddenly, I was struck by an infusion of boldness that swallowed up all my rationalizations and hesitancies, leaving only a deep-seated love for Marlon. The awkwardness of it all washed away, and in this moment, nothing seemed more natural than to express the love that is God tangibly. Forget this “God loves you” stuff; this was me, Jim, feeling God’s love for him, Marlon. It had to be, “I love you”—for all three words were equally significant.

Marlon thanked me again for the gift of the book. As he spoke, I felt as if I’d stepped through a portal and into a place where time and space were temporarily frozen. I felt something shifting inside me. Whatever distance I had imagined to exist between God and myself was gone. Every cell and molecule of my body was filled with a new, vital energy.

Standing face-to-face with Marlon, I looked past the outward layers of his human appearance and personality and saw a caged soul—someone wanting to get out, someone wanting to be released and set free. When Marlon finished speaking, I looked straight into his eyes—all the way to that someone buried deep inside him—and in that very moment, I could feel myself stepping over that Jesus-line. Actually, there was no Jesus-line; it had dissolved instantaneously and completely. I said, “Marlon, I want you to know something. I accept you and I love you.” I hadn’t planned on adding the “I accept you” part—it just came out.

Before Marlon responded, there was this profound moment—a brief pause—when our eyes stayed connected for a second or two. Right then, I knew my words had reached that someone I’d seen deep inside him—that the essential, divine natures of Jim and Marlon had found one other buried beneath all the layers of human identity—and now, the two of us were connecting on a deeper plane of reality.

“I don’t think anyone has ever said that to me before,” Marlon replied, his words having the same substance as the words I had said to him. “Thank you, Jim.”

I picked my receipt up off the counter. “See you next time,” I said, walking off as casually as I had on any other day.

On the way home from the post office, however, it all started to feel surreal. My mind was spinning. I’d pulled God out of the sky and put him into my heart, but Christianity would still insist that there was a line of demarcation where I ended and God began. And as far as religion was concerned, this was a very important distinction that had to be made. There was a God and there was a Jim, and they were two completely different and totally separate entities.

This line of differentiation applied to every human being, except for Jesus of Nazareth. Again, Christianity maintained that it was a line you never crossed. In layman’s terms, it worked something like this: On my side of the Jesus-line there was a bunch of stuff that I could do “like Jesus.” But, on the other side of the Jesus-line, there was a bunch of stuff that couldn’t be done, period. Since this line served to uphold Jesus’ divinity—to keep it fortified, there had to be some things that only Jesus could do.

What I’d learned so far challenged this assertion, and this was the crux of the controversy concerning the premise of my experiment and this book.

Over the years, I had spent a lot of time trying to figure out where exactly that Jesus-line might lie, and just how close to that line I could get. In John 14:12, Jesus said, “Anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these.” It seemed clear from all my research that Jesus taught that we could experience the same spiritual union he had with the Father, and that this would enable us to “do even greater things” than Jesus himself. But, I’d never quite located that Jesus-line, and it had been maddening!

When those words rolled up from my heart and off my tongue to reach Marlon, I felt that God and I had become one. I didn’t find that Jesus-line and cross it; there was no Jesus-line to cross. The moment I opened my heart to the love that is God, the line merely disintegrated. There was no longer separation between God and me—it was no longer “I” who lived, but Christ—the very nature and essence of God—living in me and as me. Standing in the Hermitage post office, I’d experienced being Jesus in the truest sense. I had tasted that same “glory” that Jesus said I shared with him and the Father. It was liberating to finally be the person I was meant to be. It was clear to me now: Being Jesus means living without separation from God.

For the next couple days, I continued to ponder this, as the details regarding how this all worked were still pretty sketchy. I was especially confused about one thing: If truly there was no Jesus-line, then why wasn’t I able to heal Scotty Jefferson? Had I failed because I had tried to emulate Jesus? Or, because I’d attempted to push myself across the Jesus-line?

I realized that I was just spinning my wheels trying to figure it out, so I stopped and turned my attention to other things. No problem, there were plenty of other things I wanted to do: like swimming, biking, and running.

Chapter 6

BEING JESUS MEANS…

FOLLOWING YOUR OWN PATH

I rolled into Arnold Air Force Base in Tullahoma, Tennessee at 05:30 in the morning, my vehicle packed with high performance gear for the day’s perilous mission. I was a bundle of nerves as I turned onto the narrow, gravel access road, passing an F-15C Eagle tactical fighter airplane. There have been a few times in my life when I’ve seriously wondered if I might be getting into something way over my head. This was one of them. I pushed the doubt from my mind and reminded myself that my objective was really quite simple: Get through this day alive and without serious injury.

No, this wasn’t a covert military operation. It was my first triathlon!

Endurance sports had started appealing to me way back when I was a college student. While most of my friends got involved in intramural sports, I decided to purchase a pair of running shoes and start jogging. I’d lace up my Asics then run the mountain trails of East Tennessee, where the sunset cast shades of blue upon rows of distant, rolling hills. I built up my endurance by running back and forth to work each day. After my morning classes, I would head off to my part-time job at a pharmaceutical company. I ran six miles to work, carrying a backpack that held my work clothes. I would shower, change, work my shift, and then run six miles back home to my dorm. I ran twelve miles a day, four days a week. I began running marathons and did well.

In 2007, I started cycling and competing in century rides, one hundred-mile bike races. Soon after, I discovered the sport of triathlon and decided to add swimming to my regime in order to participate. This wasn’t an easy thing for me to do. In fact, it was terribly humiliating. The truth was, I didn’t know how to swim—a fact that totally amused the lifeguards at the local YMCA. In time, I not only figured the swimming thing out, but also became a strong swimmer.

Prior to my arrival at the air force base that morning, I had logged countless training hours: swimming laps in the local YMCA pool, running greenways, and cycling down the roads of Nashville. Along with shedding religion I was also shedding pounds, dropping from 210 to a lean 170. And now here I was, about to compete in my first triathlon, the Mach Tenn Triathlon at Arnold Air Force Base.

I had known that the triathlon course included a lake swim, but when I got my first look at the lake, I was shocked by how much it looked like—well, a lake! A totally different thing compared to the pool in which I had done my training. The lake was so much bigger, deeper, choppier, and murkier—plus, it didn’t come with side walls to grab on to. For some reason, Anacondas and Piranha came to mind. I wondered if either lived in North America, and whether they are found in fresh water!

Standing on shore—only moments before the race was to begin—I had a horrifying OMG moment. Looking first to my right and then to my left, I realized that all the other competitors around me appeared to actually know what they were doing! How the heck did I get mixed up with this crowd? These folks were serious triathletes; I was just some guy who could barely get his swim cap on. I contemplated faking a seizure, but thought better of it. How could I put my daughter Jessica through something like that? It seemed that there was no turning back; I had no choice but to do this!

The bullhorn sounded, and I charged into the water and started swimming my freestyle stroke. Halfway to the first buoy, other competitors began running into me, some of them practically swimming right over top of me. I swallowed mouthfuls of nasty lake water. Panic set in. I quickly got out of the way, stopped swimming, and began treading water. The orange buoys seemed so much farther apart to me than they’d appeared from shore.

Manned canoes were stationed between each section buoy to support participants—keeping everyone on-course and offering assistance to tired swimmers, when necessary. I looked ahead and spotted that one of my fellow triathletes was already in a canoe. Not exactly a big confidence booster!

I had all but decided to swim to a canoe when a very scary scene flashed through my mind: I envisioned all my friends and all the spectators on shore (as well as everyone else on planet earth who would hear about it later) watching me—not crossing that triathlon finish line, but instead—being paddled back to shore in a canoe. My “Man Card” was in serious jeopardy of being revoked.

Anacondas or not, I pressed on!

By this time, I was totally frazzled. Other swimmers were flying past me as I inched along. A concerned race official paddled over in his canoe to ask whether I was okay. It took me a few moments, but I calmed myself and continued on. Somehow, I managed to complete the lake swim and in the process, created a new stroke that combined the freestyle technique and the doggy paddle. But who cares, I did it! My dog Jack could have swum it faster, but in my mind, I was Michael Phelps. I went on to complete the biking and running portions of the race, pumping my fists high in the air as I crossed that finish line.

Deciding to become a triathlete was a big deal for me. During my religious days, it was commonly understood that self-denial was the mark of true devotion. The most practical way of determining what God wanted for your life was you not desiring it. If the act in question was something you were actually interested in, or felt good to do, then you could be sure it was not of God. Sacrificing my personal desires was just part of what I’d signed up for. Three lists governed my religious life:

1. Necessity: breathing, eating, sleeping, spousal and parental responsibilities.

2. Sacred: church-related activities, praying, reading your Bible, serving, etc.

3. Secular: anything other than what is on the Necessity or Sacred list.

Since competing in triathlons was neither necessary nor sacred, it was considered to be an ungodly use of my time and energy.

Unshackling myself from this idea, I began to pay more attention to my desires and learned to follow them without self-judgment. One afternoon, I was jogging with a neighbor friend who shared with me that he wanted to do an Ironman triathlon, which involves swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles, and running 26.2 miles—one right after the other, in that order. He asked whether I’d be interested in training for and competing in this event with him.

The idea immediately struck a chord with me. There is a reason why I still watch Michael Jordan commercials and game clips on YouTube: A very real part of me still wonders if I could “Be Like Mike.” Most little boys dream of being a big sports hero. Many of us get it out of our systems by participating in youth sports. Some of us are good enough to compete on the collegiate level. A few of us are especially gifted athletes who move on to play professional sports. The rest of us assume our place as fans and “weekend warriors” of one stripe or another.

Because of the chaos and turbulence of my childhood and youth, I never had the chance to satisfy my desire to compete in sports. One year, I tried out for varsity football on a whim, and actually made the team. The coaches raved about my potential, but I had to quit during my second year in order to take a job and help make ends meet at home. I’ve always wondered what could’ve been, would’ve been, should’ve been—had I been able to continue playing football.

So, it made sense that the idea of doing the Ironman triathlon would take hold. The more I considered it, the more certain I became. By this point in life, I had come up with my own “necessity” list, and I put the Ironman triathlon at the top of it. I had to know—could I man up and do such a thing? Did I have it in me? What was I capable of? Somewhere deep inside me there was a Lance Armstrong-like Jim just begging to come out and kick someone’s butt as we biked up a mountain. And one day, maybe I’d even give that infamous Lance himself a look as I blew by.

I began training. Now in addition to breathing, eating, and sleeping, my life necessity list included swimming, biking, and running.

I know all this might sound juvenile, or maybe, symptomatic of a mid-life crisis. But, the big deal here is that for the first time, I had decided to do something for no reason other than—well, just wanting to. My mother had been an alcoholic who was bipolar and suicidal. While growing up, I had been the life preserver that she frantically grabbed hold of when she was drowning in her own despair. My childhood and youth was spent keeping her alive, which meant sacrificing my own needs and desires. But trying to rescue my mother only resulted in both of us drowning. She never got any better, and I got lost in the meantime. From a very early age, I learned to live without needing anything or anyone. There was no Jim Palmer separate from my role of caretaker—my mother’s needs and desires were my needs and desires, her struggles and suffering were my struggles and suffering, her emergencies did, in fact, constitute my problems.

The years kept rolling by; life continued, adulthood happened. After leaving home to attend college, I turned to Christianity hoping to find the raw material to build a new identity. God stepped in to assume the place my mother once held, and my life continued to be a denial of self—only this time, it was in obedience, faithfulness, and service to God. Years later, I discovered that being a pastor also provided plenty of opportunities to step in, save the day, and help those in need of rescuing.

Throughout all this time, buried inside, there remained a Jim too fearful to come out. A Jim who secretly hoped that someone would spot him, see good in him, and make it safe for him to come out. This Jim longed to play like a child—not worrying about what people thought, not fearing judgment or rejection, not shaming himself for honoring the dreams and desires of his own heart—free to simply be himself.

As empowering as this was, the thought of this Jim also scared the hell out of me. I knew he was, at his core, innocent and free, but I also saw that he was deeply wounded—and angry. If he ever did come out, what would happen? How volatile would he be? The uncertainty attached to my desire to let him out was overwhelming. What if my inner-child turned out to be some wild beast? Sure, I wanted to bike up a mountain like Lance, but part of the reason I wanted this so badly was so I could stand atop that mountain, shake my fists in the air, and scream into the void, “I am not stupid! I am not worthless! I am not bad! I hate you for making me feel this way about myself! It’s not true! Do you hear me? I hate you!” Yikes! This was more than a bit scary. And what’s more, who the heck was I even yelling at?

I realize that it may seem inconsequential, even silly, that I felt such a strong desire to give expression to this little part of me that wanted to “conquer that mountain.” Believe me, I heard the voices in my head chatting about how idiotic an idea it was. There wasn’t really any sensible or rational justification for it. Truth be told, most people couldn’t do an Ironman triathlon even if they wanted to, so what made me think that I could?

Despite the shaky start at Arnold Air Force Base, I succumbed to the bite of the triathlon bug. I continued training and competing in triathlons, got involved in a local triathlon club, and starting writing for a triathlon website. It began to feel as though there were two different Jim Palmers—the pastor-author-shedding religion-guy, and the triathlon-dude. This made Facebook interesting. My book-reading friends were slightly puzzled by my posts about swimming, biking, and running, while my triathlon friends wondered what God and shedding religion had to do with anything.

I never did qualify for the Tour de France or the Olympics triathlon, but there was a time or two on the inside when I was able to give that “Lance glance” as I dropped someone half my age while charging up a hill on my bike.

As it turns out, I’m not the only person in his forties who isn’t quite ready to make that list of all the things he can’t do. My “Dear Jim” email folder now included messages from people who wrote to say that they’d decided to get healthy and fit, face a fear, or begin pursuing a dream of their own. I started noticing how fulfilled I felt whenever I inspired, encouraged, or helped someone achieve their heart’s desire or lifetime dream as a result of paying attention to my own.

On Wednesday mornings, I would meet up with a local triathlon club to do open water swims. This rather large group included members ranging from experienced triathletes to newbies. One particular morning, things didn’t go quite as planned. As I pulled into the parking lot, I could see that our group was even larger than usual.

As we slowly waded down into the lukewarm waters on this particularly muggy July morning, daybreak quietly unveiled the sky above Old Hickory Lake, casting shades of burgundy through the dark grey rain clouds. Reading people’s faces and body language as I went, I noted that some swimmers were confident and free-spirited, while others seemed unsure and nervous. Ideally, conditions should be “just right” for the first-timer. Not like this day. The choppy waters and threat of rain posed a higher degree of difficulty, which heightened the anxiety level of the swimmers with less experience.

Empathy flowed as I scanned the looks of concern. I thought about how every new triathlete has to overcome the fear of open water swimming. Oh, how I knew that angst churning in the pit of their stomachs. There is a gargantuan and frightening chasm between what you theoretically believe you can do, and the actual doing of it. In the best-case scenario, you don’t think about it until you’ve crossed that imaginary line—the threshold where the momentum of confidence pushes self-doubt aside. It’s a blissful moment that magically transforms you into that untroubled swimmer who enters the water with no fear.

Ours was a diverse assembly of humanity. In addition to the varied levels of skill and experience among group members, there was also quite a spread in ages. While some swimmers were twenty years my junior, others were twenty years my senior. What an amusing twist of fate, I thought, that the different paths of our lives had converged and brought this assortment of people together at this time and place.

By now, having been around the sport for a while, I had learned that there were all sorts of reasons why people took on the challenge of the triathlon. Some were going down into the water that day as part of their journey to find themselves. While for others, it was a way of making peace with loss and suffering. It was a new beginning in life for some who’d been given a second chance. For people like me, it was about reclaiming my life and following my own path. And, there were the ones who had something to prove, although mainly to themselves.

Despite the specifics, for us, the sport of triathlon was simply our way—we dared our bodies and minds to endure grueling distances over land and sea. I guess the absurd part was that we enjoyed it.

We organized ourselves into groups of six, allowing each group to gain distance from the shore before the next group followed. Except for one guy, the swimmers in my group that morning had unfamiliar faces, which most likely meant that they were new to this experience of swimming. Open water swimming is an imposing rite-of-passage for every wannabe triathlete. You can perfect your technique and build your endurance swimming in a pool, but the time comes when you have to master the swells of the open sea.

The fear that rises is both irrational and rational at the same time. Although it’s extremely rare, most triathlon fatalities occur during the swimming portion of the competition. Granted, there is a risk—but if you’ve trained properly, then there really is no reason to doubt your success. The problem is that most people become overconfident training in a pool, an environment that provides many securities—shallow, clear, and calm water; walls on all sides; and lifeguards nearby. In open water, there are no such assurances. Conversely, the water is deep, murky, and choppy; there are no walls to grab hold of; and no lifeguards standing by. If something goes wrong, it can get in your wheelhouse and mess things up big time. Doubting voices inside might ask, “What happens if I get a bad cramp out there?” Or, “What if I start swallowing water and can’t breathe?” Or, “What if I get dizzy or have some other kind of serious problem?”

So, what if?

My plan for that morning was to swim for at least one hour, which was part of my daily training schedule. I was preparing for a 70.3—or Half Ironman—triathlon that consists of a 1.2-mile swim, 56-mile bike ride, and 13.1-mile run. This was all part of my larger plan to eventually work up to doing the full Ironman triathlon.

The swim course at Old Hickory Lake was a four hundred-meter loop. Some people would swim one loop while others would swim several. I needed to swim no less than two thousand meters, the equivalent of five loops. With my race just a few weeks away, these long-distance swims were critical. A light drizzle fell from the sky as I adjusted my goggles and dove into the water with my group. We started into our freestyle stroke, and I settled into a smooth rhythm for a long swim.

But ten minutes out, all that changed.

Swimming along, I turned my head for a breath and spotted one of our group members struggling. It was the woman who was wearing the black butterfly swim cap. I remembered exchanging smiles with her while we were standing around on the dock. Maybe thirty-something age wise, she was one of the quiet, nervous ones who were trying to blend in. Although, she stuck out in this crowd because of her short and stocky build.

As a precaution, first-timers are typically split up and placed within groups that contain a couple of experienced swimmers. The idea is that support and guidance will be available in the case there’s a problem, but there hardly ever is.

If a situation does arise, however, it’s common for it to happen early in the swim. Difficulties are almost always mental. You get halfway out to the middle of a deep lake, and suddenly, it hits you how insane it is that you ever considered doing something like this. Your chest tightens up, your legs feel like lead, and you realize that there’s no wall to grab on to. This is the moment when the religious person promises God a life of sacrifice and obedience in exchange for getting back to dry land.

Or, something unexpected happens—you swallow a mouthful of lake water, another swimmer runs into you, or you feel labored in your breathing. It’s any person’s guess what happens next. The seasoned swimmer just stops, treads water, or does a gentle side stroke until they regain their composure. But for an already anxious newbie, the occurrence of something unexpected may bring on a severe panic situation. A person could feasibly drown or have a heart attack; it happens.

I power-swam my way over to the woman in distress. Damn! She was having a major mental meltdown. Terrified and panicking, everything she was doing was only making matters worse. Gasping for breath and fighting the water, she yelled, “Help me! Somebody, help me!” I called out to her, but maintained some distance between us because I knew that if she grabbed hold of me she would not let go, and both of us would go under. It seemed that what we had here was a worst-case scenario. For a moment, I thought for sure that butterfly girl was a goner.

There was only one way to get her out of this. As calmly as I could, I instructed her to flip over onto her back and float. (It was to her advantage that she was overweight, and this is probably what saved her life, as fat is less dense than muscle and far more buoyant.) The woman succeeded in flipping over onto her back, and I encouraged her to try to relax as she floated. I slowly moved closer, continuing to talk to her:

“You okay?” (Stupid question!)

“No!”

“Okay, tell me what’s going on.”

“I don’t know! I can’t breathe! I want to go back! Please get me back!”

“What’s your name?”

“Meg!”

“Hi, Meg. I’m Jim. You’re going to be fine, I promise. I’m going to stay right here with you Meg. Just let yourself float and relax here for a minute.”

“Okay, I’ll try.”

This went on for a few minutes and a couple times I placed my hands under her back to help her relax. If all went well, it wouldn’t be long before she’d regain her breath, clear her head, and we’d be on our way again.

While monitoring her closely as she floated, I spotted a stream of tears running down the side of her face from beneath her goggles, “I knew I couldn’t do this,” she said. Her words punctured a deep reservoir of feelings within me, and a flood of emotion rose from the bottom of my gut, up through my throat and face, into my eyes. I did the translation in my head:

“I knew I couldn’t do this.”

= “I am a failure.”

= “I am worthless.”

= “I’ll never measure up.”

= “They were right.”

I could relate to the hurt and shame in her words. If my adult life were to be captured in one of those motivational posters, it would show a picture of my face with a caption that reads:

ADULTHOOD

I knew I couldn’t do this.

As a survivor of an abusive childhood, I found adulthood to be something that I had to make up as I went along. I’d had no male role models in my life. I was clueless about most things that a grown-up man was supposed to know how to do. Basic things, like forming healthy relationships, determining and following a vocational path, managing money, owning a home, or taking care of your car. Heck, I couldn’t even put up window blinds correctly. So many times—as a husband, as a father, or simply as a human being just trying to make it in this world—I’d found myself struggling to survive. Lying flat on my back in bed at night, I’d stare into the ceiling and say to myself, “I knew I couldn’t do this.” Just like Meg had said now.

Even though I felt the pain in her tears and words, luckily, I had the wits to handle Meg’s crisis a little differently.

“I knew I couldn’t do this.”

“You are doing it Meg.”

“What do you mean?”

“We all have to overcome the fear and panic of open water swimming; it’s just part of it. So, today you are doing that.”

“I can’t do this! I want to go back!”

“Yes you can do it Meg, and you know what, we are going to do it together.”

After a few moments of silence, Meg began laughing. “I am such an idiot!” she said.

Now, I think it’s always a good sign when a person passes from the “I’m-going-to-die” state of mind to the “I’m-a-frickin-idiot” place. It is embarrassing, however. I know this, because I’ve been there. You half wish you did drown just to keep from having to face all those people who you’re convinced will now think you are a total loser.

As Meg floated on her back, we chatted on. I told her the story of my disastrous first triathlon when I did something akin to the doggy paddle to survive the swim portion. Between her repeated apologies, I learned that Meg had recently lost fifty-two pounds, and that she’d decided she wanted to do a triathlon after reading about a woman who’d lost 130 pounds and started competing in marathons and triathlons. As she talked, a deep empathy and compassion filled me.

By this time, Meg had regained her composure and was willing to try swimming again. I assured her that finishing this swim was nothing compared to the difficulty of losing fifty-two pounds. Promising to stick by her side, we began swimming together. Twice more, she had to stop and flip over onto her back, and I stopped with her. And when she began veering off course, I steered her back in the right direction. Eventually, Meg found her stroke and finished strong. As planned, I had been in the water for an hour—but had gone no farther than one loop because I’d helped Meg.

Now safely back at the dock, Meg felt relieved that the whole ordeal was over. I assured her that she wasn’t the first (or the last) swimmer who’d experienced something like this. As we talked through what had happened, I maintained that the fact she’d been overtaken by fear and panic wasn’t significant—what was important, I stressed, was that she had pushed through her fears. We chatted a while longer. Giving Meg a big hug, I made her promise that she’d be back the following week.

I was struck by the irony of what had happened with Meg when compared to what had taken place with Scotty Jefferson. On one hand, I’d tried to emulate Jesus in order to heal Scotty, and my efforts had failed; Scotty Jefferson died. On the other hand, choosing to become a triathlete was a Jim-thing. It wasn’t even on the approved list of godly things to do. And yet, that choice to pursue my own desires had put me in the lake that day, next to Meg—which resulted in me saving a life. The rest of our group would most likely have never heard her. I just happened to be close enough to notice that she was having trouble.

When it came to “being Jesus,” it was easy to fall into the habit of equating it with doing certain things and achieving specific outcomes. And honestly, the simplicity of that whole approach had some advantages. You didn’t really have to think for yourself—you just emulated Jesus. But as time went on, I discovered it wasn’t really as easy as all that, that there were more layers to it. If I were ever to have posted a “being Jesus” status on Facebook, it would have read: Being Jesus… it’s complicated.

If you take a look at Jesus’ life—his actions, relationships, beliefs, teachings, way of living—and trace it all back to the heart of the matter, you will find a man who followed his own path. There was hardly anything Jesus did that lined up with religion’s “sacred” list, or satisfied the people’s expectations. Jesus broke the rules. The fact that Jesus followed his own truth and lived in accordance with this truth—despite all the opposition—tells me that Jesus was a centered person. Jesus listened to himself. He trusted his instincts and intuition. He heeded the leadings and leanings that naturally arose within him. Jesus trusted himself, and unto himself he was true.

This whole being Jesus proposition was becoming more and more difficult. Part of me wished to get off the hook by simply focusing on emulating Jesus’ deeds and actions, and by doing so, impact a few lives in some way. But instead, being Jesus was apparently going to require the one thing that I doubted I could ever do—to listen to myself with trust. If I were to truly “be Jesus,” it would mean finding that Jim Palmer who was separate from everyone else’s needs and expectations, and that was a high task. Ever since childhood, I had built my life around pleasing people, making others happy, and sacrificing myself to give others what they wanted. Be true to myself? What self?

I couldn’t believe the way this was going. Could I even do this? For one fleeting moment, I wanted to run back to the comfort and safety of my former Christian life. Things seemed so much more doable then. What was now being required of me felt like an impossible mandate. Could there be no other way? I didn’t want to drink of this cup!

*   *   *

I was standing alert, my hand poised to start the timer on my sports watch. Any moment, the bullhorn would sound and a throng of bodies in red swim caps would plunge into the waters and our triathlon would begin. Normally, during those remaining seconds of feverish anticipation, my mind enters a white-noise zone, absent of all thought. This time, however, a black, butterfly swim cap flashed through my mind. Simultaneously, the bullhorn shrieked and I was stretched out long in the air, dropping like a missile into the water. During those first few moments of total immersion, an adrenalin surge would accelerate my pulse and heart rate. The trick was to remain calm.

Breaking the surface of the water, so much was going on inside and around me. Instead of focusing my mind on every detail and each stroke, I’ve found that it’s better to dissociate myself from it all, to turn my attention to one, single thing. My body knows what to do; it’s my head that gets in the way. So now, I thought of Meg. I saw her floating on her back in tears. She’d made it then, and I’ll make it now. By the time I’d reached the first buoy, I’d settled into a relaxed swim.

I’m not sure if Jesus would have ever been a triathlete, but with each stroke I knew in my heart that I was being Jesus in one of the most profound ways of my life. For I knew that being Jesus means following your own path.

Chapter 7

BEING JESUS MEANS…

REALIZING THERE IS NO PROBLEM

Fifty miles is a long way to run even if you have a support crew, and I didn’t.

While the big questions in life are supposed to be: Who am I? Why am I here? And, Where am I going?—I hadn’t been thinking at all about these things. Preparing for the Ironman, I had only one question on my mind: How far can I run?

At first, I’d thought that long distance running, for me, meant running marathons, and so I’d signed myself up to run in the Country Music Marathon in Nashville. Afterwards, I overheard a few runners discussing a running event called “Badwater.” As soon as I got home I googled the event, and discovered the world of ultramarathons—races that cover distances of fifty or one hundred miles, sometimes even more. I learned that Badwater is not only one of the most prominent ultramarathons, it’s also known as the world’s toughest foot race—covering 135 miles from Death Valley to Mt. Whitney in California. This sounded interesting! As I saw it, I needed to build endurance for the Ironman triathlon anyway, so running some ultramarathons would surely help the cause. Even though I didn’t go for the 135-mile Badwater right off the bat, fifty miles is a long way to run. There is risk involved; bad things can happen while running such a great distance.

My ultramarathon training regime involved running fifteen to twenty miles during the week, and then doing one “long run” on the weekends. That long run got increasingly longer as time went on—12, 18, 22, 28, 35 miles.

Feeling ready, I signed up for my first fifty-mile ultramarathon. A few days before the race, I found out that most of my competitors had a “support crew.” The purpose of the support crew is to monitor the progress and condition of their runner during the race. Crew members are stationed at various checkpoints along the course to provide medical care, food, and electrolyte drinks to the runner, as needed. Unfortunately, by the time I discovered this, it was too late for me to put a team of people together. Oh well, I thought, I like challenges.

For this particular race, I had to cover fifty miles on foot within a twelve-hour time frame. For added motivation, I split the distance up into five ten-mile segments and dedicated each segment to a group of people with whom I shared a special affinity.

The first ten miles I ran on behalf of others, like me, who have Tourette syndrome. I ran miles eleven through twenty as an adult survivor of child abuse, hoping to raise awareness for the six million children who suffer abuse each year. Miles twenty-one through thirty were dedicated to promoting the work of International Justice Mission, a human rights organization that I’d traveled with and wrote about in Divine Nobodies. It was in memory of my friend Miles Levin, a teenage boy who died of cancer, that I ran the fourth ten-mile leg of the race. I dedicated the last ten miles to my daughter Jessica, and told her that I’d be crossing that finish line for her.

We started the race in predawn darkness; the day was cold and windy, with drizzling rainfall. I took advantage of each official aid station, taking in food and electrolytes. After the first fifteen miles, I wasn’t feeling so great, which worried me because I still had a long way to go! (If I’d have been covering a marathon distance of 26.2 miles, I would have run more than halfway already.) Plus, pretty soon I’d be entering unfamiliar territory, as I had never before run farther than thirty-five miles. My hands and feet were starting to swell, my legs and arms were aching, and now and then, I felt a little woo-woo in the head.

At mile thirty, I realized that the challenge was more mental than physical—although that didn’t change the fact that I still had twenty miles left to endure. Then, at mile thirty-five, something clicked inside me and I discovered that I had a whole other gear. A steel-like resolve set in; there was pain, but I shut it out. I wasn’t stopping! I fell twice and scraped up my leg, but kept going. I felt nauseated. The periodic disorientation intensified, but still I pushed forward. Somewhere near mile forty, my physical and mental discomfort shifted. Suddenly, my body began feeling better, stronger even. I threw my original race strategy right out the window and decided that I would attack the last ten miles. Another “me” took charge, and it told my body, “Suck it up. Get your ass in gear. We are going to do this thing!”

Throughout the course of the race, I met people who deeply affected me—like the woman who passed me while running on a prosthetic leg. I offered empathy and encouragement to other runners who were visibly suffering as they tried to survive until they reached the finish line.

When I hit mile forty-two, my friend Gabe popped up to run the last eight miles with me. My friends Rick and Heather Harris, along with their son Josh, appeared at mile forty-eight to help cheer me on to the finish line. I didn’t need much coaxing. Picking up the pace at around mile mark forty-seven, I never looked back. I didn’t crawl across that finish line—I sprinted across it. Victory!

Wow! What had happened to me? After finishing the race, I felt as if I could have run at least another ten miles. Maybe I had missed my calling. People might be accusing me of no longer being Christian, but I had apparently found a new religion—running! I knew just how Forrest Gump felt when he said, “Now you wouldn't believe me if I told you, but I could run like the wind blows. From that day on, if I was ever going somewhere, I was running!”

And so I ran, and ran, and ran some more, and just kept right on running.

The following week, I was asked to speak at a Barnes & Noble Writers’ Group meeting in Nashville. After the meeting, I wandered over to the sports books section, hoping to find something on ultramarathon training. Having decided to get serious about all this, I knew it was time for a more comprehensive training strategy and a sound nutrition plan. Browsing through the books, one title jumped out at me: Born to Run. The title alone seemed to express how I felt—like I was supposed to run. The subtitle read, A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. Wow! I purchased the book and began reading it that night. What a story! I could hardly put it down.

The book’s author, Christopher McDougall, is a journalist and former war correspondent for the Associated Press who became fed up with recurring foot injuries as a result of jogging. Despite seeing some of the best sports doctors, McDougalls’s problems persisted. Eventually, he was told that the only solution was to stop running.

While on assignment in Mexico, McDougall was intrigued by the cover of a magazine that showed an elderly man in a robe and sandals, sprinting down a mountain of rubble. Curious, he turned to the featured article, and learned of the reclusive Tarahumara Indians of Mexico’s deadly Copper Canyons. Turns out that for centuries, the Tarahumara have been known for running hundreds of miles without rest—and more important to McDougall—without injury. What was their secret?

In search of an answer, McDougall located the Tarahumara tribe and began studying their running techniques. In the process, he discovered that everything he thought he knew about running was wrong. He learned that these people ran distances of one hundred miles and longer in sandals or barefoot. No running shoes? How was this possible? It was common knowledge that running shoes are necessary to protect the foot and legs while running.

McDougall began digging into sports medicine research and was shocked by what he found. He cites this research in Born to Run, which includes the work of Dr. Daniel Lieberman, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard University. Lieberman states,

“A lot of foot and knee injuries that are currently plaguing us are caused by people running with shoes that actually make our feet weak, cause us to over-pronate, giving us knee problems. Until 1972, when the modern athletic shoe was invented by Nike, people ran in very thin-soled shoes, had strong feet, and had much lower incidence of knee injuries.”[4]

In his book, McDougall also mentions several other studies that support this thinking. Research conducted by the British Journal of Sports Medicine found no evidence demonstrating that running shoes made runners less prone to injury. According to a study led by preventative medicine specialist Bernard Marti, MD, runners wearing top of the line shoes are 123 percent more likely to get injured than runners wearing cheap shoes. Additionally, a 1991 report in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise found that, “Wearers of expensive running shoes that are promoted as having additional features that protect, are injured significantly more frequently than runners wearing inexpensive shoes.”[5]

McDougall was dumbfounded by what he’d uncovered. A weakening of the foot as a result of wearing running shoes was the greatest cause of running injuries. It all fell into place. The running shoe industry had essentially created and exploited a problem that had never truly existed. Our feet didn’t require any extra support to run long distances effectively and without injury. The invention of the modern running shoe had, in effect, caused the problem it purported to be fixing. Running shoes weakened the foot by interfering with its natural mobility and strength. Luckily for the feet of the Tarahumara Indians, they’d remained unscathed by the running shoe myth.

McDougall realized that human beings were naturally designed to run without shoes—in other words—we were “born to run.”

Born to Run sparked a barefoot running movement. The footwear company Vibram designed FiveFingers, a protective “skin” made from thin, flexible rubber that pulls onto the foot (like a glove) for barefoot running. The explanation on Vibram’s website reads,

“The typical human foot is an anatomical marvel of evolution with 26 bones, 33 joints, 20 muscles, and hundreds of sensory receptors, tendons and ligaments. Like the rest of the body, to keep our feet healthy, they need to be stimulated and exercised. That’s why we recommend wearing FiveFingers for exercise, play, and for fun. Stimulating the muscles in your feet and lower legs will not only make you stronger and healthier, it improves your balance, agility and proprioception.”

Vibram’s FiveFingers footwear started selling like hotcakes as people such as independent athlete Barefoot Ted McDonald started blogging about their adventures running barefoot in marathons and ultramarathons. I decided to test McDougall’s theory for myself.

Given McDougall’s findings, I knew my feet would be weak from wearing running shoes for so many years. So, I began by jogging barefoot for short distances in a field near my home. I was amazed by how good it felt to run shoeless through the grass. I probably hadn’t done this since I was a young boy. The cool grass beneath my feet, the way the contour of the ground seemed to massage my feet as I ran—wow, this barefoot running thing definitely had some potential!

One evening, while running barefoot through that field, I got to thinking about how bizarre it was that something as unquestioned as the need for running shoes could prove to be false. Go figure! Then, I came up with an idea that I called “McDougall’s Law”: Reverse any premise of groupthink to find the truth. When I started my journey of shedding religion, I had quickly realized that whenever I had trouble getting closer to God, it was often my unquestioned religious beliefs—the ones that were supposed to be helping me cultivate an intimate relationship with God—that ended up being the root of the problem. I recalled several more examples of how McDougall’s Law had applied to the last several years of my spiritual journey.

For instance, religion told me to mistrust my feelings. Reversing that belief, I began paying attention to, trusting, and following my feelings—which proved to be one of the most significant steps I took over the course of my journey. Religious logic said that God speaks only through the Bible. So, I adopted the opposite approach and listened for God’s voice in all of life as it unfolded around me. For years, I had never questioned the notion that “church” was something that happened at a certain location, with certain people, and involved certain activities. I turned this concept upside down and redefined church (for myself) as something that happened everywhere, all the time, with everybody. Like McDougall’s discovery about running shoes, so many things I’d assumed or had been told about God didn’t add up.

As I was running across that grassy field, the thought popped into my mind that McDougall’s Law might apply to my being Jesus dilemma as well. I began comparing what McDougall had learned about running with what I had learned (so far) about being Jesus.

McDougall had a dilemma: He repeatedly injured himself while running. I had a dilemma: I was repeatedly getting frustrated while trying to be Jesus.

Whenever I consciously tried to be Jesus by emulating what I imagined he might do, the acts seemed artificial and manufactured. I felt as though I were an actor in a performance—reading from a script, playing the part of someone I wasn’t. (Even if I did win the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, the name on my birth certificate would still read James Patrick Palmer, not Jesus.) Jesus of Nazareth was a historical person who lived two thousand years ago. Truth is, I was never going to “be Jesus” any more than I could be President Obama, Kobe Bryant, my next-door neighbor Steven—or any person other than myself.

Ever since embarking on this journey of being Jesus in Nashville, I’d felt almost as if I were suffering from some multiple personality disorder. Coexisting in one body there was Jim, the author/guru of Jim Palmer, Inc.; Jim, the man who was following his own path by doing triathlons and ultramarathons; and Jim, the guy who was trying to be Jesus in Nashville. Wow! United States of Tara Jim? No wonder the whole thing felt confusing.

Bombarded with marketing ploys and edicts, McDougall had assumed that running shoes were necessary because his feet were not capable of running on their own. Similarly, my conditioned assumption was that stepping into the identity of Jesus was necessary to make myself acceptable to God because I failed to meet God’s standard on my own.

I had been taught that I was a “sinner.” And even as a “sinner saved by grace,” at the most fundamental level, I was still a sinner—or to put it simply, like the hymn Amazing Grace says, a “wretch.” Religion taught me that I needed to be saved from myself, and in effect, reinforced how much of a wretch I truly was. According to the Christian gospel I had once believed, my sinful condition is what nailed Jesus to the cross to suffer the wrath of God—a punishment that I deserved. Because Jesus was sinless, he was the only sacrifice God could accept to atone for my sin.

Despite this atonement, God could only accept me by seeing Jesus in my place. I might be forgiven, but I was still unacceptable to God apart from Jesus, so he looked straight through me and saw Jesus instead. This point was emphatically made by a Christian friend of mine who explained it this way, “I am a piece of shit without Jesus. If you take Jesus out of me, I am nothing.”

In a nutshell, the Christian gospel goes something like this: You are not worthy to be loved, but God loves you anyway. Isn’t that nice of him? You are worthless, but he'll take you even though you’re just a pile of shit because of Jesus. The whole WWJD idea fit into this mentality perfectly; since you were worthless on your own, the more you could be like Jesus the better, and the more acceptable you would be to God.

McDougall’s big Aha-moment came in realizing that the entire running shoe industry had been built upon a false premise. Running shoes didn’t abate the limitations of the human foot—the foot had had no such limitations in the first place! Over the course of my research, I’d discovered that I was born with the innate potential to be a human expression of God. I was created in God’s image, God’s being was the source of my being, and I shared in the same divine ancestry as Jesus, which is why he called me “brother.” The deepest, most defining dimension of my true identity is that I am one with God. I’d been born with this identity intact, and there is nothing I can do to diminish this fact of who I am. So, why was it that I needed fixing?

The irony McDougall uncovered was that the solution had actually become the problem. In reality, the modern running shoe only served to atrophy the natural capabilities of the foot. Furthermore, the running shoe had become a crutch—a quick, easy, and convenient way of enabling oneself to run without having to do the work of developing the innate potential that the foot already possessed. This manufactured dependency has really paid off for the running shoe industry—running shoes are expensive!

I could see the connection right away. Religion, like the running shoe, was also offered as a solution to a problem that never existed, and consequently, became the problem itself. Religion had atrophied the spiritual capabilities I was naturally born with. My dependency upon religion had siphoned off the energy I could have used to develop that divine seed of potential within me.

The Vibram website explains how the human foot’s bones, joints, muscles, sensory receptors, tendons, and ligaments need to be stimulated and exercised to be healthy. I wondered what kinds of dormant spiritual joints, muscles, tendons, and ligaments were inside me, and whether they might need to be exercised and developed in order for me to reach my full potential as a human being.

I’d been satisfied with the biblical and historical evidence that led me to the conclusion that there was nothing truly separating Jesus and me, and that we both were born to be divine and human. But, standing barefoot in that grassy field and pondering all this in terms of McDougall’s findings, I was brought to a rather unsettling conclusion. Ultimately, McDougall discovered that there was nothing wrong with the human foot. Similarly, I had discovered that there was nothing wrong with me.

There is nothing wrong with me?

What a halting thought. Really? Almost everything about my life leading up to this moment provided evidence that there was plenty wrong with me. From day one, this had been the message of my entire life.

Having discovered at a young age that I’d been an “accident,” I often felt as though I shouldn’t be here at all. Being an unwanted child got things off to a bad start, and the case against me continued throughout my youth as I failed to make my alcoholic mother happy. If the walls of my childhood home could speak, they would tell the painful story of a woman drowning in the depths of despair and a little boy who hated himself for failing to rescue her. I sacrificed every part of myself on the altar of my mother’s depression, but as you know, it was not enough; I was not enough.

Neither was I enough to warrant my father’s notice or involvement in my life. I cannot remember ever having a meaningful conversation with my dad. We didn’t fish together, go to baseball games together, or work on cars together. It wounded me deeply that my father was patently uninterested in me. It made me feel ugly, stupid, and worthless. When I was in fifth grade, my father left us. When he moved away, he and I lost what little connection we had. To this day we’ve never regained it.

The closer I came to adulthood, the more I doubted myself. After getting married and graduating from college, my first wife and I moved to Chicago where I went to seminary and later became a pastor. With ten years of marriage and a successful church ministry under my belt, life came crashing down around me when I discovered that she was having an affair. We divorced and I resigned my position. I had to walk away from the two things that had become the foundation of my life and identity—my marriage and my ministry. This was the beginning of what ultimately became the end of my involvement in organized Christianity and institutional church.

As life went on, I lost my sense of belonging. What does an ex-pastor with a speech communication and seminary degree do? As I was shedding religion and trying to find my way, fewer and fewer people seemed to understand where I was coming from, which left me feeling misunderstood most of the time. Muddling through the process of finding myself, I was turning out to be quite an eccentric character who was full of contradictions. I didn’t even understand me!

The world was a round hole, and I was a square peg. There always seemed to be something about me that was a little off or different from everyone else. Beyond the labels of “human” and “male,” nothing much seemed to fit. To me, life was all shades of grey, never black and white, and I could rarely wrap my life experiences up in the tidy theological or philosophical theories and explanations that I heard repeatedly. My internal realm was often messy, and I wondered if there was anybody else in the world who felt the way I did.

For most of my life, I have seen myself as a misfit and felt that something was not right about me. I have not liked or accepted who I am, and have often mistrusted my thoughts, feelings, and intuition. Other people seemed to be able to maintain a baseline of sanity and stability that I struggled to find each day. I have walked through much of my life apologizing either directly or indirectly for who I am. Religion drove the final nail in the coffin of my self-rejection when I learned that God saw me as an “abomination” and “filthy rag” who deserved eternal torment—and that my wretchedness required the blood and death of his only Son to remedy it.

After all this conditioning, despite the strong evidence I’d discovered pointing to my identity as a genuine human expression of God, I was still fighting forty-something years of believing that I was incurably flawed and defective. Yes, the idea that there was nothing wrong with me made sense theoretically, but it was hard to accept unconditionally. For the next few moments, I contemplated what it would look like to apply McDougall’s Law and reverse all the toxic messages of shame I’d received—myths I’d come to believe about myself through the years. Well, it would go something like this:

There is nothing wrong with me.

I am good.

I am a beautiful person.

I am a capable person.

I am enough.

I am whole.

I have a right to be here.

I have a right to be myself.

I can trust myself.

Ahem, seriously? Just listing these self-affirmations felt awkward, let alone attempting to believe any of them. I just couldn’t wrap my mind around it. Sure, they sounded great—but how could they be true? How could I believe this? No list of feel-good statements could change the fact that I was anything but perfect. I was familiar with the whole “I’m OK, You’re OK” concept (and I admit that there’s some comfort to be found in the idea that all of us are equally screwed up) but, the idea that there is nothing wrong with me didn’t compute. I made mistakes. I had made my share of bad choices and chalked up numerous failures in life. There were still unhealed wounds and broken parts inside me. However long that feel-good list of affirmations may be, there were still all kinds of things wrong with me.

I had come upon a discovery that I didn’t know quite what to do with, and I didn’t have time to figure it out. I was in the midst of conducting an experiment and writing a book about being Jesus! My personal issues around self-acceptance and self-worth were going to have to wait; I could deal with them at some later point—after finishing the book.

Somehow, being Jesus had turned the spotlight back on me and I was finding this to be very uncomfortable. It was time to shift my focus back to others. After all, it was Jesus who said, “I did not come to be served but to serve.” Phew!

It was time to move on.

Chapter 8

BEING JESUS MEANS…

LIVING AS EVERYONE’S NEIGHBOR

I had high hopes that shifting the focus away from myself to others would make being Jesus more doable.

Not exactly.

While on one hand, I was having difficulty accepting that there was nothing wrong with me, on the other hand, my Christian brethren were unlikely to be too keen on the idea that there was nothing wrong with anyone else. The whole idea, as simple as it seemed, stood in direct opposition to the “Christianity” I had learned which asserts that there is something very wrong with all of us, and that this something needs to be fixed. As a pastor, the “gospel” I had proclaimed to the world went something like this,

You are okay only if and when you…

… Confess you are a sinner.

… Accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

… Have correct theology.

… Are a devoted church member.

During my “shedding religion” phase, what struck me as odd about this gospel was that it didn’t seem to line up with the gospel that Jesus lived. The accounts of Jesus’ life depict his offering of acceptance to others unconditionally—without ifs and whens. As is true of anyone, the people of Jesus’ day had their issues and problems, and Jesus did not shy away from addressing these. But, there was also no litmus test by which Jesus determined his relationships. This created a great divide between the religious establishment and Jesus, who came under fire for cultivating friendships with people who were notoriously known as sinners.

As far as being Jesus in Nashville, it would have been much easier going for me if the backdrop of my life had changed and circumstances had wheeled in drug addicts, prostitutes, transvestites, and felons. I would have at least bought some time, maybe even admiration, from the Christian crowd by “accepting” these “lost” types—as long as I held the intention of converting them.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get drug addicts and criminals; I got people of different religions!

I am a great fan of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan, and I particularly like his film The Village. The story takes place around the turn of the twentieth century and is centered on a small village of people who live their lives in fear of nameless creatures said to roam the woods beyond the village. The inhabitants have surrounded themselves with a barrier of oil lanterns and manned watchtowers, hoping to keep watch for and stave off “Those We Don’t Speak Of.” Early on in the film, we learn that the villagers uphold a long-standing truce with the monsters, and so as long as they did not go into the woods, the creatures did not enter their village. Ultimately, we discover (spoiler alert!) that these “monsters” are nothing more than a device created by the village elders to scare the children in an attempt to keep them from leaving the village, and thereby maintain seclusion from the outside world.

In a striking way, my Christianity was much like the village in Shyamalan’s tale—a form of isolationism. My fellow Christians and I erected walls around us and lived with an unquestioned mistrust of the creatures beyond—namely, people of different religious beliefs. The agreement we upheld was the same as well: we did not go into their woods and they stayed out of our village.

Jesus said that the greatest commandments were to love God and to “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:37–39). Keeping within the boundaries of our village, all our neighbors were other Christians. Whether my friendships evolved by way of church activities, men’s groups, or were personal, the foundation of these relationships was always Christianity (and the subsequent worldviews that were attached to it). As “neighbors,” we prayed for one another, held each other accountable to Christian practices and behavior, discussed the Bible, served together at church, and fought our common enemy—the rest of the world! In my particular village of Christianity, appearances meant everything, and relationships rarely went very deep. As a rule, albeit unspoken, we steered clear of the abyss of authenticity and vulnerability.

Now, supposing that there truly is nothing fundamentally wrong with me by virtue of being born into this world one with God, and supposing it is true that both Jesus and I are part of the same divine human family, if we apply this notion to everybody else, then it would mean that there is really only one village. And if there is only one village, it means that all people are part of it, and that I am everyone’s neighbor.

Everyone’s neighbor?

What did that look like? Up until this point, Jesus had been the glue that had held my relationships together. I wasn’t quite sure what it would look like if Jesus were no longer in the equation.

As the distance grew between my life and institutional Christendom, my relational world began to shift. I found myself connecting with more and more people who would have never popped up in my homogeneous, Christian subculture. The labels I’d learned to put on people just didn’t fly in the real world. Come to think of it, they didn’t ever truly fly for me either, which might explain why I’d felt like such a misfit in most Christian circles.

Maybe I wasn’t so strange after all.

Increasingly, I came across others who were a lot like me—full of contradictions. When it came to the “God” department, I discovered people who were interested in spirituality, not religion; truth, not doctrine; wholeness, not holiness; and connection, not church. Perhaps most fascinating of all were those I encountered who were interested in Christ—not Christianity.

One morning, I received an email with a subject line that read, “A simple email from a Jewish guy who loves Jesus.” This was a mind bender. Jewish… Jesus? Here’s what he had to say:

Dear Jim,

Thank you! I can’t tell you what a gift Divine Nobodies is to me. I discovered your blog a few days ago and immediately felt that I’d found a friend in spirit. I’m a thirty-one-year-old Jewish guy with OCD who lives with his wife and two kids in a senior citizen home in Metro Detroit. Jim, I never thought that at thirty-one I’d be living with a hundred seniors, waking up, running to their apartments in the middle of the night when they have acid reflux. Standing by when paramedics remove a beloved neighbor.

The vignette of your abusive childhood in your Introduction was such a frightening echo of my own childhood. I shuddered my way through it as I remembered my mom hiding grain alcohol in toilet tanks, driving her to detox without any clothes on, calling the police on my own family, and those tender areas too sore for me to get to. There is so much I’ve read already that resonates with me.

My wife and I cannot find a synagogue where we feel at home. I think that this guy Jesus is the deepest, simplest, wisest, most radical, most tender teacher in the Jewish tradition, but it turns out that most rabbis don’t feel the same way. I love Jesus, Jim. My most constant prayer is trying to bring the name Yeshua to mind as often as I can remember in a day. This is a bit hard to talk about with other Jews, you know?

Jim, if your hand of friendship is extended to the wayward Christian feeling that the religion business is a bit too stuffy and legalistic, how would you feel about a doofy Jewish misfit grabbing that hand all the way from the outskirts of Detroit? How special to have found you!

Warmly,

Joe Braunstein

I extended that hand of friendship to Joe, and many others like him. I started dabbling outside my Christian village on Facebook. Since I’m generally known as a “Christian author,” there are usually Bible verses of encouragement posted on my wall by Facebook friends who are Christian. Every now and then, I send a Facebook friend request to someone of a different religion, or an Atheist, or an Agnostic. In many cases, I have to reassure these folks that my Facebook wall plastered with Christianity does not mean that I have the agendum of trying to convert them.

In one particular instance, after I’d explained that I genuinely wanted to connect with people who’ve taken a different path with respect to God and spiritual matters, the person with whom I was interacting suggested that I consider checking out a Unitarian Universalist church in my area.

Uh-oh! Not the “U” word!

In my former Christian life, getting near anyone or anything that could even remotely be described by the word “Universalist” was a sure sign that you were losing your salvation, or probably already had.

Even so, the suggestion resonated. Without telling anyone what I was doing, I altered my appearance and secretly attended a service at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville. I could never announce something like this on my Facebook wall. First off, it would have been a major blow to those who had left organized church and had found an advocate in me, the alternative church rebel. Secondly, my attending a Universalist church would have dismayed those readers who counted on me always being Christian. I could only imagine their reactions! “Jim did what? He went to church? A Universalist church?” See why I kept quiet?

I wasn’t sure what might happen the first time I attended the First Unitarian Universalist service, but I was prepared for anything—to be locked in and forced at gunpoint to renounce Jesus, to be handed a little cup of Kool Aid that I was supposed to drink with others in unison, to be subjected to hypnosis and brainwashing that left me believing in unicorns, astrology, and fairies. Surprisingly, none of these things occurred. Instead, I had one of the most profound and beautiful shared spiritual experiences of my life.

The charming stone building, a Frank Lloyd Wright design, evoked feelings of warmth and community, and the art on the walls inside brought the space alive with creativity, originality, and imagination. In addition to the natural stone, the main sanctuary featured large glass windows that offered a view of a wooded area and meditation garden which kindled a sense of peace and grounding inside me.

Seated and awaiting the start of the service, I browsed through some brochures about Unitarian Universalism (UU) that I had picked up from the information table. I was struck by the focus of many of the UU principles as soon as I started reading.

The inherent worth and dignity of every person…

Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations…

Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth…

As I read on, I recognized many of the congregation values as things that were also important to me.

Seeing each other and being seen, listening to each other and being listened to.

Agreeing to be open to the differences of belief and values that we hold individually.

Learning to build ever-deepening connections with individuals and the community.

Inviting each other’s potential into the light, in an atmosphere of encouragement and love.

Having spent many years as a professional minister, I’ve seen more than my share of religious judgment, hypocrisy, division, conflict, and hatred. Far too often, religion brings out the worst in people. I had nearly given up on the possibility that organized religion of any kind could be helpful. As I sat through that UU service, however, my faith was restored by the ability of a religious community to inspire belief in the goodness of people, the power of love, the beauty of life, and to be instruments of peace, compassion, and justice in this world.

In the weeks that followed, I attended a couple of midweek activities and signed up to participate in “Dinners for Nine,” which involved having dinner with others from the church, rotating the location so that we’d dine in each person’s home. In my experience, the information in the brochures proved to be true. I found acceptance, love, encouragement, openness, and the desire to grow spiritually among the people I got to know.

The minister of the UU congregation held a master of divinity degree from Harvard Divinity School. Her talks provoked deep and serious thought as she wove together a diversity of views on a variety of interesting and relevant topics. What I appreciated most about her was how she pressed into the reality of an issue—addressing the nuances, complexities, and difficulties beneath the surface. In the end, her message always came down to taking some form of action in our relationships—with ourselves, family members, each other, neighborhood, city, and the world.

One Wednesday evening, there was a lecture about Hinduism taking place at the UU church that was being given by a woman from a nearby Hindu temple. I had no idea; it was captivating. The more I got to know people of different religious traditions and spiritual beliefs, the more I was stretched and challenged to grow in new dimensions. I never felt like these connections discouraged or diminished my relationship with Jesus. Instead, they seemed to broaden Jesus’ significance in my life, expanding our relationship in new and different ways. I found it fascinating to learn what Jesus meant to others who came from other religious traditions.

The new connections and friendships I was forming greatly enriched my life. And though the exposure to new views of God contributed to this growth, what I gained most came through opening myself to truly see and be seen by others. People are a world unto themselves. Each and every person has a story to tell—a story filled with dreams, wounds, hopes, desires, suffering, and transformation. I discovered that there is always a gift for me in another person’s journey.

I’m not sure if Jesus would have called himself a Universalist, but he freely offered acceptance, love, empathy, compassion, and friendship to all people without discrimination. As I was reading through the UU principles in church that first Sunday, the initial thing that popped into my mind was how well they described Jesus—and how he was the same Jesus that I knew him to be.

Around this time, but a little closer to home, I was asked to serve on the board of our neighborhood homeowner association. That’s where I met Mike Willis, for he was the president of the board at the time. We immediately hit it off.

To me, Mike was like Will Hunting from the film Good Will Hunting—an unsuspecting, nobody kind of a guy who turns out to be a genius. Mike never finished high school, did odd jobs to scrape by, and spent the balance of his time playing video games in his apartment. He particularly liked flight simulator games, but was never satisfied with their quality. So, Mike decided that he would build his own flight simulator game. A pilot acquaintance who was living in the same apartment complex as Mike discovered the simulator and—like those rags to riches stories—Mike became one of the most sought-after designers of pilot training programs. Soon, every major airline wanted Mike to design the program to train their pilots.

There wasn’t anything that Mike couldn’t do, which was great because this meant I had a friend to call when my garbage disposal went out, computer was on the blink, a bike repair was needed, or in the case that I couldn’t figure out the functions on my complex sports watch. I’m serious. Mike collected rare wristwatches and liked to take them apart and then put them back together, just for fun. Pursuing another one of his interests, Mike had installed and currently operated a fully functional weather station that eventually became an official National Weather Service station.

Aside from all this, around the time I met him, Mike had made a decision to focus on improving his physical health and had started walking regularly in the neighborhood. I would find out what time he was walking, and then get my miles in running beforehand so I could join him. When the weather was bad, we would often grab a cup of coffee at the nearby Panera or Starbucks instead.

Mike and I slowly became better friends. One day, he shared that he had picked up through the neighborhood grapevine that I was a Christian pastor. He frankly admitted that based on his previous experience, this did not bode well in his mind and put a damper on the chance of us ever having a close friendship. Mike was fairly guarded about revealing anything about his spiritual journey initially, but the more I shared about my own path, the more comfortable he became with sharing his.

Mike explained that he had gone through a period of his life when he earnestly explored every religion, intently seeking to know truth. He had studied Buddhism in-depth, and after putting Buddhism’s core teachings to the test, had found them to be true and liberating. I didn’t know much about Buddhism and had never been friends with anyone else who knew much about Buddhism either.

It turned out that Mike wasn’t fond of labels. He did not refer to himself as a “Buddhist,” and felt that Buddhism was as vulnerable to limitations as any organized religion. I learned from Mike that even Buddhism, which is often characterized as being more spiritual when compared to western religions, can just as easily be turned into a rigid system of beliefs and practices that only bear a pale resemblance to the message of the founder—in this case, Buddha.

Despite his bad experiences with Christians (and Buddhist leanings), Mike held Jesus in very high regard, which surprised me. I was more familiar with the idea that you had to pick one or the other—that you couldn’t believe in Buddha and Jesus. Mike didn’t hold any defined, doctrinal position about Jesus and was even a little sketchy on some of the historical details of his life, but Mike esteemed Jesus as a profoundly enlightened spiritual leader. Once Mike was satisfied that I had no hidden agenda to convert him, he asked lots of questions about Jesus. It wasn’t long before our spiritual conversations took front and center in our friendship. Soon, we were meeting regularly for coffee. I continued to learn more about Buddha from Mike, just as Mike learned more about Jesus from me.

For Mike, the significance of Jesus had more to do with the truth that he had pointed to, rather than Jesus himself. Mike referred to Jesus as “a finger pointing to the moon”—Jesus being the pointer, truth being the moon.

The word “truth” was used frequently by Mike, which was a little different for me. With Christians, spiritual conversations were built upon words like “God,” “Jesus,” “Bible,” and “church”—words that were more concrete than the term “truth.” The question, “What is truth?” was considered to be one of those “philosophical mumbo jumbo” questions. Jesus said, “I am the truth,” and that was all one needed to know. What is truth? Jesus. What is Jesus? Truth. End of discussion.

While this all sounded good and very Christian, I often wondered what it actually meant. When Jesus said, “I am the truth,” to what truth was he referring precisely? Thinking about this in Mike’s terms, if Jesus was the pointer, then what was the moon?

As mumbo jumbo as it might be to some, Pilate sought an answer to the question, “What is truth?” I thought about the account in the Gospel of John where Pilate asks Jesus this question. Immediately, I identified Pilate’s big mistake—he didn’t wait for the answer! According to the text, Pilate asked the question, but then quickly left to address the crowds who wanted Jesus crucified. I wasn’t about to commit that blunder!

Oddly enough, Mike’s view of Jesus was confirmation that I was on the right track and getting closer to finding the answer. Christianity seemed to have stopped short when it built a religion around the “pointer,” and the WWJD question from In His Steps seemed to get people no further than their continued attempts to emulate the life of Jesus of Nazareth. I had learned that trying to emulate Jesus leads only to frustration. Maybe the answer was in the “moon”—not Jesus the person, but the truth to which Jesus was pointing.

I didn’t miss the irony that the confirmation of being on the right track concerning my question about Jesus came by way of a man who followed Buddha. Great. I was pretty sure that this wasn’t going to go over so well with some of my Christian reading audience.

As the days rolled on, Mike and I became the best of friends. His wife, Susi, and I also became close. Living in the same neighborhood, Mike and I would see each other nearly every day, often more than once. On days we weren’t walking or meeting for coffee, I’d stop by his house and we would pull a couple chairs out into his driveway and just sit there and talk.

Mike was a very kind and giving man—one of those people who were forever helping somebody with something. Mike had the unfortunate luck of being both a compassionate and a skilled person. Whether it was by fixing someone’s computer, installing a new mantle in a neighbor’s outdoor gas lantern, or fetching someone’s cat out of a tree, Mike performed good deeds for others constantly and happily, asking for nothing in return.

Never before had I had a friend like Mike, and I grew to trust him implicitly. There wasn’t anything I felt I could not share with Mike, and my life became an open book to him. Mike freely and liberally gave me what I most desired and needed in life—unconditional acceptance. There was no Jim Palmer, Inc. in Mike’s mind; he had not even read my books. It was of no concern to him what I did or didn’t believe about spiritual things. Mike had no desire to convert me to Buddhism and would have accepted me just the same had I been an Atheist. The more I let Mike into the complexities, contradictions, and neuroses of Jim Palmer, the more he seemed to like me. I kept waiting to find some condition or limit to his acceptance, but I found none.

In many ways, Mike and I were polar opposites. He was an introvert; I was an extrovert. He was analytical; I was emotional. His truth came through Buddha; my truth came through Jesus. He was a gamer; I was a runner. He listened to classic rock; I listened to indie. He took watches apart and rebuilt them for fun; I couldn’t set the date and time on my watch if my life depended upon it. And yet, I accepted, liked, and enjoyed Mike for who he was, and had no desire to change anything about him. His Buddha and my Jesus posed no threat to the other, and we both learned invaluable things from one another. Although I had told Marlon in the post office that day that I loved him, I came to love Mike in a way that I had never loved a man before. I truly saw him and he saw me, and we cared for each other deeply.

As I pondered what it meant to be “everyone’s neighbor,” Mike came to mind. Mike was literally my neighbor in a geographical sense, but more pointedly, he was a neighbor as in the Good Samaritan, a man who liberally gave of himself to aid others. Unfortunately, the book my publisher was expecting wasn’t about being Mike, it was about being Jesus. I wondered what it might mean to be that neighbor, and if I were truly capable of doing everything that Jesus did.

The thought of performing miracles came back to mind. Jesus healed the sick, calmed storms, fed thousands of hungry people, and turned water into wine. These were the kinds of things that had come to mind the night that I’d considered what Jesus might have done had he been on the corner of Second and Broadway in Nashville. And I admit, it would be great to be able to perform drive-by miracles, to remove a girl’s birthmark, to heal a man’s cancer, to put a large sum of money in a homeless man’s pocket, to give a childless woman a son or daughter… Who wouldn’t want wonder-working magic in their back pocket, or special powers they could use at will when needed?

But then, I took a moment and reimagined that downtown Nashville scenario a different way. On that night months ago, when the pedestrian light turned green and those two masses of people began crossing, what would it have meant if I had simply stepped off the curb and onto the street with the intent of being a neighbor to each one of those people coming towards me? Without respect to race, religion, age, history, sexual preference, political party, or any other condition, what if I had been determined to be a neighbor to each and every person?

Even if I had removed the girl’s birthmark, healed the man’s cancer, resourced the homeless man, and given the woman a child, the basic fact of human existence would have remained unchanged. We are all faced with physical imperfections and life circumstances that are subject to change. One day, each of us will die by disease or some other hand, and none of us will have escaped our human journey without an unfulfilled longing, a wound, or suffering. That’s just the way it is and always will be. There is a frightening impermanence woven into the mosaic of human existence. The only thing we can know for sure is that whatever it is (our relationships, health, finances, job) it will change, and there’s no escaping that reality at the core of our journey.

Every human being on this planet has layers. Gender, race, ethnicity, personality, scripts, roles, religion, politics, education, net worth, achievements, appearance, wounds, imperfections, brokenness, patterns of thinking and behaving… But, once you peel back these layers, at the core of every one of us is a human being who desires to be seen and wants love, acceptance, understanding, compassion, empathy, and validation. No matter how bad life gets, if these essential needs are fulfilled, there is a basis for moving forward and living another day. I could see how this was the secret to Jesus’ ministry—he freely, liberally, and unconditionally gave what people needed and desired most. It was the miracle that changed and transformed people’s lives.

For all the people Jesus healed, there were an endless number of people he did not. Even those he did heal eventually grew sick and died. When I went back and reread the gospels, I began to see these miraculous acts of Jesus from a different perspective.

As I studied each account, what became increasingly evident was that Jesus performed these miracles as an expression of love, acceptance, and validation. In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus physically touched the leper when he healed him because human touch was the expression of love, acceptance, and validation that the leper needed most (Mark 1:36–45). In John’s Gospel, Jesus came upon many disabled people, but the only person he actually healed was an elderly man who had long been written off and left to die because he had languished in his condition for so many years (John 5:1–18). Was he even worth healing with so little life left? The text says that of all those who were gathered together, Jesus “saw him.” This man’s most basic need was to be seen—to know he had not been forgotten, to understand and feel his worth through receiving the love and compassion of Jesus—and when it was fulfilled, his disability was healed.

Pattie and Brian came to mind, as did the friendships that I had developed through my involvement at the homeless shelter. Being a “neighbor” involved more than providing a meal and a bed. I remembered how Pattie had said that one of the greatest needs and desires among people who are homeless was simple friendship—to stand on equal footing with another human being with whom they could share mutual love, acceptance, respect, support, and connection. I remembered her explaining how organizations, agencies, and churches often did a good job of providing temporary assistance in areas such as shelter and food, but how the more essential need for authentic friendship remained unmet. Pattie had on occasion spent her last two dollars at Panera to buy my coffee because she wanted a friend, not a handout.

In many ways, being Jesus was a simple life. It didn’t require me to determine who I would or wouldn’t connect with. There was only one village and every human being was part of it. Living as everyone’s neighbor came down to being a true friend by giving others what they desired most—love, acceptance, empathy, support, and encouragement. It did require getting to know people, but each time I met someone it was like discovering a whole new world, and there was so much to learn and gain from exploring it.

Being Jesus wasn’t merely about what I gave, but also what I received in return.

Chapter 9

BEING JESUS MEANS…

ACCEPTING HELP FROM OTHERS

Maybe it was my lucky orange running shorts, or maybe it was an angel named Gabe, but I had only ten minutes left to live, and there was nothing I could do to save myself. The game clock of my life read 00:10:00. Ticktock, ticktock, ticktock—time was quickly running out. Although I had known that tackling my first trail marathon would be a fight to the finish, I had not expected it to be a fight for my life.

After months of preparation, my friend and running partner, Gabe, and I went to run the Rock/Creek Scenic City Trail Marathon on Raccoon Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Running a marathon on a trail is totally different from running on pavement. We were both running this race in preparation for our ultimate goal of running a fifty-mile trail ultramarathon that was scheduled for six months later on the same mountain. The Rock/Creek trail marathon would be a good test of our fitness, and running the course would familiarize us with the terrain that we would be facing next time around.

We left Nashville around 3:00 a.m. on that Saturday morning to make the three-hour drive to Chattanooga. The race started promptly at 8:00 a.m. The day was overcast and cool—perfect conditions for running 26.2 miles through the mountains!

A swarm of runners bottlenecked the entrance to the trail, but the group soon settled into a more comfortable spacing as the experienced runners separated from the pack. I quickly discovered why they called this the “Rock/Creek Scenic City Trail Marathon.” There were places along the trail where suddenly, a vista would open through the trees and I’d be looking across a wide, peaceful valley and rolling hills for as far as my eyes could see. I seemed to be running through the most beautiful place in the whole wide world, and once again, I felt like Forrest Gump while I was taking it all in—feeling it fully, and giving myself over to the majesty of the moment with each stride.

The marathon’s name was also accurately descriptive in another way—there were lots of rocks to navigate and creeks to cross. However, the most spot-on name would have been the Rock/Creek/Hills Marathon. There were some steep elevations, and the course was far more rugged than I’d expected. You know by now that I like challenges and this was a doozy! With so many tree roots and rocks, a runner can pretty much expect to trip and fall until they get to know the terrain—which was the point of Gabe and me running it. I did fall a few times along the way, but the trips only served to fuel my determination. This damn mountain would not defeat me! Whether running or crawling, I would make it to that finish line.

Cloud cover meant that there’d be no sweltering sun beating down on the runners. I took comfort in these conditions—which later in the day, proved costly. Despite the cloudy sky, it was oppressively humid. The farther I ran into the thick woods, the more it felt as if I were running in a steam room.

Early on in the race, I remember noticing how the sweat was already pouring off my orange shorts and down my legs. I was losing a lot of water, but felt fine, so I kept pushing on. During any marathon or ultramarathon, there comes a time when you have to decide that you will endure—whatever the cost. Later, your mind will try to talk you out of it—but you dig deeper, find that other gear, and keep going. I had a few of those “mind” moments, one of them after a particularly hard fall. I’ve always been a survivor. There really was no way I’d give up, even if I had to trip my way to the finish line, I would finish that trail race.

In the end, I did defeat that mountain. Victory! I felt great! Sure, I suffered the typical aches and pains, but nothing unusual. Gabe and I stuck around for the post-marathon bravado. We ate some food and took advantage of ice treatments before heading back to Nashville. It was quite comical, how we both had to very slowly, carefully, and gingerly get ourselves back into the car because of the tightening and aching of our muscles. Gabe had to fight a calf cramp every time he used the brakes.

About twenty minutes down Interstate 24, I began to feel strange. Waves of light-headedness washed over me, then dissipated. Now, it’s not uncommon to feel a little queasy or shaky after doing something as physically taxing as running a marathon, so I expected this to pass. It didn’t. Not only did the waves keep coming, but they were getting more severe. My arms felt heavy, my stomach was in knots, the dizziness continued; I could feel my body slowing down.

I asked Gabe to stop somewhere so I could get a milkshake, hoping that a little sodium and sugar would do the trick and I would snap out of it. A McDonald’s was coming up at the next exit, so Gabe pulled off the interstate. There were a few cars ahead of us in the drive-thru line, and when we finally made it to the window, Gabe ordered two milkshakes.

As we sat waiting for our order, my conditioned worsened. I realized that something was seriously wrong. I was not okay. All my bodily functions were now quickly shutting down as if someone were switching each one off, one by one. I could feel the life draining steadily out of my body, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. I can’t ever remember feeling so totally helpless and vulnerable as I felt in that moment. I reached out to Gabe, and with my last ounce of energy said, “Gabe, help me. Please help me.” And then, everything went black. I fell over onto Gabe’s lap, unconscious.

Gabe eased me back into my seat, pulled out of the drive-thru line, and began searching for help. He quickly explained the situation to the first person he saw in the parking lot and asked where the nearest hospital was. He was told that he should go back to Chattanooga, to the main hospital for that area. Gabe knew that he couldn’t drive the twenty minutes back to Chattanooga with me in that condition. He remained calm, and what he did next saved my life. He asked someone else for help.

Gabe put his Jeep in gear and sped over to a nearby gas station. He ran inside to talk to the cashier, telling her that he had an emergency situation on his hands. Turns out, there was a small medical center just down the street from where we were, and Gabe rushed me to their emergency room entrance.

A medical attendant approached the Jeep as Gabe was pulling in, opened my door, and seeing that I was unconscious, immediately rubbed my sternum forcefully with his knuckles to get a response. I remained unresponsive and limp. I was pulled from the car and rushed to the ER; I had no blood pressure to speak of and my body temperature was 105 degrees—both of which are life-threatening conditions.

The doctors in the ER took immediate action, packing my body in ice and pumping IV bags of fluid into my veins. I’d suffered heat stroke. For 26.2 miles, the sweat pouring down my arms and legs was not evaporating, which caused my body core to overheat. Once the adrenaline from the marathon had passed, my body shut down. But even after taking in four IV bags of water and sodium, my hydration levels had shown little improvement.

Luckily, my condition stabilized. When one of the doctors returned, Gabe relayed to him how he’d asked for help, and was first told to go back to Chattanooga. The doctor turned to me, and pointing to Gabe, said, “This man saved your life.” He further explained that, had Gabe decided to take that advice, I would not have survived. The drive back to the hospital in Chattanooga would have taken from twenty to thirty minutes. The doctor revealed that by the time I’d arrived in the ER, I had maybe ten minutes left before I would have been a goner—ten minutes!

After I was admitted into the hospital, nurse Darleen took over. Darleen was a short, African American woman, maybe ten years my senior. Admittedly, I have a stubborn streak—but I met my match when Darleen walked in. The first time she entered my room, she came straight over to the side of my bed, put her hands on her hips, and said rather sternly, “You happy now?” She then proceeded to give me a lecture on how I’d turned my marathon into a life-threatening drama. She asked Gabe whether we had other races planned, and Gabe confessed that we’d been preparing for an upcoming fifty-miler. Darleen said to Gabe, “Let me give you some advice—don’t run with him anymore!”

Darleen was the right person at the right time to be my nurse in the hospital. I quickly discovered that her bark was worse than her bite—as she turned out to be one hundred and something pounds of pure empathy. Darleen checked on me regularly, always laying her hand on my arm or leg as she asked how I was doing. Her affirming and caring touch made me feel loved. I didn’t mind her lectures; they were rather endearing. I don’t know why it meant so much to me that Darleen genuinely seemed to like me. I genuinely liked her, too.

Meanwhile, Gabe made a few phone calls for me. After receiving a call from Gabe, Mike made people aware of what had taken place by posting a note to my Facebook wall. He offered to be the contact person and liaison while I was in recovery. Because I was still in the hospital, Mike called daily to read to me all the concerned and caring posts, comments, and emails that my Facebook friends sent. Normally, I’m far more comfortable with expressing these kinds of sentiments to others than I am with receiving them—in fact, it’s incredibly difficult for me to take in—but this outpouring of love and support left a mark on me.

Strangely enough, the week prior to this life-threatening event, I had met the Fetter sisters—Amy, Rachel, and Becky—through Facebook, and the three sisters and I became fast friends. One of Mike’s posts mentioned that I was staying in a hospital outside Chattanooga, which was about ninety minutes from where the Fetters were staying for a family reunion. The three sisters insisted on making the drive to visit me in the hospital. When they arrived, Amy presented me with a chocolate milkshake in lieu of the one that I’d never managed to get when Gabe and I had pulled off the interstate. It deeply touched me that they had done this, and we have remained close friends to this day.

I made progress, and the doctors gave me the clearance to return home. It was difficult for me to say goodbye to Darleen, and when I left, I felt a pang of pain while waiving to her as the elevator doors closed. I regret that I wimped out and didn’t ask for her email address so that we could stay in contact. When I return to run that ultramarathon, I plan to stop by the hospital to see her.

The whole ordeal—marathon, near-death experience, hospital stay—all felt like one epic interruption to being Jesus and the subsequent writing of my book. Riding in the car on my way home to Nashville, I knew I had to regroup and get back to it, and so I took advantage of that three-hour drive to review what I’d learned so far.

I thought again about Charles Sheldon’s book In His Steps, and how it approached the undertaking of being like Jesus as a matter of emulation. There was indeed an appealing simplicity to this approach. It didn’t require much thinking; you just reduced Jesus to a finite set of actions, deeds, and ethics, and then performed them. But, the simplicity of this idea didn’t line up with the complexities of people and layers of life that I’d been experiencing.

Mulling it over, I realized that in following Sheldon’s approach, I could perform what seemed to be a Jesus-like deed by serving meals at a homeless shelter, and yet totally miss the greater need of the homeless: friendship. If Jesus lived in Nashville today, he might very well never volunteer at a homeless shelter, but instead, build one or two close relationships with people he encountered who were homeless. Along these same lines, I could assume that I was championing the ethics of Jesus by taking a stand against immorality and injustice, and yet in truth, we know that Jesus befriended people who were immoral and unjust.

Another issue that troubled me centered on the decision-making process itself. For even if I had the power to heal people like Jesus, how did I choose the recipient? Clearly, Jesus didn’t heal every diseased or afflicted person with whom he came into contact. A combination of circumstance and motive must have played a role in determining the course of his actions. It seemed to me that attempting to emulate Jesus in any situation would remain a subjective matter, since Jesus was only responding to circumstances as he felt necessary, following his heart and intuition.

The WWJD question implies that determining what it means to be Jesus is a rather cut and dried issue. But, I was finding that being Jesus was highly complicated, and maybe not even possible through the emulation approach.

And yet at the same time, my brain still equated being Jesus with doing something, or more specifically, doing something for others—expressing love, offering acceptance, showing compassion, imparting wisdom, giving counsel, serving others, confronting injustice, being a true friend. This is most likely why the whole experience of having heat stroke and being hospitalized seemed like a stoppage when it came to achieving my endeavor of being Jesus. Over the course of those days I spent in the hospital, I wasn’t doing anything for anyone; I was the one on the receiving end.

Just outside Nashville, I revisited my list of the things that Jesus and I held in common. I recalled the shock I’d felt upon discovering that I shared in the same divine nature as Jesus. And perhaps even more profound, the moment I became aware of how deeply Jesus and I shared the same humanity. Jesus worked, slept, ate, experienced family and friendship, and faced the challenges and obstacles of daily life just as I do. He experienced sorrow, sadness, anger, rejection, betrayal, and hurt—just like you and me. Jesus also shared our same biology, which means that Jesus had physical needs. He was hungry, thirsty, tired, and subject to physical pain, injury, and death—just as the rest of us.

What’s interesting to me is that I’d never before thought much about Jesus having any human needs beyond the basic requirements for survival such as food, water, and sleep. Did I really believe that Jesus lived thirty-something years on earth and never got sick or injured himself? The region in which Jesus lived was notable for the extremes of daytime heat and nighttime cold. According to what is known, many people succumbed to pneumonia during the season the winds blew from the east. Outbreaks of dysentery were common and malaria was recurrent, especially in the areas adjacent to the Lake of Galilee and the River Jordan. I think it’s logical to presume that Jesus suffered sickness, as did others of his day who lived in the same region. When Jesus became sick, who attended to him?

It’s clear in the gospels that Jesus lived an itinerant life. Jesus was a “carpenter” but he was not putting up buildings and houses. “Cabinetmaker” may be a more accurate description. As an itinerant workman, Jesus did not carry on his trade in an established workshop, but rather moved about Nazareth as there was demand. Where did Jesus lodge and how did he eat?

Did you ever wonder what life experiences Jesus might have been referencing relative to the parables he told? Maybe the story Jesus told about the woman who searched her house for a mislaid silver coin was based on an experience from his own family. Oral tradition holds that Jesus’ father, Joseph, died when Jesus was around nineteen-years-old, which means that Jesus would have assumed the responsibility of supporting his mother and whatever other children were in his family. What additional support did Jesus and his family receive from others?

Jesus was not a hermit; he did not live his life in isolation. Jesus was raised in the Jewish tradition, which places high value on family, community, and loving one’s neighbor. Jesus immersed himself in the culture and web of social relationships. In his day and age, this meant looking out for one another. I had always thought of Jesus as the one giving help, but I had never truly contemplated the probability of Jesus receiving it.

As I mentioned, I’m far more comfortable with giving than receiving. I don’t normally ask for help and find it difficult to accept when it’s offered. Growing up with an incapacitated mother and an absent father, I had to fumble my way through life and figure things out on my own. There was no one around to help me with my homework, guide me through the changes and struggles of adolescence, teach me basic life skills, help me discover and develop my gifts and abilities, comfort me through my teenage heartbreaks, or support me as I transitioned into adulthood. My life revolved around tending to the needs of my alcoholic mother, which required that I set my own needs aside. It got so twisted around inside me that I began believing that having needs was either bad, wrong, or a sign of inadequacy. This didn’t mean that I had no needs—only that I hid them.

Later, my religious influences served to reinforce this warped view. By Christian definition, God was autonomous and complete unto himself. To be like God was to have no needs. Putting others’ needs ahead of my own was the mark of a devout Christian. It was through this lens of self-sufficiency that I understood Jesus.

But, the more I pondered Jesus’ life, the more I realized that this idea missed the mark. Jesus was human, which meant that he had all kinds of needs and received the help of others. As Pattie had so insightfully pointed out, allowing another person to give help was a part of the equation that was just as important as offering help. All this was adding up to a rather startling conclusion about what it really meant to be Jesus. Being Jesus wasn’t merely about what I did for others, it also meant accepting help from others. Oh no, not again!

Why was it that every time I tried to make being Jesus “all about others,” it boomeranged back to me?

Working out the practical implications of this in my mind, I realized that accepting the help of others would be a direct assault on my basic life MO, my modus operandi. Doing triathlons and ultramarathons perpetuated the mystique of invincibility that I was so fond of. I liked it when people affectionately referred to me as Superman. I was the guy who performed heroic feats—the tough guy who rescued others, not the guy who needing rescuing.

There was a certain superhero air to Jim Palmer, Inc. He was your next-door neighbor pal, shedding religion guru, alternative church rebel, social justice champion, spokesperson for nobodies everywhere, and friend of all people. And like a superhero, “Friendly Neighborhood Jim” was expected to be available and accessible whenever the people needed him.

Whether my relationships are carried on face-to-face, through email exchanges, or via Facebook, I am naturally an open and vulnerable person who offers empathy, affirmation, and support to the people with whom I interact. In some cases, this had led to others becoming dependent upon me for their main source of emotional connection, understanding, affirmation, or encouragement. At times, people have referred to needing their “Jim Palmer fix.” Even though I receive so much from being a guy who freely and liberally meets the needs of others in earnest, this trait also works against me. In being of service to others, I have continued to mask my own needs—to push them into the background where they wait around, unmet.

As I pondered this, my thoughts turned back to Jesus. Since Jesus was truly human, wouldn’t he have had emotional and spiritual needs—such as the longing to be loved and accepted; the desire for relationship and intimacy; and the need for empathy, compassion, care, support, and encouragement? Whether as an infant, small boy, teenager, young adult, or mature man, wouldn’t Jesus have required such things?

For me, the whole point of Jesus was to give human experience to the nature of God so that we, in turn, could experience the goodness of God in our lives. For example, the adulterous woman discovered the truth of being loved and accepted not because she was given a pamphlet explaining it, or even because she closed her eyes in mediation to find it (John 8:1–11). She learned the truth because she experienced the reality of love and acceptance through the heart and actions of Jesus.

Since Jesus was human, wouldn’t it make sense that he also experienced the reality of love and acceptance in his human interactions and relationships with others? We all know that one of the primary ways God reveals himself and meets our needs is through others. Is there any reason not to believe that this was also true for Jesus—that the Father met these same needs in him through interaction with others?

For some reason, I’d been prone to contemplating Jesus’ human emotions as mostly negative—feelings associated with being misunderstood, rejected, betrayed, falsely accused, despised, victimized, and ultimately, brutalized and killed. But, now I wondered what Jesus felt when he experienced the love, acceptance, understanding, empathy, and encouragement from others? How did it affect him? What was his response?

What did Jesus do when he was offered help, support, assistance, or friendship from others? Did he shut it down, close off, and refuse it? Or did Jesus welcome, receive, and take pleasure in it?

There is a story in the Gospel of John that tells of a woman expressing love to Jesus by massaging his feet with expensive perfumed oil (John 12:1–8). Jesus’ disciples harshly criticize the woman on the basis that she could have sold the perfume and used the money to help feed the poor. But, Jesus was deeply touched and allowed it. He replied, “Leave her alone… why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.”

In the Gospel of Philip, an extra-biblical account of Jesus’ life, it says, “There were three who always walked with the Lord: Mary, his mother, and her sister [Mary of Clopas], and Magdalene, the one who was called his companion. His sister, his mother and his companion were each a Mary.”[6] Whether the account is credible or not, there is reason to believe that the human needs of Jesus were met through human relationships and companionship.

Even though I had never really thought of Jesus in these terms before, this was making complete sense to me. In assuming that the WWJD question was about performing some sort of Jesus-like action or deed—“doing” something—I’d missed the possibility of one of the most poignant answers to the WWJD question: Jesus would accept help from others.

The morning after I returned home from the hospital, Gabe and I went to grab some coffee at Panera. We drove separately, since I had to do some grocery shopping afterwards. I arrived a few minutes early. While waiting for Gabe, I decided to start listing all the different ways of being Jesus that had become clear over the past few days of contemplation:

Being Jesus means having needs.

Being Jesus means it’s okay to have needs.

Being Jesus means having needs isn’t bad, wrong, or a sign of being messed up.

Being Jesus means needing others.

Being Jesus means wanting to be loved and accepted by others.

Being Jesus means being vulnerable.

Being Jesus means not doing it alone.

Being Jesus means allowing others to help you.

Being Jesus means giving others the opportunity to care about you and love you.

Being Jesus means receiving.

Being Jesus means accepting what others want to give.

Being Jesus means enjoying friendship and companionship.

Being Jesus means seeing God in the love and support offered by others.

When I finished my list, my mind returned to the whole marathon incident and how I’d been thinking of it as a total disruption and diversion from the assignment of being Jesus. Over the course of those days I hadn’t been “doing” much of anything except for receiving—hmm—receiving the help, support, and care of others. The light bulb went on. Far from being a diversion, what had unfolded in the days following my near-death experience was just as much a part of being Jesus as anything I had done so far, as being Jesus sometimes meant receiving and accepting the help of others.

I turned to a fresh page in my notebook and started a new list, personalizing it in terms of the ordeal I’d experienced:

Being Jesus means reaching out for a friend in a moment of desperate need.

Being Jesus means being vulnerable.

Being Jesus means allowing another person to do something for you that you can’t do for yourself.

Being Jesus means entrusting yourself to the care of another.

Being Jesus means letting others give to you.

Being Jesus means being on the receiving end.

Being Jesus means placing your life in someone else’s hands.

Being Jesus means falling into the arms of a friend.

Being Jesus means being lectured by a nurse.

Being Jesus means wanting and savoring the human loving touch.

Being Jesus means allowing someone to bring you a milkshake.

Being Jesus means receiving care, encouragement, and support from others.

Being Jesus means accepting help from others.

Chapter 10

BEING JESUS MEANS…

FEELING IT ALL DEEPLY

“It was one of those days when it’s a minute away from snowing and there’s this electricity in the air. You can almost hear it. And this bag was, like, dancing with me. Like a little kid begging me to play with it. For fifteen minutes. And that’s the day I realized there was this entire life behind things… and, this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever. Video’s a poor excuse, I know. But, it helps me remember… and, I need to remember. Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.”[7]

This passage is from the film, American Beauty, which in 1999 won five Academy Awards—Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. Kevin Spacey stars as Lester Burnham, a middle-aged magazine writer who has a midlife crisis. Described by many to be about “the meaning of life,” the film has defied categorization by even the filmmakers. It has been explained by academics as a satire of American middle class notions of beauty and personal fulfillment, exploring themes such as love, sexuality, beauty, materialism, self-liberation, suffering, and redemption. The film’s director, Sam Mendes, wasn’t even quite sure how to sum it up, admitting that screenwriter Alan Ball’s script seemed to be about something different each time he read it. He described American Beauty as “a mystery story, a kaleidoscopic journey through American suburbia, a series of love stories … it was about imprisonment … loneliness [and] beauty. It was funny; it was angry, sad.”

The character who speaks the lines that I’ve included at the beginning of this chapter is Ricky Fitts, played by Wes Bentley. Ricky is a volatile teenage boy who is sent away to an asylum by his father after an incident in which Ricky beats someone up, nearly to the point of death. After his release, Ricky becomes a drug dealer and is treated as a social outcast. Among other peculiarities, Ricky carries around a video camera and films all sorts of random life experiences, keeping dozens of taped videos in his bedroom. In one scene, the next-door neighbor girl, Jane, finds Ricky filming a dead bird. When she asks why, Ricky replies, “Because it’s beautiful.” On another occasion, Jane makes inquiries into what lies behind Ricky’s filming obsession. Ricky tells her that he does it so he can remember how beautiful life is. He further explains, “It’s like God’s looking right at you, just for a second, and if you’re careful… you can look right back.”

Ricky’s poignant words are delivered during a scene in which he asks Jane whether she’d like to see the most beautiful thing he has ever filmed. He shows her a video of a plastic bag being tossed back and forth by the wind in a parking lot—a rather insignificant event in which Ricky finds deep significance. He confides, “And that’s the day I realized there was this entire life behind things… and, this incredibly benevolent force that wanted me to know there was no reason to be afraid, ever.” Ricky was able to see things that others could not, and what he witnessed opened his heart and mind in a profound way. “Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in,” he tells Jane.

Although American Beauty came out in 1999, I’d never heard of it until I was browsing through Mike Willis’s large collection of DVDs, which covered two entire walls in his office at home. It was one of the first films I came across in his drama section because its title began with the letter “A.” However, it was not so much the title of the film as it was the tagline that caught my attention. “Look closer,” it said. I pulled the DVD off the shelf, and Mike agreed that I had to see it; I watched American Beauty later that night.

The film disturbed me.

Not because it was too distressing to take in, but because it opened a door inside me that had never been opened before. I saw myself in Ricky Fitts. Similar to Ricky, I am the eccentric, troubled, and weird person that others don’t understand. I feel my way through life, like Ricky, and perceive the world in a similar way. There’s what I can see with my eyes, and then there are these other things that I just—well, notice. People talk, but what I mostly hear is what is unspoken. Sometimes I will walk past someone in a store, and everything will seem to shift into slow motion. Just for a moment we’ll catch eyes, and then as we pass each other by, I’ll feel the person fully—their pain, their sadness, their quiet desperation. It’s these things—the things that exist between what you actually see with your eyes, hear with your ears, and touch with your hands—that seem more real to me than anything else.

And then there are those moments like that evening when I was sitting on the bench at the pond with my dog Jack. The enchanting, scarlet sky with blazing yellow ribbons stretched low across it… The gentle breeze that softly rustled the leaves above me… The sweetly pungent scent of fresh-cut grass… The calming stillness of the pond… The profound feelings of deep peace and exhilarating joy that streamed through every cell, molecule, and pore of my body.

Closing my eyes, I became caught up in the rapture of revisiting that moment; Ricky’s words seemed so perfect, “Sometimes there’s so much beauty in the world I feel like I can’t take it, like my heart’s going to cave in.”

American Beauty had won almost every award and accolade possible, and yet it defied explanation—no one seemed to be able to define it or agree upon what it meant, precisely. The power of the film was as mystifying as Ricky himself. Like the boy who had filmed a dead bird because he thought it was beautiful, the film points to the sadness and sorrow of the world, and yet, it captures the undercurrent of goodness and beauty beneath it. The film presents ordinary things that most people would never notice—a grocery bag blowing in the wind, a dead bird laying on the ground—as the portals through which Ricky touches God, moments when, in his words, “God’s looking right at you, just for a second, and if you’re careful… you can look right back.” It struck me how all of us are presented with opportunities to touch God. No matter how random the events in our lives may seem, God is always there if we just do as the film’s tagline says and “look closer.”

I wept as Ricky showed his video to Jane and talked about the plastic bag. I understood every word of it. I had felt all those things before, but I had learned to keep those feelings to myself. They were too difficult to explain. Too often, I could not find the right words—or any words at all—to make clear what I felt. I doubted whether others had these same deep feelings and intuitions, and had concluded that there must be something wrong with me for having them. Normal people didn’t appear to be as significantly affected by life as I was.

There is a whole world of feelings that exists inside me, a world I keep hidden away from others. If I let people in, will they accept this complex part of me? Especially when I’m unsure whether I’ve ever actually accepted it myself?

I feel life deeply—some days this seems like a gift, while on other days I fear it’s a curse. There are times when my inner world is an incurably tangled web of contradictions, but there are also moments in which that world becomes beautifully simple and clear. Like Ricky, I feel that my heart might cave in at times, and I don’t know what’s going to kill me first, the sadness or the beauty of it all. But, I also experience instances when the sorrow of this world becomes despair, and I fail to see that “incredibly benevolent force” that Ricky saw behind things. Worse still are the times when I cannot pull myself out of those feelings and I become trapped within them—wondering all the while what’s wrong with me.

I experienced plenty of angst as I pressed forward writing this book, especially being aware of the expectations that had been placed upon it and of the controversy surrounding it. Being Jesus was getting more complicated, and I was caught off guard by the personal issues it was raising. I had started to feel a distinct pull between Jim Palmer, Inc. and the Jim Palmer I was becoming.

It was around this time that I received a late evening call from my sister in Virginia. She informed me that my mother had been taken to the hospital and had fallen into a coma. Her condition never improved; two days later she died. I never made it to Virginia to see her. More than distance, there was an ocean of unresolved heartache that separated us. The Christmas holiday arrived, which merely intensified my feelings of depression and despair; it was becoming increasingly difficult to pull myself out of it.

I went to see my physician, Dr. Beuter, to discuss my condition. While previously he’d felt that my bouts of melancholy weren’t severe enough to warrant medication, at this time he decided that it would be wise to prescribe an antidepressant. He put me on Zoloft.

After a few weeks on Zoloft, I felt significantly different. The medication effectively clipped my emotional high and lows, making me feel more even-keeled. And though the Zoloft nearly eliminated those dark places of despair, over time, I began noticing certain side effects.

I am a man who experiences and processes life emotionally. Before a thought forms in my mind, I have a feeling. As painful as some of these feelings might be, experiencing them is how I know that I’m alive. In my case, René Descartes’s famous assertion would better apply should he have said, “I feel, therefore I am.” I’m Italian, so it may very well be that I am naturally a passionate person because it’s in my blood. Based on the stereotype that women are more emotional than men, I’ve been accused of being a woman in a man’s body. While previously something as banal as a TV commercial could bring me to tears, one day it hit me that I didn’t cry at all anymore. The Zoloft had neutralized my emotions, so much so that as time went on, I grew indifferent towards life.

For me, working out painful life experiences is not as much a process of “thinking it through” as it is a process of “feeling it through.” I cannot let go of something until I have allowed myself to have and move through all the feelings attached to it. It’s often the expression of a strong emotion (such as crying) that brings me release and closure that helps me move on. After my mother’s funeral, I felt nothing. It was as though I’d erased our relationship entirely from my mind, as if she had never existed at all. I remember thinking how strange it was that her death had had so little effect on me. I knew there was a deep wound inside that needed healing, but I couldn’t seem to access it.

Despite religion teaching me to mistrust what I felt inside, I eventually learned that my deepest feelings were a highly reliable guide, part of a navigation system that would help me get through life. So, I began to listen to and follow my feelings. My best writing has always come from that deep-feeling place. But, the longer I was on Zoloft, the more lost and misplaced I felt. I began to struggle with my writing and felt increasingly disconnected from it. In the past I’d been able to rely on specific pieces of music or scenes from certain movies to help me open up emotionally, but nothing seemed to work anymore. One morning, after putting in my contacts, I stood looking at myself in the bathroom mirror. Standing there, staring into my own eyes, I felt nothing. I consciously tried to make myself have a feeling. I couldn’t. I knew I had feelings—somewhere—but I couldn’t find them. I could no longer access my emotions.

I wondered how this worked for Jesus. Being Jesus means… being a zombie? I knew this couldn’t be right. My journey had involved “shedding religion to find God” but surely the next step was not “shedding humanity to find God.” Jesus was human, and to be human is to feel. There are really only two options—you can feel things, or you can shut down. But, once you decide to feel things, you don’t get to pick and choose what you feel. That’s the trouble with letting feelings in—they can be messy.

What did Jesus feel? Did he ever experience that sinking feeling—that stone cold thud in the bottom of your gut—when you so completely and vulnerably lay your heart on the line, only to be misunderstood and met with cruel indifference? Did he ever lie in bed at night, weary and overwhelmed with all the sorrow of the world, and wonder, “What’s the point?”

Did Jesus ever feel that his heart might cave in from the beauty of it all? Did he ever stop to marvel at a purple silk ribbon dancing in the desert wind and feel as though he were touching eternity as he watched it?

Did Jesus ever feel that crushing blow of being wounded by the one he trusted most? Did he ever feel like an outsider and silently suffer the deep ache of loneliness? Did Jesus grieve over those things he could not change, and if so, was it ever so unbearable that he wept and wailed, and cried that cry that’s so deep that no sound comes out at all? Did Jesus ever miss somebody so terribly that he felt as if he’d been torn in two? Did he ever hurt so badly that he thought he might die, or want to?

And if Jesus felt these things, what did he do with his feelings? Zoloft wasn’t an option in Jesus’ day, so how did he cope with the volatility of the human experience and reconcile all the emotions involved? I actually posted this question on my Facebook wall and one of the responses was, “The thing we probably should remember is that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, but that he never ever let go of God. If he was emotional in any way, I believe he took those emotions to his Father and won a victory over those feelings.” Hmm. Jesus never ever let go of God. Jesus won a victory over those feelings. How did that work? What did it mean to have achieved “victory” over your feelings—did it mean that you no longer had feelings, or that you had somehow protected yourself from the full force of them?

I continued to explore this issue with my friend Mike. Coming from a Buddhist perspective, Mike believed that all suffering was a result of attachment. We become attached to people, places, things, and outcomes, and in doing so, set ourselves up for heartache. In Mike’s view, if we could all live detached lives, then we wouldn’t experience the anguish we often feel in life. At the time, I attached my own meaning to the word “detachment.” In my mind, it was something akin to a kind of stoicism—being unaffected by what happens, divested in how things in life went, or not caring. So, I tried living a detached life. I tried, tried some more, kept trying, and then tried harder! Let’s just say, I wouldn’t make a very good Buddhist!

While I struggled and grew frustrated, life kept happening. One day, a young couple moved into the house next door to us. Josh and Molly had no children, but what they did have was a dog named Sasha.

Sasha is a 105-pound Rottweiler. I’m pretty sure that Stephen King had Sasha in mind when he wrote Cujo. When you see Sasha and hear her bark, it’s terrifying. But it’s all show. Beneath that ferocious exterior, Sasha is really just a 105-pound marshmallow that melts the minute you show her any affection. She’ll be your friend for life if you scratch her belly—which sends her tongue hanging out of her mouth, a la Michael Jordan.

Of course, Sasha didn’t start out as a 105-pound Cujo.

As our families got to know one another, we began taking care of each other’s animals whenever someone went out of town. Pet sitting for Josh and Molly was simple enough at first, when Sasha was this tiny thing with tan feet that I could hold in my hands. The puppy stage for Sasha seemed to last about… let’s see… a week! I wondered if they were putting steroids in her food as I watched her grow by leaps and bounds. No longer did you take Sasha for a walk; Sasha took you for a walk! It was a sight to see Sasha pulling Molly through the neighborhood.

Sasha and I hit it off right away. It was clear to everyone that she and I had a connection, and I was affectionately referred to as Sasha’s boyfriend. Since the very first time I met her, whenever I greet Sasha, she pees. Apparently, there’s something about me that causes a loss of bladder control. Thankfully, this problem has only applied to animals and not people—as far as I’m aware.

When I’m looking after Sasha, she will invariably hear me jiggle the keys in the lock and make a beeline for the front door. Once I make it inside, the trick is to very nonchalantly get Sasha hooked up on her leash and out the back door before she pees all over the floor. We make it about half of the time. The other times require a lot of paper towels.

Sasha’s favorite pastime is sitting on her back deck, barking ferociously at anything that moves. One evening, it hit me that I hadn’t heard a peep out of Sasha for a while. The next morning, I saw Molly at the mailbox and asked after Sasha. She told me that Sasha had been lethargic lately and so they’d made an appointment to see the vet.

Later that day, Molly came to my front door in tears to tell me that Sasha had been exposed to a fungus that caused an infection that blinded her in one eye. I was heartsick. I googled what Molly had described, and found out that this type of fungus is contracted through the nasal passages and can pass into the brain, eyes, lungs, and other tissues. Apparently, it is rare in dogs.

Sasha was put on medication, but to no avail. The infection spread and irreversibly took her sight from both eyes. I felt stunned by the news. It had all happened so quickly. Just a week prior, I was tossing a ball with Sasha. Now she was blind? Sasha—the dog I wrestled with as a puppy, the dog I stood with outside in the cold while waiting for her to do her business, the dog I played fetch with out in the backyard, the dog that would drop and roll on a dime for a tummy scratch—was blind?

The next week, Josh and Molly had to go away for a few days. As usual, I happily agreed to take care of Sasha in their absence. I wasn’t very well prepared to see my once self-assured, steady, and fearless doggie girlfriend helplessly colliding into couches and tables, disoriented and confused. I had no prior experience taking care of a blind dog, and the first day didn’t go so well. I’m not sure who was more uncertain—the dog or me.

Just getting Sasha out the front door was now a major ordeal. I was a bundle of nerves, and Sasha stumbled and nearly fell flat on her face as she tried to step up from the street and over the curb into the grass, but somehow we managed to make it down to the neighborhood pond. When we got back home, it didn’t go much better. I momentarily forgot Sasha was blind and called her over to her water bowl. I suspect I’ll never be able to erase the memory of Sasha walking straight into the wall and bonking her head, which rocked her back into a sitting position. She just sat there defeated, staring at the wall. Checkmate. It was as though Sasha were saying, “I give up.”

I walked over and sat down next to Sasha. She slowly lowered herself down onto the floor and laid against my leg. We just sat there quietly for a while, both needing to collect ourselves. I rubbed Sasha’s tummy and told her how much I loved her. My mind wandered off reminiscently. “Remember when…” I said, as I began telling her stories about things she’d done. Like the time when I had to rescue the pest control guy who’d been immobilized by fear when Sasha followed him. I had walked out on my deck and looked over into Josh and Molly’s backyard to see this poor guy standing at the far end of the yard while Sasha sat in the middle, looking at him. Uh-oh! I’d thought. He saw me and calmly said, “A little help here.”

Sitting on the floor together, I continued talking to Sasha. “I love you, Sasha. I always will. I’m sorry. I hate it, but you’re not gonna see again. It’s going to be a big adjustment, but I promise it will be okay. It’ll get easier. We will figure it out together.” I began to gently rub Sasha’s head. Normally, whenever I pet Sasha it would get her all stirred up as if it were an invitation to play. But this time, she just lay still and let me stroke her.

I died a thousand deaths sitting next to Sasha that day. The sadness I felt seemed unbearable—it was like everything that had ever seemed wrong with this world had painfully gathered itself up in one afternoon. It seemed to me that it would have been better for Sasha to have died as opposed to her having to endure being reduced from a big, brawny, beautiful, and energetic Rottweiler to this timid and confused dog that ran into walls. A flow of tears came, but they were angry tears. I was angry for all the suffering and sorrow in this world and how helpless I felt against it. It was a familiar feeling, the same one that haunted my childhood—a result of waking up each day with the hope that I could make my mother happy and going to bed each night knowing I had failed. It was the feeling that I’d had while I stood next to Scotty Jefferson’s bed—watching him die while trying to heal him.

As I continued to pet Sasha, Jesus came to mind. According to the book In His Steps, the question I should have been asking myself was, “What would Jesus do?” But, maybe the better question was, “What would Jesus feel?” What would Jesus feel—right now, in this moment with Sasha? The answer, I believe, is that Jesus would feel love and open his heart to this dog.

Everything I knew about Jesus—the Jesus who wept when his friends were hurting, the Jesus who placed his hand on the leper because he needed loving, human touch, the Jesus whose first miracle was saving a girl’s wedding, the Jesus who saw and cared for the deep wound inside the woman at the well—this Jesus, I was convinced, would have had the same feelings that I had while sitting next to Sasha.

Observing Jesus’ life through the gospels, I could see that Jesus related to human suffering differently. He didn’t run away, hide, or protect himself from it. Instead, Jesus put himself out there and courageously lived according to his highest truth of love, even though it made him vulnerable in the world.

Jesus didn’t psychologize or spiritualize people’s suffering. He didn’t even seem to try to explain it in light of God. Jesus faced suffering and tasted the depths of it. He leaned into it, endured it, and fully met others in their suffering. Jesus did not live a detached life, as I had understood it. Jesus cared. Jesus wept. Jesus felt it all deeply. There is some way, perhaps a middle way, between living in denial and being swallowed whole by the pain and suffering of human existence, and this is how Jesus lived.

Being Jesus means that we go through life embracing it all fully and feeling it all deeply. That we don’t hide and try to protect ourselves. That we live. That we show up. That we laugh. That we cry. That we hurt. That we heal. That we care. That we love. And then, that we wake up the next morning and sign up for it all over again.

Ricky Fitts came to mind.

And just when we think we can’t take it anymore… when it feels as though our heart might cave in from the pain of it all… when the world around us seems pointless… we notice a plastic bag blowing in the wind, and we sense this incredibly benevolent force behind it all. And if in that moment we remember to look closer, we’ll see that God is looking right at us, and just for a second, if we’re careful… we can look right back.

I’m not sure which will kill me first, the sadness or the beauty, but I know now that what it means to be Jesus is to feel all of it deeply.

Chapter 11

BEING JESUS MEANS…

LETTING GO OF JESUS

But then, a voice cut through the darkness.

“Are you okay down there?”

I had no idea whose voice it was or where it came from—and no, I was not “okay.” I was dangling from my seatbelt, gasping for air, waiting to die. The taste of blood filled my mouth. I was in shock. A second car had been struck on the interstate and now sat ablaze, just a few feet away from mine. I saw the flames, heard the screams, and smelled gasoline. I knew that it would be only a matter of moments before my car went up in an inferno—with me still trapped inside. I wasn’t going to make it out of that car alive. I was going to die on the side of I-40, in the dark.

People often say that your entire life will flash before your eyes the second before you die. But, I saw Jessica’s life. And though technically it might have passed in just a few seconds of time, it felt more like an eternity to me. My heart stood still while I took in the memories of my daughter one by one, while I felt all the deepest feelings my heart was capable of holding at the same time.

And then, I experienced a sequence of flashbacks, as real as the blood dripping from my mouth. They took me backwards in time to revisit the course events that had shaped my life.

For a moment I was a little boy again, sitting spellbound while watching my mother work her magic arranging flowers in the kitchen, smelling the fragrance of fresh cut lavender that filled the air… and there I was, sitting beside her on the couch, gently stroking her soft, auburn hair as she peacefully drifted off to sleep… and then I was a grown man, looking down at my mother lying in her coffin, the plush, white cushioning cradling her as if she were being held in the hands of God. She had that same peaceful look on her face, and I wanted to reach down and touch her hair. Gratitude and regret flowed through me like two rivers reaching for the sea as I let my mother go, feeling it all deeply.

Suddenly, these images shifted and I was feeling every single drop of life in my body drain away as I reached out for my friend Gabe. I saw myself collapse into his lap, ten minutes from death. And even though for most of my life I’d been the guy rescuing and taking care of everybody else, there was something utterly beautiful about being so completely vulnerable and placing my life in someone else’s hands. For the first time, I felt it was okay to be fully human—to need somebody else, to allow myself that moment when all I could do was receive because I had nothing at all to give, and to know that in this very same moment, I was offering someone else the chance to be fully human by allowing them to help me.

I felt cool, lush grass beneath my feet and realized I was now running in that field behind my home. I was vividly aware of how the ground massaged the muscles and tendons in each of my feet, and of the way it felt to know that I was born to run—the thing I loved to do most. My feet were made to run, and I was made to live. Everything was perfect, just the way it was.

Someone grabbed my arm, and I turned to find that I was standing in a hospital room, and that it was Donna who was desperately clinging to me. The dam of heartbreak broke inside her and soaked my shirt with sorrow, each painful tear seeping into my skin. I stood strong this time, knowing that the miracle isn’t in changing what happens, but accepting it. I could do this now, for both of my friends, Scotty and Donna.

And then, I was back in that lake again, taking in a breath of air and spotting a drowning girl in a butterfly cap. The irony of it all sank in: how I’d saved a life when I’d least expected it, how I’d saved Meg’s life by following my own path.

And there was Marlon, standing before me with tears in his eyes as Jessica, with a smile as big as the Grand Canyon bursting across her face, handed him that Christmas card over the counter. I felt the wound inside him, that same wound I carried within me, as he spoke for the first time ever without being judged by another… and then, how natural it seemed the moment the line between God and me dissolved, and being Jim meant telling Marlon that I loved him.

When the images shifted again, I found myself sitting on the bench outside the homeless shelter, watching Mitch take a puff from his cigarette from one side of his mouth while talking from the other… feeling connected to my heart when I was there with the residents… understanding the paradox of being at home within myself among people who were homeless.

An instant later I was drinking coffee at Panera, writing down what it might possibly mean to be Jesus on a napkin, looking up suddenly and seeing a familiar woman. I sensed the warmth of the woman’s smile as she held out her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Pattie Chapman.” And this time, I took it all in: the gratitude she expressed when I let her buy my coffee… the angst I felt wondering how I might help her… the realization that I already had—by simply being her friend.

In just a few moments of time, these scenes had rolled across the screen of my mind, mysteriously pulling me back through the past year of my life. Shattered pieces of glass gathered together to reform my windows, crushed metal pushed back out into its original shape, my car rolled up the bank and onto the interstate, and I was once again driving home on that warm evening in May. My life continued rewinding, flashing back to the day that I was clearing my bookshelf, came upon the book In His Steps, read the question “What would Jesus do?” to myself, and decided that my quest was to know if I could be like Jesus.

Why I’d been taken to these particular places, I did not know. And, it didn’t really matter at the time. It hurt to breathe, and my mind returned to my broken body. The slightest movement brought extreme pain. Finding a bearable position, I closed my eyes, shut out the world, and waited to die…

A few minutes passed. Then, something began to happen. I experienced a burst of brain waves, and my eyes popped open. I knew then that I’d been revived for the sole purpose of seeing something in those flashbacks, something that I had missed before. Once again, my mind flew through the series of events, and this time, I saw the through-line. It was as if a bombshell had detonated in my mind. I was hit full force by the epiphany that all those experiences from my year of being Jesus—all those flashbacks—pointed back to me! And then it clicked; I understood. After spending more than a year focusing on one infamous question, I finally found my answer—and it was me.

The answer was me.

If you recall, it had been a very long journey that led up to this moment. I had a master of divinity degree, and was the pastor of a successful church for several years. Christianity was truly my life. But in 2005, the foundation of my faith began to crack. My Christianity sounded good on paper, and it even had a ring of conviction to it when I preached, but it had stopped working for me; I was an unhappy, unfulfilled, unhealed, and unsettled person in life.

Then, along came a Waffle House waitress, a hip-hop artist, a tire salesman, and a young girl with cerebral palsy to challenge most of the religious notions I held about myself, others, the world, God, and life itself. Everything I thought I knew became suspect, and so I put it all on the table to be scrutinized.

First, I shed the institutional components of my Christianity—the rules and rituals, structures and programs, creeds and classes—and then I left organized church altogether. I stepped out into the world to explore and experience God beyond the boundaries, outside the box of religious thinking. One by one, most of the Christian beliefs I had once held died. Loving people became my church. My heart became my Bible. Life became my religion.

And yet, there was always Jesus. I could not shed him. I wasn’t sure why.

True, my spiritual views had changed significantly and Jesus was no longer necessary to me in the ways I had once adhered to. True, when the entire system I’d built around Jesus collapsed, and he was just standing there, I didn’t quite know what to do with him. True, I frustrated some people by not letting go of Jesus entirely, and not even I understood why I’d insisted upon holding on to him.

It was very perplexing. Why couldn’t I let go of Jesus? What would happen if I did? Why was Jesus necessary? At that time, all I knew for sure was this: I had a “next book” to write and it had to be a “Christian” one. So, I decided to pick up from where I’d left off in Wide Open Spaces and set off on an adventure to get to the bottom of the WWJD-issue that had been sitting within me, unresolved for so long. I proposed a book that chronicled the experience of devoting a year of my life to “being Jesus.” There were many expectations attached to this proposition, and plenty of people (including me) had questions about what this might look like. I got off-track for a while, projecting all kinds of ideas and assumptions onto what being Jesus would mean or should mean in the circumstances of my life. By way of this not-always-so-smooth process, however, I discovered the most profound truth that I had ever come upon: There was no difference between Jesus and me—we were both divine and human.

But the quest to live this truth was maddening!

Whenever I intentionally tried to emulate Jesus by doing something I imagined he might do, the acts seemed strained and frequently backfired. But, when I responded to life in ways that came naturally, most often something beautiful happened. I was supposed to be writing a book about Jesus. But, every time I put the focus on Jesus, the focus was redirected right back at me.

And so, I did what any sensible person would do if they were trying to figure out Jesus—I turned to the Bible and looked for clues in the stories of Jesus’ life in the gospels. Quite unexpectedly, I began seeing the life of Jesus in ways I had never seen before. I saw many things that were so self-evident that I had inadvertently missed them. All along, the key had been right in front of my eyes. I wanted to “be Jesus,” but I noticed that all Jesus ever did was simply be himself. Jesus was never trying to emulate someone else or live up to an image, not even his own. He never contrived situations in order to perform certain actions or deeds, and he never approached people as projects. Jesus was simply present to the world. He responded to situations as they required, expressed himself, and followed his own path while life unfolded around him.

It was just as clear that Jesus taught his followers that they needed to embrace this authentic way of living in the world for themselves. Jesus’ disciples became attached and dependent upon him, but Jesus continuously told them that the day was coming when he must go away in order for them to take that necessary step of independence. He did not wish them to establish a religion in his name, but wanted his followers to become grounded in the life and spirit of God within themselves—to listen to it, trust it, follow it, and express it. Although his disciples would grieve his death, Jesus spoke of a resurrection and how his spirit would continue in and through anyone who had the faith to believe—to believe that Jesus’ spirit was inside them, to believe that Jesus was them.

I am Jesus.

I had made this discovery early on, but had difficulty accepting it. And even though I’d found plenty of supportive evidence in the message of Jesus and the early church, I managed to miss the critical application of this truth. I had taken the fact that I shared in the same divine life as Jesus as the basis for living as Jesus. But, my focus was still on Jesus—being Jesus, emulating Jesus, copying the deeds of Jesus—and I sought out circumstances in which I could do Jesus-like things, striving to achieve the same outcomes.

In essence, I had committed the same mistake as Jesus’ first followers. I had become focused on Jesus in a way that prevented me from integrating his truth into my life. Mike may have put it this way: I confused the finger (Jesus) for the moon (the truth that Jesus pointed to). I had built a religion around the person of Jesus but had failed to embrace his truth—because I’d confused one for the other. As a result, my entire premise of being Jesus for a year became fraught with difficulty.

But now, while hanging upside down in my car, waiting to die, I finally understood. After seeing a theme emerge from the events in my flashbacks—I got it. It was never about being Jesus; it was always about being Jim. That’s what I was supposed to learn. How could I have ever missed it? All that Jesus ever did was be himself. So for me to truly “be Jesus”—to really make his truth my truth—I could only be myself.

Being Jesus means… being Jim.

This realization gave way to another, which answered the questions of why I had never been able to shed Jesus, and why Jesus was necessary in my life. I would never be able to embrace Jesus’ truth of being Jim unless I let go of being Jesus. And the only person who could release me from my need to be Jesus, was Jesus himself.

Being Jesus means… letting go of Jesus.

Let go of Jesus? No! How could I ever let Jesus go? If you’ve read my other books you know that my relationship with Jesus has been a central part of my life since high school. I had first discovered Jesus about the time that photograph had been taken of me leaning against my Firebird. What you couldn’t see in the picture was that I was hemorrhaging with severe and uncontrollable inner pain. My tough-guy look was masking eighteen years of suffering and heartache, caused by growing up with an alcoholic and suicidal mother. I was rapidly losing large quantities of my desire for life, and quickly running out of reasons for waking up each day.

As an unwanted child, I was plagued by the fear that I wasn’t even supposed to be here. Furthermore, after failing to achieve my one life mission of making my mother happy, I hated myself and felt worthless. With no father in the picture to guide me, I was clueless. I had no sense of who I was, what I could be, or how to survive the overwhelming challenge of adulthood.

But then, during the summer following high school graduation, I became close friends with a classmate, Chuck Young, a guy I had previously known only in passing. I let him into the pain and turmoil of my life, and he told me about Jesus. Up until that point, I had given very little thought to God or Christianity having anything to do with my life. All I knew was that they had something to do with going to church and being religious. Chuck asked whether I’d be interested in reading and discussing the Gospel of John, and I accepted. Every Friday morning we brought our Bibles to McDonald’s, and while eating breakfast, we discussed the section of John we’d studied the previous week.

As I read through the Gospel of John, I started seeing the heart of Jesus and my heart began to open as well. I saw Jesus as someone who truly cared. He especially seemed drawn to the outcasts and loners, of which I was one. I was thirsty for the “living water” that Jesus offered to the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well, and I could identify with the despair of the paralyzed man at the Pool of Bethseda who said to Jesus, “I have no one to help me.” For the first time in my life, I began to feel hope. If Jesus could raise a man from the dead, maybe he could give me a new life. So, I put my trust in Jesus and placed my life into his hands. I had no idea who I was or where I was headed in life, but at least I had found a path to follow in cultivating a relationship with Christ.

Taking that path with Jesus was like being born again. When I went off to college, I got involved in a campus ministry and soon became a leader. Surprisingly, I discovered that I was a gifted speaker. Attending Christian conferences, I was mesmerized by slogans such as “Come help change the world,” “The time is now,” and “Leave a mark that no one can erase.” I couldn’t save my mom, but with Jesus, I had a new mission in life to save the world. For the first time ever, I felt that my life had meaning and direction. Perhaps I wasn’t so worthless after all.

On the first day of college classes, a professor read my name from his official roster: “James Patrick Palmer.” As an aside, he asked whether I went by “Jim.” Up to that point, I had always been called “Jamie,” and to this day, it is the name by which I am known in my hometown of Blacksburg, Virginia. But on that day, I gladly accepted the name change of Jim, which made my transformation complete. The first eighteen years of my hellish existence were buried along with Jamie Palmer—and Jim Palmer with Jesus was born.

The old was gone, the new had come.

For the next fifteen years, I never looked back. I poured myself into Christian ministry. I earned a master of divinity degree, worked on staff at a megachurch, and eventually led my own successful church. My identity and worth were tied to Jesus.

When it all came crashing down, Jesus was there to catch me. Despite my divorce and resignation (and the consequent abandonment by my Christian fellowship) Jesus never left me. He was always there—sharing in my hurt, being a comforting and loving presence for my aching heart, helping to bring healing to my wounds. Jesus was the only reason I made it through some days—one minute and one hour at a time. During my darkest moments, when I contemplated ending it all, it was Jesus who gave me a reason to live. Christians often speak of getting “saved” as if it were one specific moment in time, but for me, Jesus had been saving me over and over again—ever since I came to know him. Jesus loved me, and I loved him.

My awareness snapped back to the present as I raised my head to spit out some blood. I now felt a sharp pain in my stomach, and it was becoming increasingly more difficult to breathe. I tried to push myself a little closer to the window. Every movement hurt. I laid my head back down and focused on finding a breathing pattern that wasn’t quite so painful.

Let go of Jesus…

But, how could I let go of Jesus? In that moment, he was all I had. To let go of Jesus would have meant letting go of the only person who had always been there for me. I would have been lying in that car and leaving this world all alone if it weren’t for the presence of Jesus with me and in me. Let go of Jesus? How terrifying!

The flames from the car next to me cast a bright glow outside my window. A portentous silence seemed to hang in the air. As I settled myself to await my fate, my thoughts returned to Jessica, and the memory of teaching her how to ride a bike came back to me.

As a triathlete, I swim, run, and bike. There are unique aspects that I enjoy about each of these activities. Although I like swimming and I most excel at running, I really got hooked on biking. I began competing in hundred-mile bike races, and stayed glued to the television during the Tour De France, cheering on Lance Armstrong. This sparked Jessica’s interest, and she decided that she wanted to bike as well.

Jessica’s first bike was a red Radio Flyer tricycle with white streamers trailing off the ends of the handlebars. Then, she graduated to a pink Jasmine Schwinn two-wheeler with purple streamers and training wheels, which made me nervous because it seemed as though she might topple over every time she turned. Jessica’s height has always been in the ninetieth percentile, which means that she is taller than ninety percent of the girls her age. I raised her seat as far as it could go, but it wasn’t long before we had to get her a bigger frame to accommodate her height.

Jessica and I spent countless hours biking around our cul-de-sac. We would use sidewalk chalk to mark out a maze of little roads, which we would then pedal down as we pretended the tangle of lines was our own little town. Jessica always wanted to be the policewoman so she could chase me down and issue an index card ticket for my traffic violations. I would often plan to go for one of my training rides after she and I had ridden together, since I already had all my biking gear out. But, there was always that sad moment when Dad was going off on his big bike adventure, and Jessica couldn’t go. Each time I returned, she wanted a full report on where I’d gone, what my top speed had been, and what it felt like to be flying down those hills.

When Jessica started asking to come along on my rides, I felt it was time to wean her off the training wheels. So, I removed them and we started practicing in the back yard. Initially, I’d hold on tight to both Jessica and her bike until she found her sense of balance. It took some time and coaxing, but I eventually convinced Jessica to pedal by herself for short distances while I walked or jogged at her side. A time or two, she fell over onto the lawn—but no harm was done. After doing this for several days, we moved to the street.

After you’ve grown accustomed to riding a bike in grass, riding on pavement feels totally different and scary. Whenever I suggested that Jessica try pedaling for a bit on her own, she frightfully resisted. But in time, she let me jog beside her as she pedaled the fifteen feet from one side of the street to the other. I taught her how to use her brakes, helped her with her turns, and went through the basic rules of biking on the road, taking care to cover all the possible scenarios I could think of involving cars.

The time finally came for Jessica to ride on her own! We decided together that I would steady her and get her rolling, but then she would take it from there and pedal all the way down to the end of the street, then turn around and come back. I don’t know which one of us was more nervous. (Actually, I’m pretty sure it was me!)

I put up the kickstand, and held the bike from the front while Jessica got on. She wobbled for a couple of moments, but I had a firm hold on the bike. So far, so good. I reminded Jessica of a few important things, then asked whether she felt ready to give it a try on her own. Her initial response was, “Daaaaaad?” (translation: “Do I really want to do this?”) but, I assured her that everything would be fine. “Tell me when you’re ready,” I said. For the next few moments, Jessica and I looked at each other with two huge grins. Suddenly, an audacious expression burst across her face. It was a combination of that Space Mountain look—one part terror, one part thrill—with a defiant dash of Thelma and Louise thrown in. Jessica’s eyes grew big, and I knew then that it was damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. “Ready, Dad!” she said valiantly.

I slid around to the back of the bike, and feeling a shot of adrenalin rushing through me, confidently said, “Okay, here we go!” Holding on tight, I started Jessica into a slow roll and told her, “Okay start pedaling.” And then, something incredible happened. The moment I truly let go of Jessica, she found the momentum of her cadence and pedaled off on her own. With a proud smile tattooed across my face, I watched her ride away—taking all my love, all my guidance, all my confidence, and all my hopes and dreams with her. There she went, my baby girl, her sandy-blond hair blowing freely in the wind.

Conflicting feelings washed over me—go, don’t go; keep pedaling, come back; be free, but not too free; enjoy your independence, but stay Daddy’s little girl; spread your wings, but don’t fly too far away. I panicked for a brief moment when Jessica pedaled down the small incline of our street and out of view. It wasn’t that I was concerned that something might happen; it was that I could feel my separation from her. I held my breath until I saw the sweetest face in all the world come back up over that hill. I love Jessica with all my heart, and as she got closer, my whole heart melted. I could see that she was on cloud nine and so proud of herself! You would have thought she’d just been the first woman to win the Tour De France! She rolled to a stop right in front of me, slid off her bike seat, and threw open her arms for a victory hug.

Now, I’ve done many things in my life and been many places, and I don’t recall anything more peaceful than swimming the open water of a lake at sunrise… or more beautiful than the sight of giraffes galloping across Kenya’s Masai Mara against the backdrop of a blazing orange setting sun… or more exhilarating than the moment when the person you’ve fallen madly in love with touches you for the first time… or more satisfying than that state of bliss you find somewhere around mile thirty of a run, when the pain of your body is silenced and you know you could go on forever… and I’m absolutely sure that I don’t recall a time when I was happier than I was in that moment when Jessica and I embraced, and our love flowed like ocean waves into one another.

Even though I was trapped in my car and suffering excruciating pain, I could not prevent a smile from stretching across my face.

A thought occurred to me. Could “letting go of Jesus” be like letting go of Jessica? Thinking on this, I realized that I hadn’t really let Jessica go—I had let her grow. Our relationship didn’t end, it just changed when I released my grip on her. As I took on the role of allowing, encouraging, and empowering Jessica’s independence, I had freed her to come into her own.

With thoughts of Jessica’s bike ride in my mind, I now understood what letting go of Jesus really meant. It was time to take off the training wheels and ride the bike on my own. For many years, Jesus had been filling me with his love, his guidance, his assurance that there was nothing wrong with me—to fortify and enable me to follow my own path. My dependency on Jesus was all part of discovering and embracing the truth of who I am, but now it was time for me to step fully into my identity—to stop being Jesus and start being Jim.

For this to occur, a “letting go” was necessary on both our parts, which meant a change in our relationship. Jesus would need to let go of me so that I may find my independence and freedom. In turn, I would have to let go of Jesus in order for this to happen. If Jessica had refused to let go of me, she would never have discovered the thrill of riding a bike, or the wonder of the places she would see, or the depth of the experiences she would have, or the freedom of the wind blowing through her hair. I had experienced all this, and I knew that Jessica needed to taste it for herself. But it could never happen until each of us was willing to let the other go.

Jesus knew this as well. He knew the truth of his humanity and divinity, and what it was like to walk in the freedom and fulfillment of this, and so he wanted me to know and experience it for myself. It was time to stop clinging to Jesus and pedal off to find the kingdom of God within me.

It all sank in. Jesus had been preparing me for this very moment. It was always his goal, and he had always been leading me to this place. Jesus had saved me in order to release me, and now it was time for both of us to let go. Over the course of my life, being a fully devout follower of Christ had meant many different things, but ultimately, it meant letting go of Jesus for me. It was time to pedal off—with all Jesus’ love and guidance—and be Jim.

We are each led to the truth for which we are ready, and I was ready to let go of Jesus because I knew that this was what was supposed to happen. One part terror, one part thrill. The time had come for me to yell, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!” and to hear Jesus reply, “Ready when you are, Jim.”

To me, the acronym WWJD would never again stand for “What would Jesus do?” for now I knew that it really meant “What would Jim do?” And, “What would Eric do?” And, “What would Darla do?” And, “What would Stacey do?” For we are all Jesus.

The smell of gasoline had grown stronger, and the air in the car was now so thick that every breath I took simply brought more pain.

What would Jim do?

What a strange question to finally ask myself, when there was nothing left for me to do but die. Why now? It seemed such a waste. What good was it to gain this understanding just moments before my death? How senseless it was to have come to the most profound discovery of my life with no life left to live! But would I have rather not known?

My heart burned with regret. What might happen if I could rewind the tape back to the corner of Second and Broadway and start over knowing what I now knew? How would it feel to pedal off into being Jim and be free to feel the kingdom of God blowing through my soul? What might it be like to leave Jim Palmer, Inc. behind and finally just be myself? Would I never have that chance? Would I never experience any of this?

As I headed into despair, I realized something. All throughout the past year there had been numerous times when I tried hard to emulate Jesus and became frustrated. However, there were also those experiences when I was just being Jim and it felt so natural to express love to people, to accept them as they were, to be there and care about them, to listen to them, to put my arms around them, to cry with them, to simply be a true friend to them. It hit me that it was in those moments, the ones in which I felt I’d failed at being Jesus, that I had actually succeeded.

A feeling of deep peace came over me. It was my time to let go, not just of Jesus, but also of everything. It was time to let go of the life I had lived, and the life I never would live. Like a mist that appears for a little while and vanishes, my life was about to expire. In the early morning hours of May 26, 2010, Jim Palmer would vanish and be gone forever. At the end of all my memories and all my thoughts—after learning what it meant to be Jesus and taking it fully into my heart—I was finally ready to say goodbye to this world.

With one part terror, one part thrill, one part sorrow, one part peace, one part doubt, and one part trust… I surrendered. Not a moment later, I heard a voice so loud and clear it seemed to be coming from inside my car.

“Hello in there! Can you hear me?”

Turning my head slowly and painfully, I made eye contact with the fireman who was lying on the ground and staring into the window on the passenger side of my car. An expression of disbelief tinged with relief filled his face, as if he had resigned himself to the fact that he would be pulling a dead body out of that mangled car.

“We are going to get you out of here!” he shouted to me.

A surge of frenetic intensity took over. I heard motors humming, sirens screaming, voices yelling, and a cacophony of two-way radio communications and Nextel beeps.

“What’s your name, buddy?”

“Jim,” I answered.

“Okay Jim, I have to get you out right now! I’m going to bust this window and pull you out! I need you to turn your head so the shards of glass don’t cut your face, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, here we go!”

I heard a deafening crash as pieces of glass exploded into the vehicle. The fireman knocked out the remaining pieces of glass around the edges of the window. “Jim, can you turn over on your back?” he asked. My body was wracked with pain, but I slowly pushed myself up with one arm until gravity pulled me all the way over.

“I’m going to throw this blanket over you Jim, while I pull you out, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, although I still had little hope. The way my car was wedged into the ground, I doubted that I could be pulled out. Before another thought could enter my mind, the blanket went over my face, and I felt two hands slide under my arms. I am 6’1” and weigh 180 pounds, and at first, the fireman seemed to be struggling to move me. But then, I felt an arm come across my chest, and I was pulled out as effortlessly as if I were a rag doll.

Because of the way the fireman was positioned, I ended up lying right on top of him. Apparently, this was of no concern to my rescuer, and the two of us stayed there on the ground like this for a few moments, the fireman holding me in his arms as if I were his prized possession. “You’re alive, Jim,” he said. When two paramedics appeared with a stretcher, he yelled out, “He’s alive!” Exhilaration filled the air as everyone around us started clapping.

I was alive!

Chapter 12

BEING JIM MEANS…

BEING A TRUE FRIEND

I was alive… barely. The difference between living and dying is breathing, but breathing is an extremely difficult thing to do with broken ribs. I had been told that my survival could be attributed to my elite level of fitness. I’d suffered a lower back fracture, however, and they also informed me that they were uncertain whether I would ever swim, bike, or run again.

You would think that cheating death and being given a second chance to live would have meant that I’d be overflowing with gratitude and possess a renewed passion for life. But instead, I was fearful of driving and easily triggered. Something as simple as a car commercial on television would bring me back to the wreck, and I would experience every single horrifying detail of it all over again. I began receiving therapy for PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder. The combined stress of two near-death experiences and the death of my mother occurring within such a short span of time had reduced me to an emotional wreck.

The news that the crash had been classified as a hit-and-run didn’t help matters. I found it very disturbing that the reckless driver who’d struck my car and nearly killed me would never be held accountable for what he’d done. When I saw Jessica for the first time after the accident, I was caught off guard by how deeply the ordeal had affected her. While trapped inside my car, I had grieved the loss of my daughter—but Jessica had only begun to confront the upsetting reality that she’d come so close to losing her dad.

By this point in time, Being Jesus in Nashville was only half finished, and the laptop I’d been using had been in my car at the time of the wreck. What’s more, I’d used it as a battering ram when trying to smash out the window. My car had been towed to a collision center for insurance agents to assess. I went to the facility to see whether my computer was still in the car, hoping it would be possible to retrieve the manuscript from the hard drive. After describing my vehicle to the owner, he took me around to the back of his gravel lot to find it. As we walked along together, he told me that he vividly remembered the car being towed in, and that he’d assumed from the condition of the car that the driver had been killed in the accident. He looked at me in disbelief when I told him that I’d been that driver. I found my laptop on the backseat floorboard of my car, but it had been burnt to a crisp. It seemed to me that there was no hope of recovering my manuscript; I would have to start over.

Meanwhile, medical bills started arriving in the mail.

If it had not been for my friends, I would not have made it through the difficult days, weeks, and months that followed the car wreck. Mike Willis kept a close eye on everything that was happening with me, and he checked in daily to see how he could help. He picked me up for coffee each morning, and whether it was by grocery shopping or filling out paperwork, he assisted and supported me in every way imaginable, including helping me to find another car.

Mike assumed responsibility for keeping others informed of what was happening with me, posting regular Facebook status updates to let people know how I was doing. He also responded to emails and phone calls on my behalf. I received an outpouring of love and support from all my Facebook friends, and a few of them joined forces and initiated an effort to raise donations to help pay for a new laptop so that I could resume writing my book.

While all this was going on, a friendship was deepening between a Facebook acquaintance, Yana Cortlund, and me. Yana was a published author as well, and she empathized with my challenge of essentially needing to start over with my book. She and her husband, Dave, invited me to their home in Upstate New York with the idea that a change in scenery might help me get back to my writing. I took them up on their offer and spent a week with them initially, then returned a couple more times to finish my book.

With the manuscript completed, I found myself standing at the starting line of a new journey—being Jim. Hmm. But truthfully, I wasn’t quite sure what this would involve. For the past several years, I’d been focused on deconstructing my Christianity and beliefs about God—but this had merely led to a whole new challenge of deconstructing me. There were many parts and pieces attached to the name Jim Palmer, and I would have to sift through all of them one by one.

I had already discovered that being Jim was, at times, a problem for people who wanted and expected Jim Palmer, Inc. So many years of my life had revolved around trying to be like Jesus on one hand, or trying to please others on the other. I wasn’t quite sure what my life would look like when I started just being Jim. Suddenly, pedaling off on the bike seemed a little scary, for I really didn’t know where the road would be taking me.

I also sensed a conflict arising between the part of me that knew the truth of my deepest identity and the other part of me that was fearful of letting go of the safety and security attached to Jim Palmer, Inc. Who was Jim Palmer? Who was this man set free by Jesus to stand on his own two feet? I wondered if Jesus struggled with this same tension. If being who you are turned out to be analogous to fighting city hall every day, would you start questioning if it was worth it? Wouldn’t you entertain the thought of going back to the way you were, or flirt with the idea of moving to some desert island—or something?

Earlier, as I had been studying the gospels in response to the controversy regarding my book premise, I remember being struck by how the gospels seemed to tell two different stories about Jesus—a divine story and a human story. The Gospel of John offers a poetic and spiritualized narrative of the life of Christ, emphasizing the divine side of Jesus. Instead of starting in a manger, Jesus’ birth was portrayed by John as follows, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14 TNIV). This description established the divine origin of Jesus, “the Father,” and emphasized his divine identity, “full of grace and truth.”

Luke, however, had the baby Jesus wrapped up in a blanket, breastfeeding. What Luke says about Jesus a few verses later especially caught my attention, “And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men” (Luke 2:52 ASV).

“And Jesus advanced…” Hmm.

Apparently, even Jesus had to grow into being Jesus. We hear so little about the life that Jesus led up until he reached his thirties. Before he was seen by the public eye, perhaps Jesus was learning what it meant to be Jesus; perhaps it took time for him to understand and work out what it meant to be both divine and human. Maybe it didn’t all happen at once for Jesus. Maybe it was more of a process in which Jesus learned over time to be grounded in the kingdom of God inside him.

Luke’s verse seemed to be identifying a couple of ways in which Jesus developed as a person and presented it in two pairings: growing in wisdom (favor with God); and growing in stature (favor with man). I spent some time contemplating what this might have meant.

Jesus advanced in wisdom. This suggests that Jesus’ understanding expanded and deepened as he encountered and experienced life. Perhaps this “wisdom” is related to “favor with God” because it was a wisdom born of Jesus’ growing awareness of his divine nature and relationship to God. It seemed to me that John and Luke were both right in that Jesus’ divine identity was fully intact at birth (John), and Jesus went through a learning process to fully understand and embrace that divine identity as a human being living the human experience (Luke).

The second category of Jesus’ growth was centered on his relationship with others. Jesus advanced in stature. As Jesus was becoming more aware of himself, it was affecting his understanding, encounters, interactions, and relationships with people. Even as Jesus was growing in favor among the common folk of his day (in favor with man), he was simultaneously falling out of favor with the religious establishment. The accounts of Jesus’ adult life portray him as a person who maintained a sense of inner peace despite his circumstances, and as someone who related to others—including his enemies—with insight, empathy, compassion, and love.

Jesus grew.

And if Jesus grew, maybe it was okay that I was growing too. Maybe these two stories of Jesus applied to me. Although I knew that I’d been born into this world one with God, it would take some time to figure out what this meant within the context of human life and living.

As simple as this may have sounded, I accepted that the prospect of being Jim would be a learning process, and more than likely a difficult one—as it had been for Jesus. First things first, I had only to decide where to begin.

What made sense to me was to start with friendship. I wouldn’t have made it through my two near-death experiences without the help and support of friends, and I knew that this support would be critical as I began sorting through what it truly meant to be Jim Palmer.

What was also clear was that this focus on friendship needed to include being a better friend to myself—I had to start listening to, trusting, and being honest with myself, plus I’d need to allow others to help me. This wouldn’t be easy for me, for most of my life I’d been my own worst enemy—judging and condemning myself, being unrealistic, impatient, and unforgiving with myself. These tendencies would have to change. There was one thing I knew for sure: I would not be able to do any of this on my own.

One morning I went to Panera, deciding that I would take some time to really think about the kinds of friendships I wanted to cultivate. Similar to my original “Being Jesus means…” list, I thought I’d jot down the qualities that I believed true friends possessed.

Remembering all the ways that people had been a true friend to me, I recalled the specific expressions of friendship that had helped me the most—gestures I would continue to need to succeed on the next leg of my journey. So, I made a list that described the characteristics of these true friends.

1) A true friend honors my thoughts and feelings.

A true friend allows me to feel what I feel. They don’t hurry me through that part. They don’t rush in to fix me, or try to talk me out of anything. They don’t “brightside” or theologize my feelings away. They listen empathetically. They stand respectfully on the edge of my feelings and assure me that it’s okay to feel everything, for however long it takes. They pull up a chair beside me and reach out their hand to touch me as a reminder that I am not alone in what I feel. A true friend empathizes with my feelings, but doesn’t necessarily indulge them. Sometimes true friendship requires gentleness, while at other times it requires a kick in the ass, but the action always comes from a place of love, acceptance, and empathy.

2) A true friend doesn’t need me to be anyone other than who I am.

True friendship is mask-less; it doesn’t require that I fake my state or pretty-up my reality. A true friend takes me as I am and where I am. For me, that’s the connection point in true friendship—not some fictitious place of where I hope to be, or where I should be, or where others expect me to be… it’s the place where I truly am. A true friend creates a space where it’s okay for me to be fully honest, vulnerable, and authentic.

3) A true friend prods me towards personal integrity.

Here, the “integrity” I am referring to is not about morality, but alignment—remaining grounded in, guided and directed by, and living in accordance with what I have determined to be my highest truth. A true friend understands the larger framework of my journey and brings this understanding into the relationship. True friendship takes time—time to fully understand a person’s history, life, story, journey, dreams, desires, goals, and the core beliefs and values to which they subscribe. A true friend doesn’t try to get my life to line up with their beliefs, values, goals, and desires, but supports me in holding true to my own view of things.

4) A true friend cares enough to walk with me through thick and thin.

True friendship requires some serious stick-to-it-iveness. People are messy. I am messy. Knowing that someone will be there, whatever may come, is one of the most important gifts of friendship. Friends can offend and hurt each other, yes. Friendship is not always a bed of roses; no relationship is. But, true friends work it out. They don’t shut down and run away when things get difficult. This is one of the main ways in which we grow and become more whole—getting to the other side of all the stuff that unfolds as we engage in intimate relationships with others. A true friend says to me, “I am here. I am not going anywhere… ever!”

6) A true friend asks me what I need and doesn’t assume that they know.

The two questions a true friend asks are: a) How can I help you? b) What do you need from me right now? And then (and this is the most important part), they let me answer the questions for myself. A true friendship is a relationship in which both of us can be honest about what we need and give it to each other.

As I looked back over my list, what struck me first was how melodramatic it seemed. I had been through two near-death experiences, had stumbled upon the most profound truths of my life, the tectonic plates of Jim Palmer had taken a massive shift, and the big result of all this was—being a better friend?

And yet, my whole year of being Jesus seemed to support this. I was always looking for that earth-shattering, world-changing, miraculous thing to do, when what was most frequently needed (and what made the difference) was often as simple as being the friend that I’d just described on my list.

Even though I wasn’t absolutely sure what the path ahead of me would look like as I started deconstructing, discovering, and being Jim—friendship was obviously the place to start. And so, the first item on my “Being Jim means…” list became:

Being Jim means… Being a True Friend.

The last time I put together a list like this, the ramifications and results of my endeavor were far greater than expected. I had a hunch that it might all turn out this way again. Who knew where all this was going to take me or what I might discover!

My year of being Jesus turned into a lesson of letting go, and I knew that my journey of being Jim would require that I revisit this lesson. Although I had made peace with my mother’s death while trapped inside my car, I knew that there were other pieces of our relationship still to let go.

After my mother’s funeral, my sister Kathy drove to Nashville to spend a week with me. On the first night of her visit, we stayed up late discussing the events leading up to my mother’s death and the details of her passing. Kathy shared with me that she had found some papers tucked away in my mother’s Bible, and asked whether I wanted to see them. My mother had one of those oversized, white Bibles that sat atop a wooden chest in her bedroom. This was where she kept important phone numbers, notes, and various documents.

Kathy pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and unfolded it. Upon seeing it, I was suddenly flooded with emotion, for I immediately recognized what it was. It was a picture of a bird. My mother was gifted artistically, and when I was a little boy she would sometimes sketch pictures on paper and let me color them in. It was one of the few things we did together that seemed to make my mother happy—but not just her—she and I were happy together.

For me, to “let go” of something seems very different from “letting go” of something. To “let go” feels more like an action that happens at a certain point in time—you “let go,” and when you do, whatever it was is gone. But “letting go” of something feels more like a process that happens in pieces and parts and stages.

Letting go of the people you love is a curious thing. While I was at my mother’s funeral, I “let go” of her physical presence. Never again would my mother be here in person—I would never see her, hear her, touch her, or communicate with her again.

And yet, there is a very real way in which my mother stayed with me. The memory of her lives inside me, and there are parts of my mother that are me. As a little boy, as I watched her arrange flowers in a vase or colored in those pictures she’d sketched, her creative gift became a part of me. In a way, I become my mother each time I collect autumn leaves, or sketch pictures for Jessica to color.

I suspect that one of the reasons I feel things so deeply in life is that my mother did. I don’t think I would have ever become a writer if I didn’t carry that deep-feeling part of her inside me. My mother suffered in ways that I may never understand, but I can see that there was a lot of Ricky Fitts inside her—for she was also someone who could see a plastic bag blowing in the wind and understand she’d just discovered the secret of life. The fabric of our souls was knit together, and being Jim meant being the son of Eleanor Hutton Palmer.

I don’t really think that any of us consciously tries to go out and emulate the qualities of the loved ones that we have let go of. I have not gone out and tried to be like my mother, but the essence of the person she was lives on inside me. My mother goes with me wherever I go. Our love for one another is a part of me. All the good and beautiful things that my mother was will naturally be passed on to Jessica through me.

I realized that this is what it meant for me in letting go of Jesus. Two thousand years ago Jesus died, and the world had to let go of the physical presence of Jesus on earth. But attempting to emulate Jesus wasn’t necessary—for I found that the spirit, love, wisdom, gifts, nature, and everything else that was good and beautiful about Jesus lived on in me. And that in the end, being Jim was being Jesus.

One evening before going to bed, I noticed a copy of Divine Nobodies lying on the floor of my bedroom, next to my nightstand. Wanting to remember what I had written about my mother, I picked it up and turned to the introduction, quickly finding the passages that pertained to her. After doing so, I continued flipping through the pages until I came to the first chapter, “Touched by a Drummer.” The chapter recounts my stay with Kit McDermott in West Simsbury, Connecticut. Kit directed a retreat center, and I had spent a couple weeks there to regroup and recover from a very volatile and painful season of my life.

As I was reading along, I came to the place where I shared a profound and life-altering encounter that I’d had with Jesus while staying in Connecticut. To this day, of all the stories and experiences I share in the book, it’s the one that people most frequently ask about. On the first night of my stay at the retreat center, I was roused out of sleep at 2:00 a.m., and became aware of a presence in the room that I identified as Jesus. In those moments, I felt loved in the depths of my being such as I’d never felt before or since. Later, I got out my notebook and recorded the conversation that had taken place between us, which I had also included in that chapter.

Jesus. Jim, the man I deeply love, may I come in? I want to be with you. You have not been hidden from me. I look upon you now in sadness; the one I love is broken.

Jim. Jesus, who am I?

Jesus. Jim, I see that little boy and now grown man ashamed of his picture. When I came to you last night, I hurt over your disconnectedness and loneliness. These very sorrows I have felt myself. I was unwanted and undesirable. I know your lonely place. Jim, you are desired and wanted by me. You condemn yourself, but I want you to be free.

Jim. I am so tired, Jesus. My whole life is a failure.

Jesus. I take great delight in you, Jim. I want you to know that and rest in me. I look upon the picture of your life and smile. I know you now, who you are in the process of becoming day by day, and ultimately who you will fully be. I rejoice over you with singing.

Upon reading this passage again, I realized that Jesus had been saying the same thing all along. From day one, Jesus had loved the real me, and he wanted me to be free to be that Jim. Long ago, Jesus had said, “Ready when you are, Jim.” And on this day, with one part fear, one part thrill, I replied, “Ready, Jesus!” I felt the hands of Jesus give me a little push, and I was off. As I pedaled away I glanced back, and even though he was gone, I felt his love in my heart.

Postscript

THIS IS WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE WHEN IT’S WORKING

There is nothing wrong with me.

I am enough… so are you.

I am complete and whole… so are you.

I am good… so are you.

It’s okay to be human… for you and for me.

This is what it looks like when it is working.

About the Author

As an author, speaker, accused heretic, social media junkie, friend, and human being, Jim Palmer is a divine nobody who champions the insane idea that religion doesn’t have to divide people but can empower humankind to create a world that works for everyone. You can find Jim on Facebook, Twitter, and divinenobodies.com.

1 Burghardt, Walter J. and Johannes Quasten, The Image of God in Man According to Cyril of Alexandria (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1957), 160–163.

2 Brock, Rita Nakashima and Rebecca Ann Parker, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2008), 177–178.

3 Florovsky, George, The Eastern Fathers of the Fourth Century (Buchervertriebsanstalt, Vaduz, 1987), www.holytrinitymission.org. Web.

4 McDougall, Christopher, Born to Run (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 168.

5 McDougall, Christopher, Born to Run (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2009), 171–172.

6 Isenberg, Wesley W., trans. “The Gospel of Philip,” in The Nag Hammadi Library, rev. ed., edited by James M. Robinson (San Francisco, CA: HarperCollins, 1990), www.gnosis.org. Web.

7 American Beauty, Dir. Sam Mendes. DreamWorks, 1999, DVD.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Author’s Note

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Postscript

About the Author

1

2

3

4

5

6

7