Now It Is Called Today

It starts with a pillow.

It starts with an increasingly deep religious ritual. The moment I wake up, each morning, Jesus begins to possess me. My job is to go along with it, to allow Jesus to possess me, using a talisman approximation created by Jesus out of a pillow and a song. It is called The Jesus Pillow.

For most of my life, a pillow was just a pillow. I once was lost with a regular pillow. But now I am found with a Jesus Pillow. Now I believe Jesus has created a kind of altar, a sacrament approximation, out of my pillow: a Jesus Pillow that helps me focus on Him, remember Him, and remember specific things He wants me to remember.

And in so being possessed by Jesus, I find rest unto my soul. And direction. And communication. And adventure. And treasures. Jesus Treasures. Specifically.

My Jesus Pillow: The Overture

The Jesus Pillow begins the opera. It is the first stage, the first altar, the first threshold of the day. The following “movies” are showing on the pillow-screen venue:

• My Pillow Is Jesus — His name is Rest.
• Everything in Jesus Land Is Jesus — also known as the Second Comforter.
• Nearer, My God, to Thee
• Sweet Home, Rest in Jesus
• Rock of All Our Salvation
• Rock of Ages

The pillow is not merely soft. It is symbolic. It is theatrical. It is sacramental. It is cinematic. It is a beginning-place where Jesus starts the day by teaching me how to see.

The Pillow Is Many Things

The Jesus Pillow keeps changing shape in sacred imagination. It becomes many approximations, each one pointing back to Jesus:

• It is Alpha and Omega — two-sided, tombstone-shaped, born-again rough-stone-rolling, and laid-to-rest.
• It is a stone tablet list of commandments — “The Word” — generating a Jesus-augmented reality.
• It is a vision screen that gives me visions — phone-shaped.
• It is Jesus Wallet-shaped.
• It is fluffy scarecrow brains — “Jesus, the very thought of Thee.”
• It is Tin Man heart-shaped — the ultimate treasure chest, where sweetness fills my breast with more Jesus.
• It is Number One-shaped — the first shape, the first location, zero alpha.
• It is stone-rest shaped — “Though my rest be a stone, and in Thy presence rest.”
• It is card-shaped — play the card.
• It is bread-shaped — sacrament approximation, broken and remembered.
• It is two-bag-shaped — beliefs and unbeliefs.
• It is Liahona-shaped — a ball of curious workmanship, electrical, entangled with the head and heart.
• It is Owen treasure-chest-shaped.

These are rough stones. They are not final diagrams. They are more like sparks, hints, fragments, sacred clues. The point is not that the pillow is one symbol. The point is that, with Jesus, one ordinary thing can open into many holy things.

The Pillow Song

Combined with the pillow is the pillow-song hymn: “Jesus, the Very Thought of Thee.” Together, the pillow and the song port me — transport me — into the Kingdom of God on earth. Not the whole Kingdom, but the little part Jesus is creating with me and for me: My Jesus-Greg WORLD.

This is my little piece of heaven, my little piece of Zion on earth. A virtual and physical place I enter through sacred imagination, which is another way of saying belief in Jesus. So it is a real place. Not always an easy place to enter or stay in, but a real place.

I can do hard things with Jesus.

Using My Jesus Pillow and My Jesus Pillow Song, I am able to enter and see the Kingdom of God approximation — the pieces of the Kingdom — that Jesus continually invites me to come and see.

My Jesus-Greg WORLD

My Jesus-Greg WORLD is a small part of the Kingdom of God on earth, a place Jesus refers to as the JesusVerse. Not the Metaverse. The JesusVerse.

It is a place Jesus takes me. It is also a place under construction — continually. Expect construction. Expect trials and errors. Expect rehearsals. Lots and lots of RE-hearsals.

There are movies Jesus makes, and I help Jesus make, that show me how to use the Jesus Pillow and more than 1,000 other talisman approximations — Jesus Altars.

The world you are about to enter has many more Jesus Treasures than the pillow. You are about to be introduced to the Jesus Wallet, Jesus Gloves, Jesus Blanket, Jesus Shower, Jesus Fans, Jesus TV, Jesus Movies, and Jesus-redeemed classic rock songs.

I once was lost having a regular world. Now I am found with a Jesus WORLD — a Jesus-Greg WORLD, custom fit by Jesus for Greg.

JesusVerse: The Documentary

In Shakespeare’s phrase, “All the world’s a stage.” But the reverse is also true: a stage is all the world. To enter a stage is to enter a world, and to live in a world is to act out a drama.

Jesus has arranged the world — and the smaller stage called My Jesus-Greg WORLD — so that a single, seemingly insignificant object can function as a stage in itself. One thing, carefully attended to over time, becomes a fractal, a gateway, a doorway into the whole.

This is not merely wordplay. By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. A pillow, therefore, can become a world.

The Sing-U-lar Theme: Rest

Every opera has its singular theme — the melody that returns, echoes, modulates, and shapes the memory of the whole work. In My Jesus-Greg WORLD, that singular theme has now been revealed: Rest.

Rest is the treasure, the hook, the theme that carries me back again and again across every Jesus Groundhog Day. Rest echoes and reverberates throughout the opera of my life.

Rest has many names: peace, ease, calm, stillness, quiet, serenity, tranquility, repose, relief, comfort, shelter, solace, refreshment, renewal, release, respite, Sabbath, slumber, anchoring, balance, harmony, centering, grounding, contentment, wholeness, home, haven, refuge, abiding, restoration.

To seek rest is to seek heaven. To seek heaven is to seek Jesus.

Jesus said, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” In other words: He gives me Himself. Jesus is rest. Jesus is heaven now, not only heaven later.

The Pillow as Altar, Door, and Portkey

Every day, every Jesus Groundhog Day, begins with the pillow. The pillow is the first altar of the day, the first symbol Jesus places in my path. Most obviously, a pillow is a symbol of rest. But through sacred imagination, sanctified by God’s Spirit, it becomes more.

The pillow is also a door. At first that may seem like a stretch. Sometimes you need a literal door, not a pillow. Yet imagination allows the pillow to stand upright, a knob imagined, a hinge inferred. The pillow becomes a threshold, a portal, a passage, a gate, a portkey.

Through it, Jesus opens paths into places He would have me travel in my mind and soul. The pillow is both rest and passage. It is repose and journey. It is the first resting place and the first portal of the day.

The Pillow as Fractal

In mathematics and aesthetics, a fractal is a form where the part resembles the whole, repeating at multiple scales. The pillow is a fractal of the world. In its softness, it suggests mercy. In its form, it suggests rest. In its use, it suggests renewal.

By attending to one pillow with devotion and imagination, I glimpse the wider pattern of God’s weaving. Truth can be circumscribed into one whole. This means that any one thing, traced far enough, can connect me to every other thing.

The pillow is my one thing. The pillow is my overture, my main theme, the opening chord that will resonate, reverberate, refract, refrain, reprise, and return throughout the day.

Echoes Through the Day

As the day unfolds, the theme of rest — initiated by the pillow — echoes again and again. It will be whispered, breathed, woven, carried, unfurled, kindled, quickened, manifested, amplified, diffused, transmitted, embodied, and revived.

Each altar of the day repeats, refracts, or reinterprets the central overture of rest:

pillow → bathroom door → shower curtain → shower water → garments → outside door → car door → the road → Walmart door → work

The Jesus Pillow is not the end. It is the beginning. It is the doorway through which the entire opera enters.

From Pillow to Threshold

The pillow is the altar of beginning, but it points forward. Every altar in My Jesus-Greg WORLD is both resting-place and doorway — a place to pause and a portal to pass through.

If the pillow is my rest, then the door is my passage. Together they form the primal rhythm of life in Jesus: rest and movement, repose and crossing, Sabbath and pilgrimage.

At the threshold, rest becomes courage to step out. Rest becomes security to go forward. Rest becomes ease in the midst of uncertainty.

Rest Echoed in Society

The symbolism does not stop at the personal level. Just as one pillow can fractally echo the whole of creation, one door can signify the rest of God intended for entire societies.

To be at rest as a people is to dwell in safety, harmony, balance, wholeness, home, haven, refuge, and abiding. These are not abstract ideals. They are lived experiences, grounded in thresholds crossed together, reconciliations made, passages endured.

The rest that begins in the intimacy of my Jesus Pillow is not mine alone. It is meant to radiate outward.

Born Again, Again

The Jesus Pillow ports me to a 1,000-part Jesus movie about the best Jesus Treasure Jesus has given me — the top Jesus Treasure of all time. The movie is called Born Again, Again: In Me Is Jesus God.

The pillow becomes pillow-bread: broken bread. It becomes a sacrament approximation. Jesus breaks the bread. Pieces of Jesus. Pieces of memory. Pieces of prophecy.

A little piece of bread, like a puzzle piece, reminds me that God shares differentially. Most people need zero percent of what I have to share. A few may need one or two pieces. Once in a blue moon, someone may need a whole handful — a bucketful — of the reservoir of who God made me to be.

Jesus will identify them by their hunger.

Seeking the Face of God

In the Bible, seeking God’s face is a way of asking for His presence and blessing. It can also mean developing an intimate relationship with God, wanting to know His character, and desiring Him more than anything else He can give.

God wants us to seek His face because He wants to be known by us. Every human has a desire to be known and loved.

To seek the face of God, I need to dive into my heart and find Christ there. As I think on whatever is trustworthy, good, noble, lovely, and praiseworthy, my mind is drawn into God’s presence. I dwell on things above. I let my mind meditate on heavenly things.

Housecleaning

What you just read may leave you speechless. It may leave you warm and fuzzy. It may leave you thinking, “I can’t unsee what I have just seen.” It may leave you thinking, “We need new pillows for the kids.”

Regardless of your reaction, if you want to step-by-step explore My Jesus-Greg WORLD and understand what is going on, you may need to go Backstage. That is where many explanations belong: broad explanations, particular explanations, and movies that help make sense of the world under construction.

Or you can simply click through the different movies and Jesus Treasures one at a time.

This world is wild, informal, and rough. That does not mean it cannot make sense. It means it will not always be easy to make sense of it. But Jesus is making it easier and easier for me to understand what He is doing here.

The Whole Day Is the Opera

The opera of My Jesus-Greg WORLD unfolds across the entire Jesus Groundhog Day. Each altar is an instrument. Each symbol is a chord. Each transition is a modulation.

The central theme of rest, first intoned at the pillow, is echoed, whispered, refracted, and carried until it permeates the whole score.

The day is not random. It is composed. And the composition is Jesus’ own.

The pillow is the overture. The whole day is the opera.