The Story Behind the Image
by Virginia Essene

The year 2006 is the 20th anniversary of the year Share Foundation published the first English edition of Jesus’ book, New Teachings for an Awakening Humanity, just in time for Easter.

Jesus had asked me to have it published by Easter in1986, if at all possible, and it was quite a hassle to honor that request since I didn’t want to be a channel and wasn’t at all knowledgeable about how to publish a book. So it was through this 1984-86 time period that I really learned the meaning of intention and commitment – of saying “Yes” to spirit, and seeing what spirit in us, and beyond us, can really create.

In honor of this 20 year issue of Jesus’ book, then, I am going to share a long story that you really don’t have to read now if you’re short of time, but it demonstrates how WILLINGNESS to follow through on an INTENTION worked in my own life, and how it works in our physical world today.

Since I’m telling this story for myself, as much as for you, be assured my feelings won’t be hurt if you skip this lengthy message. It’s just that I personally need to honor the beloved brother who asked me to produce his book and who has shown me how—no matter what frame of mind and emotions I was in—that he and all our “cosmic friends” were there to support and encourage me every step of the way. There has been no greater proof to me in this life that spirit has a plan, no greater gift than learning it works both for me and through me. So I thank our Mother/Father Creator for that energy and Jesus and our many other cosmic friends from all religions and spiritual teachings for giving me an experience in learning how to safely express that energy more and more in my everyday life. Truly I AM grateful! And I share my story to encourage your own trust and commitment to your own goals.

Now back to my story about Jesus’ book. It might be interesting to know that in order for me to find the cover to go on the outside of the New Teachings book, I not only had to believe it was possible to find the required energy image that I’d been shown in my mind, but I had to keep praying for help to complete the various other parts of the publishing task because of all the problems that kept cropping up.

I’ll pause to relate some of them for you simply because they are relevant as a pattern of how to fulfill seemingly-impossible intentions—such as those we all want to accomplish in our lives today. I’ve found firsthand that my role is to trust that we have help – that our beloved elder brother and our many cosmic friends stand with us throughout our lives if we but ask…and persist with whatever intention we wish to manifest.

Would you now pretend to go back in time 20 years and just imagine yourself in my place? It’s June, 1985, and after 7 months of resisting writing down words purportedly from Christ Jesus who had been contacting me in the wee hours of the morning for some years, imagine that I have finally agreed to sit down everyday, like a regular job, and begin writing down his words.

Imagine being a computer illiterate yet needing to get the words down by computer ready for printing and needing help for that mission. Imagine not being sure whether the materials you were writing had any value to others and knowing you would have to pay for the whole self-publishing thing out of your own financial pocket if no one else would print it.

I’ll skip all of that and just focus on the biggest difficulty I had which was in trying to find the exact book cover I’d been shown an image of in my mind. This gorgeous cover was such a challenge to find and required a big string of synchronicities to accomplish. The rainbow image I kept seeing in my mind was ever-moving and contained dancing multi-colored beams and rays of light that I’d never seen with my physical eyes. I didn’t realize I was being shown living energy in motion. Anyhow, once the channeled words had been typed up by various helpers on John’s computer and I had contracted to have the book published myself because our only other possible publisher wanted to take a year to produce it and would be making some changes to its content, I was on a fast deadline to get the cover to the printer so the book would be ready for Easter. I remember that Easter came in late March that year, rather than in April, thus shaving off many days that were critical to completing the project on time…so all I had left to help me was prayer.

At that point, a friend named Pat, from A Course in Miracles group, sat down with me on the couch before she was going to fly to southern California to visit her parents, and we told Jesus that we needed a miracle if his book was going to have that special image on the cover in time for Easter.

Lo and behold, the first synchronicity happened a few hours later when Pat was waiting at the airport to board her flight. She related that she felt compelled to go into a little magazine store and buy a copy of Omni Magazine, something new to her. And while flying, she found an article in it about a Canadian artist who had colored pictures of his art work that looked very similar to what I had told her I was seeing in my mind. Needless to say she phoned me and I went out right away to buy that issue of Omni – bless them. This taught me how spirit will use whoever’s available to assist in fulfilling the intention. (Thanks, Pat!)

The challenge was that while I had Eric’s name from the article, I had no address or phone number so I began a fervent search to locate him. Eventually, I obtained Eric’s phone and called to ask him if I could buy a slide of his art to put on the cover of a book. My dilemma was that he needed to know the book cover would say the author was THE CHRIST and he had to feel okay about that.

To my joy he said he’s consider my proposal, and to my surprise he told me that he had just been down hanging his art work in northern California at one of the state universities and if I looked in the library there I could see several other examples of his work. Wow. So you can imagine that I grabbed a friend and we drove through a nasty rain storm for nearly a hundred miles to find our way around campus in the drenching rain to get into the library while it was still open that day. As it turned out, Jesus chose the picture published in the magazine as first choice for the cover, so our trip was unnecessary, but it showed me how powerful prayer was in providing exactly what I needed and had requested.

A few days later when I phoned Eric back to see if he minded his art being used on a book with the author identified as THE CHRIST he said it was okay and sold me a slide for the book cover. Whee! I heaved a sigh of relief and sent him a check, thinking everything was now on course. However, ignorant as I was then about packages coming through customs, I hadn’t asked Eric to be sure and put the required custom tag on his package and he apparently hadn’t taken this necessary step. Now the slide was being held up in customs.

Consequently I’m nervously waiting for ten long days to get the slide that has to go to the graphic artist so the cover can be created and then sent to the printer to finish the book, box it, and receive it back in time for Easter. I remember crying because I saw no possible way this could all happen in about a week. But once again I asked friends to help me pray and stated my intention to have the books ready to sell at my booth at the Whole Life Expo in San Francisco.

When the art work was done from Eric’s slide, I approved it, and with a somewhat heavy heart delivered it to our northern California printer for the final production phase which they said would take a week. I pleaded for them to have it sooner, but with only 4 days left I still saw no way the book could be completed on time. Nonetheless, I didn’t give up praying.

Then what seemed like a probable catastrophe happened before I was to pick up the boxes of completed books 4 days later. The printing company called to say that for some reason their normally reliable night binder person had mixed the wrong combination of glue products that they used to bind the cover on the text portion and so the covers for the New Teachings books were not sticking properly. They couldn’t guarantee the covers would stay on. They would consequently need new covers and another week to finish the job. What did I want them to do?

After feeling the pit of my stomach scream its disappointment I asked intuitively what to do, prayed, and finally received guidance to take the books as they were since I was due to be at the Whole Life Expo in San Francisco the next day to let their energy permeate the building and hopefully sell some copies.

Thus began a new phase of my life as a channel, book publisher, and itinerant book lady (with a book that the covers wouldn’t stay on and that I carried in my car wherever I went). Interestingly, not all the covers from that printing were a total disaster and although I apologized profusely to people and offered to give their money back, very few seriously complained or wanted their money returned – except for a few book stores who are in a formal business situation, of course. So my shared intention that I would have the books in time to be present at the Expo booth was fulfilled. But I have to laugh now for not intending that they be published in perfect condition! That part was a learning lesson.

Anyhow, when those 5,000 books were sold and we went into future printings, there were no further problems and I’m happy to say that many people loved the cover which is NOT computer created. Rather, it is God’s sunlight moving its eternal energy through a pure quartz crystal and dancing its identity across a photographic plate. This is not a photograph, as it would have been defined back 20 years ago, but a true art form that Eric created with nature. (Thank you, Eric!)

Later, when the book became very popular and I was being invited to speak all over the world, I was again faced with a major decision about whether to quit the security of my college position and risk doing what one could call “spiritual work” full time, even though any job is spiritual.

While I was considering just taking a leave of absence and holding onto to my job, I had a dream one night that made me realize there was more adventure waiting ahead. You see I thought this book for Jesus was my only writing work but in the dream I was shown a myriad of beautiful white doves flying in a formation, one behind the other, single file, not grouped as a flock. As I watched them flying something unusual happened in that their graceful body became stiff like the spine of a book and each wing turned into a moving motion that looked like the sides of a book cover flapping. The realization from this image made me realize that there would be more books, if I choose to do them, which is not necessarily what I wanted to do at the time.

However, any reluctance to leave my college work was finally washed away by the warm response Jesus’ book brought from people all over the world and although I had no idea what these other books would be, I risked that the change would be beneficial in some way. So the end of this tale is that we are on a continuum of experience, with each willing choice to do positive things leading us to the next chapter of our life adventure. I confide that I could never have imagined what these 20 years have brought me in the way of meeting people, and I encourage you to keep saying “yes” to spirit even when it doesn’t make sense and even when you may have some reluctance to follow your guidance.

The point of this sharing is that I’ve never been sorry I made that choice to dedicate my time and energy to this new adventure and today I want to encourage each of you to keep asking for guidance and then following whatever steps you are offered to bring the love of your heart into the world. Today, as I look back, I am pleasantly nostalgic and very joyful that I was part of a wonderful spiritual adventure. Most of all, I am blessed that those of you who have read our material say you’ve gained something meaningful and are putting it to use in your own gifts of love to the world.

Virginia Essene