Jesus

The whole history of these books [the Gospels] is so defective and doubtful that it seems vain to attempt minute inquiry into it; and such tricks have been played with their text, and with the texts of other books relating to them, that we have a right, from that cause, to entertain much doubt what parts of them are genuine. In the New Testament there is internal evidence that parts of it have proceeded from an extraordinary man; and that other parts are of the fabric of very inferior minds. It is easy to separate those parts, as to pick out diamonds from dunghills.           -- To John Adams, January 24, 1814

What is "the good news"? That true life, eternal life, has been found -- it is not something promised, it is already here, it is within you:   as life lived in love, in love without subtraction or exclusion, without distance. Everyone is the child of God -- Jesus definitely claims nothing for himself alone -- and as a child of God everyone is equal to everyone else.           -- Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichristian

"Eternal life," it becomes clear in Mitchell's book, doesn't refer to some everlasting after-life. More like timeless life. Life lived entirely here in a raw, exquisite "now." Like the thrill of standing on the summit of a high mountain, embracing the vast view in all directions, while every day we are standing at the precipice of time, with all the vastness of eternity right before us, and behind us, in the moment. How can we sleep?