Christ in the Cloud
God’s Help in Our Time
Conversations on truth, Christ’s presence in the cloud, and the living reality of faith
Conversations on truth, Christ’s presence in the cloud, and the living reality of faith
In a time when truth is felt to be fluid and relative, many stand without firm ground beneath their feet. I explore another perspective: that truth is living, absolute and active — and that it still intervenes in human lives.
The book A Story of God’s Help (Norwegian title Vitnet = The Witness) grew out of a personal spiritual experience in which I “saw” that truth is living and that it is the foundation of the world. “I saw that no lie can drive truth out, and that everything will come to light.” This vision awakened a love for the truth and marked the beginning of a journey in which I have tangibly experienced God’s help, through events that met my inner search for truth.
«… the life that continues to carry us when doctrines no longer do »
Christ’s presence is understood less as a power that radiates only from an ecclesial or dogmatic centre, and more as light that also works in the periphery. My experience is that Christianity’s visible centre has lost much of its power to reach people. That does not mean that Christ is gone. It means that the centre of gravity, as I have met it, has shifted. The power is found in many ways in the periphery: in what surrounds us, in events we did not plan, in encounters, in the hidden images of culture, in the life that continues to carry us when doctrines no longer do. This power can work back toward the centre and renew the church. It creates belonging between the human being and the world, and between the human being and the cosmos.
I set two clouds against each other: the net-cloud — the dark cloud of information, surveillance and fragmentation — and “Christ in the cloud”, the bright cloud that envelops us and bears light down into the earthly.
A Story of God’s Help is a novel, but also a testimony.
It portrays how Christ’s presence “in the cloud” can be understood and experienced in our time — in conversation with biblical images and promises, and with the hope Scripture still holds open: that he will come again.
Many Christians today emphasize the ideal of a “simple faith”. But simplicity is only one side of the gospel. Christianity also speaks to the human being’s deep, truth-seeking nature. Scripture contains both Jesus’ words to the small and vulnerable and Paul’s speech about God’s hidden wisdom. Faith therefore invites not only trust, but also maturity — an exploring of the depths of Christianity.
I do not write for the many, but for the few who will take this to heart, test it in their own lives and, where possible, against Scripture. I may be wrong. Each person must assemble the puzzle for themselves, adding pieces from their own life
Lars Michael Næss: A Story of God's Help - Vital Wisdom Revealed
About the book
We live in a time of dark perspectives. Wars, climate change, violence and evil. Many wonder: If God exists, why does he allow all this to happen?
Surprisingly, as the book shows, it is still Christianity that can give us hope, and has the power of renewal from its roots.
Based on life lived, the book describes how God has opened a new way for people to receive his help at a time when we will need His help more than ever.
Through 16 conversations, we get to know two people who have been brought together by chance: Lasse Tornquist and the 13-year-older Hans Brochmann. Lasse has had a profound spiritual experience with far-reaching consequences. He is keen to communicate this, while Hans, who has cancer and knows he has a short time to live, is most concerned with Lasse the man and the path he has travelled through life. In the dynamic between the two, realisations and life lived are linked into a unity that opens up completely new perspectives.
Two seemingly insignificant people in the crowd, yet touched by sublime insights into human existence, elevated by the love hidden in their conversations. This is the real driving force of the story.
Two thought-provoking Norwegian fairy tales are interpreted into our time, similarly, how Vidar in Norse mythology defeated the Fenris Wolf, the beast that fed on human lies. These are examples of God's providence. What is happening in our time seems to have been prepared from a long time ago.
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Papirbok: Vitnet. Samtaler om det åndelige i vår tid
Lars Michael Næss
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The age of the periphery. Christ in the cloud
Many associate the return of Christ with a dramatic and visible coming: that Jesus appears in bodily form. I bear witness to something I myself have lived: that Christ is at work in what surrounds us — in events, in encounters, and in what I call “Christ in the cloud”, or Christ in the periphery.
This is not the final coming that all shall see. It is a presence that requires faith. I read it in the light of Christ as the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 14:6), and of the Word — the Logos — become flesh. When I say that truth is living, it is not an addition to Christ. It is Christ himself.
The commission I took upon myself was to communicate precisely this: Christ’s presence in the cloud, and the help I have experienced there. I took the task because I saw that the help is needed. Much depends on people seeking the truth — not only in great matters, but all the way into small events in their own lives — and daring to try the help, also through the purification and trials that come with it. This is the heart of the message. It is less important to agree with me about the other things I write.
What the Bible says — and how I read it
In Matthew 24 Jesus warns against those who say, “Look, here is the Christ,” or “There he is.” The coming must not be reduced to a place or a figure we can point to. What I describe is therefore not a visible “here he is”. It is a presence that must be tested against the Gospels.
In Matthew 24 Jesus warns against those who say, “Look, here is the Christ,” or “There he is.” The coming must not be reduced to a place or a figure we can point to. What I describe is therefore not a visible “here he is”. It is a presence that must be tested against the Gospels.
Scripture also tells of events in which his presence becomes clear without his standing forth as a figure everyone can point to. On the road to Damascus a light shone around Saul. He heard: “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.” Those who travelled with him heard the voice but saw no one.
On the mountain Jesus was transfigured. A voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, the Beloved … listen to him.”
At the ascension he was hidden by a cloud. Two men said that he would come again “in the same way”. In the church’s reading this points toward a visible coming. At the same time, throughout Scripture, the cloud is an image of glory that both hides and reveals. That is how I use the image when I speak of Christ in the cloud: the surrounding presence — not a substitute for the coming we still await.
John and Paul say that Christ both dwells in us and is greater than we are: “Abide in me, and I in you.” “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” He “fills all in all.” It belongs to his being that he can be in us and surround us.
From the centre to the periphery
Through the church’s long history Christ has been proclaimed from the centre: through the church, the liturgy and authoritative speech. That centre is not empty. But in our time I have experienced that he also — and for many, first — shows himself from the periphery.
Through the church’s long history Christ has been proclaimed from the centre: through the church, the liturgy and authoritative speech. That centre is not empty. But in our time I have experienced that he also — and for many, first — shows himself from the periphery.
The cloud can be understood as an imaginal picture: light streams out from the sun as the centre, strikes the cloud, is refracted countless times and surrounds us on every side. The centre becomes periphery. The holy works in what surrounds us — in events, encounters, destinies and intimations we could not have created ourselves.
The church as it now is still bears baptism, Scripture and a language older than my experience. Without that, the words Christ, truth and coming would soon become private labels. At the same time the church can lose its power to reach people, grow rigid and wound. A more mature Christianity, as I hope it may grow in a time of trial, will — as I see it — come both from what is still borne in the centre and from the light that works in the periphery back toward the church.
Signs in life
The inner and the outer answer one another. Sometimes the help comes as an outer event that meets exactly an inner need and the thoughts that live within. At other times this correspondence opens in an inner vision.
The inner and the outer answer one another. Sometimes the help comes as an outer event that meets exactly an inner need and the thoughts that live within. At other times this correspondence opens in an inner vision.
The most far-reaching experience is described in Vitnet, in the Stable Experience: a personal revelation of Christ as Logos, in which he comes forth as the Way, the Truth and the Life. The outer events — in military service, with the red moped, at the cannon salute and many others — later confirmed the same.
Such experience is not an admission ticket. Those who have not had such visions can still meet the help in their own lives.
A visible trace in time: the Twelve Step movement
If the presence in the periphery has become clearer in our time, when did such a shift take place? Here I can only say what I believe, and I am open to being wrong.
If the presence in the periphery has become clearer in our time, when did such a shift take place?
Here I can only say what I believe, and I am open to being wrong. The early 1930s brought depression, unemployment and the rise of totalitarian ideologies. Hitler came to power in 1933. The Dust Bowl of 1934 can be seen as an image of dark clouds. Kristallnacht, the night of 9–10 November 1938, stripped the Jews of the protection of the law. The shift, as I read it, came when humanity most needed help.
In 1935 Alcoholics Anonymous came into being. I read this movement as a strong sign of how help can work from the periphery: life shared, no single leader who owns the truth, the word passing around the circle, help coming as if from outside, in the space between people.
This is the form of the periphery as I know it. Healing happens. It holds more than psychology alone can carry. I understand it as a place where Christ can work. Others will explain it differently. Each person must put the pieces together for themselves.
That there are twelve steps I read as an image: twelve as the number of the circle. It is not a proof. It is a trace.
Presence now — and a coming that has not yet taken place
I believe in both. I believe in a present presence: help that comes quietly, that requires faith, and that is confirmed within and without. “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
I believe in both.
I believe in a present presence: help that comes quietly, that requires faith, and that is confirmed within and without. “I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
I believe in the final coming: that the Son of Man will come with power and glory, and that a new heaven and a new earth will be created.
Righteousness is that Jesus is exalted to the Father. Therefore he can now draw near in quiet — to help, without abolishing human freedom.
What I bear witness to
The coming of Christ is not only a future event. His presence is also a light in what surrounds us. That is how I have experienced it. That is the calling I took upon myself: to communicate Christ in the cloud.
The coming of Christ is not only a future event. His presence is also a light in what surrounds us. That is how I have experienced it. That is the calling I took upon myself: to communicate Christ in the cloud.
I do not call this a coming already accomplished that the church must confess. I call it a testimony of help and presence, given to those who will take it to heart and put it to the test.
This is the sign as I have seen it.
This is what I bear witness to.
About myself
I was born in Oslo in 1947 and grew up near Ruseløkka school, with the Palace Park, the quays and the busy city streets as my first landscape.
Life has given me a broad and unusual range of experiences. After completing a foundation course in psychology, I was called up for civilian service at a clinic for drug addicts, where I met the first wave of young people from the Palace Park milieu.
I was born in Oslo in 1947 and grew up near Ruseløkka school, with the Palace Park, the quays and the busy city streets as my first landscape.
Life has given me a broad and unusual range of experiences. After completing a foundation course in psychology, I was called up for civilian service at a clinic for drug addicts, where I met the first wave of young people from the Palace Park milieu.
This became the beginning of many years of work with alternative treatment and with establishing collectives for young people struggling with substance abuse, behavioral difficulties and crime. I lived and worked in such collectives for sixteen years, and at the same time gained extensive practical experience in farming, animal husbandry and forestry.
Later I trained as a Steiner school teacher but had to interrupt this because of illness. In the last part of my working life, I worked as an archivist in cultural institutions.
For a time I was strongly influenced by Rudolf Steiner’s writings, and I have used certain images and motifs from them. This has created an ambiguity I now wish to clarify. My spiritual standpoint is not anthroposophical. The core of what I stand for lies elsewhere: in gaining certainty about how to act, and how to understand the connections. Quite often the help consists in understanding what I should not do – as the red moped later proved to be.
By learning to know the truth in small things, one can learn to know the essence of truth – the living truth that is Christ – and thereby stand firm in all the circumstances of life. I know that I can be wrong. When it truly matters, I have nevertheless experienced that it is possible to receive certainty about how to act, and about which paths should not be taken. I have also experienced that the one who seeks the truth in heart and mind is protected, and that purification and cleansing are necessary in order to see God’s help in what we have to go through.
The roots of this lie in the Gospels, the church and in lived life, not in mystery paths or in a system of spiritual science. The book and this website are a testimony to that help, not a contribution to anthroposophy.
Many people write in order to work through difficult experiences. For me it was the opposite: what I write about had been worked through long before I began to write. The autobiographical parts are not written for their own sake, but to illuminate the universal and spiritual themes that the book addresses.
The contemplative dimension has followed me throughout my life.
The book is the result of several decades of quiet work, in which experience, reflection and inner listening have gradually taken form.
In the following excerpt, Lasse recounts a profound experience in the stable during the autumn of 1985, an experience that became the inner point of orientation for the rest of his life.
That evening, I went into the stable to feed the horses. As soon as they had received their hay, a deep stillness settled over everything. The only sound was the horses quietly chewing. I, too, entered into that stillness. Yet although my feelings were calm, an intense drama was unfolding in my thoughts. I saw how one person comes to rely on what another has said until it becomes their own truth. The power of falsehood seemed invincible.
Just as this thought seized me and gave rise to despair, my mind opened into a kind of vision.
I “saw” into the very foundation of the world, and I saw that this foundation is the living truth. Whatever I turned my attention to, not only that thought was present, but also all the thoughts connected to it. Everything true that could be said about a question was there at once. Everything was alive; everything was life itself.
I saw that those who claim that everything is relative and that there are no absolute truths are, in a sense, right. Everything is related. Yet I also saw that truth is absolute and unchanging. And I saw that truth is present for every human being, and that no lie can drive it away. Everything would eventually come to light. This stood before me with self-evident clarity, and I was filled with joy. I felt: How wonderful that it is so.
Then my attention shifted to history. Several of the names I had learned about in school appeared before me: people who had stood up for the truth and had not betrayed it. A deep certainty came over me. Those whose names are not recorded in written history, who loved the truth and remained faithful to it despite great trials, were many, many times more numerous. I saw that without them, the world would have fallen into ruin. Deeply moved by this realization, and filled with love and gratitude for their steadfastness, I returned to ordinary consciousness.
Slowly I walked across the farmyard and back to the main building. I felt great joy, but also a certain reluctance to re-enter ordinary life. Yet when I stepped into the living room, where the others were sitting together, talking and occupied with everyday activities, a sense of peace and warmth flowed toward me from the community. It felt good to sit down quietly and remain in that atmosphere for a long while.
A few months later, the parents of the young people came to visit and spent a week with them while all the adults were away. The week went far better than anyone had expected. The young people organized the work in the house and on the farm. The animals received proper care. They arranged gatherings and had many meaningful conversations with the parents, both their own and those of the others.
When we returned, there was an atmosphere of spiritual renewal in the house. After the young people had gone to bed, some of us adults sat talking in the kitchen. One of the parents, a Pentecostal Christian, said to me, “You believe in Jesus, don’t you, Lasse?”
“No,” I replied.
“Yes, but,” she continued, “it seems as if you do. Do you believe in God?”
“No,” I replied again.
I found it strange that a religious believer could associate the good atmosphere in the house with the name of Jesus. Yet I had a strong sense that the power behind the goodness at work among us came from something greater than ourselves. That conversation touched something deep within me, but I could not put into words what it was.
Two years later, I experienced a spiritual awakening. I was reading a lecture by Rudolf Steiner when I came across the words: Christ is a reality. The sentence gripped me. I saw that Jesus Christ is not merely someone who lived two thousand years ago and in whom people believe. He is a reality. He is truly living and present among us. That was what I had experienced in the stable that day. He is the living truth.
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