Tessie Jayme
In October 1987, Tessie Jayme had a dream/vision where a passage from the Bible was written in the sky. As she watched, many of the words in the passage were crossed off by an invisible hand and erased. She was given the message that she, along with many others, was meant to reinterpret the Bible so that it would more closely reflect the original energy of the experiences narrated by the storytellers. In Book of Yes, Tessie, guided by this dream, attempts to bring a fresh, self-help energy in her reinterpretation of the Ten Commandments.
Tessie Jayme was born in the Philippines, which she left behind at 5 years old to become an American citizen. Although raised in the Catholic tradition, today she is a Minister of the Universal Life Church, which honors all religions, cultures and spiritual viewpoints. She is a Reiki Healer, a single parent and guardian of three cats who keep her company during her writing forays into the unknown. She is the author of a science-fiction trilogy, of which the first book is currently scheduled for release in 1999.
(From Chapter One)
'(2) I, the Lord, am your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that place of slavery. (3) You shall not have other gods besides me.' ...Holy Bible, Papal Edition (Pope Paul VI); Exodus 20
A Traditional View
Clovis Chappell in his book, Ten Rules for Living, interprets this as a simple but strong assertion '...that God is. The author of this code, whoever he may have been, makes no effort to prove God. He simply affirms him. In so doing, he is in harmony with all the other writers of the Bible. The psalmists do not argue about God. They realize Him and rejoice in His mercies. The prophets never undertake to prove God; they proclaim Him., This is emphatically true of Jesus. He lived in constant fellowship with the Father.'1
New Millennium View
What is a 'God' anyway? In his book, The Power of Myth, Joseph Campbell says, 'A god is a personification of a motivating power or a value system that functions in human life and in the universe -- the powers of your own body and nature.'2
The Biblical world, around 1200-700 B.C., was a primitive one, intensely focused on the primal need to survive. There were no 7-Eleven stores in those days to provide quick sandwiches if you didn't feel like cooking, or a cash machine if you ran out of money. In those days, the people took for granted that the motivating power of their existence was a force greater than they were and so beyond their comprehension they could only 'affirm' and 'proclaim' him.
Today, our comprehension has expanded to the point where we now understand, as Joseph Campbell states, that we no longer need to personify a 'God' power to motivate us, because that power actually resides in ourselves. In other words, we are each, every single one of us, capable of self-empowerment, capable of being our own gods and goddesses. Today, many of us realize that we each create our own realities, and we are accepting responsibility for the texture and substance of our own lives.
As we approach the New Millennium, our consciousness will continue to expand, our awareness vibrations will continue to increase, and we will require less and less an external power to motivate our actions.
We will have outgrown the guiding principles of the Ten Commandments as it has been traditionally interpreted. This is not to say that we will no longer affirm 'God'/'Goddess'... only that our vision of Him/Her has already been changing, less as a personification of power, and more as an energy which exists -- the Source, the Prime Creator, All-That-Is, Spirit, I-AM, Infinite Father, Allah, and many other names.
Aware of our own energy existence, we will more consciously align our thoughts and feelings in harmony with our fellow man. We will resonate with nature.
And that resonance and harmony begin at your center of being.
(144 pages)
