The Light in the Woods

8/10/10 Inspirations

Mystics often teach the subject of “discernment”. Discernment is the gift whereby we are enabled to see right from wrong, even to the point that we say our discernment is so clear that we do what’s good and right because God has put it into our hearts to respond in ways that please Him. There’s a special facet to discernment; mystics call it “receptivity”. Receptivity is the gift whereby we are enabled to recognize God’s presence in every and any situation, moment, and event. Discernment is a tool for dealing with worldly concerns; receptivity allows us to recognize the divinity behind what we experience.

Those whose cause it is to repudiate mysticism must do so principally by making receptivity out to be a bad thing. They will call it delusion because it cannot be proven to anyone else that God has allowed His attributes to be enjoyed by a mere mortal. They will call it dangerous because a weak mind might talk itself into ascribing it’s own will as the will of God, often with disastrous results. They would see extreme vanity in our claiming to be given such a venerable gift, under the mistaken presumption that a mystic must feel worthy of it in order to experience a relationship with God. And most detractors of mysticism would accuse receptivity of being high-minded – the mystic’s presumption to a close friendship with Almighty God being an abomination.

I’ve found that many who proclaim against mysticism are ignorant of what it really is and the real motives behind its practice. But rather than bemoan this misunderstanding, I like to use the generalized scorn of detractors as a reason to be thankful for God’s gift of receptivity. True Devotional Mysticism is rare but greatly feared because it has awesome potential for spreading like wildfire, being a truly logical response to creation. It would seem to exist in some measure in everyone, for who hasn’t looked out at the universe and wondered why it exists at all? The only logical answer is that however life was made and for whatever purpose, if an organism was created that could wonder, it must be an organism that can be told.

Don’t ever fear being receptive to the direct guidance of God through recognizing His work in everything you experience. Even the humblest insight is beneficial, for the individual and for the universe he moves in.

8/6/10 Spiritual Presentations

Something happened a couple of days ago that I’ve wanted to hold close to my heart rather than put on paper. Sometimes I just need time to reflect on things, and now especially is one of those times because once again things are conspiring against what was once so assuredly the path I should follow. With all this spiritual doubt, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t putting a supernatural spin on a natural phenomenon.

One of the animals I feel a special affinity for is the kingfisher, a bird that flies along shorelines trolling for a sight of a shallow-swimming fish to eat. They are never plentiful, but just the other day we were wondering why we haven’t seen a kingfisher at all this summer. Sure enough, just after that we heard this bird’s distinctive chattering even though we didn’t see him.

That night I had an unbelievable flurry of coincidental setbacks on the computer while trying to run my online ministry. Slow connection, no luck downloading things from sites that mattered, passwords unrecognized, faulty links and redirections, no tech help available. I lost a considerable amount of work through glitches like these and was feeling pretty low. What kind of game does God play, always directing me on one path and just when I’ve got things all set up and running smoothly, He snatches it all away and leads me somewhere else entirely? Whatever His strategy, I’m determined to accept it as what’s best, but I’m human and on my journey I get frustrated, doubtful, and despairing of ever settling on in the way that’s right for me.

The next morning, still feeling lost and abandoned and now guilty because in the midst of my troubles I had lost my temper, I was staring out my window and at last saw a kingfisher. He was flying around and around our little bay, finally settling for an awkward landing on top of the fishing net sticking up out of our boat parked at the dock. It was almost as if the bird was waiting to make sure I noticed him, for normally kingfishers land within trees along the shoreline and remain well-hidden. Then this one took off, flew once around the bay in front of our cabin, then flew right at the screen and actually hovered in front of me for a fraction of a second before disappearing.

Just as I would have if things were going well in my relationship with God, I got the feeling that the kingfisher was God’s message of comfort. This behavior was so uncharacteristic and so timely that even in the depths of spiritual questioning the incident was impressive as a divine sign.

My website is still lost in ethernet limbo, technical support is still thumbing their noses at me, my computer is still slower than molasses, and the server passwords I’ve used without trouble for a long time still will not work. But a kingfisher flew up to look into my window and somehow all that matters these days is that I can accept God’s ways for me as effortlessly as the kingfisher does.

8/6/10 Insights from Prayer

Have you ever been so distracted during your devotions that you have no choice other than to be silent and watchful, letting God take over? Sometimes the words I’m reading or saying slip through my mind practically unnoticed no matter how many times I go back to them to give them another chance. These times are when I feel most sure that God is tugging on me for the attention that He wants, as opposed to the attention I’m determined to give Him. Devotions are fine most of the time, but sometimes God wants something else; the easiest and most beneficial thing to do is let go and watch what happens.  If nothing else, I need to see these times of distraction as advancements; not setbacks.

8/4/10 Insights from Prayer

Let me not hope that what I want to do is also what pleases God. This is certainly possible, but it’s the hoping itself that is misled. Rather I should hope that I am so immersed in God that when I think of what I do at all I realize with joy that God has brought me there and fixed things so I am up to the job.

God transcends; our end is pre-ordained. We fight against this in vain when we dream up a goal and work against God to bring it to fruition. It often happens that the germ of the goal has been put into our minds by God in the first place, and we are merely acquiescing to God’s nudge and being successful through His planned help. But it also happens that we choose something outside of God’s plan and in our pursuit of it, even if it’s a worthy calling, find no joy or satisfaction.

So what should be our prayer is that we receive God’s help to be ready, willing and able to do our part in the carrying out of His plan no matter how it looks to us. What we then are actually praying for is to be one with the mind of God; in this state the particulars don’t matter and the outcome is assured – all we do is enjoy the rightness of being instrumental through our free will offering of our spirits instead of through the dictates of our egos.

8/3/10 Insights from Study

If we’re to love all others as children of God despite what they do, we must then assume that God has approved each one and assured each one of everlasting salvation despite what they do as well. We couldn’t be expected to give out extreme mercy to others and still believe it possible for God to judge them deserving of hell, for we know God’s mercy is far more merciful and God’s judgment far more just than ours. So to love as we ought to and are commanded to by God, we must see each other as deserving of God’s mercy and bound for heaven.

To believe in hell is to believe some neighbors to be bound for damnation, and if God can damn, how are we expected to accept all others equally? Even if we leave the judgment to God, to go ahead and approve in others what God does not approve doesn’t sound much like honoring God with our whole selves. If we are to love our neighbor in the same way we love God – without full knowledge and understanding – it’s difficult to find a place in our minds for hell and damnation; still clinging to each other as deserving of a forgiveness even God cannot give.

7/27/10 Insights from Prayer             God guides us always. If we did nothing, we would still have the full force of the All-powerful behind our every decision. When we pray for guidance we need not look for an answer – God’s guidance is a given. What we are really praying for is to feel guided; to be comforted in our confusion and reinforced in our conviction.

Turn your moment of indecision into an opportunity to offer thanks to God for His direction. Damper your focus on your part of the process, and see yourself as a willing recipient of God’s decision-making. If your free will ends up bonding you to the choice God has already made for you, then is when you will find comfort and solace. Our joy appears in us whenever we agree with God’s will, because then is when we are enlightened to our right-relationship with Him.

7/25/10 Insights from Study

Today I learned that we can command God in our petitions. It’s not like we can offend God by laying down ultimatums or insult Him by our insistence – God doesn’t deal in self-pride. When you’re consulting with the all-powerful the means, the ends, the path to getting there is nothing like it is for human beings. Once we understand this we can think outside the box in our petitions, forgetting what asking means among us and recognizing what our asking means to God. This takes away our fear and teaches us more about the relationship between us and God. We are not only welcome to ask, but to ask with persistent faith that our asking is productive in and of itself.

7/7/10 Reflections

You can put a collar and leash on a dog and drag him around behind you because you’re bigger and stronger than the dog. But he won’t be your companion unless you free him and he follows you wherever you go because he loves you and wants to be with you.

God could force your love at any moment, but done this way all He would have is another version of self-love. He wants the voluntary love of the things He has created – this can only be possible outside Reality, where all is love and joy untested. For this reason there is a place of sin and separation, so that that there might be the experience of love and union. This is the ultimate experience – something we could not appreciate if we didn’t first lack it. This imperfect world where we find ourselves in need of God is the only way possible to experience the joy of attaining Him.

Mystics know God is goodness because they experience love and joy through His companionship. God must make Himself known to us in order to attract our free-will love.  He does that by showing us a condition where that love is absent, then giving us the means to rectify this.  Not with collar and leash, but with a need that attracts love and adoration. That is why life is imperfect, but the good news is that out of need comes satisfaction, out of fear comes hope, out of loneliness comes companionship, out of hurt comes help, and out of loss comes love.

7/5/10 Reflections

We might look around us and confirm that our world and our spirits have been created by a higher power for reasons unknown to us. Does this necessarily mean we will worship this higher power? After all, if we were to find out tomorrow that the Earth was created by beings from another planet somewhere in outer space, wouldn’t we be more likely to fear them than worship them?

I suspect that, from the beginning of the human race we have actually worshiped the Creator out of fear of His incomprehensible power to create and, therefore, to dictate. Before long, scripture was placed with us to define, categorize and perpetuate this relationship between the mighty and the subjected. Man has come up with all sorts of rituals in order to appease this mighty power.

Or else man could allay the fear altogether by deciding it’s safer to just deny the existence of a Creator and work from the premise that we and our universal home happened spontaneously by chance. This freedom from need to both worship and appease is truly liberating and attractive.

But we have never fully been able to fool ourselves deep inside from where our independent, individual convictions come. Something is there that tells us we are missing vital wisdom, and we never feel complete no matter how we arrange the dogmas to which we’re exposed. We get the feeling that if we could lose our preconceived influences altogether and start over by facing reality in purity and simplicity, we would get to the point where we would feel comfortable deep inside our spirits. Somehow we sense that if we had spiritual peace all other concerns would fall away or at least be put in perspective.

This is how it was in simpler times and is now for mystics. Our relationship with God isn’t supposed to be one of king and serf, but of mutual lover and loved. Though it tends to become more hidden with each industrial and technical advancement, our union with divinity is there always, waiting for fruition. When you give in to the attraction of the Creator you reap the supreme benefit of His affirmation.

6/30/10 Inspirations

One minute praying; the next moment slamming doors –

The world smells only as good as the inside of my nose.

I am in each moment only what God has in mind for me to be.

As God graces me with virtue,

So He graces me with the sin He needs me to commit

In order that His plan be carried out.

I sleep in another world separated from Reality;

I dream of things that never really are,

And wake up gathered in God’s arms for my innocence.

Not one cell goes unloved after the care given its creation;

After I have been used in God’s transcendent plan.

But by my will I have been given a chance

To do something for my Creator

Above and beyond my innocent “just-being”,

And it’s for this I live in joy.

This then is the one decision God will not make for me.

I worship Him by deciding to love Him.

He gives me infinite love, and the opportunity to love Him in return –

My gift to Him is in returning His.

This God has left to me to desire;

My desire is His honor,

And I am honored by His pleasure and acceptance.