The Light in the Woods

8/31/08 Inspirations            God, I hold the pen above the paper, knowing that You want me to learn something today.

Those closest to me know that this is the day of the week I dedicate to concentrating on God by putting my other commitments on the lowest level possible. Today I can do things my way, and, as long as it isn’t hurtful to someone else, my way is to be alone to study, write and reflect. No diet, no exercise, no paying bills, no going where I don’t want to go just to please someone else’s view of appropriate behavior.

Especially here on a tourist lake, Sunday to others means a free day to party and socialize; when I don’t join in they may wonder that I could use the one “fun” day of the week the way I do. Mostly it’s an obvious difference of lifestyles because of our location, but above and beyond that, it’s a difference of viewpoint.  My viewpoint is spiritual all days of the week, but on Sundays I allow myself to deliberately concentrate on the spiritual guidance and enlightenment I can only get in silence.

To me this is not only more important than the things the rest of the world counts as important, I also find it the most rewarding thing I can do on a Sunday. So, far from sacrificing a big chunk of the weekend, I’m using it in the most joyful way for me there is.

8/24/08 Spiritual Presentations                     Signs are everywhere when you live attuned to the presence of God. It’s one of those favors which we hesitate to ask for because we think God will think we’re testing Him. But sometimes we want to be comforted by a sign, and sometimes we get one whether we ask for it or not.

Non-spiritual people scoff, saying we find what we want to see. Well, yes – that’s how it works. Deep inside, their objection is that what we see has nothing to do, really, with God, when as for us we start with the premise that everything has to do with the divine presence, and signs of that presence are logical occurrences.

So we see what we’re open to seeing, as scoffers do not see what they’re closed to seeing. Mystics are called to open the heart and mind as completely as possible — to skeptics this opens them up to deceit (perception leads to deception) but when all is God and God is all, everything from truth to deceit is a tool He uses for our benefit. Nothing stands outside the realm of God – this isn’t being deceived; this is assuring truth by being open to what the Creator shows us.

Four days ago my mother and I started out to get her home to the mourning she must face back in civilization after the mourning we did together here in the woods. In the early-morning, five-mile boat trip that was the first leg of the journey, we experienced three things that we probably would have missed if we hadn’t gone back to look for the pair of reading glasses that Mom didn’t remember having packed. As we tooled full-speed away again, two eagles kept pace with us for a while; close by us and close to the water. Then right next to the boat the adult eagle “lowered the landing gear” and swept up a fish from the water’s surface with the grace of an athlete. Pulling ahead and going for the trees of the island we were passing, they gave us a front-row view of the young eagle trying to grab the fish away from the adult and the adult trying to maintain its perch. In my experience, eagles just don’t do things like this that close to human interference. Then we saw the only baby loon known to have survived this season on this part of the lake. Last, right where we were going to land the boat, a doe and two fawns passed along the shoreline and into the woods. My mom couldn’t get her camera out in time, but I told her to keep it handy because deer like to hang out on the road, so we might see them further on as we started the next leg of the trip. Sure enough, once we got going in the car, the three deer were ahead on the road and willing to pose for pictures.

If you don’t believe there is a God who created these things, then naturally you can’t believe He orchestrated their appearance at an emotionally-charged moment in our lives. Amidst the goodbyes, the mourning process, the fears of our own mortality and of never seeing each other again, the contrasts between the woods and the world, and the anticipated stress of the next few days for both of us in our own duties, God was using the tools at hand to show us His presence and remind us that His comforting grace is with us always.

It wouldn’t have mattered what we believed – if the Creator of these things puts them together in this way and in this time, nothing we do or do not believe makes it not have happened. But we are blessed when we recognize the work of God, and I not only believe in God, but also that His biggest desire is that I be blessed. Could anything be more momentous than that?

8/23/08 Inspirations              When the waves are high and the harbor is so far away, ask God to stay with you and help you through. But remember: He may calm the waves, but He might not. He may strengthen your boat, find a shorter way to port, calm your spirit in spite of the danger, or make the whole trip itself unnecessary to take. He has infinite influences on matters, and the answer to your prayer my lie within many possible twists and turns. Your request, then, shouldn’t be for what you want, but for what God wants, and the grace to recognize and take joy in that.

8/16/08 Insights from Prayer               Lord God, You lead me through the tough times when I ask it of You. Help me to allow this to make me aware of how You see me through all the rough spots which could have hurt me; including the ones of which I’m not even aware. Help others see Your presence in my life and become aware of Your presence in theirs. I believe this is what must happen to all Your children in order to usher in Your everlasting kingdom, when Your desire in the Creation comes at last to pass.

8/15/08 Reflections                A friend tells me shady deals are just another part of the business he’s in; that it’s the way things are done if you don’t want to jeopardize things from the CEO on down to the janitor. I told him that it’s in the smoky room with the closed door that God expects him to do what’s right and break this cycle. He told me come judgment day He’ll just have to take what he gets.

How is it that another person doesn’t care anything about the only thing I care about? It was at this moment that I realized why I can be a good person even though I don’t believe in hell – I live my life to please God, not because I’m afraid of His damnation, but because I love Him for His love of me.

Way back in my past, when I was in high school, I was a social outcast. My high school was 95% upper middle-class; kids whose parents bought them pretty much all they wanted. In my time, this having much money and using it to spoil children was still a bit unusual. But back then, what the kids wanted was clothes. Every day in my high school was a fashion show, and then, as now, I didn’t care a bit about what I wore. These clothes were expensive, and no one in my school had a job – it just wasn’t done. So the parents bought the kids their fancy clothes, and the kids turned around and complained constantly about how their parents were square, and about how much they hated their parents. I may have been a social outcast because I didn’t wear fancy clothes, but I was also looked down on just as much because I refused to hate my parents and their ideals.

I feel the same way now. I love God as I loved my parents – no way would I deny them that. I respected them enough not to ask them for something I didn’t need, just to fit in with the crowd. I would never think of turning my back on them in order to gain recognition with the “normal” people. And I would never feel comfortable doing what I know would displease them, out of respect for their loving kindness.

So it’s not about being good to reach heaven, or even having to face God’s judgment on the day of death. I’m good because I’m already given the promise of heaven, and I respect God for that love and want to live up to His desires. I can stray, but it’s not for lack of love and respect – it’s for having human weaknesses. But at least I’m determined to overcome them, not accept them as the thing the world deems as OK. It’s not about what the world wants; it’s how I’m loved by God and react to it with love of my own. I’m blessed by God to be this way – it’s all I really care about, thanks to God’s work in me.

8/15/08 Insights from Prayer               My God, condition me so that this pain I feel is no longer necessary for Your good plan. Let this pain pass away from me as no longer useful. May I have finished learning what this pain was designed to teach. I want to move on, purified, with no more need to revisit this painful moment over and over in my mind. Lord, release me from the grip of sorrow; to feel myself taken up into Your loving protection as always, but with new understanding of how this works.

8/10/08 Inspirations          I think I’ve finally understood why I’m so uncomfortable with exclusively scriptural religions of any sort – they’re all about what God gives to us, when the whole point of creation lies in what we give to God. If God, who needs nothing, created us, it was because something incomplete in the universe needed completing. I think my prayers and good acts please God because they work to complete His plan. But over and above this, I think my abandonment of my spirit to His will is what pleases Him most, because when every spirit does this, this world can be finally replaced by the kingdom of heaven God always meant for us to enjoy.

Scripture, revelation and gifts of the Holy Spirit aren’t ends, but means. Religion tends to stop when what God has given us is studied and realized, but spirituality goes beyond, into the realm of giving back to God with our own spirits. We would not be created, and created with free will, if God hadn’t deemed it necessary for us to contribute to His plan. Religion treats us as sinners, fit only to be preached to and obey; spirituality recognizes the divinity within us as God’s presence, making us ready and worthy to work for God. Religion not only limits how we are allowed by others to receive God, but as to our natural desire to return God’s love, relegates it to obedience and duty instead of joy and spontaneous perception of divine reality.

It seems to me that the result is that religion is of men, while spirituality is of God. In our journey, we need both guidances, but we seem to be forced to make a choice between one or the other as long as we can’t understand that though God is perfect, His plan is incomplete without us. So often religion becomes a stumbling-block to the work of God within us, that our best choice is to concentrate on our spirituality. Then, at least, we have a way to reach out to God by reaching out to each other indiscriminately. This is the adoration God meant to elicit from us – love of God through love of neighbor. Differences in belief as to any other way to worship God do not help at all.

8/5/08 Spiritual Presentations              Yesterday we left the cabin early, under a purplish cover of clouds, in order to catch some fish to eat. Despite the turmoil of the last two weeks and despite the small distraction of starting my day without my half hour of devotional reading, I had a strange sense of contentedness and of “being right” in this particular place and time. We left the dock, me with my camera and my fishing license, and I prayed: “Lord, I hope to always feel this simple and satisfied.”

As we fished, the sky, being slightly threatening but holding the promise of the day, would open up now and again, enough to let a concentrated beam of sunlight through to highlight the islands against the dark waters. It was a beautiful sight. We did catch a fish to eat, and I went up on one of those islands and filled an empty coffee mug with beautiful blueberries. The bushes were like a carpet, and I could stay in one place and gather as many blueberries as I liked. As I took in the amazing blue of the berries against the green of the leaves, I was very conscious of my fortune in living in a place where God’s handiwork and His provision for us is so evident.

It was an affirmation to my soul in mourning: “All is known to Me; all is in My plan and My plan is goodness. The fish has to die, the blueberries have to die, and eventually I will gather you up to Me as I gather all My children together. It’s a process of which I’m in control. Be still in your soul, take happiness in My guidance, and let My plan take its course. I have love for you that can only be hinted at in this imperfect world. One day you’ll experience it in full majesty in My perfect world. Death here is birth there – it’s another way in which I provide. Remember this when I show you My goodness; that there is so much more to come.”

8/3/08 Reflections        Dear God: I saw what You did today and I recognize what it means. I’m also well-aware that what I saw and what I know comes from You; not from me. Still, I can’t help but be proud to have been chosen to give someone the words to help them step onto the path back to You, especially at a time when I myself have felt so distanced. I read back the words and see that they are Yours; this doesn’t lessen my joy in the least, because I share Your desires. Please help all Your children as You have helped me, so that we all accept the joy, and so the kingdom of heaven may flourish in its entirety.