The Light in the Woods

4/30/09 Insights from Prayer       It’s so hard to let go; to let God do what He does and not feel we have to interject human passion into the workings of the universe. But that’s exactly what we need to do in order to place ourselves in the proper perspective. To think of God we have to expand our minds, and when we do we see ourselves as tiny specks on our Earth which is itself a tiny speck. Each of us is extremely important to God, but we have little importance to His plan other than to exist in it willingly, as God wishes for us.  This is because all we can do, we can do only in a worldly, temporal existence. 

We can expand our minds to see our consciousness in the same way – a tiny speck in the big scheme of things, but extremely important to God Himself. But to put ourselves at the helm of the eternal plan is our big mistake. It leads to confusion because we have misplaced responsibility. It’s not ours; it’s God’s.

No matter how important I am, I’m still a tiny speck on a tiny speck. No matter how important this Earth, this life, this world may be to me, I can do nothing about it other than to agree to order my life along God’s grounds. God designs it and God runs it. He may give us a big role or He may give us a small role. And there are times when you would swear He may give us no role at all! None of this matters if we leave it all to God to figure out. It’s when we try to take control, even to congratulate ourselves on the good works we’re doing, that we have already forgotten the most important role of all – God’s.

Mystic theology intuits that God’s goal is supreme goodness for all. You will have to change your perspective to understand how war, disease, or natural disaster has a good ending, but changing one’s perspective is possible and desirable. We believe, in fact, that it is the way to peace because it points to the way of God. No one likes pain, but it’s the pain in your nerves and its transmission to your brain that prevents you from allowing yourself to be burned if you should try to put your hand in a flame. God protects us every minute we live. Sometimes our human understanding does not see the good of it, but the good is there. To see God’s good in everything is a gift, given because we show that we want it. We show that we want it by accepting God’s plan no matter how it appears to us.

We have taken it upon ourselves to hold the reins of life; we are taught this from the beginning. It’s as if we could be punished or rewarded for the things God’s does, so we must carry out responsibility that’s not really ours. We are even made to feel guilty that we aren’t doing enough and face God’s damnation for our failings.  This is the most arrogant pride of all – to berate each other for not sticking our noses into God’s business, and then having the audacity to preach that God will damn us for being abandoned to His desires.

Our greatest virtue is to be able to live out our lives by being kind; showing the God within us through our dedication to Him. It’s not an assignment and there’s no grade. It’s us without the pride. It’s us without sin as much as is possible. It’s using our free will to accept God’s plan and to live in peace with it no matter how it’s being carried out. It’s our refusal to take over from God the enormous tasks that only God can carry out well. It’s our saying “Yes” to whatever is, and accepting God’s framework and God’s will. We worship God in this way, and if there’s something He wants us to do beyond that, by being in this state of acceptance we will clearly see His will and do it. This is what is meant by practicing the presence of God. It’s the greatest human accomplishment because it involves letting go of our own sense of importance for God’s greater good.

4/26/09 Spiritual Presentations  

I’ve missed the eagles that used to sit in the tree on the other side of the bay opposite my window. Do they stay away from their nesting tree to draw attention away from it? Surely they don’t have eggs in the nest this early, or if they do one of the eagles would be sitting on the nest, as it’s below freezing these mornings. The nest is slightly below the tree line, under the dead top of the white pine where the eagles normally perch. I can’t see the nest itself from here, but I could see the eagle if one were in it.

Then off to the right I just noticed, like a picture perfectly framed by close-in Norway pines, a huge eagle perched on another dead-topped white pine I never noticed before. It’s almost as if all the limbs on one side of the top of one Norway have been cut away so I can see this new perching sight in the distance framed by beautiful Norway needles. I laugh to myself as I think: God must have made sure this tree uncharacteristically grew that way so that I can watch the eagles from here.

It sounds funny, but then, could that be true? Why not? God has that kind of purpose and that kind of patience. I like to reflect on nature serving God this way. I know many instances where, when I’ve felt especially close to God, animals have appeared – foxes, wolves, eagles, otters – as if to confirm God’s presence and compassion for me. This makes some people nervous – shades of divine fraternization and nature worship! But from here it looks like God loving me and showing it – it fits perfectly as the sort of thing God would do for me. The fact that He could do it draws out my awe for Him; the fact that He would do it draws out my loving respect.

4/25/09 Insights from Study       All religious inclinations really point in one direction. All our means – rituals, tenets, scripture, dogma, rites, doctrines – face us in this direction because at our core we agree that there is something bigger than us. What form that takes we don’t understand, and don’t need to understand in order to live. Neither are our beliefs to be counted over and above our basic respect for what controls our existence. In the end, we suspect that however powerful we are we can never control the universe, for we are only what the universe has itself produced. And we cannot even begin to envision the enormous power behind what produced the universe.

So we turn our minds to something we can control, however superficially; something that responds to our senses when we alter it. In our helplessness in the face of great unknowns, and the pride that must cover up our weaknesses, we make our own world the important thing. We put our world above whatever it is that’s above us, and declare that this which we hold in our hands is all there is. And when we are done with it there is nothing but nothingness, for if we can’t be where we are in some control, it’s better to be nowhere at all.

And yet, every civilization, no matter how advanced or how remote, maintains the need to return to its roots – its creation. Somewhere deep inside is the need to acknowledge the higher being that caused us. Rising slowly from the sludge of human pride is the certainty that without supernatural care we could not survive.

And so we worship — just in case. But pride is nearly irresistible – it turns our thoughts away from that which we don’t understand; to make it of secondary importance. This tug-of-war is part of the imperfection of the very world that matters so much to us. Only by looking past Earthly existence, along with its imperfection, do we break out into the joy for which we were meant.

This abandonment then is the perfect worship – a worship available to each of us no matter what our situation or belief. It speaks to our most basic structure – that if there is a purpose to all this, the best we can offer is to further it by agreeing with the author of it. The more we do this, the more effect we feel as the scales of human pride fall away from our eyes, bringing clarity, knowledge, purpose and promise.

Speak to your Creator right now and whenever you are moved to drop this world to experience a bit of the real one. Then listen carefully with the excellent inner senses you seldom use. This is the perfect worship you’ve always known to be your comfort.

4/25/09 Inspirations              God doesn’t share with us all He knows. First because He is already here for us; we don’t need to know all because God does the providing and protecting. Second, it isn’t in our makeup to be able to know God completely, any more than your dog can absorb the ramifications of gravity on the Frisbee you’ve thrown for him — it affects him greatly, but it just is; not needing to be understood in order for him to play the game.

But God does share His mind with us. You can’t separate His whispers from the reflection you yourself produce through reason, because it’s all one in the same creation. Analyze anything you like – it all comes back to the Creator; He is the reason anything exists. The atheistic belief that anything we see can exist without being created is the greatest leap of faith of all. At least faith in God is based on possibility.

The point in this is the very underpinning of devotional mysticism. Though we can’t know the mind of God, we are intricately wound up in it and captured by it’s desires. You can set aside human considerations anytime to be with God and accept what part of His knowledge and grace He wishes to share with you. You don’t need crystals or tea leaves – just a humble willingness to listen to what God wants you to hear. You don’t do it to further your self-assurance, self-awareness, or self-worth; you do it because it’s what the Creator asks. You don’t make up rituals or rules and partake in group hysteria; you just go quietly to one side and pray.

None of it is very impressive to the rest of the world, but its very humility defines what’s best about it — devotional mysticism is between God and you. How powerful this relationship is when undiluted by unimportant, worldly concerns. God and you – unreserved exchange of love independent of anything else to hold you back and keep you away from each other.

When you do this, you find out what joy and peace is really about.  You understand which gifts are the most cherished, which relationships the most beneficial, which desires the most satisfying, which laws the most liberating. You discover the spark of God which has always been in you, waiting to be recognized and appreciated.  And best of all, you find that you’re worthy of God’s love and promise of perfection, which makes what you do in this life a beautiful expression of assurance and gratitude.

4/22/09 Insights from Prayer             I know You care little about my small routines, and that You don’t require any kind of ritual for me in order to get Your attention. Still, I wish I would remember to call on Your help when I begin to study, because it affirms that I’m not nearly as confident in my ways as I am faithful in Yours. That is so much a part of my problem — the part of me that I’m holding back from You because of my independence, even though I know better. I know Your ways are more enlightened than mine. I know it’s through Your gift that I learn and experience. I know that it’s Your power, not mine, that moves the plan to its end. I know so much more than I used to, and if what I see so blurred brings joy such as this, I can’t even imagine the ecstasy that’s mine when I will see You clearly. But through all the things I’m privileged to know, my weakness is in what I forget – that knowledge is a good gift, but it’s wisdom that reminds me to open the gift so its grace isn’t wasted. Lord, I’m asking that You help me keep my relationship with You in the forefront of everything I do; to live with You in mind constantly. Don’t let me forget how all the good things I represent are created.

4/19/09 Inspirations            I’m sitting here thinking of my gratitude to God for all He’s given me. But this time I wonder how many times God has favored me when I didn’t even know it. Maybe something I’ve read sowed a seed in my brain to be touched upon some other time. Maybe something I needed and ordered was the last one available and at a bargain price at that. Maybe the car I just met went over the centerline just after we passed each other. Maybe the circumstances behind the person I just met, being at the same place and carrying something wonderfully purposeful for me, involved a string of meshing events going back years to reach this moment.

Things conspire, and they conspire to bring about what we may think of as trials as well as to offer us favors. The point is – with enough introspection and quiet prayer, anyone might realize the enormity of the zillions of events that have been pieced together, just so, to produce the workings of the world. And so too we might marvel that through it all there’s no real chaos – trees keep growing, flowers keep blooming, rivers run and mountains crumble; the water cycle keeps circulating water, erosion and decay keep circulating nutrients, and our hearts keep circulating blood.

Scientists will tell us we have what we need because we and all nature are products of mutual evolution. Common sense will tell us that if that were all there was to it, we would all be as alike as the trees in a forest, water drops in a lake, or ants on an anthill. The fact that no one is, has ever been, or will be just like me implies that I am more special than evolution would allow. And if I’m special, I must be special to a greater entity.

Science can explain many things, but it can’t come close to explaining why I have intellect, emotion, physical and mental diversity, rationalization, or free will. Believers contend that the only possible explanation is that these things come from our having been made in the image of our Creator.

And having been made in His image, it’s logical to assume we have a special relationship with the Creator, for His purposes. And having conceded this, it’s no large step to concede that our Creator would order events in our lives to conform to that purpose. And lastly, we may infer that the Creator, having no real need of us Himself, created us for our own good, and orders the world out of care for us.

That Earth exists at all proves a Creator exists as well. The fact that the Earth is in motion, tending to spin away from it’s life-giving sun, and yet does not, proves the Creator acts upon His created. Even God’s chaos is an ordered progression towards a state of being benefiting us. And if an almighty God wants good things for us, the greatest good of all would be the gift of Himself, alive within us and interactive with us. This is not only what I believe, but also why I believe.rom

4/18/09 Reflections                  Dear God, I realize You know all things from within eternity and that all things move about within Your eternal plan. But sometimes the need to apologize for the human race is overwhelming.

I just went through the December edition of a well-known magazine. Eight and a half by eleven inches, 266 pages of the “holiday” issue and not one mention of Jesus. “God” and “prayer” each had an appearance, but only within quotes from interviews concerning matters other than faith. “Christmas” appears a few times but only as an adjective because Christmas trees, Christmas wreaths and Christmas day can be said quickly without any pesky religious overtones getting in the way. There was even a paint ad that made the connotation that the cows You’ve provided us for meat and drink are evil creations, so it’s not that the magazine is too timid to offend people. But the words, “church” (twice), “Advent”, “nativity”, “Christmas” (twice), and “reason for the season” showed up in a 710-word, full-page advertisement – I can just imagine the executive meetings to discuss whether the magazine could accept an ad containing such words. The top eleven catchy Christmas carols? Jesus didn’t make the grade here either — just snow and Santa. A good four-page article on the charitable things readers do doesn’t make the connection between our giving and God’s. But oh! the overpriced stuff you can buy! It reminded me of why I let my subscription to this magazine expire. Initially it was a good magazine but as time went by I was paying good money for lots of advertising and very little content.

I’m not naive – I “get” marketing, satire, diversity, market idols, activism, and political correctness. I know that in the court of public opinion the squeaky wheel gets the grease and with all the squeaky wheels the only way to reach quiet is for us to stand united on the issues the media has told us to embrace.

But not me, Lord. I’m sorry that we have let them create an environment where turning our backs on You is not only accepted, but mandated. If Your plan includes the logical outcome of such arrogance, it will be no surprise to me. How else will a prideful people learn about reality? But I refuse to get swept up in this societal tyranny, and I will continue to worship You the way You taught me. I just feel sorry for those who are missing out on the joy of loving You and who are making sure no one else gets exposed to it either.

4/15/09 Inspirations         You can never truly believe in God if your thoughts are too much in the world. If you limit reality to what you can witness, you will of course give no credence to what you haven’t witnessed. A goldfish in a bowl could be forgiven for not believing in spaceflight – that doesn’t mean there’s no such thing as spaceflight.

A good exercise would be to sit quietly and imagine how different life would appear to us if we knew we were just one planet among billions of others. We would feel small and useless but for one thing – once you have faith in God you automatically see how He is mighty enough to have a personal love for each and every inhabitant of the universe irregardless of how many there are.

Those who cannot see beyond life on Earth are destined to suffer hopelessness in some degree which may at any time turn into despair. At this time, they are aware they have nowhere else to go because beyond themselves there is nothing. What once seemed like freedom now seems like aimless wandering.

And so when the trials of the world remove your joy, expand your vision to include the mind of God, where there is an endless supply of joy. You will not understand it, but once you feel the enormity of the mind of God, you’ll be comforted in knowing that what you witness here is not all there is; that “all there is” is a concept bigger than mankind and therefore more hopeful than what we can experience outside of faith.

Faith is far from a crutch used as a prop for our purposeless existence — it’s an expansion of our supernatural senses, always approaching the Divine Mind. It’s acknowledgment of a positive force from a mystic source, drawing us to see what It sees, the message being that there’s no need to fear that for which only the Creator is responsible.

4/14/09 Insights from Study             Mysticism does not fly in the face of scripture in the way some would have you believe. Anytime scripture mentions the work of the Holy Spirit in man, it’s talking about mysticism. The Holy Spirit is the power of God working through His creatures and His creations. The Holy Spirit indwelling in man is promised over and over, and how this would show up in God’s plan was predicted many times and evidenced throughout the Bible. The actual words used by the Holy Spirit to individuals visited by Him can not always be found in the Bible, but the Bible is clear in it’s teaching — that the Holy Spirit would be clear in His teaching.

Where fundamentalism and Christian Mysticism part company is that fundamentalism rests solely on the very words of the Bible with no new input acknowledged, while Mysticism allows inspirational work of the Holy Spirit in the individual as a valid way that God speaks His mind to us.

It doesn’t help that the true meaning of Mysticism has been clouded by people using the term incorrectly when speaking of the paranormal and secular self-help, and also by people, especially those in the media, who use the term “mysticism” when they mean “mysterious”.

Fundamentalists also do not like the doctrine that there are many paths to God. To them, the law is clear and all that’s needed is obedience. But “many paths” spoken of in Mysticism doesn’t mean we’re free pick and choose what we want to obey so much as that God has a role for us in His plan and He doesn’t work with us all in the same way.

Mysticism, which is a process, often gets blamed for beliefs that diverge from Biblical interpretations. But when you are on fire for the Holy Spirit it would be just as unBiblical to ignore His offerings as to deny God’s purpose in Him.  I think if the devotional aspect of mysticism were better understood there would be less objection to it. We just give our whole selves to God and are at peace because we hold Him in our hearts as we go about our daily tasks. We pray, but we contemplate as well. We read scripture, but we read as well the testimony of those who have received God’s enlightenment throughout history. We tend to be individualistic, but as long as we’re following virtue and love, we feel sure our guidance is holy.

In short, the devotion of mysticism is honest of itself. Like anything else, those who profess it are not perfect. But this can be said of any spiritual doctrine, dogma, or process.  We shouldn’t fault the faith for the sins of the faithful. And we shouldn’t miss out on the beautiful gifts of the Holy Spirit from fear of deception. Protection from deception is one of those gifts.

4/12/09 Inspirations                         It’s not for the reasons you may think . . .

I’ve read my Bible as a historical treatise; I enjoyed that, but it didn’t seem relevant. I’ve read it as the holy word of a God we can’t come close to understanding, and was frustrated by the mystery of it all. I’ve read my Bible literally and felt that anyone who could swallow that stuff was mighty gullible. Then I quit reading my Bible myself and listened to Bible commentators, whose interpretations made a lot of sense overall, but never touched me personally.

But after I set my Bible aside and wasn’t looking there anymore, I was hit hard by the gift of spirituality. Knowledge and grace came flooding into my spirit. Conviction and elation filled my days. Intuitions and miracles paraded before me. I found out that God was not at all like what the Bible writers said, but all about what they inferred. In other words, what God is saying to me between the lines of my Bible is the same thing He’s saying to me in contemplative prayer, where I know Him as well as He wishes to be known by me.

Now I can pick up my Bible at any place, and because God has touched me personally and I have welcomed His gifts, I find seeds of reflection scattered everywhere, and the realization comes easily and clearly. Like birchbark in the presence of a match, words of my Bible are a catalyst for what I already have been taught by God. Put together, the effect is explosive, sure, and predictable.