The Light in the Woods

8/30/09 Inspirations           It’s not about worshiping Jesus – it’s about worshiping God as Jesus did, for God has manifested Himself in Jesus so that we may know of our Creator. Day after day, in small things and large, Jesus lived with God as His focus – showing us the way to peace of mind for ourselves and all peoples. I often wonder what would be Jesus’ response to the way we conduct religious services these days. We worry more over the state of the church parking lot than the state of our souls.

I love my time alone with God. That’s the time when it doesn’t matter what any human, especially myself, brings to the altar. The real altar is my spirit; my sacrifice must be the only thing I really own outright – God’s gift of my free will. When I’ve given that, I’ve given everything; as long as I’m offering that to God, no other sacrifice is necessary. In fact, any other sacrifice would be a danger of cheapening my original gift to God.

I can worship God through prayer, reflection, and good acts, but these things only make the abandonment of my free will useful to my life on Earth. It’s the abandonment itself that is what God wants from me, and even this I couldn’t have initiated without God’s help.

This is how Jesus worshiped. He worshiped perfectly, because as God’s manifestation His purpose was to make our own perfect worship possible. So few of us have taken Him up on it; our human need to control things is overwhelming.

God doesn’t help us because we go to church or read the Bible or meditate or give to charity. And He doesn’t withhold his help because we don’t go to church or read the Bible or meditate or give to charity. God’s help is independent of reward or punishment for what we are or what we do. All we can really offer is our control over our spirit. This is hard for us, but it begins our sanctification – anything more serves to make it real for us, as Jesus makes God real for us.

If you need all the bells and whistles of religion, you might consider that what God has done for you is, in your opinion, not enough. No amount of outward worship will fix this delusion.  Only doing what God asks of you will please Him – shut everything else out and you will hear His call. Answer His call and your worship will be perfect.

8/27/09 Inspirations                My own thoughts of God are so overwhelming I feel like I leave my world to enter His. There, some place where time and space don’t matter, God and I are so familiar with one another that conversation isn’t needed and yet information flows unimpeded. I feel comfortable here, like I’m having to travel but can be at home in unexpected moments of respite. In these times, smiling with God over the glory behind everything He’s created, I am so in touch with Him it’s as if I had created these things myself.

Experts tell us we can’t know God, but I believe knowing God is our final destiny, and along the way, if we allow Him to live in us unreservedly, God will allow us a more glorious look at Him.

These moments of mine I know very well but cannot display to anyone else – my purpose in this is to let those who have already experienced what I’m talking about know that the things of God are not hidden from everyone at all times. If God is walking with you, then you are blessed, and you are the expert you need to heed.

8/20/09 Reflections              We’re so arrogant to think that just because we can’t understand a thing, that thing cannot be. Those who don’t know, or refuse to acknowledge, God’s master plan, cannot see beyond Earthly death, so they assume there’s nothing. Always we look at things with the imperfect eye of humanity, but because that’s all we know, we think there’s nothing else to know.

God is waiting for us with a life of perfect peace and joy. He isn’t offended when we don’t come to Him to claim it and then blame Him for the painful consequences of our inactions. He keeps it offered and he hopes for our acceptance, because that’s what’s good for us and what’s good for us is what God wants for us.

But we are afraid of faith the more science takes over our interests. We turn to science and away from spirituality when we need to satisfy ourselves that humans are in control. In the matter of death, we know we are not in control, but we place our hope in science to one day discover the fountain of youth. We would like science to discover a way for us to live forever. We hope for human control because we don’t understand divine manifestation.

Even if human control over death were possible, I would definitely want to opt out. Why would I want eternity on Earth when eternity in heaven is already offered?

8/17/09 Spiritual Presentations             

Thank You, Lord, for answering my prayer and totally taking away from me that agonizing pain. Some would say that my tooth would have eventually stopped hurting even without Your intervention. But You and I know that nothing had happened, except Your loving grace and my prayer to You, that could have severed that exposed nerve from reaching the pain receptors in my brain.

Isn’t that a lot like the mystic idea of perception of reality? Reality is not always what we perceive, like pain, because we do not perceive perfectly, and reality, being reality, is perfection. You, Lord, and Your will for our good, is what reality is, and You have prepared for us a place with no pain and no heartache; free from fear or worry.

You give us glimpses of this perfection to inspire hope in us. We cannot fully experience Your perfection while we go through our trial of Earthly life, but this faulty perception can clear up in small ways if we ask for this in sincere, honoring, prayer to You. And each time perception is cleared up for us through prayer, we release a little more of our doubt and fill the void it leaves with hope.

Prayer leads to hope – this is why mystics communicate with God. Yes, we can receive what we ask for but, more importantly, we receive validation for our hope in eternal life and the part God plays in this Earthly one.

8/15/09 Inspirations            You can ask God for anything and He can give it. He can give you anything and He can give you everything. But He never gives you everything, because He’s very careful to give you what you need.

A parent may be able to serve his child all the ice cream the child could want, but He doesn’t do it, because that isn’t what’s best for the child. In the same way, not all our prayers are answered in the way we want them answered. We aren’t in a position to know what’s best for us, so the wisest thing we can do is leave the decisions up to God.

This is an important concept because within it lies all the secrets to a peaceful life, not only in our relationship with God but also in our dealings with others. Think of it this way – if everyone on Earth understood God’s responsibility in providing for us each as we require, what would be the need for the human power grab that is the cause of so much human suffering? If everyone conceded that God knows best, wouldn’t that logically be the end of human striving for position in favor of human striving to honor God?

We don’t kid ourselves that such a thing will come to pass, but if we understand that God thinks of us as individuals, our individual acceptance of God and His desires should be sufficient for us. We are justified if we do our part, and we bless God when we go further by encouraging others to do theirs. But never should we take over things that are better left to God, and never should we question the answers God gives to our prayers.

8/9/09 Inspirations       Mysticism is anything you directly experience of God. It is what God chooses to infuse into your spirit; it’s independent of anything God has inspired into other spirits.  We already know we don’t all experience everything the same way – we can easily see this when we consider our individuality and our individual differences.

Consider any creation other than man. One squirrel is most likely indistinguishable from another member of its species. A plant has a certain way of growing and that is how it tends to grow. Granite is granite; gold is gold. But each person you meet is different than any other in appearance, aspirations, habit, emotional effect, opinion, and a variety of other factors. In fact, the very range of factors that can be variable in humans go a long way towards showcasing our individuality.

We are special because unlike other of God’s creations we have a divine nature; we are God’s heirs and made in His likeness. From within this special attribute God works with each of us in a way He desires for us; we react in our own way.

Your mystic spirituality is anything you know of God when you take away whatever you know only through another’s experience of God. If you were to set aside scripture and all other inspired accounts, you would still have spirituality; God’s relationship with you would remain. Mysticism is the best part of spirituality as a whole, because it’s the part that you witness yourself. Through it you become attuned to God and receive His grace into your spirit. Nothing you learn of someone else’s relationship with God matches your needs like God’s own choice for you as His child.

When we learn to trust God’s choices we are free to work with them as God meant us to, which takes away the anxiety with which so much religion burdens us. We learn what’s right for us from God, instead of trying to build our relationship with God on something experienced by someone else.

8/8/09 Revelations            I was kayaking past beautiful places that I couldn’t help thinking the mystics ought to have for their spiritual retreat if the world could be run my way. But that’s not going to happen. So I wondered that those that have get more and more, and yet they still don’t understand how fortunate they are.

But I am blessed in a different way. Those who have God have everything, and don’t need more. Sometimes we seek more, or regret not getting everything we want. But deep inside we know that we have the best there is, because we have a right-relationship with God. And if God says “yes” there’s no need to worry about the “no” we get from elsewhere.

I reflect on that now, but earlier today in my kayak I felt a little sad for the things that can’t be when it’s so clear that they ought to be. As I floated past fifty-foot high slabs of rock, I touched them and it was like touching the face of God. And this is what I heard so clearly inside my spirit:

“There’s no amount of money or well-being that can compare with the excellence of the spirituality I have given you. You don’t have to wonder at others’ good fortune — just enjoy the good gifts I give you, because they will last a very long time.”

8/5/09 Inspirations           If it were possible to designate the term “Christian” with a small “c”, it would go a long way towards clearing up an anti-Christian bias that persists because Christians are always talking about how the Christian way is the right way, and all else is unnatural.

To Christians the meaning of this is clear but to non-Christians it’s confusing; it’s degrading to be told one’s way is wrong. And even for a Christian there’s confusion – if you’re told all your life that the Christian way is the right way, you would naturally think that no religion other than Christianity can produce good people.  We know there are good people everywhere – only the most fundamentalist Christian would deny their salvation on the grounds that they are simply not baptized Christians, but they do this consistently through a misrepresentation of the Bible.

Innate goodness in the heart of any human being is christian, because there’s no difference between goodness and what Christ taught us. In other words, it is christian to be good, no matter what your religion or lack of it. People of all beliefs can welcome being called christian if they take that to mean they live life loving their neighbor as themselves. Even an atheist can be christian in this manner.

The entire ministry of Christ is meant to exemplify a right-relationship with God – how it looks and why it’s the way to inner peace and contentment. This ministry is a gift from God showing us the way to happiness; others’ happiness as well as our own. Christ’s death and resurrection is meant to show that we are destined to recover from life on Earth and claim the relationship with God that is lost as long as we’re here.

But as long as we are here, there’s a way to feel close to God in the here and now by pleasing Him with our free wills, and interacting with others in a beneficial way. This way is to be Christlike – not necessarily Christian, but humbly and obediently christian. It’s the way, not the religion, that matters to God.

8/4/09 Inspirations         The presence of God in one’s heart, mind, soul and spirit is not an exceptional thing to happen, but it is an awesome thing to witness, understand, accept and welcome. This is mystic progress. The mystic isn’t special because God loves him, but because God makes His love known to Him.

8/4/09 Reflections         I know that all I have is designed for my good by a loving God. I know it and I welcome it, because I don’t care for glory or fame or riches. These things are given by other humans; the God who created me has better gifts than these. Who would best know what I need? Who would care to provide it? And being blessed by the All-powerful, All-present, and All-loving, why would I seek honor among lesser entities?

In my relationship with God I have riches even I can’t imagine yet, and I dedicate all I have to gratitude for God’s graces and to the acceptance of whatever He has designed for me. Of course there are times when I don’t like or understand what God declares, but that’s only because I’m human and imperfect. With God’s help I ignore my doubts, fears, lack of understanding, and shaken faith. I am held up by the Author of Life Himself – how can I fall?

My time is better spent in the silence of His presence than anywhere else imaginable. There you’ll find me because that’s where my peace lies. If I venture out, letting my human weaknesses control me, then I itch to get back, and I learn all over again why I am content in God’s care – if I leave it I’m unhappy. This is my proof and validation; another gift that I can pick up and bring along with me on the path back to God.