White Noise
12/20/09 Spiritual Presentations
Last night I shut off the light and settled down under the covers to pray. It was zero degrees, making the ice boom like cannons – a nice sound, like thunder without the fear of lightning. The stars were many and beautiful; as always they remind me of the immensity of the universe, and that always makes me wonder about God’s works.
I was thinking about the fall of man, away from perfection and exiled here, where the ugliness of life stands side by side with the beauty of nature. The only way God, who doesn’t create evil, would allow us to exist this far away from Him is if the agony of this life is somehow a good thing. To me, this life is an illusion anyway; maybe the evil inherent in it is even more than an illusion. Maybe the illusion that is our suffering here exists to bring us greater joy. Did you ever look back on a bad time in your life with that curious relief that comes from realizing that life is better because the bad time is over? Did you ever have pain that was almost worth it because of the relief it brought you when it went away? Maybe that is the reason for our worldly existence – to make the transition back to reality even more wonderful than if we had never left. Maybe God gets something from this on our behalf. Whatever insight I was poised to get, I never got any further than this in this reflection.
I was about two minutes into my thoughts when I heard a soft, swishing sound come out of nowhere. I sat up in bed and listened but there was nothing but the sound I couldn’t identify. So I got out of bed and went over to where the sound seemed to be coming. That’s when I realized that during my meditation, for no reason at all, my old radio had started to play even though it was turned off.
It hadn’t been tuned to a valid station – what I heard during my meditation was white noise coming from a dead radio. Happening when it did was like God acknowledging that I was finally understanding something that He wanted me to understand. I fiddled with the power switch to see if there was a short in it, but the switch was working perfectly. Once I started messing with the dials, the radio no longer played when the switch was off, but that’s without a doubt the way it was when I heard it. It’s been over nineteen hours and the radio hasn’t repeated it’s unasked-for performance, and the switch is still working properly. I can’t duplicate the miracle.
I still need more inspiration on the initial thought that set off the radio. I will put myself in front of God and I’ll reflect on this with patience, and eventually I will have more insight on it if that’s God’s will. But for now the important thing is to stress that God does give us signs to encourage us to come to Him for enlightenment. Some signs are less subtle than others, but we should be amazed at everything anyway. Our first thought when given a sign should be to go before God and thank Him for His wisdom instilled in us, and to pray that we will use this wisdom wisely.
“Dear Lord, I am so small, but it’s OK, because I belong to a great God who can do anything to show His love for me.”
All mysticism does is bring you before God – God will inspire you as to what to believe, and it will be right because it’s God’s work. While we do not ask for signs, it’s a valuable gift to be able to receive them.
