The Light in the Woods

 

 

#6 – THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS – JANUARY 2006

© Aubri Dennison 2006

 

1/1/06 Reflections           In my confusion and uncertainty about where to place Jesus in my life, I’ve come to think that if I never am sure of anything else, I can attest that Jesus is God’s word to us. That’s one of those religious phrases that goes in one ear and out the other without making much impression on anything in between. But because of, rather than in spite of, my questions concerning the role of Jesus, and also because I’m looking at things through the mystic eye, the phrase “Jesus is God’s word” is the sum of all my thought into what I can truly say with certainty. And it’s probably the most important thing about Jesus anyway. He came to let us know that God is with us, and that He has good things to tell us if we’ll only listen; that understanding God’s plan is none of our concern – only that we accede to it and while we’re on earth, live true in accord with our consciences and the help the Lord has provided for us through the scriptures.

 

1/1/06 Insights from Study                  Like me, Teresa of Avila sees that mystical experiences, if available to everyone instantly, would be a remedy for all the world’s ills. If all mankind could know the extreme joy of heaven that is but slightly-experienced on earth, worldly desires would pale and there would be an incentive to put trust in God. But it takes desire to give over our will to God, and the introspection of the first state that most people will not bother to undergo. Also like me, Teresa wants to do something for humanity to repay the debt owed to God, but when earthly things look so lowly, it’s painful to have to live in a worthless world where productiveness seems impossible and man’s rejection of God is so obvious in everyday things. This is a painful experience for someone who has to go back to the world, but it’s designed to let the person know how much more happy a life with God would be. Again like me, Teresa became unsure if the devotions she had devised on her own were either of real use or, more importantly, didn’t offend God outright.

 

1/2/06 Reflections           The very thing that made me give up on organized religion – my feeling that I can do a better job if left to my own devices – is the thing that’s now holding me back in my quest for God. I’m trying to get all the knowledge I can through the human methods with which I’m familiar, and forgetful of the main tenet of mysticism. It’s God who knows the best for me and the best way for me to get it. I can’t get what I need through any device except one – to give over my will to God and let Him do His work. But until He does, I will probably never learn this to the extent I need to in order to overcome my humanness. It goes against my every instinct and training not to work for what I want. The act of introspection, though, is what I can do as the process of giving my will to God. But I must learn to let go when the time is right; to stop trying to work for God and to let Him work in me without the hindrance of me trying to force my will into the equation.

1/2/06 Insights from Study            Some learneds said you should absent yourself from Christ during the mystic process, as no thought should be given to anything of human source. Teresa of Avila herself experienced this and said it might be OK in contemplative states, but in her it brought great guilt when she tried to follow what her directors advised. I’ve experienced these thoughts about Jesus and still am, though I’m coming to see him more and more as the bridge to God. I guess as far as if it’s right or not to think of him as a distraction due to his human-ness, God will let me know when the time comes.

 

1/2/06 Insights from Study           I only started my study and practice of mysticism in order to get the knowledge from God I needed and felt I wasn’t getting from organized religion. I didn’t start this in order to obtain rapture, but more and more it’s looking like once you start you don’t have a choice because you have given your will over to God and He will take it where He wants to. He would do that anyway if He so desired, but in mysticism you have voluntarily asked for him to take over and this is more like an answer to a prayer.

 

1/2/06 Insights from Prayer             Accepting Jesus Christ and using that as a basis for full devotion, as in the Reform Churches, is noble, but that’s not the same as giving one’s will over to God, which is something taught by Jesus in his lifetime. God doesn’t need our wills in order to use us, but He wants us to come to him on our own so we can experience His love more fully. That in turn should make us want to see that everyone knows the joy of what’s in store.

 

1/2/06 Reflections           “First, seek God; then seek God first” is my motto that puts all this study, reflection, and prayer in a nutshell — it’s the way of perfection in this life as well as to the next. It can be followed by every single person on earth, whether they believe in God or not – so that covers everybody, if they just knew it.

 

1/2/06 Insights from Prayer                Our petition should be to have the grace to discern what new experiences may have come from the devil instead of Christ. Teresa says you’ll know when it comes from God and there will be no doubt on your part even if others say it’s the devil’s influence.

 

1/2/06 Reflections                   Mysticism looks for the “little deaths” of rapture — in this way we’re living as Christ said — as if each day were our last.

 

1/2/06 Reflections              It’s interesting to see how my thought are ever-changing; evolving into a set of beliefs. I like to go back in my journal or my notes to see what I thought before as compared to how I think later – for this I’m glad a dated my entries right from the beginning, otherwise it would look more like confusion than evolution.

 

1/4/06 Reflections              Today I was very confused about the role of self-hate and world-hate — they sound final and against God some way, being that he is the creator of me and the things of the world. I understand it in an objective way but it doesn’t sit right with me as a requirement to further devotion. Here’s what I jotted down without any rhyme or reason: Jesus said for us to give up all to follow him — I always thought he meant possessions, but could he have meant give up all our spiritual vices, as mystics are taught as a first stage? Don’t we still have responsibilities in this world and wouldn’t it by hypocritical to skimp on our love for others to love God? Or is our responsibility to just pass on to others the way of seeking God? It didn’t sound that way in the Bible. The part where Jesus said to suffer the little children as they are the way to heaven means we need to be innocent and ready to give our will to authority because we aren’t very knowledgeable. Are worldly things really evil, or just the pursuit of them? God will provide whatever we lack by giving up all, but that leaves us will-less, and with this, can we help our neighbor at all? How can God’s creations be of no import just because they’re earthly, since we are earthly too? Or have we bastardized their use so badly that the good of them is irredeemable? When Jesus said he came to magnify, not excuse man from, the old law, could he have been alluding to how we have to not only change our corporal vices (such as greed) but also to change our spiritual vices (such as avarice of devotion) into virtues? Maybe it’s all just a test — that despite the hatred of worldly things are supposed to overcome that hatred, go back to the world, improve it, and bring others to seek God.

 

1/5/06 Insights from Study              As for good works, I believe we have been saved through Christ, but we still must renounce our sins — thereby receiving grace which enables us to do for others the same thing God wants for us. Bring people the desire to seek God, and through their introspection, form a unitive relationship with God, thereby propagating the cycle to the end times. This is our good works, to go hand in hand with our good acts, which result from our introspection and grace. Good acts make our world more conducive to evangelism and provide an example and a magnet for believers. Our work is to make God relevant to the individual — if we bring them and they’re sincere, God will do the rest. Once people know the comfort that’s possible, they won’t want to jeopardize it. Our redemption cleared the way for us to approach God, making us worthy to do His work of gathering others into the fold.

 

1/7/06 Inspirations          Just as I think I’m starting to slip on the path to perfection, I realize that I’m not just slipping, I’m sliding with no effort on my part, and in sliding I’m getting closer to the goal faster than before through the very adversity that was set to overwhelm me.

 

1/9/06 Insights from Prayer           “First, seek God; then, seek God first.” We begin by asking for God’s grace, without which we are helpless to improve our relationship with God. Asking for God’s grace is painless — it’s the one thing in our experience that we can ask for and be certain we will receive it. We often don’t realize it, but this is also the most valuable thing we can ask for. Once we have this grace, plus the grace to know we have it, we are enlightened to what is truly important for us. When all else starts to appear lame to us, that’s when we want to seek God first — above all we used to think was cherishable. And so the grace goes on.

 

1/12/06 Insights from Prayer              I feel funny asking God to let me know how I can be of service to Him — it seems prideful to think He needs me. But then it came to me that, by giving myself up to Him and trying to overcome my faults to appear pleasing to Him, I’m doing all that’s humanly possible. It is all God requires, and all He wants from us. It’s why He gave us a free will — so that we can choose to love Him. Anything that I can do with the grace He gives me, beyond giving Him my will, He could easily to Himself — but He never seems to work that way. The world earns His regard through the workings of His human servants. I don’t know what He has in store for me, but I want to be one of those servants. I prayed He would call me into service before my body and mind give out completely, but then I realized that if He has a job for me to do, He’ll give me the means to do it.

 

1/12/06 Reflections          Things of this earth don’t matter, but that also includes the problem things. Go with God and you’ll be safe no matter what bad anyone does in the world.

 

1/13/06 Insights from Prayer          Dear God, You are so powerful and I’m so small; You have perfect knowledge and I can merely be dependent on You; You are all good and I’m a sinner 00 but there’s something in Your divine plan that includes me, insignificant as I am, and that You find me worthy of Your love overwhelms me. It’s not for us to know the reasons behind Your creation, so we need to bring our reflections down to one thing — I dedicate the free will you’ve provided me to the things which are good and right in Your eyes; for everything else, I have faith and trust in Your love for me. If I could wish for anything it is to receive Your grace to help me serve You and draw me close to your love in this life and in Your great kingdom of heaven.

 

1/15/06 Insights from Study                       I used to dislike the Psalms as unending repetitions whereby nothing can be learned. I think it was because I was only giving lip service to God; worshiping Him by rote, I couldn’t relate to honest, genuine adoration. I thought there had to be something more. Now I see real adoration for God in myself and can appreciate outpourings of adoration such as the Psalms. Though I do it in mental prayer, I’m still uncomfortable with it vocally or in writing — it’s like “Who am I to give praise to God as if He needed it?” But in mental prayer, it’s a spontaneous appreciation of the new-found privilege of finally “getting it”.

 

1/16/06 Insights from Study            The concept that Jesus resides in me clears up the problem I have in that worshiping Jesus seems to water down worship of God. Jesus didn’t go back into heaven in order to finish His presence on Earth as I maintained (with the thought that remaining on Earth would imply that His mission had been a failure). In ways we don’t absorb, He remains in God and in us too — in heaven and on Earth. He is God and He is us also – the reason why the church always insisted we communicate with God through Jesus. I was never comfortable with the need for a go-between if Jesus was truly God. But this is slowly becoming clear to me; an answer to a question that agonizes me because I can’t feel I live up to the “Christianity” part of my devotion to God. Not that I didn’t believe Jesus is God and God is with us – I always did and still do, vehemently. But somehow to me there’s a big difference between “God with us” and “Jesus in us”. Once I understand the divinity not only among creation but also within each person’s soul, I see that “Jesus in us” is the cause and “God with us” is the effect. Plus, I can now understand better the historical importance of Jesus – God is now with us because Jesus’ sacrifice made it unnecessary for Him to be above us, remote and dictatorial as in the Old Testament. God didn’t change; the mission of Jesus paved the way for the New covenant after His sacrificial death. These things have all been explained to me for years, but they were just “churchy words”. It took my study of the mystics to enlighten me to the meaning behind the words. With reflection I’m sure this same line of thinking will clear up my doubts concerning the Holy Spirit. When that happens I’d like to come up with a concise statement explaining clearly this illumination I’m having of the trinity, and pass it on to all the others who, like me, can’t get past the “churchy words” and into true enlightenment. Could the answer fit on the billboards of my vision?

 

1/16/06 Insights from Study             Here’s a coincidence. Right after entering in my journey journal of this date my thoughts about finally understanding that Jesus resides within me, I read Teresa of Avila’s words to the same effect. True, the words I read before were on the same subject and without a doubt spurred the reflection that was the basis for what I wrote in my journal. But it was the next paragraph from Teresa that struck me as coincidence, after I had already wrote about my eureka moment — Teresa said the presence of Jesus within her was an idea that was obscure for some time for her, and this is exactly what I was trying to say in my writings.

 

1/18/06 Insights from Prayer            On meditating about the sin of covetousness, I understand that we should only want the will of God — nothing earthly should matter. But that’s too simplistic when you realize that there are earthly pleasures that don’t feel sinful — the smell of flowers or the satisfaction of a job well done. There are many earthly pleasures that come our way every day that surely can’t be displeasing to God. I know from experience that earthly matters, both pleasurable and bothersome, do tend to fade away in importance as I encourage my will to go to God. I used to fear the loss of looking forward to enjoying these things, but once they start to fade, the thrill of enjoyment fades too, so in reality I don’t feel the loss. This is because the good feeling that comes with being right with God is a better substitute. For instance, I always enjoyed the thought of buying land, so going through the real estate listings was something I looked forward to. Now the buying land dream doesn’t do much for me, and I can’t even force myself to look at the ads. But buying land isn’t a sin, and neither is a lot of enjoyable worldly things. It doesn’t do any good to try to force myself to not enjoy these things in order to purify my soul on the path to God. But I don’t think that’s the real idea behind mysticism – to give up things we like for God. What we really need to do is tell God that “my desire to meld my will with yours is my primary joy and I wish to pursue nothing more.” This is what He loves, and as we get closer to Him along the path to perfection, the need for worldly pleasures will follow effortlessly. It isn’t a matter of giving up our pleasures, but giving in to God’s will. All His good gifts will follow, and we won’t eel our needs. It isn’t the earthly things that are bad of themselves, but eh pursuit of them above and beyond the seeking of God. I’m confident that we will still have our innocent pleasures arrived at through God’s approval, or else our divine pleasures will cause them to become irrelevant. Either way, it’s all accomplished merely by making ourselves available to God and letting Him decide what gifts will bring about His plan for us. The change this will bring about in us won’t be welcomed by those we love, but our job is to work this out with as little fuss as possible. This path isn’t a smooth one, but the only one that counts in eternity.

 

1/19/06 Insights from Study              It’s a big mistake to think of good works as something we decide to do in order to ensure heaven for ourselves. First, heaven is already assured because of Christ’s work on earth and His resurrection from it. Second, and good works we do should be decided for us by God in response to our abandonment of our wills to Him. It’s important to model ourselves on Jesus to spread the word, but first we need to prepare ourselves to receive the assignment from God and the grace and knowledge we need in order to carry it out, including the humility to accept that God’s idea of what we can do for our neighbor may be very different from what we have in mind for us. Part of our preparation is the opening ourselves up to the personal humility that makes it all possible, including the acceptance that we are helpless and any good works we do are, as everything else, manifestations of the Lord working through us instead of through more conspicuous miracles.

 

1/19/06 Reflections               My most consistent sin is anger, even though it’s mostly tempered into those short spurts of impatience that plague me every day but not overly intensely. It occurs to me that the remedy for anger is one that can bring the most obvious relief to the sinner. Patience at the moment of anger isn’t all that hard, and the rewards are immediate and long-lasting, noticeable to ourselves and also to others who witness it, including the instigator. The good feeling of worked-for patience makes us want to try it again and again until it becomes a habit -– making virtue out of vice. We benefit on many levels, from not making fools of ourselves to better health through inner peace. When I think on this I understand better the mystic’s statement that occasions of sin can actually be welcome in that it gives us the occasion to honor God by our humility, and opportunity to purify ourselves for His sake. It doesn’t hurt either that others see what virtue looks like.

 

1/20/06 Reflections                  When we give our will over to God we finally see that everything we do must be good, and that takes the pressure off. I’m starting to see Teresa of Avila’s analogy of the lowly, foul-smelling worm — it’s us under the influence of the world. It’s a wonder we can do anything right, and even that is done by God. But once we give over our wills, good works are a privilege afforded to us; the assignment from God with the grace to see it through. Not that he needs us, but that he allows us to work through Him and the Holy Spirit so that others can more easily understand the message, just like when Jesus took a man’s body.

 

1/20/06 Inspirations             If you love God and want to be sure you’re doing His will, you have to give your own will over to Him to direct. Trust Him to affect the changes in you that will bring you to Him in perfect unity. We can’t bring about anything ourselves, but we can dedicate the free will He’s gifted us with – this dedication is the most noble use of our free will and is the assurance that we’re using His gift in a way that pleases Him. Anything else is the work of God, not us, and God’s work is good.

 

1/21/06 Inspirations                It’s an odd experience to find that, both physically and spiritually, hunger and satiation are the same feeling. This must be an evening out of the sense to prepare me to recognize the truth of divine intervention when it manifests itself. Like a spot of blaze orange in the woods or a red pillow on a solid brown couch, the word is a welcome accent in the drabness of my new identity. Humility recognizes the presence of omnipotence.

 

1/22/06 Insights from Prayer             The old mystics aren’t very good at telling you how to go through the different levels of the way to perfection. They have trouble expressing it when they try and, when all is said and done, the point of mysticism is that God tells us what pleases him and how to proceed. Each person, no matter how sinful, has a conscience that tells him what’s right, and this conscience (which is really a gift of grace) can be expanded through the same grace to let him know how to move along on the path of righteousness. I trust in Him, and feel that today is my day to move on to the next level — whatever that is and however it’s accomplished. My introspections seem really lame, and my adoration needs to be joined with my contemplations because today I took in the Eucharist after realizing that Jesus was right of course when he spoke to me to tell me I didn’t need to possess a host in order to worship Him and have Him inside me. So that part of my journey is over. I thought I would feel bad but I don’t — I feel now that God is dwelling within me so certainly that the host, as a symbol, is no longer valid. This is the level where I make quiet time available to let God in and to hear Him if He favors me. I would anticipate more than the small intuitions I received in the first-stage devotions I’ve been doing, although I think those might continue. But I would also look forward to experiencing infused voices and visions if God so desires.

 

1/22/06 Reflections                 Today my thought is to move on to the next level of mysticism. I don’t know how I know it’s time or even how to change what I’m doing to accommodate the next stage. I just feel that my devotions have become irrelevant – that I’m so beyond this now that to go along the same as before would be like taking steps backward. Those devotions served me well, and I may even have to go back for a refresher course, but now I strongly feel that to move on I have to revise my methods. If I’m wrong I trust God will let me know, and it’s this faith that assures me I’m on the right track. This switch over isn’t as painful as my study of the old mystics would lead me to believe it should be; but then I’ve never been very emotional — maybe for this reason the lows I’m experiencing aren’t as bad, and maybe the highs I’m preparing for won’t be as intense either.

 

1/22/06 Insights from Prayer                My intercession for today’s morning prayer was for global mystic theology and my petition was that I be correct in moving my devotions on to the next level. I did my last adoration before the Eucharist and it was full of wonderful insights – very satisfying. Afterward, I took the Eucharist in at last. Jesus was right when He said I didn’t need it for adoration of Him – in the month I had it I never got as emotional over it as I thought I would. Is it the real presence of Christ’s body and blood? You would think if it was, I would have had more feeling for it, and Christ Himself wouldn’t have discouraged me from acquiring it. But I respected it and it did serve a purpose in my devotions. But, like the Bible, after progressing this far it seems like only a prop for a method of worship I have graduated beyond. This is what I’ve learned is supposed to happen, so I should be grateful and trust God that things are progressing as they should. I hope so – because from this point, giving up what I feel I must give up would be blasphemy if I’m wrong.

 

1/23/06 Inspirations             We share in Christ’s sacrificial duties when our will is at one with Him. So we can become mediators between man and God with the knowledge and grace provided to us in a perfect unity. Like Jesus, we can become good examples although unlike Him we can never be perfect in this life. When we say we’re on the “path to perfection” we mean perfect unity through desire, not through sinlessness. Christ takes the place of the ritual sacrificed of the old laws found in Leviticus, which were designed to connect God and man through an intermediary. By the time of Christ these strict rituals had become a man-made invention, not something ordained by God or even pleasing to Him. Christ’s job was to end the practice once and for all by showing what God really wants as obedience and fervor for Him; not ritual. I liken this to the rituals of today’s church which, though innocent, tend to cling to the exclusivity of man-made inventions. The need for ritual is deeply ingrained, and we bring it in even to mysticism, where ultimately it should not have importance. We’ve been seeking a method of worship acceptable to God since Adam lost the intuitive ability for this. We always cling to ritual as an answer because that draws in all people and takes away the need to figure out how to worship as an individual. Ritual is a good starting point for the self-seeker because we have to first use it to move ourselves away from our human failings. As I improve and decrease the ritual, I find that we worship God best when we seek His love and obey what His love tells us is best for us to do. This is the perfect worship He desires; the covenant that has been hammered out in different forms since the beginning of time is really quite simple and recognizable to everyone – not just priests, preachers, rabbis, and mullahs. No politics and no affiliation is needed when religion is just between a seeking person and a loving God – mysticism at its best. It’s in human nature to need to complicate that, but the creator keeps trying to get us to understand that the individual’s walk with God is the only important thing to be considered and promoted.

 

1/24/06 Insights from Study              I understand that there are a lot of temptations to go overboard with pleasing the senses, but what about when we are simply, passively happy when we see, hear, taste, smell or touch something pleasing? The mystics are always trying to deny their senses, but nobody mentions that God would not have created beautiful things just to provide us ways to sin. In fact, when beauty reaches my senses I tend to think of God and how wonderful he was to have thought of that! Why would I want to lose that? Also, the mystics I’m studying tend to think the thirst for knowledge is something to fight down. My need to know brings me ever closer to God, who knows everything. I don’t see how giving up studying about God would be a good thing. It’s like the debate over science and religion — just like the debate over evolution and creationism, I don’t have the slightest problem incorporating both into my life doctrine.

I have trouble figuring out why the old mystics had to deny themselves everything pleasing. I understand the reason behind self-denial, but I think they go too far — are we really that weak-minded that we can’t distinguish between good use of our senses and bad? Were things different back then, that people didn’t have any temperance so they had to do completely without in order to put God first? Didn’t they have the ability to put God first without having to eliminate all sensual manifestations?

I tend to think that since God is all-pervasive, dwelling with, through, and in everything of his creation, it’s heretical to think that the things of his creation are evil when they cause us joy. Here I’ve been worried that I’m not a real mystic because I’m not going through all this agony the old mystics say I should be going through. I thought it might be because my emotions tend to be flat-lined anyway, but just maybe God is telling me that the old mystics were overzealous in their denial. I think I can actively desire to give over my will to an acceptance of divine design without denying myself a feeling of awe during a particularly beautiful sunset. This just can’t be displeasing to God. It doesn’t mean I’m worshiping the sun god.

Nothing he created is unclean, just like he said in the Bible. Or am I a product of a permissive society even though I’m super-aware of the need to subdue my own permissiveness? Surely the idea behind mysticism can’t be to totally eradicate our senses, because that is impossible.

 

1/24/06 Inspirations          And what if we’re wrong? What if God is not really speaking to us after all? The result is still the same – God is allowing us to know His desires, whether it’s done in a way we can understand, like intuitions received from Him, or in a way we can’t understand, like us just thinking we’re receiving intuitions when we’re not. Either way, there is a Creator and His will is infused in us. We’re not divine, so we have no idea of the boundless power of God. That doesn’t mean we’re justified to deny there is such a power at all. What nerve – to deny God because we don’t understand Him! Who do we think we are? And how do we think we got here?

 

1/24/06 Insights from Prayer             Dear God – I offer my heart to love you; I offer my will to serve you. Love God above all else, and your neighbor as yourself. Love and serve. It’s so simple, and yet many millions of words have analyzed it, and millions of people have died disputing it, but still the knowledge is in our hearts; us alone above all other creation. Just because we are above all other creation we think we’re above everything, forgetting the creator. Forgetting that He gave us dominion over the earth; forgetting that He made us in His own image – meaning with intellect, memory, and will. And these are the three faculties which we use on our path to perfection – first my employing them; then by giving them over to God and accepting His own as ours. By loving Him we get to know Him, and knowing Him we can serve His desires. Love and serve is simple – it’s getting to the humility to do both that’s outside our human nature. But it’s possible with God’s help, as is everything. All we have to do is ask for that help, and none of us can say with any honesty that God’s asking that is more than we are capable of. It’s just that we’re afraid an intervention, by ourselves or by others, will rob us of our pleasures. We need to let go of those pleasures and enjoy living free of them. We won’t know what ecstasy that is until we get there. Faith in God comes first.

 

1/25/06 Reflections              God is at all times and everywhere giving each one of us his full, undivided attention. Imagine yourself in contemplation with God and across from you is your enemy, also in contemplation with God. What is he asking and what is God answering?

 

1/25/06 Reflections               St. Augustine did a lot of reflecting on the philosophy of the Bible, much of which made my eyes glaze over. It was interesting to see his thought processes, but as soon as you lose the gist of one precept, all the rest that follows is gibberish. After chapter upon chapter of that in connection with his taking apart of the first chapter of Genesis, it struck me that even though inspired, the Bible can only address earthly matters. What we understand of it is only what’s understandable to us. There is much more than that, important things that man can’t touch upon. Unearthliness underlies all we are and experience, as God is infused in us so as to give us a glimpse of divinity, but our minds haven’t been awarded the gift of perfect understanding, so all this philosophy is useless.

 

1/25/06 Reflections                When the sun is lightly covered with clouds it looks exactly like the moon. But it’s nothing at all like the moon. And you’d never be able to look at the sun and see it that clearly if it weren’t for the clouds. Is this kind of like the way God teaches us? Take something we know, then cloud it over so we can see it in a different light, even though this process lessens our satisfaction with the thing?

1/25/06 Insights from Study              Leviticus 24:16 — You must kill

                                                     Leviticus 24:17 — You must not kill

The Bible is full of death by God. It isn’t until the New Testament that the sacrifice and bloodshed ends — with the sacrifice and bloodshed of Jesus. But I believe there is a basis for just war, assassination and the death penalty; situations where the legitimate authority, with discretion, kills in order to further a greater obligation to those it rules, even though I hope and pray that we reach a point where none of that is any longer necessary. But the second verse deals on a personal, not governmental, basis, and it says not to kill, not making an exception for self-defense. Even with New Testament revelation, I feel right to contend that there is a time to kill, but murder is never right.

 

1/26/06 Reflections           The Bible explains what’s needed for humans to know what humans need to know about God. It doesn’t come anywhere near explaining what God really is, or the plans He has. No human brain could write it; no human brain could read it — so maybe it isn’t necessary for us to know, in God’s judgment. How arrogant of man to think he can understand God or that God had a need to be understood by man. Learning is fine, and so is asking God for knowledge, but we never hope to understand God himself. Let’s not fool ourselves into thinking there’s any tool on earth that can teach us all there is to know about God — I’ve heard people say the Bible is such a tool, but if that were so there would be no need to ask God for his direction. To listen to some preachers, there is only one way to interpret the Bible — their way. Why should we have this slavish veneration for words we can’t even agree on the meaning of? When we’re reading the Bible, we should put it down now and then and look inside ourselves — the answer that’s appropriate to the individual is there because God dwells inside him. He is a person’s inspiration just as He was for the authors of the Bible. But He is attuned to an individual’s personal needs and He knows what it is that person needs. Just as important, He knows what the individual doesn’t need. The Bible is an inspired and excellent springboard for subjects to expand on, but we are limited for a reason in our ability to know from this material. There are no words that we have that can describe or explain the wonders of all the universe, and so we won’t know it all until our time to know has come. I think that we are not only able, but encouraged, to get our information from the source. God will know what God wants to teach us; this and no more. And we need to have the faith that He knows what He’s doing and what He’s doing is good.

 

1/26/06 Reflections           When you seek outside the box and immerse yourself in the big picture, you look back into the box and see the limited vision we have contented ourselves with. It looks so paltry, so futile, so unlike what God really wants. He made us with these limitations, but He also gave us intimations of eternity in sparkling moments of intense love and intense joy. Those moments should be our incentive to seek God; the goal of understanding His grand design is meaningless to humans, who have no way of applying the knowledge.

 

1/26/06 Reflections               I have trouble dying to all that’s not God, because I see God in everything. Unlike the fowls of the air and the lilies of the field, we are burdened by free will and human nature. But it’s getting the free will and human nature to obey what God wants from us that is our mission, not the enjoyment of the other things. So I believe it’s not wrong to enjoy the God we see in the things of the world — only the pursuit of them to the expense of our pursuit of God is wrong.

 

1/27/06 Insights from Prayer          Thank you for letting me know that I’m right to think it’s my enemy that’s evil, and not myself for thinking so. You put before me reasons to see that my enemy is truly in sin, and sin is never right for a means to what you think is a just end.

 

1/27/06 Reflections                      It’s not that I belittle Jesus’ role in the world’s justification and sanctification (forgiveness of sins and eligibility for eternal life with God). But Christianity that denies these gifts to those who love God and don’t believe in Jesus strikes me as a dangerous elitism. To focus globally, as I think I may be called upon to do, I need to play down the name of Jesus. This may scandalize other Christians, because they think that you don’t appreciate Jesus if you never cease saying His name. This isn’t true if you’re a true Christian, who believes Jesus is God. When I say Jesus I mean God, but non-Christians would not appreciate such a fine point. I will focus on God just as Jesus focused on the Father. Even Jesus Himself played down His true role as Messiah, because He was trying to pay out His calling in a world which would accept one and not the other. I do the same thing by focusing on God, and keeping Jesus quietly within my heart. Nothing I do is possible, in my belief, without the full trinity, but I don’t need to pound the pulpit with that if I want to reach the entire world.

 

1/28/06 Insights from Prayer               I pray each day in conversation with Christ for unity among the world’s peoples, but I see the disunity of all the good people who serve God but who fight with one another over how He manifests himself here on earth. It’s our method of spreading God’s word that gets us in trouble, because all religions have their messenger and we think there can only be one.

 

1/28/06 Insights from Study               The image of a suffering Jesus is a powerful one – God was wise to make Jesus agonize before dying and raising up. That image has haunted us down through many centuries. Once I was reading something about a recovering addict who said Jesus knocked on his door to help him, and he slammed the door in Jesus’ face. I think this image actually brought me tears; the thought that we could still reject Christ’s offer to help even after all He’d already suffered for us. The end of the addict’s story was that he later opened the door and Jesus was still there. The good people of the world can relate to a suffering Jesus, especially now through time as we see the wisdom of God having sent Jesus as a suffering servant instead of a conquering warrior. This is why I think Christianity will prevail even though the warriors have effective weapons. Jesus is the Messiah of the world, and through Him God’s love shows through to those who believe Him and those who don’t; to those who follow Him and those who won’t. He is still outside the door – waiting to take on our suffering again and again.

 

1/29/06 Insights from Prayer          Could religious fanaticism come from boredom? Can the answer to the world’s “God” troubles be a combination of democracy and purpose in improving one’s life and that of others?

1/29/06 Study             I live in a world of spin, where no information is absolute and no issue is black or white, so it’s hard for me to read the Bible without analyzing the authors’ motives. They may be inspired, but we also know from how they present things that they had different perspectives – choosing what to put in and what to leave out slants the importance of the facts. When Jesus spoke in parables He told the disciples it was because the people wouldn’t understand what the disciples could understand without illustration. Today our information -dispensing, information-gathering, and information-digesting abilities are much advanced. It makes me wonder what Jesus would have said if He didn’t have to “dumb down” His words for us humble human beings. In my quest for mystic communications I hope to find out.

 

1/29/06 Reflections            How awesome it is to have the maker of the universe care about my illness, my relationships, my anxieties. The warmth, familiarity, and sense of safety and peace we feel when we stop and have a conversation with God reminds us of the good feeling of coming home. No wonder – praying to God tells Him of our acceptance of His greatest desire, for us to come home to Him.

 

1/30/06 Insights from Study            Could it be that all knowledge has been infused in man’s mind since creation, but that only whatever the intellect can decipher is available to us? This makes sense since man was created perfect and only became imperfect after the fact through sin. Could dreams, mystical revelations, psychic abilities, etc. be manifestations of the all-knowing mind bursting through? Can unitive relationship with God bring more through than mere intellectual reflection? Heaven (and Eden) must be populated by perfect minds and from this must be the joy of the life with God that had been lost to sin. In mysticism the purposeful alienation from sin softens the barrier between the mind and the intellect — could this let a glimpse of the joy of perfection cross the line? Did God intend Earthlings to experience ultimate joy and did He, after sin stained the Earth, have to reserve heaven for those who passed from the imperfection of Earth? Life the way God meant it to be — not possible on Earth, but glimpses are possible for it’s already in our minds; just not able to surface because of sin.

If true, this could explain so much! The joy of discovering that I already have perfect knowledge would be a small sample of the ecstasy of heaven, when this perfect knowledge would become fully available to me. I’m sure I’m not the first person to wonder if this could be true — some things we have to experience for ourselves in order to fully appreciate them.

This intuition feels very close to revelation but I’m not quite able to class it as a revelation since it covers so much area that only by reflection will I be able to sort it out. It would have many implications and affect every aspect of my belief system.

Isn’t it possible, if this theory that the mind already contains perfect knowledge, that it could be verified scientifically? Think how that would revolutionize the link between science and religion. Unbelievers would have to revisit their disbelief, for how could potential be chemically created and naturally evolved? I will certainly need more reflection and prayer to fully discover the truth of this and the possibilities that open up from it. But the more that is revealed to me, the more loyal and effective servant I will be.

 

1/30/06 Reflections          I received today’s intuition about mind and intellect while reading Teresa of Avila’s explanation of the difference between mind and intellect. Thank you, Teresa — are you able to know how your work is still helping those of us still bound to Earth?

 

1/30/06 Insights from Study            In reflection I sometimes confess to selfishness, but as soon as I do I have to wonder where my innate willingness to serve others fits in with this basic selfishness. Then I realize it’s perfectly logical to be both selfish and generous at the same time when it’s all about moral justice for me and others. How could we treat others as we want to be treated unless we have respect for ourselves? Maybe my self-respect isn’t selfishness after all. I think when you deal so much with matters of God you expand your mind so that good things aren’t mutually exclusive. I don’t think the old mystics could do this – they had to eliminate all things of creation from their minds in order to focus on God, as well as abase themselves to a point I find embarrassing. I see the logic of self-disregard as the means of union with God’s will, but once there the old mystics don’t seem to see that self-abasement isn’t God’s will. Is this “Mysticism Lite”? Or is it more attuned to the way God really wants it? In modeling myself after the old mystics I come up inferior all the time because I still love the things of the world God has made for me. I can’t agree that this is wrong, so I’m either a dismal failure or way smarter than a bunch of really smart saints!

 

1/30/06 Presentations           Right after I wrote the last entry I took up my study of Teresa of Avila again and within a half-hour, while studying her thoughts on the difference between the mind and the intellect, I had a very major insight that will affect every aspect of my belief system and my walk toward God. It seems like I get my best intuitions whenever I confront my most worrisome doubts. God must appreciate my desire to know Him and encourages me.

 

1/30/06 Inspirations            Could the biblical phrase “Man made in the image of God” mean that man shares perfect knowledge? Could mysticism work by God letting a larger amount of knowledge through when the person is ready to receive it, releasing access to what’s already there by divine grace? We could have had the omniscience of God but not God’s omnipotence and omnipresence — could it have been in wanting the rest of what God had that brought sin and evil into human experience? Could it be that at death (our eternal birth) we get our perfect knowledge totally revealed to us? Could the one thing that God kept from Adam and Eve be the knowledge of evil and that by insisting on sharing the knowledge held back by God, they not only opened up knowledge of evil but made themselves subject to it?