The Light in the Woods

 

#18 – THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS – JANUARY 2007

 

© Aubri Dennison 2007

 

1/4/07 Reflections               The more you refuse to validate what I know through experience to be true, the more apt I am to appeal to the Holy Spirit instead of scripture, which is written by men like you, to keep experiencing the word of God. To do anything else would be to fight against what God wants for me in order to conform to what exclusive men want for me. Refute me all you like – you’re really invalidating God, who chose this path for me. And so I don’t fear you, but I will pray for you. You will ask how I know it’s God and I will ask how you know it isn’t, for I have experienced Him and you haven’t, or you would never have needed such proof at all.

 

1/4/07 Insights from Prayer             Lord, I don’t record all the many times I start to ponder something in my heart and you send opportunities for me to learn on that very subject. This happens so often, and yet a person would not recognize these miracles at all if they were not already attuned to it. What a waste – to not recognize God’s answers when we get them. What a shame not to ask for them because of our own shortcomings.

 

1/4/07 Inspirations                It’s especially rewarding when I connect to God out of confusion or despair, because He not only provides enlightenment but also consolation.

 

1/7/06 Inspirations            “Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given” (Ephesians 3:8) I will not be ashamed to have been chosen – as long as I know I’m not merely a victim of spiritual self-delusion, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says of my ministry. I may doubt my own qualifications as a human and a sinner, but I will never doubt God’s wisdom in choosing me or the divine goodness of His master plan. For His sake I will keep an open mind concerning the “fellowship of the mystery”; to accept but verify all writings which seem to be inspired — accepting because God Himself has written such things through me; verifying because no inspiration is from God that does not bring about good fruit. But I will always remember my place as a servant of God if I keep asking God for the virtue of humility, and if my service strays from His plan, I trust it will fail before harming anyone, and that this failure itself will be part of His plan. I sincerely do love my God, and if everything else conspires against me, I will still have all I need.

 

1/7/07 Presentations        Today was a very special landmark Lectio Divina for me, and I desperately wanted it to be perfect. And so I prayed it with much attention to the place of God as my guide. I had been afraid that nothing would come to me in contemplation on this special occasion – and it didn’t. But giving up on God’s guiding miracles was not in my thoughts at all – I had advanced too far to even considergoing back to the “prove it to me, God” days. I accepted my lack of inspiration as the will of God, and reached for my books to do my usual daily devotionals. Of course, of all the 1,404 pages of scripture in my Bible, the short reading for the day as decided by the Church happened to cover the same single verse I had randomly opened up my Bible to in order to pray the “failed” Lectio Divina. So I got the miracle I needed, but in the way God wanted; not the way I anticipated. Do I shout out these miracles from the rooftops? Not yet — that’s not the path I was given. I hold these times close in my heart so that I will be believed by those I’m to instruct – in privacy and reverence. This is not the face of the Virgin Mary in the mark of rainwater seepage on a highway overpass. God provides us miracles we can’t take a picture of or exploit. They are between God and us, until it’s time to take them out and use them to inspire as many others as we can – quietly and sincerely, but with great joy. And now that you’ve heard, will you believe?

 

1/7/07 Reflections            I do deviate from mainstream Christian canon lately in that more and more baptism is becoming for me a ritual of men instead of a sacrament given by God. Inspired, of course; scriptural, yes. But necessary for salvation? If that were true then where does that put Jesus? Doesn’t the requirement of ritual baptism for salvation give lie to what John the Baptist said? He told the questioners he baptized with water, but Jesus would baptize us with the Holy Spirit and fire. It seems to me the Holy Spirit, which could only come to men through the sacrificial death of Jesus, and the fire of purgation would be sufficient baptism for all the peoples of the world, whom Jesus said Himself He came to serve. Organized religion holds a self-promulgating power over the people by declaring itself the only acceptable dispenser of baptism. It’s a beautiful ritual, but I don’t think the lack of it is death to the people Jesus saved from death by His sacrifice. Yes, Jesus was baptized, but He walked on water too and we don’t require that for entry into heaven.

 

1/8/07 Inspirations            To an ant in the desert, the world is a vast expanse of hot, dry boulders. To an ant in the northern forests, the world is a cool, wet labyrinth of pine needle tunnels and caverns of moss. To us, both these ants are woefully and laughingly mistaken. And to God, we haven’t got a clue. Our perspectives define what we believe, and in the end our beliefs are useful to us only within our tiny realm of misunderstanding. But fortunately, our understanding is not important to God because He takes care of us. We could no more be able to absorb reality than the ants could take in the vastness of the universe beyond their faculty to experience it. What’s important to God, and possible for us as well, is that despite our inability to understand Him, we love Him as our Creator. It’s our only function, and we need only faith to accomplish it. If we could only realize how ineffectual we are, we could realize that it took care, not happenstance, to pull off creation, and we could therefore appreciate the love of God which keeps us whole and together.

 

 

1/8/07 Insights from Study               This sticks out to me as so wrong, this idea of putting a modern meaning onto baptism that far exceeds the meaning of it in scripture. We do not receive the Holy Spirit because we were baptized, we receive it because God’s love is so vast it demands the Holy Spirit be its messenger, whether we are baptized or not. We do not receive God’s eternal life because we were baptized, we receive it because that’s what we were created for, baptized or not. We do notreceive release from sin and death because we were baptized, we receive it because God arranged through Christ for that to be possible for everyone, baptized or not. Baptism is a symbol of something much greater, and organized religion has used it to assure its own exclusive position over and above those who have not been baptized. By making it a function of the church, the church is setting the spread of God’s word back irretrievably because of its arrogance in teaching baptism as a prerequisite for entering the Kingdom of God. If that were so there would be a lot of pointless baptisms going on – a virtual baptism black market. “Get yer baptism here – no waiting; no pre-approval; no pesky forms to fill out or churches to join. All locations; your choice of trickling, pouring, dousing, submerging. Our water is electrically heated for uniform temperature. First come, first served. Today only – two for the price of one. Bring the whole family; tell yer friends. Won’t last long at these prices.”

 

1/10/07 Reflections              It shouldn’t be called Mysticism as often as it should be called Mystical Theology. The word “mysticism” has taken on a meaning far away and opposite of its original meaning. Today mysticism brings to mind cults of spiritism, where instead of the true spirit of God, people look for help from stars and planets, or Eastern multi-gods, or dead people, and hold an all-pervasive belief that if we only knew ourselves deeply we would have all the knowledge we need. This isn’t the mysticism that ever brings about a positive response from God. It isn’t the function of the stars and planets to determine our fate – we would have to assume input from a Creator who created the stars and planets and determines theirfate to be superior and more beneficial. Nor does God welcome false idols or elevation of dead people’s spirits – His is the only spirit that matters. Yes, you have to delve into “self” to reach a higher plane, but the end point is self-disregard, not the self-absorption of some pseudomystical practices. True Mysticism is Mystical Theology – recognition of God’s love in us, which, as it’s being perfected, spurs us on to love of God and neighbor in enlightenment and appreciation. Each person who realizes this will increase the benefits of it a hundredfold. That’s what makes each of us so important – we are vessels of God’s love. It’s a love relationship, not the fear relationship of Islam. It’s individual; all the responsibilities are individual and it doesn’t need the laws of men, which of historical time have tried to foster obedience by repression. In Mysticism, God shows how our actions need only be predicated by our love for His great love. This kind of obedience brings joy, not fear and resentment. And certainly not the self-adoration of introspection without God.

 

1/13/07 Inspirations         Albert the Great says that just as in death, when the spirit leaves the body behind, it gives no thought of it at all, so we should disregard the body here in life, and focus only on God. I think I could have no problem with this if my bodily afflictions were something I couldn’t help; I would chalk it up to the will of God and find my strength in Him. But my worst and most persevering bodily affliction is for the most part my own fault, and it’s this that’s hard for me to disregard. Or is it not really my own fault? Could the way I am be the will of God and not the result of sinful gluttony? Maybe, but it sounds like an unlikely excuse. I still feel I am the way I am because of sin, and to me my own sin is hard to ignore, even if it isn’t hard for God to forgive. If God forgives and forgets, isn’t it wrong for me to keep obsessing? I think it’s the continuous nature of my gluttony that makes me feel unworthy of continual forgiveness.

 

1/14/07 Insights from Study               Matthew 16:28 always bothered me because it reads like a prophesy that didn’t come true– a false prophesy from the lips of Jesus! “Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, till they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.” The second coming didn’t happen in the lifetime of those He was speaking to. But if you read the previous verse with the next one in mind, it’s all about paying for what we’ve done, and maybe Jesus wasn’t talking about the second coming, but the ascension, which came because the Messianic process whereby we don’t “taste death” will have been accomplished. No, forget it – I’m not getting any more inspiration for this passage. This is the first time an inspiration has stopped in the middle of carrying it out. This may be God’s way of showing me how it feels to not be inspired, in order to satisfy me by contrast that what I know to be inspired really is, and that He won’t let me be deceived. John of the Cross teaches that at a time like this I should quietly and sincerely just gaze upon God, not seeking further clarification but leaving myself open to one if it’s offered. That pretty much describes how you contemplate anyway in prayer.

 

1/15/07 Insights from Study        The difference between faults and sins is in desire. Faults don’t come from deliberate decisions to displease God, as sins do. Often the best way to take the sting out of faults is to ignore them, letting the grace brought by the Holy Spirit conquer their effects. But when we’re right with God we want to please Him in all ways, including working on our faults. Usually, when we’re successful, this is helpful to others as well as ourselves and so is an honorable process. Don’t let your faults be your stumbling block, but when their effect fades through union with God, you’ll feel moved to diminish them, and are more likely to succeed.

 

1/16/07 Presentations            At the exact same seconds in time that I was listening to the radio where a talk show guest was explaining how to recognize bed bugs in hotels, I was reading almost the exact same words in Readers Digest. This is amazing when you consider this is the first time I’d ever heard or read anything about bed bugs.

 

1/26/07 Insights from Study               The best remedy for those times when I’m in despair over my part in God’s work is to concentrate on the works of God that are visible; remember a time when they were invisible to me because I would not notice them. Now that I’m open to recognizing God, am I in danger of taking His works for granted? Not as long as He occasionally “pulls away” from me, forcing me to reflect on His presence in other areas.

 

1/26/07 Inspirations                Outline of Basic Beliefs

1. There is one God – a creator who love us, dwells with us, and interacts with us.

2. This God established us in perfect paradise on Earth, making us in His image by providing us with free will.

3. We have used our free will to sin, allowing evil upon ourselves and our Earth.

4. God still loves us and wants us back into a right-relationship with Him.

5. God has intervened, and will continue to intervene, on our behalf and we still have the free will to accept or reject this help.

6. The way to accept God in this life is to turn our free will over to Him for purification. After we have died our chance is gone because our free will doesn’t survive; our spirits will be purified without our cooperation, as only perfect spirits can live with God in His eternal kingdom.

 

 

1/27/07 Insights from Study            Pray for seeds if you strive for flowers — flowers are more beautiful, but when they’re the cultivation of someone else’s work, they quickly wither and die and are forgotten. Not so when we grow and nurture them, for their beauty is in their development, which we experience for a long time; not the short moment between vase and trash. It’s more than the adage “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for one day; teach him how to fish and he’ll have something to eat every day”. It’s more than “what we have” — it’s about “what we have faith in”. Growing a flower is like reaching for God. We have to already have His gift of seed before we can do it, but once we have the seed and the faith that God will allow it to grow, we can claim it for our own and, by being good ground for it, nurture it to fruition. God once gave us a garden full of flowers – when we sinned and were thrown out of the garden we suddenly had only parched ground. But God didn’t withhold the seeds, the water, or the sunlight. We reap what we sow, and if we teach others how to cultivate good ground on which God’s seeds can fall, we can experience flowers on Earth as well as in paradise.

 

1/27/07 Inspirations         Trying to describe a mystical experience is like trying to tell someone else your latest dream. You can string the right words together but they don’t convey the ambiance, the sense of emotional immersion, that makes the recounting something that bores another to tears out of something so stupendously soul -shaking to you. You can describe the room, but not the heart-thumping importance of the room’s haunted feeling. You can describe what happened, but not the otherworldly immediacy of the act. Because of this, you want to keep the event to yourself, because another’s reaction can only cheapen the experience’s affect on you. In many ways, a mystic experience is a dream – if the dream were reality and waking life was merely the promise of reality put on hold.

 

1/28/07 Insights from Study          I think mysticism is on the rise because the day is coming that we will not have a choice to worship in our institutions. This isn’t a wacky doomsday scenario — it’s already happened in many parts of the world. Churches will be banned and burned, and we will have to look inside our spirits, for God will dwell with us no matter what any man can do. We must make this transition now, and we should want to make this transition, not only because the end of public worship could be coming, but also because personal mysticism is the more natural way, the purest way, and the truest way.

 

1/31/07 Insights from Prayer             I’m moved to analyze how I post on discussion groups now and again, because it’s not a technique I used in the many times people have come to me for consolation. I don’t know why, but all my life people have used me as a sounding board. They seem to go away happy, but it seems to me I’d been patiently waiting for them to make a point so I could make mine, sometimes planning so far ahead I’d lose the drift of what they were saying. Maybe they weren’t listening to me either, so we’d both go away happy only for having had the opportunity to hear our own mullings out loud.

 

1/31/07 Presentations           Yet another natural phenomena the next night as I lay down to get to sleep. Something caught my eye and I looked out the window. It was below zero degrees, the moon was full the day before, the snow was pure with a new covering of frost, and the moonlight caught the big frost crystals on the lake, making them sparkle like diamonds had been scattered on the lake from above. The sky was clear and dotted with stars. I even saw a long-lasting meteorite fall from the sky right next to the moon. But none of this was what originally caught my eye. What I thought were stars shining through the trees on the next point were actually lights on the trees, like one tiny little Christmas light on every tenth tree or so. They seemed to have a glow of their own and there were so few I had to look hard for them. Slowly one would quietly disappear, but I could look around and suddenly see another one in a different set of trees. The tree lights looked exactly like the stars in the sky above them and through them. One time I saw a cluster of four lights appear on one bough, but usually I could see only two or three on the whole point at one time. It was frost on the tree limbs and boughs – only a few crystals were in the correct position for the show to happen, and as the moon moved ever-so-slightly in the sky, the old crystal would darken and a new one would soon appear somewhere totally different. When you start to look at the world through eyes fixed on God, you see more. Like the wolf I saw that afternoon, these are “Presence of God” moments (or maybe presents of God!) Either way, it says to me: Pay attention – I have wonderful things to show you.

 

 

1/31/07 Insights from Prayer            Since I’ve been carefully listening for God’s voice, I find the propensity for paying better attention carries over into my dealing with others. I now, without consciously thinking about it, listen to everything with an ear towards witnessing for God. I’ve contemplated so long and hard I already know what there is to say, and I know that God will move me in how to say it. So I can concentrate on listening well. Now I realize how God is drawing us all back to Him — wonder and hunger. I have never yet read a comment from an avowed atheist proving God doesn’t exist, and yet they’re satisfied with believing He doesn’t – because believers can’t prove He does. In other words, they believe what they believe on the very faith that they sneer at. How clever God is to let us pull ourselves this way and that; stretching our beliefs, shaking our faith, keeping us wondering. We think about things only because the answer isn’t clear. In seeking us, God keeps us seeking. Whether we seek to believe in Him or disbelieve in Him, we are seeking and making faith relevant in our lives. Once faith is relevant in our lives, we have a hunger for God, whether we admit it or not. We don’t want death to be the end of everything, and besides, that purposelessness just isn’t the way we feel in our hearts. It brings about a futility that may be OK for animals but belies the free will we experience as human beings. What is the chemical composition of free will? How many atoms in a molecule of sin? Or is there a higher being who creates and has a purpose for creation? So when God tells me to “State, don’t debate” He means for me to convey the wonder and let an expert, Him, do the convincing.

 

1/31/07 Insights from Study             I was reading my morning devotionals and came across a statement to the effect that we should remain “completely plunged” into God when we pray. I immediately thought that the author should have used the standard, more familiar expression “completely plugged” into God. How accustomed we are to ourselves, measuring everything by what we know from experience. We have to keep in mind that our experiences are all different; our outlooks affected by our culture. Given that, it’s truly amazing how easily we understand the thoughts of the ancients, who had the same wonder, fears, doubts, and joys we still have today. Going further, it’s amazing that given all the diverse methods even in just our present day, we are still looking upon a higher being for our hope, and still looking at the big picture, which we can’t understand, with this hope instead of with fear. People have been in communication with God since human beings were created — this is the whole theme of the Bible. The awe is persistent; transcending time, place and circumstance. The writer, Paul of the Cross, couldn’t be “plugged in” to God because he lived before man had harnessed electricity for his use, but the idea of being “plunged into” God remains eternal and universal.