The Light in the Woods

#24 – THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS – JULY 2007

© Aubri Dennison 2007

7/1/07 Insights from Study             In “Wisdom of Christian Mysticism”, Catherine of Siena relates the words of God to her: “When you reach perfection I will relieve you of this lover’s game of togetherness and separation.” How accurately this tells of just how I’ve been feeling lately – that God is playing hide and seek with me and that I don’t want to play, but don’t want Him to quit and go home for good either. I don’t feel like I’ll ever reach perfection, but on the other hand I know God is in charge and can make me reach perfection if He wishes that. In the meantime, I’m encouraged by my response to His separation – trust that it’s for my good, and acceptance of it with kindness and peace.

7/2/07 Reflections         Be grateful for what you have, and accepting of what you have to suffer. It’s all the same thing – God’s great regard for your welfare.

7/9/07 Insights from Study              Belief is a gift from God. You don’t have to wait for it – it’s OK to seek out this gift once you know it’s available and desirable. And sometimes the gift appears miraculously when one doesn’t expect it, or even is inclined to reject it if it were ever given. So God is in charge of the gift, but there’s nothing that pleases Him like when someone who He has touched with the Holy Spirit goes on to share the good news with someone else, so that yet another person comes to seek Him out. We baptize ourselves when we accept the gift of the Holy Spirit, for we have the touch of divinity that is the image of God in which we were made. We are the priests of our own church; the disciples of the savior who won for us this holy relationship with our Creator. Yes, we are sinners in a sinful world, and we are suffering for this. But we have the gift of belief in the promise that we can return to the perfection we once had. When you consider we’re freely handed eternal life of perfect joy, it makes it silly to laboriously seek longer life on a tainted Earth. And yet that’s how so many waste their energy when they could so easily embrace the greatest gift ever offered; the free gift that puts anything of the world to shame. Once you accept the gift of belief, you are no longer bothered by the cares of of this life. That seems logical, not delusional. Go ahead – accept the gift, because that’s the way that makes sense of it all.

7/11/07 Reflections          Those of us who love God, no matter how we show worship of Him, are all hurt by those who would bring others to God by force. Extremism gives religion a bad name, and is hardly a good response to those who assert that the love of God is the root of the world’s troubles. I don’t really believe the world will ever be completely free of religious conflict, because so many worship God for their own advancement instead of for the glory of God Himself. This is a human failing that’s quite lasting and powerful. But as for me, I long for the simplicity of pure love of God and attendance to His will. If this were the goal of all religious, instead of focusing on what religion can do for them, I could give up all the extra trappings of the church. Would I be willing to give up my focus on Jesus if I knew by doing so others would come to God? Only if it was the God Jesus revealed and won for us – the God of love, not fear; the God of mercy, not revenge. If this God would be accepted without restriction by all, then Jesus’ sacrificial life will have completed us all. As it is, I already know that Jesus is God, and if I have to go into a cave in order to worship Him properly, away from the influence of the world, then I would do that gladly. It all depends on what God wants for me.

7/14/07 Reflections           It’s bad enough to harbor hatred for someone in your heart, but to plaster the proof of it onto the bumper of your car goes even further by announcing to the world your happiness with your sin.

7/15/07 Insights from Prayer             We have a glimpse of God’s glory in the natural world and the way He created it. But the real ecstasy in experiencing God comes in the perfection of our perception – the enhancement of how we see things, which far surpasses even the greatest “God moments” we can experience here in this life. I look toward this joy as the promise made to humanity long ago, when God said he’d fix it so even though man allowed sin into his life, he could still attain the perfect joy of union with God in another dimension. There had to be a messiah and He had to be sinless – it had to be God Himself or a resident of heaven. Were there residents of heaven before God made man on Earth? The Bible says so. Were they always perfect, or did they arrive from another world into which God had already introduced humanity? And were they really incapable of sin or did Satan really come from their ranks? I was never much interested in angels – why sully God’s divinity with perfect creatures who are not God? Why belittle God by attributing miracles to beings who are not God? But the background for angels is Biblical, and their existence does make sense. And I can see God using them just as He uses nature, to showcase His glory.

7/15/07 Presentations             If in contemplation I lose awareness of my senses, even if I don’t especially experience the presence of God in it, at least I feel open to His will. If in quiet God sets aside my hearing, seeing, and sense of smell, touch and taste, there is a realization of His care and toil on my behalf. In the absence of physical awareness, I don’t have to bother myself with catering to my senses or paying attention to their messages. It’s a liberation and relaxation for me, and an open door for God. I wish I could slip into it a bit more easily, and I need to work at making more opportunities for it. But each time I transport my senses, it’s a gift and a joy just knowing God can and will work with me. It’s a different joy than that of spiritual uplifting – more awe, really, than joy. These things are miracles of themselves – I wish I knew how to pass the miracle along.

7/16/07 Insights from Prayer           I’m in the middle of a time when so many aspects of my ministry are being held back by circumstances. This is different from the way it used to be, when things failed because I was a wishy-washy loser. Now there’s a strong direction inside me that keeps me from doing what I want to do. I know it’s an influence from God, because it’s highly unlikely that things could randomly fall into place in such a way that I’m turned back at every juncture. I’m also influenced to accept these turns of events, which is also different from the railing against fate that would have marked the same circumstances years ago. But as I accept God’s will in humility there’s a small voice behind me that asks “What if God is waiting for you to show backbone instead of mere acceptance? What if God wants you to solve these problems in order to build the character you need to be effective in your ministry?” I would like to think that being guided by God, there would be no wavering; no decisions to make. That patience shows trust; if I demonstrate my faith in the rightness of what God puts before me, I will better recognize what He wants me to do as opposed to my trying to come up with what pleases Him by hit or miss. Right now I’m not being shown the way, either by acting or accepting. So I will accept by default and hope my inaction isn’t just a sign of weakness.

7/18/07 Reflections           One of the major benchmarks of human spiritual philosophy is whether you believe that man is basically bad or whether he is basically good. From where I am, I see humanity with an imperfect nature, the majority of which want to be left in peace to raise their families, while swimming against the natural tide of poor discernment of the Creator, and His desires and His plan. But I think the “bad or good” distinction over-simplifies the concept because it requires us to read a thought of God that God hasn’t chosen to reveal. One thing I’m confident of – it isn’t an either/or question, because life isn’t a matter of what we are, independent of what we do. Each individual is responsible for his own actions, and yet all of humanity has been blessed over and above those actions. By the very fact of our creation we share in the creator’s divinity, but due to a sinful past we have an imperfect nature. When we measure bad and good we measure it through human eyes – eyes which do not see what the Creator sees. Therefore our judgment is invalid; we’re too ignorant to be able to judge; even to judge our own selves. Fortunately, judging is not our job.

7/21/07 Inspirations             How do people live full lives, who can’t see that God is generous with good surprises? You could receive a wonderful gift – each day and any day – in a way that you would never anticipate. God has an infinite number of presents available for you, and an infinite number of ways of presenting them to you. What a shame to deny the possibility out of pride for ones own initiative. Better to be in awe of God and rejoice in His works instead of ours, because His works are great favors to us that come out our way from the realm of incomprehensible glory.

7/26/07 Inspirations        We don’t experience the presence of God with our senses but with the “eyes of the soul”. It is why mystics cannot explain how they know what they know; how they feel what they feel. The rest of the time we only are aware of what we experience through our senses, therefore we’ve come to believe that if we don’t see, hear, taste, smell or touch something, it doesn’t exist. But we all have experienced things spiritual. It’s a common occurrence, and why shouldn’t it be? God’s presence is everywhere and powerfully effective. The difference lies in our ability to recognize the experience for what it is, and often it’s in our nature to be self-proud and woefully lacking in appreciation for things of the Creator.

7/29/07 Insights from Study           Every time I read Judas’ question in John 14:22, I keep wishing Jesus had been more specific in His answer. How is it that Jesus will teach only a certain few disciples and not the whole world? It goes back to the way we always wish for a sign, not because we don’t believe without one, but that it makes it so much easier to be mainstream if everyone sees the same thing we believe. But the lack of a definite answer is the answer to this question. We learn by inquiring, and we only inquire into things we haven’t been told. If Jesus had simply answered: “Because the Holy Spirit will prompt people to do what they know in their hearts is right”, I would have probably just glossed over the answer instead of letting the Holy Spirit draw the information out of what I feel is true deep down. So that’s how the Holy Spirit works, and it’s through the very process that Jesus alluded to that I learned this. God’s plan is truly wonderful, but it doesn’t fit into the human plan enough for self-aware humans to respond to.

7/29/07 Insights from Study             In worrying too much about “doing good” in this world I think we’re over-valuing the world’s importance. If you are called to mission or ministry, the real goal should always remain in the front of your mind – everlasting peace and union with God for all souls. If improving bodily comforts for the poor and oppressed will allow these people to concentrate on the next world instead of this one, then that is a worthy goal. But it seems to me that those needing help toward this end are rather the ones who have too much, for wealth tends to demand more wealth, forcing us to forget to strive for the things of the next life. But it’s not enough to remember the goal; we must also remember that it’s God’s work, not ours, that does the accomplishing. We are only given the chance to help make sure the soil is good so the seeds can take. We must concentrate on the seeds themselves, or we’re in danger of losing sight of the goal due to our “busyness” of preparing the soil.