The Light in the Woods

 

#8 – THE LIGHT IN THE WOODS – MARCH 2006

 

© Aubri Dennison 2006

 

3/1/06 Reflections           The concept of Adam and Eve’s sin is troublesome to a lot of people – why do I have to suffer just because someone else sinned? And because this seems illogical, it’s easy to disbelieve. The trouble is, if you disbelieve the story of Adam and Eve’s bringing sin into the world, then you have to disqualify Jesus’ life and death on Earth from atonement and justification on our behalf for that very sin. Even if you don’t read the Bible literally you have to understand better how God created a perfect world, including free will so man could interact with his world. We, all of us, use our free will to undermine our lives, by sinning and by allowing others’ sins to go unchallenged. Of what use would earthly paradise be if we hadn’t been gifted with a free will to enjoy it? We would be like insects – perfect and sinless in God’s eyes, yet unable to participate in the glory of God. So no, the perfect life on Earth is gone, but the sufferings that result are beneficial in that they show us God’s love for us, His promise of a better life to come, and His mercy in affording us a way of claiming our right to a perfect world as He meant for us to have. May our trials remind of the glory in store.

 

3/2/06 Insights from Prayer          Lately I’ve noticed I’ve fallen into the “Ecclesiastes” trap – thinking all is vanity, all is useless, all I can do as a human is necessarily against the divine nature. Specifically, there is no element of prayer possible that doesn’t entail some kind of self-serving on my part, and therefore my prayers are unacceptable to God. Now more and more I’m coming to find out, as I’m being refined and pruned by God to see more light, that it’s OK to have my own desires served as long as they are the same desires as God’s. Maybe I’ve been too immersed in the humorless self-deprecation of the old mystics I admire, who run away in fear of any kind of reward, real or imagined, for what they want to do out of self-disregard. No, if God allows my good intentions to result in personal favor, then who am I to reject such a gift? If all I have is by the grace of God, then all I have is good and right as long as I receive it from Him through my honest desire to do His will. I have to keep reminding myself that God wants my happiness, and to be asked for it.

 

3/6/06 Insights from Prayer            I felt bad because I let the world intrude on the Lord’s day, and I didn’t insist on getting in the devotions I wanted to do. I was thinking about forgiveness of sin — we need mercy to forget sin and start anew; grace to avoid guilt and further occasion of sin. In my dryness, my sin was not writing my thoughts and insights down like I did when I first began this journey. Some precious intuitions have been lost — then I think that I’m not treating them like prized possessions if I don’t remember them. The worse the trials I have, the better because the bigger the grace I get to overcome them. I have a fear of success, because success breeds responsibility. Do I need the discipline of organized devotion after all? Should I start over and go back to the introspection exercises and the rest that I thought I was beyond. Or am I doing just what I’m supposed to and in this, am I not supposed to get the inspirations I did when I was on the first level? They say that if you can do the meditations, then it’s probably the right thing to do, but if you can’t go back, then God wants you to advance. Even if you don’t feel like you’re advancing because you’re not getting the insights as before, you have to keep on in the prayer of quiet. This trial is a test of faith. Go back to see if that’s what’s needed, but if that doesn’t work, then have faith and keep up with the prayer of quiet even though you don’t seem to see any results. If God’s willing to take the initiative, all I should do is pray. But this is what got me in trouble, I think. God allows the devil’s test, but being tested, I will be stronger than ever for God. Maybe I didn’t have enough trials, or maybe I haven’t honed my humility into a fine enough point. As I read through this I realize that everything I think I need is just what Christ provided — is God telling me it’s OK to go to Christ, that my global vision is to include Christ instead of trying to work around Him in order to play to the global unity? My thought has been that you can reach more people by concentrating on the universal acceptance of God, and that in order to do this, I need to downplay Christ, or at least His designation as son of God, because many in the world don’t believe in Jesus. Could God now be saying to me — Quit trying to enter the house through the back door; go right to the front door, introduce Christ, and bring Him right in to take over. We have this natural aversion to forcing others to see things our way, but if we have faith that Christ is not only good but also necessary, shouldn’t we promote Him? With me, it’s my aversion to the “only Christians gain heaven” controversy. When the Bible says what sounds like that (and the Protestants pick up on as literal fact), could it mean instead that only people will gain heaven who emulate Christ? That it isn’t necessary to believe in Him as the son of God in order to be like Him? We try to be nonjudgmental in this day and age — to not force our ways on others or even admit that we are right and someone else is wrong. Are we performing a disservice by not reminding that we’re judged on what we do or fail to do and that Christ is our model for that? Is it wrong to rely on our consciences? I get confused with this. There’s too much to know and no way of learning. Let’s surrender it all to God and do as he tells us on our own. Then we’ll know we’re doing the right thing. We betray God every time we sin, for we hold ourselves up to the light instead of honoring Him first and foremost. If I hadn’t had trials, I wouldn’t have had the tears others spoke about but I never understood because I never experienced them. They weren’t tears for my tribulations, but tears for Christ, who suffered the tribulations unassisted by God Almighty, and suffered them for me, who then rejected and discounted His worth.

 

3/6/06 Reflections            It’s OK to say you’re willing to do what God says to do, but how do you know what He wants? From prayer to expose yourself to his favors, by reflection to expose yourself to the knowledge already placed in your mind, and by study to expose yourself to the wisdom of those who have gone before. During these devotions you will feel the inspiration and ecstasy and when you do you will know what it is God wants for you. You respond to the satisfaction you get when you know you are involved in good acts. It’s a rudimentary joy compared to the favors you expect to receive when you’re further along in your journey to God.

 

3/7/06 Reflections           I can love my family – who can’t? I can love all the animals in our family in my own animal-loving way. As emotionally flat-lined as I am, I can have feelings of heart-stirring love for victims of poverty and natural disasters, and I’ve shed loving tears for the sick and disabled. I have an ability to love those to whom I have a responsibility, and to care deeply for those I feel sorry for, but what comes hard for me is to love the almighty, the all-present, all-knowing and all-powerful supreme being. I respect Him mightily; I bow to Him knowing my humility as created to creator; I long to be in His presence and treasure His presence in me. I love that He cares and loves me, and I long to be worthy of Him and to serve and please Him through the grace and mercy He reserves for me. But I don’t love Him, because He’s almighty; because He doesn’t need my love, and because I don’t feel sorry for Him. What I feel for Him is immensely intense, but it isn’t love because I have no sense of His receiving and responding to my regard. And that, it seems to me, was His purpose in sending me Jesus, an earth-creature who loved as I love, within the context of space and time that provides a sense of feedback. And Jesus lived in a way that inspires love from us – caring deeply for all humanity, with the love for God I sincerely wish to emulate. As Mother Teresa of Calcutta taught, Jesus lives among us in many distressing disguises – as we do for others we are showing love for Jesus and because we love Jesus we love God, for Jesus is God in a form we can relate to. So do I love God after all? I guess I do, even though it feels like something other than love; something indescribable and other-worldly. But if God accepts it as love, then it’s love – He gives me the grace to love Him because I ask for it, and though it’s something separate from what I feel for the things of the Earth, that is as it should be. Separating myself from the things of the Earth is the road to humility that allows the light of God that’s within me to shine through. I wish there was a separate word for it, but it’s a relief to know it’s in me after all.

 

3/8/06 Reflections              I don’t follow just the Bible or just the tradition of men, but I strive to employ my faith in God that I never be deceived. All knowledge lives within my mind and all grace is in my spirit. I have within me the perfection God meant for me to have but which I don’t have perfect access to because of sin. But now and again God pokes holes in my mind and spirit, letting through the light of perfect knowledge and grace. Because God lives within me I trust God to reveal to me what I need; when and how I need it. This revelation is his answer to my trust, and my service to him and his creation is my reward.

 

3/8/06 Inspirations             The body has it’s senses of taste, smell, touch, hearing, and seeing — faculties that help propel us through our lives in time and space on earth. The soul also has it’s faculties; intellect, emotions, memory, will that make up what we are. But it is the spirit that makes us in the image of God. The spirit is God’s presence within us in the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, which is the perfection of spirit which God wanted for us before sin came into the world, that is, perfect knowledge and grace, and a free will in perfect accord with God’s desires. Though as an image of God we were given a free will, we could not function at all without this inner presence, this love, of God within our spirits. The free will allows us to accept or reject God’s plan. Adam and Eve rejected it, and the sins of the father are visited upon the sons. That’s us. But Jesus was another manifestation of God, and He came to end this paradigm; to atone for the sins of our fathers in our place, so that God is justified in opening up the doors to His kingdom once again to us. We still have our free wills to accept or reject this offer, but at least the offer is there. We still have to make up for our sins, and as long as we’re on this earth we will not experience perfection such as the first man did. But at least we can look forward to everlasting presence with God in the next life, where perfection as he originally wanted it for us is lived. The body and soul also were perfect before sin invaded the world. Illness and misfortune for the body and soul are the result of sin; not the desire or revenge of God but the result of man using the free will he was given for evil purposes. Yet to those who give their free wills over to what God desires, there is much that can result even in this earthly world, for this type of person can be used by God to bring his word to those who do not yet understand that life goes on after death. He does this by letting a bit of light through the curtain that sin has put between perfect mind and human intellect; between perfect spirit and human soul. He does this when a person abandons their will to His divinity, by rejecting sin and building humility within himself — humility because it was pride that originally brought sin into the world. All sin is based in pride — the thought that a person’s will is the most important consideration. To get back to perfection (full holiness of spirit) we need to be free of sin (the purpose of Jesus) and have union of our will to the divine will (the purpose of the Holy Spirit, who releases knowledge and grace to the righteous (who desire to live free of sin) and the willing (who desire to abandon their wills to unite with God’s).

 

3/9/06 Insights from Study           Jesus’ life showcased for us the effect sin has in man. Jesus as a divine being was sinless but as a human entity he had to bear the poverty, humiliation, and suffering of the world. His response to it shows us what we also must do. The disciples expected a warrior hero king of their messiah — instead they got someone quite like them, and their hopes for a conquering kingdom were dashed. But what good would a conquering hero Jesus be in the long run? His appeal would have lasted only as long as it took to bring the kingdom of Israel to pass. That kind of Jesus would have no lasting effect on our own behavior because he would not be one of us. We didn’t need an avenger and God knew that — how wonderful that God knew what we needed. Not just the people of that day and age, but all of us throughout history. How wonderful that Jesus gave his will over to God so that he could accomplish what He needed to accomplish even though it was going to hurt and humiliate. This Jesus had the same problems and needs as we do, and because of that we can go to his example to decide for ourselves what we must do to be right with God. This to me is the importance of the Bible — to showcase how God worked with his people and the relationship the people had with their God. I don’t have to believe that Jonah actually lived inside a whale for three days to understand the relationship between God and man. God was certainly capable of making that happen, but the point is that there was a lesson to be learned, and the best way to teach it was through God’s allowing Jesus to become man and show us first-hand the right relationship we should have with the Father. Jesus was teaching that the kingdoms of this world mean nothing. If He had wanted to he could have conquered all the lands God had given the Jews, run the Romans off and established the kingdom on earth that God’s chosen people had come to expect. But the true message God wanted to give was that this sort of kingdom was nothing in comparison to the perfect kingdom He had created them to enjoy, and that not only the Jews but all people of His creation had been destined to enjoy it. The kingdom of God is the important thing, and this kingdom is gained by the individual; by the kind of humility and obedience that Jesus showed us. It was true in Jesus’ time and it’s true in ours. We wouldn’t have been able to figure that out for ourselves if Jesus hadn’t been resurrected into that kingdom; to show that a life lived well is an eternal one and how to live such a life. God must really love us to want us back. How could we now slap Jesus in the face and turn our backs on God. God allows it, but how could we possibly allow it? And yet there are many people who deny God or just deny God’s desires for them. They forget that they’re allowed by God to have that choice, so no matter how they choose or what they believe, God is still the truth in their lives. These are the people God wants back, and He allows the rest of us to do this work as long as we commit ourselves to His plan entirely. This is hard, because we are always rooted to earthly things. But it can be done and when it is, the work we must do can be hard and unappreciated; it may even result in death. But death has no sting for those who are totally committed to God, and neither does failure and humiliation and ridicule. When we give ourselves to God completely, then God takes the controls and nothing can be wrong even if it doesn’t fit into our earthly view of what’s appropriate. This takes enormous faith, but faith is free and satisfying and can never be taken away from us. There are few things on this earth that have those qualities.

 

3/11/06 Presentations         Today in the middle of morning prayer my husband called me to come outside and watch him feed the partridge that comes in the yard. My husband loves me and wanted to share with me something in nature we both appreciate. I sat there for a second thinking about if it’s right to stop talking to God in order to do something world-centered. Then I thought about Jesus telling us we must leave everything, even our families, to follow Him. Put in this context, it seems wrong of God, who doesn’t need us, to require our full attention; if our families suffer it’s because they need us, and they have no choice, by God’s design, but to need us. I went outside to watch the partridge, because my devotion to God is better for the interruption. In fact, I still haven’t gone back to my morning prayer in order to write down these thoughts. I know God isn’t offended. I know my devotion to God isn’t drawn away; I know when God resides foremost in my heart, whatever I do is an adoration of him. I also know the love and care of our families is a principle desire of God. So what’s the answer to this dilemma? The answer is that there is no dilemma. God expects our will to match with His desire – when that happens we find ourselves guided by God, and when that happens we cannot do wrong. If I interrupt prayer, it’s because I can safely do this without jeopardizing God’s position in my life. When Jesus said we should give up all to follow Him, it was to show that our goal is to put God first in our hearts; when we do that successfully, we can function in the world and we will be saved, from letting the earth-things override the spiritual things, by the grace of God given to those dedicated to His will. It won’t be easy, Jesus was showing, because of our natural attachment to things of the world, but the more we do it the more help we get. Our spiritual lives are forever, while our earthly lives, as well as those of our family, are temporal. So we must be made aware of which is more important, and gain the grace to function with righteousness in this world while waiting in love for the next.

 

3/12/06 Insights from Study          Catholics have a special devotional feeling for Mary because Catholics have a special devotional feeling for the family. The earthly family is something we’re all familiar with, so it often helps us to understand our spirituality in terms of family. We are God’s children and heirs of His kingdom, even though we often don’t deserve it. Jesus is like the big brother who intercedes on our behalf and shows us how to get back into God’s good graces. Mary is our Mother – always doing God’s will and nurturing us by her example. Of course, this analogy is for those who benefit, not distance themselves, from comparing temporal and eternal things. In all humility, I think I’m well beyond needing such comparisons because I’m graced by God to have a deeper insight into my relationship with Him. But the family comparison is still comforting to me, and to anyone who feels the need for that sense of belonging.

 

3/12/06 Insights from Study           I don’t think I’d qualify as a “born-again Christian”, because that one defining moment when you “discover Christ as Your own” happens to me all the time, over and over, in surprise moments of recollection and comprehension. I have trouble separating Christ from God, and it seems the whole point of Christianity is to separate believers in Christ from other religions, so you can say one group is saved while the other is not. I can’t go there, and what’s more, I don’t have to, because that belief comes from very clear Bible passages, and I believe the word of God isn’t the Bible, but what He tells me with His own divine presence within me. As time goes by I find it easier to break away from the written-in-stone doctrines of Christian churches, because I’m growing in my relationship with God on His own terms, not the church’s. There was a time when church teaching was inarguable; now I know they can all be misguided and I don’t have to apologize for that, because I’ve given my free will to God so that I may be taught by the Creator, not the created. The path to perfection isn’t straight and direct. God allows me to try switchbacks and sideroads. But my guide is forever a light shining where I must go – He wants me there and has perfect knowledge and grace to impart to me so I get there. No one else can do that for me and it’s a lapse of faith for me to think I have to go along blindly with church teaching. Most of the time its doctrine and mine blend perfectly, but if it doesn’t I owe it to God to follow His way, not the may of mere mortals. This is my eternal life, and the only way to assure it is to give it over to God. Anything else is settling for less. Sure, I can study any of man’s thoughts, and I do, but the life decisions are ultimately mine, and I choose them according to what God wants for me in His divine plan. Good or bad, it’s always right with God. I don’t always understand it, but with His mercy I will always accept it.

 

3/14/06 Reflections               Jesus gave us a fighting chance. Before Him, we were wrong-minded about our relationship to God. We were right to think that adoration and obedience were key, but we thought they were key to a good life on earth. Jesus came to say “you ain’t seen nothing yet”. In telling us to set aside things of the Earth He wasn’t just telling us to put God first, but also letting us know that earthly satisfactions are nothing compared to what awaits us. Then he lived a life of abject humanity, followed by His glorious resurrection, to bring home the point. His poverty and self-dismissal was necessary to truly contrast the two worlds.

 

3/15/06 Insights from Study             Spiritual essays seem like so much high-falutin’ gibberish until you “get” God — then it magically all pulls together and every phrase takes on a logical meaning that fits with what you already know. Instead of your eyes glazing over because it seems like so much repetitiveness of pat phrases, your mind becomes enlightened because you realize the answer to everything is contained in just a few important ideas.

 

3/15/06 Reflections             Wouldn’t you think, when you consider that we only have one thing to do and that this isn’t particularly hard to do, that we would all be focused and simplified and happy as happy clams? No, we are constantly rejecting this and doing it our way. No matter how displeasing it is to God, no matter how lousy we are at it, and no matter how miserable it makes us, we think we’re doing it right because we’re doing it our way. It’s bad enough that those who haven’t tuned into God’s word do this, but people like me, who are supposed to be spiritually aware, go back to our own methods consistently. I think God allows this; I think He can withdraw a tiny bit of His favor from our spirits for the purpose of hinting at what it would be like if He withdrew it all. We need to combat the human pride that brought sin into the world in the first place – our place is to be humbly subjected to God’s will. This we are, not matter whether or not we choose to accept it. We give up nothing of value by accepting it. We shouldn’t fear doing without what we love; God will make it so we no longer love them.

 

3/16/06 Reflections          I used to think anyone who could say that suffering is joyful never suffered much. Compared to other parts of the world and to other lifestyles, the way we live has little suffering attached to it. Even though we think we’re poor we enjoy a high standard of living and have the backing and comfort we need. But there are whole countries where famine, drought, disease and civil war are a way of life, and yet these people are traditionally closer to their God than we of the privileges are. Do these people receive extra grace from God to carry on? Do they have a special place in His sight? Possibly. Not that He loves us well-off any less, but He puts on us an extra burden before we can enjoy the fruits of our contributions. For suffering may not be joyful but it can have joyful results — the only way we can demonstrate our love and unitive relationship with God is by depending on Him to take care of us. When all is going well we lose our connection with our protector, and humility takes a back seat. Those who are suffering tend to keep their connection with God in the forefront. This, in the end, is a gift of great worth. For those who can, we can feel the effects of such a gift when we give ourselves our all and completely turn over our destinies to God, just as those who have great tribulations have done down through the ages.

 

3/16/06 Inspirations            Our relationship with God ought be be like that of the practicing Christian homes you witness now and again, in fact they probably take their cue from the right-living they learned as individuals from their relationship with God. In these families there are strict rules based on moral principles, but the children obey those rules because they respect the parents and want to please them. This is how we should conduct ourselves with God – out of fear of losing our eternal lives, of course, because we’re still human and still sinners, but mostly because we love Him and want to serve Him. We’ve learned what’s right and want to emulate our Father. Of course, like the children in the Christian family, there are outside temptations and times we want to test our individuality and independence, but we always come back to the right way or else suffer the guilt. We can never have the knowledge of God we need in order to emulate Him, and we can never emulate omnipotence anyway, but that’s the purpose of Christ – our guide, our teacher, our hope (the way, the truth, the life).

 

3/17/06 Inspirations          The defining goal for mystics is to disregard self to the point that our free will blends completely with the will of God. Self-disregard goes against human nature, which depends on selfism for survival, and it also goes against Western culture, which defines a person by his individual independence that in turn has to be shown to be effective. But both reasons for self-preservation speak to our earthly lives, not our eternal ones. How do we go so far astray, knowing our lives on earth are so terribly short, while our eternal lives are, well — eternal? The point is not to debase ourselves, but to abandon ourselves to what is really important. It’s not a lessening of our selves (we’re after all one outward sign of the glory of God) but a building up of our wills to their higher potential. It’s not a loss to give up all we have here to follow God, but a gain for our ultimate spirituality. Why would we mourn giving up our earthly things if, knowing that if we do, God makes us realize their unimportance in the process? He helps us to handle what we must do, out of love, in order to raise up up into perfect love in us.

3/17/06 Insights from Prayer                 Our earthly essence (body, soul and spirit) correspond to the divine trinity (son, father, and Holy Spirit). The body should make us reflect on Jesus because He took our bodily form in order to teach us how to connect with God. Our soul should make us think of our creator, our Lord the Father who made us in his image by endowing us with the faculties of mind and emotion. Our spirit reminds us of the Holy Spirit who fills us with the grace to share in the eternal hope of the next world. In the beginning our body, soul and spirit were perfect. For our bodies there was no hurt and no disease. For our souls there was no fear, despair, loneliness; only perfect knowledge and perfect enjoyment of our state. For our spirits there was perfect peace and unity of purpose with the Trinity. Sin changed that but I believe that the perfection still lies within us in the form of God’s presence. We get a glimpse of it now and again, but our hope and faith is that we will have our perfection returned to us in the coming kingdom.

 

3/18/06 Inspirations             Every time I see a “small miracle”, usually something in nature because that’s the closest in the way I live, I want to call God’s attention to the fact that I do see it as a miracle, and that I don’t intend to ignore it. Lately, even in my driest moment, I’ve been getting small hints that all is not lost between me and God just because we’re in a rough spot. So I’ve come up with a short prayer that fits with what flashes through my mind, to say at such times: “Whenever I see the works of God I’m amazed all over again that He lives within me.”

 

3/19/06 Revelations               (In the middle of a dry period I received in my head the following dialog between myself and God. These may not be the exact words because I was too awe-struck to write things down right away, but I did finally see that this was the real thing and so started to write things down as they came to me. The exciting part of this particular session was that in no way did the writing down of the conversation as it was taking place take away from the understanding or appreciation of what was being communicated. Try this with a normal conversation between two people and you will certainly miss the gist of all that’s being said, like a person who misses so much of a prime moment because they’re looking at it through the lens of a video camera. These words are very close to what was intuited. I say “intuited” instead of spoken because even my own side of the conversation was “given” to me just as the words of God’s side of the conversation were an insight. It’s my impression that none of this came from my own intellect, so I’ve included it as a revelation.)

 

Me: My devotions have fallen flat.

God: You’re trying to think globally — I only want to hear about you.

Me: But isn’t that selfish? I want to serve the world.

God: I own the world; I’ll take care of it. You take care of yourself.

Me: It still seems selfish. I’m not used to being comfortable with that.

God: Don’t question how precious you are to me more than all the rest of the world — you wouldn’t understand that answer how this could be so. Quit preparing the history of our relationship for public consumption — you’re letting what others might think of you color what I think of you.

Me: How can I go back to introspection? I’m not sinning; there isn’t enough there to study.

God: Think harder. You keep my commandments, but remember what Christ said — you have to look into the spirit of the law, not just the letter of the law. You can sin by omission; you can sin by thought. Dig deeper to find how you’re displeasing me. Save yourself first — if I want you to save the world it’ll be a result of your saving yourself first. Dig deeper into your faults so I can purify you. That isn’t selfishness — it’s want I want from you at this time. Trust me.

Me: I thought I had great faith but I can’t hide the fact that I want a sign that this is from You and not from me.

God: The sign is: I want less from you than you want to give. My demands of you displease you. Rejoice in your shortcomings — I’ve given you a job to do. Just because it doesn’t seem like much of a job to you doesn’t mean it isn’t important.

Me: So I really don’t “get” You after all.

God: You haven’t tried hard enough. Your desire to do it pleases me, but it’s not enough. Get over it. You want a sign, but when I tell you what I want you question it. How about you give me a sign! I want mercy, not sacrifice.

Me (after about 3 minutes of thought): OK. I will go to see the only person I’ve ever considered an enemy — to forgive and ask forgiveness. But do you know what a great sacrifice this would be? This is so against my nature!

Me (after another 5 minutes): The crest of the pileated woodpecker outside the window in the low rising sun was the shape, color and movement of a beautiful flame. The same a minute later with the little cap on the redpoll. I know deep in my heart that You don’t have to give a sign of Your presence and approval, but I love to have one anyway. Thank You. Even though I truly, really hate the thought of having to do this thing I’ve promised, I will rejoice in the privilege of suffering this trial for You.

 

The promise I made was to go see someone in a rehab center where she is waiting to die. Christ said that before you offer a sacrifice to God you should leave your offering at the altar and first go to your brother with whom you have a disagreement and obtain forgiveness from him — then go back and your offering will be pleasing to God. This woman was the only person I ever can say I personally hated. Even though this was totally the result of her actions toward me and those I love and not a result of anything I did to her, I had promised to ask forgiveness because I allowed myself to name her as an enemy. To go see her, I would have to go a long way out into civilization, the thought of which made me ill because such a trip makes me feel like a fish out of water. Then there’s the chance that I’d hit one of her lucid days and she would make a scene. But I went the next day and found her totally silent and out of it in the last stages of Alzheimer’s. I held her hand and she wouldn’t let go, just like my mother-in-law when I met her ambulance at the hospital after her stroke. My former enemy never said anything to me or any of the nurses that talked to her, but sometimes she would stare at my eyes. I held my conversation for two hours and fed her lunch, though she was beyond wanting to eat anything and beyond giving anyone forgiveness. I think one of the lessons in this experience for me was that it’s never too early to go to God and neighbor, and that the time to settle accounts is now for everyone. People need to be ministered to right away, and we need to live in love every minute of every day because we never know when the last chance will be. This woman brought dislike on herself, not just by me but by many of the people who crossed her path. She had her issues and now it’s too late for her to work out her issues. I felt genuine love for her, which is truly an amazing feeling though much of that may have been feeling sorry for her condition. But I did feel love for an enemy no matter how it came about, and I feel the receipt of forgiveness from God if not from her. Now I can say that no one that I personally know can be called my enemy, and I can get on with my devotions, hopefully better devotions than I’ve been managing lately. I wheeled her back to her room and before I left I showed her the zirconia heart and cross necklace that I got for 25 cents at the recycling center and brought to give her. She grabbed it and stared at it and wouldn’t let it go. I tried to get it away from her and put it around her neck so she wouldn’t swallow it or something, but it was hard to pry her fingers from around it. It was the only emotion she showed during my visit, and by the time I rethreaded the pendant and put it around her neck she was asleep.

 

3/22/06 Presentations             No miracle is small when it happens to you, because whenever you recognize a work of God it illuminates your relationship with Him. In the midst of my current dryness and doubt I went on a mission of mercy to give God a sign, as He requested. On the trip I lost my rose petal chaplet; my favorite devotional and a very important possession for me. I was disappointed of course, but my reaction was nothing like it would have been before my walk with God. Before, I would have railed against fate, bad luck, and my own inadequacy. This time it was more like “Is God trying to tel me something like that He’s pleased with my action and this means more than my devotions can give”? Of course I had wonderings without answers, but this didn’t bother me either. I think I really do have the ability to “let go and let God”, and this is an important step, so it’s good to feel I’ve made it and that God has found me worthy to serve Him. This is all the more positive to me in the light of what happened next. Two days later we had word another grandchild was being born and on the way I thought I’d stop to look on the ground in a couple of places where the chaplet might have fallen out of my picket when I took out the car keys. The first place I tried was the church parking lot. It wasn’t there so I went inside to look in the lost-and-found box. As I reached down for the box, I saw my chaplet carefully laid out on the table with all the spiritual books and pamphlets. Sometimes you see the presence of God shine through and it’s easy to feel close to Him at these times. But it’s seeing the everyday miracles, especially in this time of aridity for me, that alerts me to the chance of God coming though in great ways at any time. Walking with God takes the virtue of hope, but once started the hope grows upon itself effortlessly. I will always treasure this miracle because it took place during a time of tribulation in my spiritual life, but I’ll also see it as a sign of hope for the greater miracles to come, and thank God not so much for finding the chaplet, but finding that I’m still on the right course.

 

3/25/06 Reflections             I overreacted when innocently invited out to dinner on a day that was important for me to begin my fast in order to get back on the right track after many days of aridity and depression over my inability to have feelings for my devotions and my total abandonment of the diet and exercise program that God was helping me with. I felt abandoned by God, and this would be my third attempt to begin the reconciliation process. But once again the world intervenes — to overreact is to rage against a selfless giving by another person, but it also spoiled my plans. This is no small thing, because for me to have to eat socially is like making an alcoholic take a drink. I can’t expect people to innately understand or accommodate my food addiction. They don’t know that my fasting is spiritually-related, and those without food addiction don’t see that there will be a problem because I can’t have just a little to eat without subjecting myself to great temptation. But I, and not they, are responsible for getting it right. I do that through asking for God’s grace to help me. Fasting is not only necessary for my physical and emotional health, there is a spirituality behind it that takes all pretense of pure choice away from the equation. People would understand and accommodate me if I explained to them, but I have trouble telling about my devotions — it still seems prideful to speak about even though that wouldn’t be my intention.

 

3/27/06 Reflections             Could I have lost some of my sense of smell during this time of aridity in spirituality? It seemed like I couldn’t smell incense or candles during study and contemplation the way I used to enjoy them, and when I started to pull out of the dryness this sense came back. Or rather than a real loss, could it have been an apparent result and could this be designed to make me aware that the things of the senses are truly becoming unimportant? If so, that’s a good thing. I also noticed that I took no pleasure in the music I used to play during devotions.

 

3/28/06 Reflections         Time means nothing to God — neither does winning or losing. That’s why we can’t understand the concept of what He does and doesn’t do; it doesn’t make sense in the human framework. But it makes sense to God and that’s where faith comes in. We need to be better at leaving things to Him.

 

3/29/06 Insights from Prayer             I was asking to be saved from the delusion of having something come from my intellect instead of from divine inspiration. But I have to consider that divine inspiration needs a worldly outlet in order to make a difference in the world and that of course inspiration comes from my own intellect because it uses my intellect in order to give it voice in this dimension. The important thing is that I have perfect knowledge in my mind and all insight, divine or not, comes from the divine grace that pokes through the curtain that separates me, a sinner, from my perfect mind. The revelations come from my own mind because that’s where God resides — inside me in all His perfection.

 

3/29/06 Reflections          I think we give too much credence to atheists and don’t give enough thought to the people of this world who do believe in God but don’t like Him.

 

3/29/06 Reflections            There had to be a greater entity who created the first atom. And it’s not logical He would create us only for anything we humans could understand. His purpose is probably unknowable but that doesn’t mean it’s non-existent.

 

3/29/06 Reflections           Through my sins You must at times give me tribulations. But through Your grace You give me the faith to see the hard times through. May I always come back to You if I lose this faith, but may I rather just need reminding to trust in the faith I have and reconnect by a review, repentance, and acceptance of atonement for my sins. May the penance for my sins be the glory of serving You — for this I would gladly pay for my sins and the sins of all mankind as well.

 

3/29/06 Reflections         Talk about the joy I get from simplifying my life — it’s so good to know that my whole petition for my life and my whole intercession for others is, today and everyday, to be allowed to glorify God by being given the grace to recognize Him when He comes through. Once we recognize God’s inspirations as God’s word, we know for certain that prayer and humility really do work, and beyond that there isn’t much of importance.

 

3/29/06 Reflections            How would it be possible that God only inspired man up to the point where the Bible ends? Why would He, at that magical moment, decide that no more words will He inspire to be written or spoken or thought by chosen human beings? This is what Bible scholars contend — that what’s in the Bible we now can all hold in our hands is all that ever was or will ever be of the inspired word of God. Idiocy! God resides in me, inspires and instructs me every day just as He always has for all his children. The Bible is the underpinning of my belief system, but when people start to pick it apart they put too much emphasis on it and look down their noses at mysticism, as if mysticism weren’t the reason we have the Bible in the first place. Again I have to place my trust in my contention that we need to use all the tools God gives us to get closer to Him, and not thumb our noses at any method He chooses to use.

 

3/29/06 Reflections           I have a bad case of selfishness of service. I question the goodness of my motives. I want to mission because I want to do something others aren’t doing and to be thought well of because of it. And I want to honor God because it gives me peace and security. Of course, mixed within all this are perfectly fine and righteous reasons to, but if all is vanity, how can we ever keep our good motives and fight our worst motives?

 

3/30/06 Insights from Prayer           God, you can accomplish whatever You want to – anytime, anywhere – without any help from me. But I give You my body, soul, and spirit to use for the benefit of others, not because You need me to, but because You want me to, and my desire is to conform to Your desire. How much better would I be as an instrument of Your work if it was done with my co-operation, and how much better would I be as a person with Your approval of my co-operation. I can’t see the world through Your eyes, so I ask for the grace to know how best to serve You and for the grace to be able to carry out the privilege of serving. I have to have faith in this because I’m horrified to think that there might be nothing You want me to do. And yet, much as it would hurt, I would accept that too.