The Light in the Woods

1/13/10 Reflections          I was busy with my own concerns when this earthquake hit – by the time I knew of it many were already dead. It’s been on my mind all day, but as I go about doing what I do, it occurs to me many more are in the process of dying. And many are trapped and know that soon they will die. Then there are those who are healthy but grieving, and those who don’t even know if they should be grieving.

It seems like this country has been poor forever; I have felt compassion for these people for as long as I’ve been aware of world affairs. As a freshman at university I remember my Historical Geography teacher asking each of us where in the world we might like to go. When it was my turn I said I wanted to go to Haiti and help the people there. My teacher smiled and asked if I knew anything about Voodoo. I said not too much, but I could speak some French – meaning I might be able to empathize that way. Some kid in the class sneeringly said “Jeez, she thinks Voodoo is a language!”

Those days were full of intimations that God was directing me toward something even though I wasn’t very friendly with God at the time. These days I live for loving God and there still is this feeling of being designed to help somehow, but it seems for missionary work I would be a liability now that I’m too old and everything hurts. Back when I was young and could have gone, I didn’t take the hint. Now I get it, but I’m over the hill. Still, I wish I could go and be of service to a people who are not only economically destitute, but have been footballs in a deadly political game for so long. And victims of disaster after disaster.

It’s easy for me to say, here in my comfort and safety, but I have to pray that Haiti’s latest disaster is the one that turns things around for those poor people. They are deserving of a miracle, and my other prayer is that this brings them closer to God, not further away. Only God can bring that miracle about. But I hope there are many compassionate donors of time and money who can pave the way and work with Him.

8/5/09 Inspirations           If it were possible to designate the term “Christian” with a small “c”, it would go a long way towards clearing up an anti-Christian bias that persists because Christians are always talking about how the Christian way is the right way, and all else is unnatural.

To Christians the meaning of this is clear but to non-Christians it’s confusing; it’s degrading to be told one’s way is wrong. And even for a Christian there’s confusion – if you’re told all your life that the Christian way is the right way, you would naturally think that no religion other than Christianity can produce good people.  We know there are good people everywhere – only the most fundamentalist Christian would deny their salvation on the grounds that they are simply not baptized Christians, but they do this consistently through a misrepresentation of the Bible.

Innate goodness in the heart of any human being is christian, because there’s no difference between goodness and what Christ taught us. In other words, it is christian to be good, no matter what your religion or lack of it. People of all beliefs can welcome being called christian if they take that to mean they live life loving their neighbor as themselves. Even an atheist can be christian in this manner.

The entire ministry of Christ is meant to exemplify a right-relationship with God – how it looks and why it’s the way to inner peace and contentment. This ministry is a gift from God showing us the way to happiness; others’ happiness as well as our own. Christ’s death and resurrection is meant to show that we are destined to recover from life on Earth and claim the relationship with God that is lost as long as we’re here.

But as long as we are here, there’s a way to feel close to God in the here and now by pleasing Him with our free wills, and interacting with others in a beneficial way. This way is to be Christlike – not necessarily Christian, but humbly and obediently christian. It’s the way, not the religion, that matters to God.

7/26/09 Insights from Prayer       We do so much that God has never required of us, and we avoid what little He does ask.

Think about the people you know – does anyone live for the love of God? Sure, they may busy themselves with holy works, but I often wonder if we should analyze what we can do for others and re-assess the importance of what we can do for our own spirituality. One thing is better-handled by God; the other is one of the few things God sets aside for our participation.

We need to get this right, because from it wondrous miracles of opportunity grow. We are taught to think of others before ourselves, and we have an innate knowledge that self-regard can lead us away from God. But wrong too is neglect of our own spirituality, because that is the engine that powers our good works.

We must be right with God before we can bring others to this state. It’s God’s spirit that does the work, but God allows us to participate by maintaining the proper attitude. In this way we work in conjunction with the Creator, building up divine perceptions and keeping our spirits pure and receptive. We need to stop for a while to refresh this relationship if we want to best hold our experiences up as a good example. In this instance self-regard is a benefit instead of a weakness.

3/4/09 Insights from Prayer            Enemies you can effectively eliminate by refusing to think of them as anything other than God’s children. Once this is fixed in your mind they are no longer enemies because you do not allow them to be enemies, and you can begin to deal with them as God wants you to. It will not be the same for everyone, but what you do will be based on the same consideration toward all — that if God loves this person that should be your default position as well.

This sounds Utopian, and people would scoff at your naivete – the point is not for you to destroy an enemy but to reject his hatred in your own mind. This is something the weakest among us can do; from there you’re able to leave justice to God where it belongs. Your enemy may still want to destroy you, but that has always fit into God’s plan. What’s different is that you are putting yourself into the relationship with God and not with your enemy. In this, the relationship that’s the one of real importance, you are already justified by God – the race is run and you have won. You do not have to hate your enemy just because he is nurturing a hatred for you. Instead you can do the right thing and so put God in your corner, where you will recognize His guidance as to what you must do to deal with your enemy from this point on.

2/12/09 Reflections         The story of Jesus chokes me up because through it God is saying “As powerful as I am, your sins can hurt Me because I love you and whatever you do against Me you do against yourself.”

It’s not about reward and punishment. Without God’s propping us up at every moment we would fail — why would God damn us to hell for something we all would do if He didn’t guide us? Our nature is to do what it takes to survive in a hostile environment; the Creator of us and that environment is unlikely to damn us when we do what we must.

That isn’t to say there isn’t goodness on the other end of the spectrum. In fact, this goodness is what proves to me that God is at work in us. Any good we do, no matter how compassionate, ends up being for our own good. Charity results in survival on a higher plane; we not only make it in this world but we do so with personal satisfaction. But this too is a function of God’s master plan – it’s His gift to us to be able to do not only what we must, but what we can.

In summary, we are given a free will to use within God’s master plan, but it’s not in God’s plan to lose even one of us. This was so important that He sent the human manifestation of Himself to tell us so in our own language. He still does this through inspiration and revelation for those brave independents prepared to accept His spirit as their own.

Free will decisions are made to get us through day-to-day life on Earth. They can please God or disappoint God, but He doesn’t react to this with anything but understanding and mercy. God does not need our decisions for His own good, but He knows our decisions affect us, and He wants the best for us. This cannot include eternal damnation.

To those who think this theology is blasphemous, I submit that what you are doing is taking it upon yourself to declare that Jesus has failed in His mission. This chokes me up more than any other sin man can commit. I challenge you and say that beings exist and events occur because God wants things the way they are for His own reasons. We don’t have a say in the master plan, only in how we react to it. If we react in a holy way God shows mercy; if we sin God shows mercy. Our actions don’t change God’s plan for us, and if God is a loving God His plan is not our eternal damnation but our eternal presence with Him. This holy comfort is what God-as-Jesus suffered so deeply to show us – once and forever, for all. So when I hear you ask someone if they’ve “been saved” it makes me want to cry in incredulous exasperation and sadness.

2/10/09 Inspirations       I am just small, Dear Lord, in my own eyes. Teach me to pray so that I’m reminded how precious I am to You. Then, and only then, am I certain that I am what You make me, and You make me holy and whole.

When I run out of answers, and the strength to find answers, teach me to pray so I remember where answers really lie. If I should feel abandoned by those I thought cared for me, teach me to pray so I know again how much You love me and how fulfilling this love is. As darkness falls over the world to the point where morality and initiative is a thing too well hidden, teach me to pray so I want to remain pure for You despite what others think is right for me.

This life isn’t easy and sometimes there’s ugliness on all sides, threatening innocents. Teach me to pray so that I can form a bond with others on Your behalf. That is when we may together understand that beauty is more precious when snatched out of the claws of despair.

I thank you, Dear God, for the visible signs of hidden glory as yet to be exposed. Teach me to pray so that all can see Your work in nature and in circumstances. That way all may trade pride in for the humility and obedience that is the divine part of our human nature.

My one request is that all of us may become tuned to the frequency on which You transmit. Teach me to pray so that I never lose Your gift of inspiration; always ready to pass along the secret to joy.

When I feel my enemies closing in, Dear Lord, teach me to pray so that I can welcome them with courage and soften their hearts with revelation. If I find that someone is in need in body or in spirit, teach me to pray so that Your own spirit can give me the words I need to comfort them. As it becomes harder to swim against the tide of self-regard in today’s society, teach me to pray so that I can always return to what is important to You. Then, and only then, can I feel satisfied that I have found the way; that it doesn’t lie in me and what I can do, but in You and the spiritual gifts You give me.

I want to walk in Your ways, Dear God. Teach me to pray so that I may always have a place to go where I can recharge, refocus, and remember from where my strength originates and to where my journey is taking me.

1/18/09 Insights from Prayer          Today during my devotions I realized that, as I was inspired to put it, I notice I’m willing to go the extra mile any time someone gives just an inch. This made me start to think of one of the very first theological principles that was given to me at my divine awakening. It’s that all God wants from us is that we hand over the precious free-will we were created with, and let Him use it the way He wants instead of the way we want.

That’s a big step but one that’s easily taken. We just go out by ourselves into the quiet and tell God we know we’re helpless, but we’re willing to accept His plan and whatever is given us in carrying it out. It’s not that God needs our cooperation, but that He appreciates it because it means we’ve tuned in to His love and want to participate in it. That’s the ultimate adoration. From that point all will be well no matter how inadequately we are able to perceive life.

If the checkout girl just sighs tiredly when I put my purchases up to be scanned, that doesn’t harm me. When a man in a hurry bumps into me without apology, that’s not a big deal. Yet when a saleswoman smiles or a customer holds a door open for me, my reaction is disproportionate – I would suffer harm for this person. A small random good act has the power to uplift a life, but it can do something else just as important – it creates a “good vibe” in the recipient that triggers a loving reaction.

This kind of interchange also happens between the self-abandoned spirit and its Creator. By just our willingness to accept God’s desires we welcome a love exchange totally out of proportion to our free will offering. That goodness in turn spins off onto others, triggering a new opportunity for connection.

Unexpected kind acts done for us trigger affinitive love, which sparks a joy of spirit from which we’re moved to share unexpected kind acts of our own. Nobody caught up in this cycle can fail to see the effects of God’s love woven throughout the lives of His children.

12/14/08 Insights from Study           If you must look for points from God, then at least look at it this way: To God there is no measurement for acts of kindness – kindness is a cultivated trait, because it is a free-will offering. You don’t get ten points for saving a life and one point for holding a door open. You get the full amount of God’s love for both acts. There’s no “fairness” — I wouldn’t even want to imagine how ugly the world would look if God could only give us what we deserve. A loving act is a loving act – it’s your state of mind that urges you to do a kindness, and it’s that state of mind that impresses God.

Of course, there are degrees of compassion in man’s eyes, and it’s natural for you to rate kindness according to quality and quantity. But you will avoid spiritual pride if you remember that in the God/man relationship the only thing you possess that God needs is your free-will desire to love Him. All good flows from that desire and is blessed by God whether you are a martyred missionary or a bed-ridden senior who can do nothing more than pray for others. Each has offered himself to God – any act that flows from that is God’s accomplishment. Only man’s love toward God is negotiable, and God accepts that with mighty totality irregardless of other acts of man.

12/3/08 Insights from Study            There is one mystic principle that goes so against our natural grain that it makes the mystics sound like over-pious zealots. It is this: That trial and suffering should be actively embraced and even sought out to the exclusion of favors and consolations.

For example: In The Interior Castle, The 7^th Dwelling Place, Chapter 3, Teresa of Avila says that the soul gains a particular love during persecution that it wishes to extend to its persecutors – to the point that the soul would rather do without the favors of God if by this sacrifice another soul is won over to Him.

This proper preference of suffering over spiritual consolation for the sake of God doesn’t go far enough for some religious sects. There are those like the flagellates or the extreme aesthetics who cause themselves actual physical harm to prove their unfailing allegiance to God. However, not only can the mystical principle of acquiescing to suffering become a victim of over-interpretation, the extreme application of it, which might be called self-persecution, is not pleasing to God anyway.

It’s a case of a well-meaning person going overboard to show their love of God. First of all, God knows everything about you and doesn’t need to be shown. Secondly, if you went to such extremes as intense fasting or flagellation, the temptation for spiritual pride lies too close to the surface for comfort. Then too, God never asked for this form of adoration, which purposely harms the body He has created for you out of His love and in His image.

What extremism does to mystic principle is the same harm it does to every human activity. It takes something good and turns it into something harmful. And it generates the opposite of what it proposes to do – it drives people away when they should be attracted to spirituality for their own good.

The true meaning of the mystical embrace of trial and suffering is a wholly different matter. It’s successfully practiced by families in every place and every culture. We go through the trial of everyday work so that we can give to our families what we want them to enjoy. We give to charity, or volunteer our time, or come to someone’s rescue. We are providers to others, and providing always entails some kind of sacrifice. But we feel a satisfaction in doing what we know is right, even though the burden is often heavy for us. We don’t do it for the satisfaction; the satisfaction comes because we do what we should do.

The mystic treatment of trial and suffering is the same mechanism. We give ourselves over to God’s master plan out of a a love of God. In quiet acceptance we acknowledge that His work in an imperfect world must take a toll, and because it’s God’s work toward human good, we gladly take the trials along with the joys. Both things are given by God out of love, and both are not only accepted willingly but also welcomed as catalysts for pleasing God.

The thing to guard against is choosing sufferings of our own in order to show our love and dedication to God. If we do that, even if no one else sees our distress, we are putting our desires before God’s – the opposite of quiet acceptance.  The ego, which is always trying to distract us from our spiritual union with God, has its own set of rewards. Often when we think we’re doing something out of love for God and others, it turns out we are actually looking for the rewards of our own egos. Working for God can be very satisfying – quiet reflection should reveal if this comfort is the ego’s goal or God’s love shining through you with purpose.

11/19/08 Inspirations                Life is simple – love God and do His will. You atheists out there can play the role just for the experience of it. Praise life by acknowledging that it’s good to let God have His way, because anything that goes against love and peace and joy in the world is a result of a human failing, not a divine one. Human failing will go on and on and on without relief, as long as man is in control. It’s fashionable to think that man is all there is, so of course man must be in control. Allow then that if each of us would step aside and consciously let love have its way, the world would have to be a much better place. God is that love, whether you believe in Him or not. Love God and do His will, and see how simple life is.