The Light in the Woods

 1/23/10 Insights from Prayer                      I just thought – there isn’t one person in the whole world who doesn’t have a problem, large or small, at the moment, and who couldn’t use a prayer, like it or not, from me. There are billions of us, going about with our own thoughts and fears and sins and doubts. I wish that each time I’m taken to prayer I could have one person to concentrate on – what a prayer that would be!

I was just praying for a specific friend with a specific problem at this very moment of need. Thanks to instant messaging my prayer is in the present – what a miracle that is! A message has traveled to me by satellite that a prayer is needed, and so I pray while I wait to find out if this friend is OK.

Our God is great Who cares about each of us and watches over every one of us as if there were no one else in the world for Him to love. And He is wise to let me know the scope of humanity and human need which He attends to without fail. I’m blessed to feel welcomed into partnership with Him in this.

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.

11/27/09 Insights from Prayer          I’m always despairing over my lack of compassion. Last night it came to me that if, as I profess, I only want what God wants, I should be patient and trust that He leads me to compassion, even if it doesn’t seem like I’m anything other than unnecessary.

When I give money to charities, I’m still left emotionally flatlined. When I pray for others I feel fulfilled, yet only momentarily. My lifestyle is such that I seldom have an opportunity to connect with others. But when I write what comes so effortlessly to my mind when I’m enjoying the presence of God, only then is there the feeling that I do have something to do that’s purposeful.

How else will I know what is right for me unless I examine my feelings when I do it? We are all different – some contribute one way and some contribute another. My focus must be that if I truly live to love and honor God, whatever means speaks to that end must have God’s approval, no matter how it looks to me or fits in with what others are doing.

If God’s wish is mine, I should not be afraid to allow myself approval as well. In this state, I should have enough discernment to know that God is only goodness and so must be my motives and actions. I cannot rate myself on any other scale, because then I will be a victim of spiritual confusion.

9/4/09 Inspirations            I honor Jesus as the perfect mystic – aware of divinity’s presence in us; unreservedly willing to allow this perfect love to guide all that’s tried. In showing how the practice of the presence of God is done, Jesus is God’s model of a life lived in divine union; how God can be in us and we can be in God.

This can go a long way in addressing my stubborn doubts about intercessory prayer, which always vaguely seems to me like asking God to do a circus act for the folks. “Tell me what you need and I’ll have God wave His magic wand – that’s how righteous and powerful I am.”

I can fight this feeling if I concentrate on what intercessory prayer is really designed to do – make me feel like I am contributing to the oneness of all of us as God wishes for me to do. I can always use more compassion, and asking for God’s help on behalf of another person is an honorable way to cultivate it. The trick is to see things as God’s work, not mine. If I wind up more aware of the link each of us has to the other, that would be a good result of prayer no matter what takes place in the life of the one I’m praying for.

Jesus handled this attribute of compassion effortlessly, because he had the virtue of humility to make it all blend in together. He obeyed the intuition inside Him, because He was a manifestation of God’s love, as are we all. His whole life was an intercessory prayer of the first order, and His reflections taught generations that God speaks to us through insight. Jesus was the perfect mystic.

6/28/09 Inspirations          “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

In case of conflict large or small, it doesn’t matter if afterwards my neighbor makes concessions to me or not. How he treats me is irrelevant. But however I treat him I’m treating God, and that’s what matters.

If I overlook the hurt done to me, I am mirroring God’s mercy. If I give my antagonist a chance to make things up to me without being condescending, that’s God’s method of encouraging repentance. And if I do things as God would want me to do them, I am benefiting both my neighbor and myself, and pleasing God as well.

It isn’t easy to refrain from a snide response or a quick putdown – we have this sense of justice for ourselves that keeps us ever watchful for opportunities to come to the aid of our egos.  But there is also a certain satisfaction in counting to ten and holding our peace. And often we find that this, much more than instantly standing up for ourselves, impresses and subjugates those who would treat us badly.

Being quietly and humbly righteous is the best way to “get back” at somebody because it defuses the situation, gives you the moral high ground, and makes them think twice about their own behavior and how they feel about yours. If done subtly, there’s no better response, because it opens the way for your better nature to show through, and it’s a response that pleases God. And it may even provide an opportunity to correct the situation and even make an enemy into a friend. This is an example of helping others through your own good example, and it’s available for all social situations.

But if the Patience Plan doesn’t bring about all these highly desired outcomes, it does address the thing that is of most importance – it furthers your right-relationship with God. If it does nothing else, your patience brings you closer to God and His own attributes.

4/3/09 Reflections              Some of us reach out in compassion by bringing others’ wealth down to the level dictated by equal distribution to all. Others of us encourage well-being by building wealth up and seeing that opportunities are provided to all. Only the second way is sustainable, promoting excellence, ingenuity, and personal satisfaction on it’s own without collapsing when the handout runs out like in the first way, which fosters resentment and entitlement.

There isn’t a finite amount of happiness that must be portioned out to each world inhabitant. The more we produce the more wealth there is; my good standard of living doesn’t have to take away from yours. Economic justice is about opportunity – not geography, race or religion. There will always be those too lazy to welcome help, but the honor to God’s way lies in trying to encourage opportunity whenever possible. God works through us, and he enables us by helping us make sure that we have enough to share. All things are gifts, and as the author of all gifts, God will have it His way.

In this country, the poorest of the poor are far richer than a good part of the rest of the world, but because they don’t see themselves as rich they draw the line of contribution and redistribution at their own doorstep. There’s no doubt that many of those who have way more than they need have been lax in sharing their good fortune. But this is a character flaw; a matter for divine intervention and not an excuse for government intervention.  What we should be doing is making it easy and commendable for any of us to give out of our hearts; not out of duress.  To me, the best way to do this is to promote entrepreneurship and self-sufficiency, not demean it out of envy, personal sloth, and/or selfishness.  The greed of the poor is every bit as loathsome as the greed of the wealthy.

I’ve researched options and found that a sane way to help is through fostering entrepreneurship by making small loans to businesses in depressed areas. The process could use some tweaking, but the basis is honest and workable. Look for programs which encourage a “pass it along” system whereby the recipient himself becomes a donor to a neighbor’s business out of his or her profits. The amount of your loan is personal and you make your loan to an individual whose name you know and whose business you can watch. In other words, you know your contribution is going where it will do the most good. And you will be paid back with interest, so you can lend even more the next time or to another businessperson.

Put “microfinance loans” into your search engine and explore the rightness of giving a hand up instead of a handout; of sharing the gift of opportunity — the lasting form of compassion.

4/1/09 Reflections                Every time I try to turn the meaning of intercessory prayer over in my mind, I end up getting more and more confused. This means that I’m definitely using my own selfish reasoning and that God has still not chosen to enlighten me. He enlightens me to do intercessory prayer, but doesn’t let me in on the theology of how it works. It’s something I don’t know and this drives me crazy because I feel like somewhere within intercessory prayer is God’s design for me. I want so much to be a tool in God’s hands, but a tool can’t call out to the carpenter, or an instrument out to the musician.

Do I pray for others so that God will say “Well, if she thinks this person deserves it, I will change my plan in order to accommodate her”?  No, God is unchanging; His plan exists in eternity.

Do I pray for others in order to make a better world? Who is to say the world will be better if I get what I want? It’s all about what God wants, and He doesn’t need me to tell Him what He wants.

Do I pray for others so that they will begin to pray for themselves? There again, if God wanted that He would make it happen without me.

Do I pray for others so I can feel good about myself? No, most of the time I end up feeling like nothing but a usurper of glory.

Although I haven’t experienced the inspiration that affirms what I suspect, I feel I might be moved to pray on the behalf of total strangers because this act is a gift of grace given to me as part of my spiritual development. I pray for others out of obedience to God. There’s no other explanation because none is needed – a gift is a gift and there’s no need to belittle it by questioning the motives of its giver.

My best course is to remember that since we’re all children of God there is no such thing as a total stranger; that what I do for someone else I do for me, and I know it pleases God when I benefit. I’m not my brother’s keeper; I’m my brother. And my brother is me – when I pray for him I’m praying for myself. The more others are seized by an awareness of God’s grace, the more gifted I am. The closer the world gets to the acceptance of divine love and purpose, the sooner the world will no longer be needed and this imperfection can end. When I pray for others, no matter what the outward manifestation of their need, I am actually petitioning for global glorification of God – the state in which we can finally all live with God again the way He created for us.

If I remain confused about how it fits into God’s plan for me to ask for His intervention on behalf of someone else, at least I can keep the big picture in mind, and pray from within the cloud of unknowing just because God asks.

3/13/09 Insights from Study      If you haven’t read or heard about the 1957 Ayn Rand novel, Atlas Shrugged, it is in short a treatise on what happens to society when faith clashes with reason and need clashes with productivity. Faced with the fictional ascendancy of socialism over capitalism, the world discovers that if you take from the producers to give to the non-producers extremely enough, all are brought down to the same level of mediocrity and stagnation.

The novel is getting an underground boost of revival lately because it’s a bit prophetic of current economic and societal trends, but there are a couple of basic flaws in the theory which cheapen the message.  Ayn Rand lumps people into two either/or camps without conceding that it’s possible for the staunchest capitalist to be generously compassionate and the staunchest socialist to favor Mother Teresa tactics over Robin Hoodlumism.

But the worse flaw is that the author doesn’t give God a place in her philosophy or in the hearts of her characters. Nothing else she says can remain unskewed because she’s left out the most important factor in the human condition – the input of its Creator. In the war of worldviews Rand’s protagonist, John Galt, sees only the power struggle between human factions, as if human power had any meaning other than the power the Creator allows.  Because Galt does not attribute anything to God, those of us who attribute everything to Him see the lack of meaning in what’s important in Galt’s world.  Galt’s “mystics of the spirit”, which he so scathingly decries as one cause of the ruin of human progress, have no resemblance to any mystic I know about. 

True mystics don’t want to gain power. They know where the source of their force lies, and they know this grace will be vested in whatever interest God sees as fit. Humans do not go it alone; societies don’t need to rise or fall on the basis of human greed. If more of us would give deference to God’s plan there would be no need for either/or philosophies. Battles would be pointless if we allowed ourselves to welcome God’s work in us, and no one would need to show up for the war.

There’s good and bad in all of man’s endeavors and all human philosophy. It’s in moderation that man most resembles His God, for the end game for God is happiness for all. One’s happiness doesn’t have to take away from another’s, since God is the provider and His provision is infinite. John Galt may have been right about the economics of the situation, but without the perspective of God’s reality over human reality, all human work, innovation, invention and profit become the goal in and of itself. God’s goal is not of this world, so we should never sell our souls for worldly gains. That would have been the better lesson for John Galt to teach the world.

3/1/09 Reflections              I have been wronged but it’s up to me not to perpetuate the pain by reacting wrongly. First, the trial was brought about by incompetence; not malice – I can handle that; I’ve been incompetent myself at times. Second, the problem can be fixed, even though I have to be the one to fix it, or maybe even forget it. Third, it’s far from being the end of the world – this matter is extremely minor in the great scheme of things. Fourth, I would only hurt this person by reminding them of what they did — they know what they did and feel bad about it; what more could I add that wouldn’t be only for my own self-righteousness and gratification? Fifth, others affected by it have responded and I feel creepy and slimy over their anger-filled over-reaction. Sixth, when I tell God what I think my action should be, He makes me feel warm and holy and right about my desired response.

It’s number six that speaks to me most effectively; which uplifts my spirit and puts me in a comfort zone with God. That is how I can suddenly put the bad in perspective and bring out the good to look at and admire. There will come a time when I don’t even remember this wrong done to me, because this wrong was human-generated and therefore inconsequential. It’s the spiritual support from God that makes this learning experience so uplifting, and its effects will last forever. Using a wrong to illustrate what’s right – what an awesome Creator we have!

3/1/09 Insights from Prayer       In this age of instant and constant communication, we may have become insensitive to the force of what we say, because we say so many things nowadays.

We look at the history of what we’ve written and find that we are slaves to our moods. One day we’re positive, optimistic, loving and inclusive; the next day we’re negative, pessimistic, hateful and exclusive. Or it may not even be a function of time but of circumstance. On one issue we may speak calmly and on another fiercely. Either way, no one would be likely to pick one post out of our ethernet ramblings and through that be able to define us for certain. Yet our words have power and we should always remember that what we say and write can be hurtful to a person, even if for only a few seconds. We can do right by God and still be courteous to man.

Every day I wish to co-create and co-operate in God’s plan for others through the gifts God has given me. Today I prayed that I never use this gift in the wrong way; that words that are meant to lovingly correct don’t end up being hurtful. But during my prayer I also realized that sometimes the truth hurts even though it’s fighting to bring about good results. My prayer should be, rather, that I’m conscientious in passing along God’s inspirations according to His plan, which is never in error.

It may be assumed that my words reflect my own flawed character, or it may be assumed that I’m a brilliant theologian in my own right. My prayer should be that I remain confident that my work is God’s work, even if no one else thinks of it that way. My prayer should be that I too remember that my work is the result of what God offers me, and that it’s not up to me to alter it or take credit for it. God isn’t concerned about who gets the credit or who gets the blame, and I shouldn’t be either. The point is that the message is divine and true, and the reason behind it loving and constant.

How others react to it is a part of God’s master plan as well. The fact that the same statement can bring exact opposite reactions tells us that our words are subject to interpretation no matter how clear they are to us. God’s design in giving us intellect and free will is ever more apparent in the new era of communication and discussion. I hope to see dissent as a positive thing and I hope to present it that way myself. What I’m inspired to write is designed to encourage reflection, and through reflection we will wonder what exactly is behind it all, making order out of chaos and gluing us together as a single entity. If the method is harsh, let’s be confident that God is purifying us with fire, and that we, imperfect as we are, can play a part in forwarding God’s advice to His children with the same compassion that God displays it to us.