The Light in the Woods

1/9/10 Insights from Study                Ironically, it’s probable that all religion would be acceptable to all believers if there was no such thing as the holy scriptures.  Imagine religion if it resembled spirituality, where all we need for instruction is direct communications from God. Scriptures plant seeds of belief in us – preordaining us toward the Source – the God who wants to be made known through them. But in each case, the source and the authors have different styles and different goals. Scriptures may be inspired by the Creator, but they are written by man, and worse, manipulated by those with certain agendas.

That’s why we can all profess to worship the one God but don’t recognize the God of other religions, and feel uncomfortable because of it. We see good people worshiping a God Who historically demands the conversion of those who read a different scripture and we wonder. If God is the same God for everyone – and many of us instinctively feel there is one God and one Creator – could it be scripture that is poisoning us against each other?

You can answer this with a resounding “Yes!” and yet still hold your own scriptures close to your heart, just as someone else can halfway around the world. How is this possible? Because there are people who use scripture to seek God’s inspiration behind the words, and those who use the words to hit others over the head.  That’s why there are Christians who are beacons of hope in the dark, and those who are glaring lightbulbs over an interrogation chair. That’s why there are Muslims confident that theirs is a religion of peace, and those who want to reign destruction on everyone who isn’t like them. That’s why there are Jews who are so beaten down by the need to follow strict ritual that they have no time for love of God’s children, who should be benefiting from God’s laws.

But how would we know God if not for scripture? The same way God can be known in cultures which have no written word. God has written on our hearts everything we need to know. When we seek truth by looking into our own conscience, we find God ready and willing to dispense His knowledge and grace. Knowledge and grace directly from God – it’s never deceptive, never wrong, never misleading or prone to misinterpretation. It’s what we as humans do to His word after it’s given that sets us up for spiritual failure and fight.

When asked for sincerely, God’s insight is given – given abundantly and with great joyfulness. When insight is written down, it should not need interpretation – it means something to the person who got the guidance in the first place, and it means whatever God wants another to get out of it when it’s read. No human intervention is needed, or else God’s inspirations become dogma that needs to be defended.

We don’t have to be slaves to scripture.  Scripture is not meant to be a handbook for hate, or for intolerance. When it is used that way there is blasphemy against God’s intentions. But use scripture to guide you in asking for God’s personal communication to you through it, and you are praying the prayer that God loves. You can pray this way through any writing that touches you spiritually. You can find through the experience of others what God wants to teach you personally. This is a logical use of inspiration the way God intends. Always remember your personal place in God’s affections and His desire for you to experience Him. And when you pass along these inspirations, try to do it with love, tolerance, and compassion; not the heat of self-righteousness. God might not have the same message for others through this channel as He does for You. We are better off to leave it to Him to do the teaching.

We should be sharing beliefs; not demanding them. If there is only one Creator, one truth, one master plan, one reality, one eternity – there is an infinite number of ways God’s lessons can be taught. Don’t ever limit God to your capabilities. Put your capabilities before God for His instruction and shut up long enough to hear them. Then live this insight humbly and obediently, and God will surely not steer you wrong.

12/26/09 Insights from Study                 It’s an honor to be despised by those who don’t believe in God. One mention of God can send them spinning into spasms of scorn – this at least is some indication of spiritual concern, which by the power of God may bring about their enlightenment. Far more troublesome is the person with no thought of God at all. That’s why I love atheists – the ones I know are at least passionate about spiritual matters.

It must be terribly frustrating for atheists, this trying to prove a negative. If I say I know of God because He’s told me of Himself, how can they argue against that? If they say God is not guiding me, they’re acknowledging that there is a God; if they say there is no God who could be the source of my enlightenment, then they must prove that to someone who is sure there is.

I, on the other hand, do not have to prove anything, because I already believe. My only task is to be so humble, faithful, and joyous that it upsets people into reflection. My work is done whether my antagonist comes around or he doesn’t – that is God’s decision; not the effect of my work. I don’t mean to make atheists mad, but I do feel a satisfaction in making them feel something. Who can feel deep emotion without wonder at how emotions came to exist?

It should be far easier to believe in a Creator than not, seeing that we and all around us definitely do exist and we can’t conceive of how. As for me, despise me all they want – I know what I know and they will never know enough about me to prove me wrong. If I were left the only person on Earth to believe in God, it would not change that belief in the slightest. Praise God’s wisdom and love!

12/19/09 Inspirations               When it comes to the things of God, how much can we human beings really know? What portion of what our ancestors said is really true? Given what we know of the history of mankind, and through our own experiences of human nature, what are we to believe?

As in everything pertaining to the mystical life, the first thing necessary for reflection is to put God first, ahead of worldly considerations and human input, because through this door lies only what God desires for us to hear. That means mystics, because they come from many beliefs, must as always pare down dogma and build up intuition. As we honor the Creator, we honor His methods, which are shaped to the individual and are varied beyond our comprehension. Our trust is in God’s word to us and through others with God’s inspiration in our spirits.

Remembering that Devotional Mysticism is an attitude of worship and not a religion itself, we must also remember that it is a practice open to all faiths, all denominations, and all individuals – excluding no one, as does God. Many mystics are Christians, and many non-Christian mystics believe in Jesus. Because of the varied interpretations God gives us, a discussion of Jesus and mysticism, to be relevant to all mystics, starts out simplified in the masses and will be built upon by the individual from within his own belief system.

A mystic interpretation may be that in Jesus God was saying “I will meet you where you live. I will come to you; to be among you and within you. In doing this, I will show you the things that I admire so you can follow my wishes through your free will. I will show you that if all in this life is not pleasant, you can look with joy to your own resurrection. From My manifestation on your level – separated as you are from Me by deception – you will find I’m a loving God, a merciful God; dedicated to you even when you turn your back on Me. I teach you compassion for others; I show you your own weaknesses so you too can be merciful to My other children. I bring you the promise that I will keep coming to you asking for your love — being pleased anytime you show it and merciful anytime you don’t. In other words, I have the capacity to communicate with you, and I do it in many different ways – ways that conform to what you can relate to. You call these manifestations of Myself by the names that mean something to you – Son of God, nature, Jesus, miracle, inspiration, Holy Spirit, co-incidence – because if my glory is beyond you I can have no real meaning for you. I am first your Creator, and I care for you in many ways while you’re away from me. Nothing pleases me more than that you would wait patiently for me with total confidence, see what I am to you, dedicate yourself to my will, and most of all love me with all you have.”

The important thing is that God can speak to us as Jesus and we will hear a powerful message. Christmas is a perfect time to reflect on this message in awesome wonder that God can and does put all His love into mankind despite what mankind can do.

11/25/09 Insights from Prayer           What greater honor could I show to my Creator than to give Him my full attention? He made me perfectly, He watches over me in my trials, and He lives with me on a higher plane, which I will again understand fully when time is over for me. He gives me His full attention and His full capacity for love, and that is a great deal of attention and love indeed. My contribution is to love and honor Him with the most of what I have to give.

This gets harder and harder as my society turns its back on God, and the culture I live under no longer resembles anything I care for. But I am full of faith and willing for God to be my government no matter who it offends. I love the allegory of the Hound of Heaven because it reminds me that no one can unbelieve the truth out of reality; no one can change truth by their opinion, or make reality disappear by willing it so.

We have an innate drive to connect with our Creator. The more others deny Him, the more we seek Him. The more we allow Him in, the better we are at it. The more others try to suppress our devotion, the greater our need to seek God.  And the more our detractors succeed in their persecution, all the more consumed we are in carrying on our worship of God from within our spirit – that secret place where only God and His child can go.

There we are not judged, but simply loved. There we finally find what we need, and our persecutors become God’s means for our joy and contentment. Therefore, love your enemy – he brings you closer to God as part of God’s design. And if he is your enemy because of your spirituality, he is an even greater blessing. Much as some hate the thought of it, there is no way anyone can stop me from praying for them, as the beauty of prayer lies in its unobtrusiveness. You can’t see me praying for you, but I wonder – can you feel the Hound of Heaven closing in behind you?

11/24/09 Reflections           Once we accept God, we realize we have been forgiven. End of subject — there’s no need to rehash the past. We do not need to make up for what we’ve done – we could never do that as God has already done it perfectly. We don’t have the ability to pay for our past sins, so we neither have the obligation to try.

In the same way, we have no right to expect others to even up their accounts with God. We deal with others as God does – full forgiveness without requiring any payback. What could anyone do to reverse the effects of their sin against God? No more than you can do to square yourself with God. Life is better when we accept God’s forgiveness and extend the utmost degree of forgiveness to each other.

Now we know it’s futile to promise to make up for our sins or to require others to make up for theirs; so what can we do? Only accept that God has done this for us, and do our best to not get into the same occasion of sin again. Nothing forces us to do this, and if we do return to sin, we’ll be forgiven as before. So what’s the motivation for goodness?

It’s that no matter how prideful and “tough as nails” we want to appear, it feels good to feel good. Righteousness feels right. There is a peacefulness in justice and serenity in living right. We don’t even have to be sure of where such contentment comes from, although it makes sense that God would supply the favor when it seems right to Him. What matters is that a good deed begets the desire of the recipient to pass along the sentiment. And forgiveness of one person spurs on his desire to forgive someone in his life. It doesn’t always come to fruition, but the desire is there where it wasn’t before.

The motivation for goodness is the good feeling that comes from doing what has been put in our hearts as “right”, and the tendency of God to acknowledge the desire for goodness on the same scale as if the good deed had actually been done. This is because all we can really do that God does not take upon Himself is to give up our human tendencies in favor of letting our free wills conform in harmony with the will of God. Having done that, we only wait for God to act upon our desire. The result will be goodness.

We tend to miss this phenomenon because it seems too simple to be the meaning of life. But it stands to reason that, as helpless as we feel, life is far less about our contribution and more about God’s. Take away responsibility for everything but what God has given us to do, and life really is quite simple.

From there, we can contribute to society to the extent that we can, always keeping in mind that the die has already been cast, the roles have already been awarded, and the outcome is sure. We feel better when we exercise goodness and make life on Earth as serene as possible for the most of us as is possible. But it’s also important to remember our limitations; leaving the impossibilities up to God.

10/9/09 Insights from Study          I could never work up a good dose of animosity toward atheists even if I needed and wanted to. They are so wrong-minded that I feel sorry for them. They are missing the greatest gift available to mankind – love from his Creator. The love is there, but they are missing it.

You cannot be angry with someone who insists the moon is made of green cheese. They are so content to be deceived that only the supreme joy of discovery of truth can conceivably be in the works for them. It’s the same sort of uplifting mystic theology that welcomes humility because only the humble person can accept and enjoy God’s rescue.

It seems like every time I hear atheists use science to prove the non-existence of intelligent design, they always wind up validating my belief in God. The most recent example is the declaration that science, having found that all life forms stem from a single cell structure, has proven we all evolved from the same source. But without considering intelligent design, how then, if it all began with a single type of cell, did some of us become scientists and some become liver flukes? If evolution begins with only one cell, what force kept us from all being great white sharks?

For me as a spiritual person believing in the immanence of God in the world, science is interesting but not necessary. And atheistic beliefs cannot alter God’s master plan, so in the great scheme of things, atheistic hatred for that which it denies exists is pitiful. Atheists do have a role to play in God’s design, and I defer as always to God’s plan. We all occupy the same place in the mind of God – we are all understood, and loved anyway. If he’s good enough for God, the atheist is good enough for me to accept. It’s just too sad when his hatred makes him so nasty he can’t afford to accept enlightenment.

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.

1/16/09 Reflections                    We are often warned of the dire consequences of mistaking our own thoughts for those of God. Much more spiritually devastating is to dismiss, as our own, the thoughts infused by God for His purposes.

In trying to not be deceived, we are in danger of missing what God is telling us. Our very thoughts would logically be the medium God would use to impart knowledge, for we turn our thought into words in order to express feeling. It’s for this reason that besides placing ourselves in a position to recognize God’s desires, we would also profit from listening to what others say of God, then analyzing that in the light of what’s already in our spirits.

We give deference to what seems right, but we can still value all thoughts as either affirmation or denial of our inner intuition. This isn’t allowing ourselves to be talked out of what we know of right and wrong; it’s protection against false teaching that may have already taken place, and a way of clarifying the myriad nooks and crannies of discernment that is only gradually being formed within us.

Our spiritual knowledge is never complete; there is progression which doesn’t end in this life. You may argue that further instruction isn’t necessary; that the Bible contains all we need to know. But we’ve all experienced dramatic clarification of Bible passages – sometimes as inspiration during our own reading, and sometimes through the words of others. We nurture the seeds of inspiration, see what comes up, and pick out the weeds. If it doesn’t appear right to us, we know it and reject it. This is what we all encourage, as personal understanding is a progression. We know this is how spiritual education takes place.

To mystics, these seeds of enlightenment are everywhere, not just in the Bible. We can catch the flavor of Godliness in just about everything we experience, because we see God’s design in all His creations. We may not understand it, but we see that the master plan exists, and we trust that it exists for our good. The point is that we don’t turn our back on God’s help just because we are prideful and we don’t see that this guidance is really coming from God.

1/7/09 Insights from Study          Faith is the gift God gives us in order to satisfy our longing to know Him, something to which we can’t aspire using only our own intellect.

Some people have not been given the gift of faith, have not recognized the gift of faith they have been given, or have not accepted the gift of faith they know they’ve been given. For these people to ridicule others for possessing faith makes about as much sense as ridiculing someone for their ability to paint a beautiful watercolor.

Faith isn’t a negative – it builds up; it adds to the human condition. It’s an infused talent given by God for the benefit of mankind. It brings personal and social justice. It smooths the bumpy road because it shows us the wonder of the destination. It gives us hope, protects us from fear, teaches us what we can’t learn on our own, guides us to where it’s best for us to go, and celebrates our relationship with our Creator.

If that person with the awesome talent for painting with watercolors chooses to use his gift to depict adults engaged in lewd acts with children, it doesn’t make sense to rage against the artistic talent or the Creator that gave the gift of talent. If someone chooses to kill indiscriminately in the name of faith, neither the gift of faith or the Giver of faith is to blame.

It’s counterproductive to label every faithful person as a terrorist or a bigot because of the acts of some. And it’s a waste for otherwise intelligent persons to deduce that because some have killed for their faith, all who are faithful are deluded. It’s far more likely that many more millions have died or lead ruined lives at the hands of atheists and their own delusions.

It isn’t God who sins. For the religious or the anti-religious, it’s human pride that leads to over-zealousness and sin. Either way, we could use more faith — the gift of faith is a good thing, and meant to bring good things to mankind. We can all benefit from faith – the choice to use it correctly is ours.

12/14/08 Insights from Study           I suspect that the current fashion of anti-Christianity is taken up by those who don’t know what Christianity is. They may have more than a few different agendas to fill in regards to Christians, but it’s hard to fathom what they would object to in Christ.

The depiction of Christ as a role model is a given for Christians and non-Christians alike. Jesus advocated peace, kindness, forgiveness, understanding, charity, poverty of spirit, humility, love, obedience, gentleness, loyalty, patience, tolerance. How easy it should be for all of us to love Christ and to fashion ourselves after Him. I can’t think of any true religion or sane individual that couldn’t hold a man like Jesus up as a holy person.

But the way in which Jesus holds the highest inspiration for Christians is in His devotion to God and in His own divinity. As a model, Jesus tells us of the divine inheritance of God’s children and how we respect God for His love for us as integral parts of His plan. In loving Jesus, we are able to love God. And in loving God we are able to love all of God’s children, for Jesus is both God and man.

Here’s where we lose people. A lot of people are mad at God and a lot don’t even acknowledge that He exists. So if Jesus is God incarnate these people must distance themselves from Him no matter how they admire His principles, or else honor Him as Jesus, but not as the Christ.

What should practicing Christians do? It seems better that they should not confront the critics. Love God and the morality that’s His desire for us. Keep on doing the humanitarian good worldwide that’s a result of the Christians’ seeing the God dwelling in others through the humanity of Christ. Speak of God to those who don’t know of Him. Pray for those who hurt Him. The best way to upset the enemy is to remain holy and effective. Debate only when the spirit is upon us. And for heaven’s sake don’t spoil it all by going against the spirit of Christ’s teaching. We can stay true to Christianity without being offensive and exclusive. When we are praying for our critics, we need to listen to see if there’s any Jesus in what they’re saying.