The Light in the Woods

2/26/10 Reflections           It’s just as easy to believe in God as not. If you don’t at least try, you’re basing your thoughts of God on your own attributes, which are pitifully inadequate. If you were to ask God about Himself you would be instructed by a powerful source. But you do yourself no favor if, after inquiring of God, you close your eyes and stop your ears against what you might learn.

Every day God guides us and protects us in ways we cannot comprehend because our minds don’t expand that far. Our inabilities should be comforting to us though – every weakness forces us to acknowledge the power of God, which must be working for our good since if God were against us we would know it all too well.

The more humble we are the more able we are to trust in God. Humility is not the same things as humiliation. Ego leaves us open to humiliation, but humility is the antithesis of ego. Humility is a state in which we are assured of pleasing God because we understand the need to make our wills subordinate to God’s.

God is our government – He makes us and He makes the rules by which we live. He gives us our rights and presents us with the circumstances that fulfill His plan. He sees to our welfare and expects us to take responsibility for obeying what He puts in our hearts as the moral way to deal with each other. His plan for us is broad; He does not micro-manage, leaving our free-will liberty to us as much as we need.

Sometimes our egos try to take God’s government over for ourselves, and sometimes we allow other egos to do it for us. When this takes place, it’s time to remember to go back to God in prayer to realign ourselves with Reality. Forget those who won’t do this, for whatever reason they have – the basis of a right-relationship with God is the individual and it’s the individual response to God that matters.

If everything else were to be taken away from the equation, our relationship with God would remain. Our spirits live on; it should be our spirits that hold our attention well above anything else. It is paramount in God’s agenda – His help guides you past the hype of humanity and sets you free to follow His morality; not anyone else’s. Rest yourself in living righteously; pledge allegiance to God and you will not go wrong.

2/21/10 Reflections              God is not just another experiment for scientists, for He will never be known completely on Earth. This is not a failing; this is His plan. His plan keeps us seeking, keeps us praising, keeps us grateful for the small hints of heaven that we see all around us when we cultivate awareness of them. If God were not a mystery we wouldn’t be in awe of Him as we are.

Now and then I play at pretending there is no God in my life, just to see how it feels. After all, I put in many years of not thinking of God at all, and I made out OK. But I always come back to the welcoming of my relationship with God, because of what it adds to my existence. I don’t need to understand God completely. What I need is to accept that there is something very much worth seeking, and that even if I don’t fully appreciate God because of my human limitations, the desire for that relationship keeps what I can know ever before me.

God is constantly bringing me towards acceptance of what it is I need. He puts before me what He wants to give; sometimes I reach out for it hungrily and sometimes I’m not hungry enough to reach out at all. In one way I’m better off than in the other, but God doesn’t force me. In the same way, He works with what he withholds from me – fear, despair, disease, calamity, guilt, my own sin. Whether I’m thankful, oblivious, or aware yet without gratitude, I’m not forced to acknowledge the source of my protection or my provision.

Yet if I do choose awareness of God I learn easily in proportion to how much of the process I give over to God. Once I begin, I see results. Once I see results, I want more of the same. The more I ask for the more I get – my asking shows that I’m humble enough to use God’s graces effectively. Even though my role is small, it’s an integral part of God’s master plan and therefore significant. Yet I don’t have to perform it flawlessly; I shouldn’t even aspire to that. I merely need to keep desiring the right attitude for my way to be made sure.

That’s why it’s so important for us not to exclude others’ paths or disdain others’ works. We don’t know what assignments God has deemed appropriate for others. We cannot do His desire while judging His gifts.

 2/7/10 Reflections             Everything is the way it is because that’s how God wants it. Save the whale, stop global warming – do what you will, the outcome is still whatever is God’s plan. You can be a force for good, but that’s your interpretation of what is needed; unless this is the same as what your Creator deems necessary it will count for nothing. That’s just the way it is, and God keeps dropping hints that we might want to limit our interference in it for our own good. Still we insist on taking over. So what if we’re extremely incompetent? At least we feel good about ourselves!

But maybe feeling good about ourselves is not such a worthy goal. For some of us, feeling good about ourselves is another form of greedy self-regard because we do things out of human pride; circumventing the will of God. Since we do impact nature we are charged with not abusing it. But for some, that’s the green light to go to the other extreme – denying the use of nature when it should be used, being a gift from God.

Most people don’t factor in God’s wishes when taking up a cause, some on the premise that God’s wishes are unknown but surely must conform to theirs; some on the premise that there is no God so it’s all up to them. But this is the Creator Himself they are dismissing – how much simpler and more beneficial it would be to acknowledge that there is a supernatural plan in place; to concede that the care of the Earth has been in God’s hands and will continue to be this way on into eternity. No matter what we do or don’t do, His effect will be what decides the Earth’s fate. Study as we might, all we will find is the mechanics of how God is fulfilling His plan.

Put that way, we might be induced to set aside the hype and the panic talk. We might each consider getting back to the spiritual meaning behind what we do. We can succeed by being partners in God’s master plan instead of failing by conceitedly fighting against it.

2/5/10 Reflections                    The knowledge we need of God is in us. Our hearts beat and our lungs exchange air without our intellectual input, and our minds apprehend God in the same way.

Lately, science is pin-pointing where in the brain that function resides, just as it has found the core location of other brain functions. This is good in that it admits the universal awareness of God we experience. But prideful man will probably interfere with this as in other things, and no doubt some megalomaniac will eventually mandate that the “God center” of an infant’s brain be deactivated at birth as a matter of course. Which all goes to show that while Creator-awareness is a normal function of a human being, Creator-knowledge must come to us in other ways; ways which science and megalomaniacs can’t touch.

God did not have to create the universe at all. His reality abides without it – always has and always will. The fact that He did create the universe implies a plan; a plan that takes place no matter how much humans interfere. Man’s need to experience God will not be impaired. What’s important is that we allow our full and certain joy of God-awareness however we can and in whatever ways God devises for our happiness. It’s hard-wired in us – what God desires is for our good, and what is good for us is what God plans from the beginning. Denying it gains us nothing, and denying it in others is impossible if the other person values a relationship with God. Need for God cannot be taken away, because it is supplied by God.

1/31/10 Reflections          I’ve been thinking a lot about the children’s ward lately — about how it tested my faith in God’s mercy plan, and how it returned me to my faith tenfold over the years through the deep peace of supernatural insight.

While visiting my brother, who was bedridden with multiple sclerosis and in a nursing home, it was necessary for my other brother and I to go to the office on some business. The home was doing some renovations, which made us have to detour through the children’s ward to get to the office. As we were admitted we were told walk straight through, not to interact, and to make as little as noise as possible so as to not disturb the children.

What I saw in the children’s ward is almost beyond description. There were small misshapen bodies in all sorts of contortions; blank expressions on faces that didn’t look like humanity so much as things closeted away until no longer needing care. Their beds or wheelchairs lined both sides of the hallway — as we walked the gauntlet of unspeakable aberrations, in the midst of what the coldest-hearted human would call insufferable, there wasn’t any noise; just the silence of tolerated existence.

When we finally got through the opposite doorway, I told my brother this was a real test of my faith, which depends on the love of God for all His creation. It did one thing, though – it caused me to keep coming back to reflect on what little I know of God’s reasoning, and how I can only believe that what He does He does for our good. Then slowly the lesson of the children’s ward was taught to me within my spirit, and has given me a deeper, more peaceful intuition of the working of God’s love than I think I could have ever had without the experience.

I see now that we cannot care for each other properly. No matter how dire the circumstances and how tirelessly we work for our fellow human beings, we cannot give them what they truly need. Only God can do that. The most dedicated nurse on the children’s ward can only comfort the bodies of the children, and help them remain emotionally neutral.

Their bodies may be decimated, but who knows what they’re seeing inside? Only God can offer that comfort, and somehow I’ve come away with complete assurance that He does. Behind those distorted shells, could the children be experiencing the golden glowing joy of God’s perfect love as do those who have already passed on into His kingdom? If real meaning only exists in another world where God is the only god and our spirits gather Him fully and ecstatically, could those that are physically dependent and mentally unencumbered with worldly priorities be blessed with heavenly bliss here on Earth and unable to tell of it?

In fact, I’ve come into the knowledge that those children are experiencing the beauty of God the way God meant humans to experience Him — how we all would if our minds and bodies were disabled and given over solely to God’s care. In this condition of having nothing else, we enjoy the one thing we do have, unconditionally and without fail — the love of God.

Mystics are able to see the logic of their detachment from the world and negations of self-interest. To them the loss of selfhood is not debilitation so much as essential to experiencing something much better and closer to God’s desires. And those who study the Bible know well the scriptural plea for decreasing so they may increase, giving up all they have and following, taking no scrip for the journey, becoming like little children, the last being first, choosing the good part, letting them deny themselves, taking up the cross, losing their life for God’s sake, having their treasure in heaven, being poor in spirit, crying in the wilderness, the stone the builders rejected, casting in all they had, taking the lowest seat at the feast, seeking the kingdom of God, and entering at the narrow gate.

God should like us to be what we were at creation, before free-will and the sin and suffering that comes from it. For truth, that’s the state He has planned for us to return to in glory. Now, in the world, the independence we asked for has become a thing of strife. The only way to alleviate it is to allow ourselves to become totally dependent on God again so we may look upon His kingdom with joy and hope.

In the children’s ward this has been done for them and they live in the perfect presence of God without effort. Only those who give too much credence to the world and how we perceive it will miss completely what I missed momentarily – that the only thing that matters is the love of God, and whatever state we are in that we can perceive this love the most is the best state to be in. In the measure that we can’t assimilate this, we suffer from our lack of perception. That, then, is true and needless suffering.

I’m not suggesting that those who take care of the residents of the children’s ward don’t provide a heroic service – the need for care of these children’s bodies and emotions is enormous, and I hope for the caregivers’ sake that part of their compensation is the feeling of being blessed to be near these special temples of God’s love. But I am confident that God makes up for suffering by opening up the spirit to supernatural consolation. And this, being the better part, is what God encourages for all of us by our offering of our very selves to Him — a disabling of the ego so as to make His love our spiritual sustenance.

Mystic vision is not apparitions caught by our human senses. Mystic vision is the ability to see things as God sees them; a gift given because we want it badly and allow it freely. Through mystic vision we are able to “know properly” — not the things of this world but the reality of this world as seen from a higher plane. This is a comfort not only to the residents of the children’s ward, but to anyone who can learn exactly what it is they are experiencing. What we can know of God comes down to one necessary specific – that when we seek God we see Him, because that’s what we were made for. And when we see Him we know at once that no matter who we are, or how we look, or what we have or don’t have, without His love we would be nothing and with His love we are everything.

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.

12/21/09 Reflections              I seldom watch TV but yesterday evening I wanted to watch while I had my dinner. I flipped through the channels, trying to avoid politics, and came upon a “Caught on Camera” episode that disturbed me deep down inside – even more than politics would have.

A Polish man immigrating to Canada arrived at Vancouver airport. Speaking no English or French, thoroughly confused, and eventually frustrated, he spent nine hours in the airport trying to get on the right track. His mother, who came to meet him, was told he wasn’t on any flights and she had gone home to wait for word. Finally, frustrated and disturbed, the Polish man started acting aggressively. The airport authorities tasered him and tackled him to the floor; somehow in the scuffle the man died, and his mother had to be told. It was horrible to watch.

This is the kind of thing that tests my faith. I understand about suffering, but I’m too human to not be saddened by something that to me didn’t need to happen. In my prayers last night I confronted God: “Now look – nobody was wrong and nobody was 100% right. But it was Your will and everything had to come together just so for this to happen. He was looking forward to a new life here, and ended up dead and disgraced in public. What gives?” And God answered me plain as day: “Why do you assume this man’s continued life on Earth is preferable to his life of glory with Me? He is home now – no longer fearful, disturbed, confused, or frustrated. And yes, it is My will. So what do you plan to learn from it?”

I don’t consider myself a slouch when it comes to learning from God; this is, after all, my life’s focus. But I guess I’ll never understand some lessons perfectly, because I post this in heartache for this poor man’s memory, even though the incident itself and God’s insight about it proves to me that he is in a better place than I am.

12/13/09 Reflections                 The job of the world is a simple one. It doesn’t matter what your vision of God is – as long as you appeal to goodness, you love your Creator. It’s not difficult to do, and from where we are we might be amazed to know how well the world already does this. The world isn’t as bad off as it seems – much is said about its negative aspects, but then little is reported about our spiritual state. You think global spirituality will never happen, but the world has already come a long way toward it. The great religions, and most of the obscure ones, are all based on goodness. From the time human beings were created, we have looked up to the Creator in awe and wonder, looking for goodness from Him and within ourselves.

You don’t even have to believe in the Creator in order to worship Him. Even atheists show honor to God each time they do something good for others. Goodness doesn’t have to spring from religion; goodness reflects on God no matter what we believe, because God is goodness Himself. The job is simple because it comes naturally to us. We are our own reward system. Of course there are objects pulling us the other way, but while they may provide happiness, they don’t provide safety and contentment. And there are always the spoilers, who seem to thrive on evil, yet who can say how they are inside?

But global goodness doesn’t take global government – that would be sure to polarize people because government is about power, and only one power can reign supreme, leaving lesser powers resentful. It takes individuals working on a local scale with what they know and the means to advertise it.

It’s absolutely amazing how our lives intertwine and intersect, though we be total strangers. Now with the availability of instant communication worldwide via the internet it’s infinitely more possible to have an effect on someone without even knowing it. Interestingly, the probability of this being a polarizing factor is just as likely as it being something that brings us together. But the point is – it’s getting harder and harder to deny that, living under the same sun, we may have a lot more in common than the ten o’clock news might imply. We are not as diverse as we think because in God’s eyes we are all the same — everything!

Our differences can’t cancel out our overriding essence – we are all spiritual beings lost in a world of matter. Any differences we have are superficial, because only the spirit matters in the great scheme of things. Our one job is to care for our spirits and encourage, whether actively or passively, others to care for theirs. If left alone we do this naturally, because all spirits are the same and we know others’ exactly as well as we know ours. The difference is only in the degree of the grace we allow to pervade our spirits. It’s the goodness of God that wishes to live in us, and the joy we receive from His presence (our spirits are lifted) makes us tend to want to cooperate in this plan.

But we are spirits in a material world, and there is happiness to be had. Material happiness is not evil, but what it does is prevent the spirit from being filled with God through the neglect that comes from our preoccupation with worldly things. The body is the tool that moves us through the world. The mind is the lever that makes the body go. The soul is the emotion that directs the mind toward which levers to pull. All this for not only survival, but for happiness.

None of this though is the essence of what we really are – that is the spirit. The spirit is the container for however much of God we are willing to invite. In the end it is what of us survives for eternity. If it is full of God we have joy; if it isn’t, we have longing for God. The filling of the spirit with God takes place now and continues until perfection is reached. Allow God in, and seeing as God seeks all spirits, encourage others to allow God in. Make God more important to you and the effects of this will spill over to the lives of others as well.

12/4/09 Reflections           Quietism believes that we merely exist. Everything we truly need is gdiven to us. We have no responsibility other than to God. World affairs must be ignored, and the risk of contamination thereby avoided. Self-annihilation brings perfection, which is enough in its own right. It’s just one person and God – everything else might as well be non-existent.

It’s a radical mysticism, even though “radical” seems contradictory to everything Quietist. In every principle above, there is merit and truth. But as a whole theology, Quietism doesn’t add up. It’s too much like the way we would like life to be – a utopia without the provision that if God wants us to be active for others we could comply. And if we can’t comply to God’s desires, we are certainly no mystics.

I would love to feel justified in a life of total contemplation and isolation; to have absolutely no other responsibility. I would be content to know that in complete passivity I am pleasing God; I could easily enjoy living in blissful abandon. The trouble is, as much as the world can turn without me, I must make myself available and ready to be active when and how God wants me to. That is an inseparable part of abandoning my will to God – the acceptance that His will might be to use my action for a greater good.

So while I agree with the Quietist premise and would like to live a Quietist life, I could never get past the intuition that though God doesn’t need my co-operation, He wants it. It’s in this way we honor Him, for it isn’t enough to abandon ourselves to Him if we will not abandon our abandonment should He ask us for that as well.

One of the first insights of mysticism is that God wants to be asked for His favors. Without this attribute of God’s, intercessory prayer and works on behalf of others would make no sense, as we’re aware that God is capable of anything He desires without our input. We couldn’t even honor God if He didn’t feel the need to be loved by us. So Quietism doesn’t sit well because it takes mysticism further than it should go. In the same way as God wants us to ask for favors He would have given us anyway, He asks us to love Him and honor Him in our care for others, even though He has no needs and is capable of caring for His children Himself. Mysticism is an unequivocal “Yes” to God’s desires; Quietism limits what those desires can entail to what can be done passively. That sounds like “No” to me.

11/28/09 Reflections          What’s missing in the world isn’t love, for each and every one of us is loved so immeasurably that we cannot even absorb the concept. But that’s what’s missing – our ability to recognize the immensity of God’s love for us, and our ability to expand the scope of our intellect enough to desire to experience God more than we have.

Today is a special day for me – the anniversary of the moment when God took hold of my mind, my imagination, and my ego and showed me how little I’ve been settling for. He chose me and I accepted. He chooses many, and many accept. If they’re like me, they enjoy a flurry of supernatural favors, causing them to experience extreme joy and contentment. Then just when they grow to expect joy, they’re handed complete letdown.

We are fortunate that there have been those who have gone before us and left accounts, as accurately as they might be in explaining the unexplainable, of how it feels. And I’ve been particularly fortunate in that I’ve had the means to teach myself the theology behind God’s personal involvement in my life. Because of this, I have an understanding of why we must suffer after having a taste of deep spiritual knowledge and grace. And I know that the suffering of perceived estrangement from God is followed by, not the initial ecstasy, but something more stable and more sustainable. It’s the continual awareness of the awesome presence of God and the certitude that this is but a small taste of a banquet yet to come.