Saturday 17 February 2007

Ready to begin

We have become conscious of a broader canvas than the one upon which we all live our day-to-day lives.
Where has our awakening placed us?
What does our awareness now encompass?

We have become aware of something “other”: - a presence.
We are aware that this awareness is undeniable, and that it is fed by our own acceptance of it, as well as by God’s own presence within it.
We have become conscious of our own belief, and have learned that to proceed without maintaining this new level of awareness may lead us into danger. This in itself is not a source of fear, as we also suspect it to be well-nigh impossible to retreat from where we now find ourselves.
It may also have occurred to us that we cannot imagine this awareness coming to an end: - intimations of timeless possibilities.
We are becoming aware of gifts we have already received, and of just how great some of these gifts may be.
The realization that everything is a gift is dawning within us.

We sense we may have something to give: something that, one day, may enable us to awaken and raise this same awareness in others.
We are ready to notice the needs of others, and are starting to recognize our own need for support and fellowship. Some such support may already be sensed in our new awareness of not being alone on our journey, though we know that much of it will be experienced as being alone.
There are others feeling all that we feel. There are other solitary minds close by.

Awareness is the ground without which we can never even dream of a harvest.
It awaits the plough and the harrow; much needs to be done before it is ready for the sower, but we have found the right ground. We stand on fertile soil.

We have journeyed to a point where we are ready to begin a journey; we are awake, alert, and aware of our existence in ways we had never previously imagined.
We have walked away from edges, found ourselves close to edges, and arrived unawares at edges during our apparently aimless wandering, but now, in the comparative clarity of a spiritual dawn, we know there is a journey to be made.
Apprehension remains, yet the certainty of the presence drawing us into the unknown outweighs all thoughts and ability to return to the safety of our previous denial.
We are called endlessly to approach the very edge of our understanding; to follow our awareness wherever it may lead.

If any of this is meant to be part of your journey, I trust that your awareness has been awakened, and your faith is kindled within you.
I feel that the initial and essential awareness has now been dealt with.
We have a long but astounding walk ahead of us; I look forward to it, and I hope we will keep company with each other as we place our trust in the call we each hear: the call that will bring us to the ultimate realization, understanding and peace we each long for.

Lent is about to begin.
I have need of the quiet reflection, self examination and repentance that are encouraged during this time.
Where this may lead I do not know.
I hope to continue posting during this time, but I am determined not to commit to anything.
The directions in which I (in which any of us) may be led during Lent cannot be anticipated: they are unknown, and from my previous experience can be unexpected and deeply life changing.
Whatever may be in store for us, be assured that it will have meaning.
It will be a part of God’s preparation and purification of us: an essential stage of our growth towards our true selves.

Hold tight to your faith, and linger in your new-found ability to pray.
Remain in touch with Him: Share your life with Him: communicate – speak to Him: pray to Him.

“… Ask and it will be given to you; search , and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.” (Luke 11:9)

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Wednesday 14 February 2007

Requited Love


Our awakening has demanded a response from our new-found inner child: our faith.

We have begun to realize what faith is, and we glimpse the meaning and the demands of trust for the first time.
In some small way we have begun to have faith in our faith, and something has stirred within us.
We stand where we have not stood before.
We are where we may never have imagined we would be.

We are in a position to repossess our belief with meaning; I believe: I do believe.
With faith we are able to say, I do believe in God: one God: the only God.
We are a single step away from the personal consequence of our belief: the whispered, uttered, cried, blurted or shouted expression of this belief having become meaningful in our lives.
Hesitantly or confidently: nervously, fearfully or joyfully, we acknowledge an awareness of having thought two simple words: two words we may never have believed we could have put together: - “My God.”
We teeter at the very edge of a whole new life.
All that is needed is for us to change the focus from ourselves: to lift our eyes, our hearts, our minds to Him.
Having done so, our very next thought – “You …”– is prayer.
.
You
You are!
You are God.
You are my God.
You are my God.”
.
The edge has gone: we have moved beyond it.
The mists of Mystery seem to have lifted, though from here on they will never leave us, returning and dispersing repeatedly as we enter deeper into the presence of God.
We are once more on safe and solid ground, but there is a subtle difference; everything is somehow more safe and more solid than ever it was before.
We wonder if anything in our life prior to this had ever been truly safe, secure and built on firm foundations.
A new solidity is born within us.
.
Awareness now shadows our every move, our every thought; from now on the vague intimation of fear hints that we will not advance far, we will not begin to blossom and eventually bear fruit, without our own willing involvement.
But we have now found the lifeblood of that necessary involvement.
Our awareness has placed us and awoken us at the very edge, and there, in our solitude, we have dared to step into the mist.
We found our waiting child, Faith, and within the child the life-giving pulse of God’s love: the unstoppable flow of self-giving that gifts each one of us with life.
He has found us, and through those first words of prayer, He knows we have now found Him.
.
Let us rest here awhile.
Let us quietly place ourselves in His presence.
Let us become aware that we are in His presence, shedding all pains and worries for a while – however great these may be, and however difficult to push aside.
When they do return to mind, bring them into the open and place them before Him; do not struggle for words.
If words come easily let them; if they do not, do not search for them: allow yourself to feel the emotions locked within you while remaining always in His presence. Place all of it into His hands …
If only for a few moments, simply be with Him; acknowledge Him, and know Him for who He is.
.
Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalms 46:10)
.
Having done so, know also that you are now one of The Found.
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Monday 12 February 2007

The brink of prayer

Once awakened, awareness will not sleep.
Having made us conscious of both our littleness and our potential in the presence of God, it places us at the very edge of eternity.

Strangely perhaps, we may not realize we are at an edge at all.
We have approached at least one during our advance, but, without any real crisis, all that seems behind us.
We walk now in a tension between desire for something sensed but undefined, and apprehension at the absolute quality of its invisibility: the emptiness of its unknown face. We wander, unstressed, in a mist of mystery.
We follow the line of what we take to be a low bank, beside an unseen stream; the solid, safe and friendly ground stretching away unseen in all directions.
The mist about us is the product of unanswerable questions, but is found to be quietly comforting.

The truth of our situation is far beyond the limits of our comprehension. We have nothing in our experience to hint of where we are, or where we are going.
Our awareness of having been given much, and our low-key fears of something being asked of us, are enveloped in the tensions already drifting in the mist; they do not trouble us unduly.
We are touched by an all-pervading consolation as we unwittingly follow the hem of the Ultimate Mystery: the Mystery that beckons from within, calls us to enter, and longs to cradle us in the love that is the source of that consoling touch.

We could not walk this path without the mist.
Nor could others who have already passed this way, and who may have found answers to questions of which we have not yet even thought.
They are still journeying onwards through their newfound fears, joys, insights and understandings: they shall not walk this path again.
If they did, they could still not begin to cope with the vastness of the reality obscured by the mist.
Regardless of where we are in our approach to God; regardless of how advanced we believe ourselves to be in our understanding, knowledge, experience, or giftedness, we are all utterly unable to grasp the Truths of the Mystery of the Presence of the Eternity of God.
Those who have gone further along the way have the ability to help those who follow behind: no more and no less; just as we all have the potential for lifting and supporting those who travel beside us.
For most of us this is what makes the difference.
The presence of the Mystery in our fellow disciples makes all mountains climbable, and every desert crossable.

The stream has led us here – as was intended – and has now gone into the mist where, ultimately, all such streams go.
Our path does not follow a low bank; beyond the mist there is no ground.
The hem of this Mystery lightly brushes the lip of an unfathomable precipice; we are at the very edge.
We stand on the brink of eternity.

The height, the depth and the breadth of this profound and significant emptiness is infinitely beyond us, yet the entirety of the Presence within it shadows our lives from beginning to end.
It awaits us; it is available to us, and we avail ourselves of it through faith and through communication:

- the communication that is prayer.


Wednesday 7 February 2007

All is gift

This talk of fear, and of God having work for us to do, may sound intimidating.
If I want others to respond to His desire that they should come closer to Him, and take possession of all that He offers to them, why do I raise such things?
Why do I not avoid all mention of them, or at least play down these aspects of God’s calling until people have reached a point on their journey where they encounter them for themselves?

Quite simply because it was this combination of unease and an expectation that something may be asked of me, that first made me aware of the reality of God in my life.
I had believed in God, and believed in His presence, without ever having really stopped to consider what believing entailed.
I became truly aware, for the first time, that if I believed in the existence of God (which I did) then I believed Him to be real.
If I believed Him to be real, and believed in the presence of God (which I did), then I believed Him to be truly present.
It was this realization that, without any conscious effort, opened me to His influence in my life, and the prompting to speak of it has been the real reason for my writing of it here.

This fear is not frightening; it is, as already stated, an uneasiness that lingers throughout our days, raising thoughts and feelings of expectation, allocation, requirement, recruitment: - the idea that God may ask something of us in return for all the blessings we have already received.
And here is the heart of it; we are aware – at last - of having been given so much.
This is the awareness towards which all previous awareness has been leading.

The memory of when I first spoke of this awareness in my own life has stayed with me for two reasons; firstly, because it was so unlike me to speak of any such thing to anybody, and secondly, because the person to whom I spoke – a near stranger then – was to become an important part of my growth in the years that followed.
I remember saying, “I have been given more than I ever knew I wanted, and I have a feeling God is going to ask me for something in return.”
That single minute of conversation – for that was all it was – told me important things about myself, though I heard none of them at the time.

Having been given much more than I had ever thought to want, was no longer something of which I was only vaguely conscious.
Hearing myself speak those words aloud transformed my embryonic awareness into a full understanding of all this as fact; not only that I had so much more than I deserved or had any right to expect, but that all this had been granted, given and received, wholly unmerited and - until then - unappreciated for what it was: total gift.

My feeling of apprehension: my expectation of being asked for something in return, was not merely the product of my own imagination. It was my naïve and inaccurate interpretation of deeper feelings awakened within me: feelings drawn to the surface to await my acknowledgement – my giving voice to them – when, through God’s provision, and at the right time, the right person crossed my path.

I had always kept myself away from other people as much as possible, wanting to remain aloof and unknown. I was being manoeuvred towards a crumbling of my protective walls; being asked to open myself up: to allow others in, and to allow them to see part of what really went on within me. This also meant that when fear grew: when I would need support and a safe haven, I would not find myself travelling alone.

My fear that He was going to take something from me in return, showed just how little I understood my God.
Taking something from me was sensed as losing something precious to me. The first things to enter my mind whenever I imagined losing something were my children, and their health. Perhaps God would …
I began to utter these thoughts to the person standing before me, but was gently interrupted with a smile, and a quiet assurance that “He does not work that way.”

In a similar way to the Jews listening to St Paul in Rome, I heard the words but not the message.

‘How aptly the Holy Spirit spoke when He told your ancestors through the prophet Isaiah:
Go and say to this people:
Listen and listen but never understand!
Look and look but never perceive!
This people’s heart is torpid,
their ears dulled, they have shut their eyes tight,
to avoid using their eyes to see, their ears to hear,
using their heart to understand,
changing their ways and being healed by me.' (Acts 28:25-27)

Hearing more than the words: understanding and receiving the message, was also God’s free gift.


Thursday 1 February 2007

A persistent unease


Our lives would be so simple if we could remain blissfully unaware.
Not necessarily more comfortable, easier or more straightforward; not imbuing us with more confidence or certainty, but allowing us a simplicity in our day-to-day affairs and an uncluttered wider picture.

Whatever the realm in which we lead our lives, bliss is one of our ultimate aims.
In a largely temporal existence this can only be approached by remaining unaware – blissfully unaware – of all that lies beyond the scope of sight, hearing, touch, scent and taste: the senses we live by, in common with the cat on our lap, the dog at our side, the birds on the feeder outside the kitchen window, and the livestock in the fields.
True bliss lies far beyond the first touches or intimations of the spiritual: beyond those early states and emotions which are brought to life within us as we become more aware, and which will probably send us in the opposite direction before giving any hint of the peace which perseverance will bring.
Any sense of calm or comfort may feel unattainable in the persistent presence of an apprehension: a discomfort we are unable to locate or identify, but which seemingly infects us with – as it were – a perpetual mental frown.
Unknowingly, we have begun our long series of battles with something we are told always to stand against: – being afraid.

Fear now becomes entangled in our minds and hearts.
Its beginnings are so subtle and gentle, but it is likely that it will shadow us for a long time.
We may barely be conscious of it as fear, being aware only of that constant unease whose growth is almost imperceptible, but whose identity is revealed as soon as we attempt to name it.
Perhaps we are drawn to speak, briefly and in the vaguest possible way, of what is going on within our heart, but in searching for a way to describe our unease, we cannot keep ourselves from using the only word that seems to fit: - fear.

We fear the unknown.
To think about the unknown - any unknown - is to approach an edge.
To direct our attention towards the vast expanse of the spiritual unknown and its place in our lives is to approach the very edge.
It is an approach that involves going beyond all fears to discover, not just where God belongs in our lives, but who we are, and where our lives belong in God’s plan.

Awareness will not allow us to retreat to wherever we came from, and we begin to realize that saying “Yes” to this Presence has resulted in our relinquishing some of our own control.
Something moves, and we are powerless to stop it.
For the first time we fear that something may be asked of us.
We fear we may be called to go further than we wanted to go.

About Me

Who I am should be, and should remain, of little consequence to you. Who you are is what matters; who you are meant to be is what should matter most to you. In coming closer to my own true self, I have gradually been filled with the near inexpressible: I have simply become "brim full", and my words to you are drawn from those uttered within myself, as part of an undeniable overflowing that brings a smile to my every dusk, and to my every new dawn.
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