What it takes to really see

Continued from the previous post . . . But now I’m learning to see.

It’s taken many miles, many place and faces.  It’s taken a rattling and a shaking I thought would undo me. It’s taken a descent into a darkness that I couldn’t know at the time to be a gift of grace—a mercy, though terribly severe. But what I see now—made possible because of all this—I wouldn’t trade for anything.

It’s taken a long time to open my eyes to this Light, to see the Marvel that’s as near as the beating of my heart.

Sometimes I regret that, and wonder why I was so dull. But regret doesn’t get me anywhere. And wishing only keeps me fixated elsewhere. I’m learning to live where I am—here and now, on the ground, in this place, this body.

When I do, I come face to face with the Mystery that is always right before—indeed, within—us all.

We're not trained to see

Continued from the previous post. . . Some people say we look for love in all the wrong places.

It’s true, our longing can take us into dangerous and destructive places, but there is no place on earth where God is not present, where Love is not as near as our next breath.

In our search for God, our yearning to return to the center, we’re always looking exactly where we can find what we’re looking for. We’re just not trained to see. We have such little schooling in real holiness. We may have heard all about God, our ideas about God may be straight-laced and orthodox, but that doesn’t mean we’d know how to recognize God even if God were standing, in all God’s radiance, right before us.

To be continued . . .

The restlessness that leads nowhere

For most of my years, I’ve wandered the Earth in search of God, longing for a real encounter with divine love. I was a spiritual vagabond, always looking somewhere else for God, over the next hill, in the next book, at the next conference, a different technique, experience, or idea—seeking fulfillment and meaning and happiness in achievement, recognition, influence, even possessions.

I figured God was somewhere other than where-I-was because I didn’t find where-I-was to be all that interesting.

I was perpetually restless. And because I was always looking elsewhere, I was blind to what—or Who—was right before me, beneath me, around me . . . indeed, within me.

To be continued . . .

Get over yourself

Here's a little paraphrase of St. Paul's instructions in Philippians 2.1-11. Apt guidance for everyday life in our families, work settings, and neighborhoods.

If you climb over others on your way toward your goals, you're blind to Christ in them, and your ego's become your god.

Instead, remember what I've told you: you have everything it takes to set yourself aside and help others find their way.

Look, this is the down-to-earth way of life modeled for us by Christ, and Christ expects us to follow him.

But if you don't do the hard work of letting go of the things you don't think you can live without,

You'll never be able to get past yourself long enough to lend a helping hand.

The Modern barrier to prayer

Such talk of prayer is likely to awaken objections---

"How do I pray continually when my life is so full of obligations?"

"When I'm not doing the things I need to do to get through the day, I'm thinking about what I need to do. Prayer is often the last thing on my mind."

"As much as I desire intimacy with God, the call to prayer loads me with more guilt than inspiration. The prayers I utter are basically prayers for help---for myself and for others."

There's no getting around the truth that Jesus summons us to unbroken communion with God and that the Apostles taught this practice to the first Christians. Throughout history, there's also an unbroken line of praying people who've kept the practice alive, handing it down from one generation to the next. That it's foreign to us is an indication that the Modern world isn't very hospitable to interior experience, to mystery, and the mystic encounter with God that is above and beyond the heightened rationalism so characteristic of these last centuries.