How to find the heart you'll need to meet the God you seek

The sixth in a series of posts on companionship and the spiritual journey.   Please pass along to those you consider companions on your journey into the fullness of God. In the previous post in this series I told you that there are two paths into the presence of the God you seek: one path is the path of renunciation.  This is the path of the monk; and many have taken it.

The other is the path of loving another so deeply and completely that you are initiated into the love of God.

If you're reading this, you're likely on the second of these two paths.

So, keep this in mind . . .

Key to your spiritual work is your ability to enter more deeply and authentically into the relationships God has or will send your way. They will help you find the heart you’ll need to meet the God you seek. I’m not saying this path is easier than renunciation—it’s not. I’m just saying that it’s a genuine sacred path for folks like you and me. And frankly, history teaches us it’s the safer of the two ways to God.

To be continued . . .

Two paths into the presence of God

The fifth in a series of posts on companionship and the spiritual journey.   Please pass along to those you consider companions on your journey into the fullness of God. There are two paths into the presence of the God I’m leading you toward.

One is the path of renunciation—the complete dedication of yourself to the relational life of prayer and service.

The other is the path of loving another so deeply and completely that you are initiated into the love of God.

Both are valid, and both can be vibrant. But for most of us, the second is the best path for us, even if we’ve not yet found our way into the kind of loving relationships we’re looking for.

To be continued . . .

Companionship is the pathway to God

The fourth in a series of posts on companionship and the spiritual journey.   Please pass along to those you consider companions on your journey into the fullness of God.  This follows the post: "Being human can also make us miserable, but we must not flee from our humanity" . . . Good theology teaches us that relationships are the essence of God as Trinity—that divine mystery of eternal community and companionship.

Good science agrees; contemporary cosmology tells us that relationships weave the universe together.

So, oneness with the God of the cosmos does not obliterate the need we have for one another. Instead, intimacy with God, like intimacy with others, requires relationship.

It’ll only take a single good relationship, a true spiritual companion, and you’ll know what I mean.

Companionship is the pathway to God.

To be continued . . .

Being human can also make us miserable, but we must not flee from our humanity

The third in a series of posts on companionship and the spiritual journey.   Please pass along to those you consider companions on your journey into the fullness of God.  This follows a post: "Humanity is the cradle of divinity" . . . Humanity is the cradle of divinity; the Incarnation of God in Jesus is evidence for that.

But all is not bliss.  Being human can also make us miserable.

Our bodies break, and so do our relationships. The sheer inhumanity of human beings toward one another can seem like a just reason to run from our humanness.

But just because some people are rotten, and a good many of our relationships are dysfunctional, doesn’t mean the whole human enterprise is corrupt and the sooner we escape it, the better.

Some spiritual paths teach this, even Christian ones.  But this kind of thinking pushes against the relational current that flows from the Incarnation of God in Christ, and it’ll never carry you into the presence of the God you seek and who is ever seeking you.

We cannot flee from our humanity--not if we want God.

To be continued . . .

Humanity is the cradle of divinity

The second in a series of posts on companionship and the spiritual journey.   Please pass along to those you consider companions on your journey into the fullness of God.  This follows a post on "Companionship as part and parcel to the nature of God" . . .

Consider the Incarnation. In Christ, God isn’t merely thinking about humanity, God’s being humanity. In the person of Christ, divinity and humanity are woven together, and humanity’s made sacred in the weaving. The spiritual journey, then, is not a flight away from our humanity into divinity, an ascent onto the heights, leaving the stuff of earth behind. Rather, the Christian path is a downward path. Our journey follows Christ into the earth, into the body, into our full humanity—embracing ourselves and embracing others.

St. Irenaeus, one of Christianity’s earliest theologians said, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” Against every escapist notion that might tempt us toward independence and isolation, Irenaeus’s words invite us to see humanity as the cradle of divinity.

To be continued . . .