My tendency is to throw away past experiences that don't match my current experience. (Actually I think this is a human tendency so I guess that proves it.) So when I have any difficulty, there's a part of me that says, "Oh, all that peace I was feeling before was a lie, and this is reality." But reality consists of both light and shadow, peace and struggle, sunshine and rain. They are both valid and have their place and purpose in life. I may see my past experiences differently in the light of today, but that's just part of presence - allowing my experiences to transform me.
Until I learn this truth completely, I write to remind myself: the miraculous feeling of peace that I had been feeling before the current crisis broke is real and valid. Both situations are gift-givers and teachers. They just come bearing different gifts and teaching different lessons. Or is the lesson the same - "trust in God"? It's a good thing God is eternally patient with us, giving us the rest of our lives to learn that lesson.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Richard Rohr's Daily Message Today
I receive a daily meditation from Richard Rohr's Center for Action and Contemplation. I thought today's message was particularly helpful, so I thought I'd share. You can sign up here: http://www.cacradicalgrace.org/
After the first levels of enlargement, connection or union, and some degree of emancipation, mystical experiences lead to a kind of foundational optimism emerging. We would usually call it hope. You wonder where it comes from, especially in the middle of all these terrible things that are happening in the world. Hope is not logical, but a participation in the very life of God (just like faith and love).
The next descriptor I’d like to add is a sense of safety. Anybody who has ever loved you well or has felt loved by you always feels safe. If you can’t feel safe with a person, you can’t feel loved by them. You can’t trust their love. If, in the presence of God, you don’t feel safe, then I don’t think it’s God—it’s something else. It’s the god that is not God. It’s probably what Meister Eckhart is referring to when he says, “I pray God to free me from God.” He means that the God we all begin with is necessarily a partial God, an imitation God, a word for God, a “try on” God. But as you go deeper into the journey, I promise you, it will always be more spacious and more safe. If you still feel a finger wagging at you, you’re not going deeper. You’re going backwards.
After the first levels of enlargement, connection or union, and some degree of emancipation, mystical experiences lead to a kind of foundational optimism emerging. We would usually call it hope. You wonder where it comes from, especially in the middle of all these terrible things that are happening in the world. Hope is not logical, but a participation in the very life of God (just like faith and love).
The next descriptor I’d like to add is a sense of safety. Anybody who has ever loved you well or has felt loved by you always feels safe. If you can’t feel safe with a person, you can’t feel loved by them. You can’t trust their love. If, in the presence of God, you don’t feel safe, then I don’t think it’s God—it’s something else. It’s the god that is not God. It’s probably what Meister Eckhart is referring to when he says, “I pray God to free me from God.” He means that the God we all begin with is necessarily a partial God, an imitation God, a word for God, a “try on” God. But as you go deeper into the journey, I promise you, it will always be more spacious and more safe. If you still feel a finger wagging at you, you’re not going deeper. You’re going backwards.
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