because i die by brightness
Thomas Merton
Upon tasting the oneness that is God’s presence intertwined with our own, nothing less than it can ever satisfy us again. We look for a word here and a sign there and lament he’s nowhere to be found, oblivious to the whispers in everything around us – whispers of the Bridegroom beckoning to us through them.
Read MoreI had a good walk today. After reading some more of Ilia Delio's Christ in Evolution, I was left with the deep sense I'm not at all in control of what's happening to me. Christ is taking me on a journey whether I submit to it or not, though it may be more tolerable and effective if I do. Christ is working to bring about the new, and this is always accompanied by stressors whose intensity is commensurate with the degree of emerging transformation.
Read MoreThis is how I see Christ now, as the Logos, the Word, the very blueprint, design, and destiny of all that is. Christ is the alpha and omega point, the birth and final consummation of all existence becoming the full, free manifestation of God's infinite love. He (Logos) is the evolutionary impulse driving life toward greater complexity and coherence. She (Sophia) is the perceptive wisdom waking life up in ever-more expansive ways to the Christ mystery unfolding within us, before our very eyes.
Read MoreIn the aftermath I finally realized that so many of the vices we carry with us are not things themselves, but shadows of the things they point to. Like the shadow themselves, they need to be healed and integrated. If one probes anything deeply enough, they discover that underneath all the distorted pain and baggage that dominates our experience, there is literally nothing but joy and love.
Read MoreWhat does it mean to say Yes to God? To me, it's nothing more or less than being faithful to the truest, deepest longing of one's heart. Certainly we all have longings, and certainly many are superficial and self-serving, but at the center is a desire that is honest and pure. If we can pair that honest with courage, overcome our fears and self-doubt, everything we think, say, or do become an assent to the Father.
Read MoreWhen it comes to surrender, the guidance I've been looking for is intrinsic to life itself. The dynamic unfolding of circumstance is not random noise or a lifeless backdrop, but an I-It relationship calling forth everything God intends for me as the present moment.
Read MoreTo extinguish the last possessive trace of the heart... A thought to reflect upon from one of my teachers that melds well with my ongoing ruminations on kenosis. I've lain awake all night wondering what self-emptying really, truly means and am again reminded of the rich, young ruler who - although good and observant in every way - could not relinquish everything to follow Jesus.
Read MoreI've asked a terrible thing of God, to live a life of utter dependence on him. I want to follow Jesus when he says he goes, does, and says only according to his Father - to proceed without reason apart from HIS reason. I don't know if a person can submit a larger ask than that, and the cost of such discipleship - if my life is any indication - is absolutely everything.
Read MoreI encountered some material on deification in my studies, and I'm doubtful about the point an author appears to be making - that deification was made ontologically possible only because of Jesus' death and resurrection. This suggests people were not sons and daughters of God until that moment, which I'm inclined to disagree with. Instead, I'm inclined to believe the event was more about revealing a pre-existing reality that, up to that moment, we did not have the level of consciousness to receive or understand.
Read MoreDespite the crushing suffering I've endured and every well-intentioned desire and attempt to release my self-affirming ego, it absolutely refuses to yield. It's appetite for affirmation seems infinite, and I worry that only infinite suffering could ever hope to dislodge it. How I've come to hate it so, this self-obsessed, self-referent shell. Even having ruined me, it will not yield.
Read MoreWhen I examine my heart - going all the way back to the moment when, as an adolescent, God first stirred it - I cannot, for reasons I can't explain, do anything but long to offer myself - my life, my efforts, my identity - completely to him. He has placed that in me, like a ring on my finger, for better or worse, such that the life I previously built for myself, on my own terms, would never amount to anything but a hollow shell futilely attempting to believe its own lies.
Read MoreI sat down and read Job yesterday. Even after all these years, I still didn't get it immediately. It made sense (and was remarkably relatable) until God started talking. Then Job basically says, "OK, not sure what I was thinking. I'll stop complaining," and everything was restored. Whuuutt?
Read MoreMore on white-washed tombs. I now see my dualistic notions of surrender and resurrection were holdovers from my youth, from those days when I first sought God in earnest. If I’m honest with myself, I must confess I've always sought God on some level because I wanted him to fix me. So I'd show up in my fashionable fig leaf ensemble, promising to stand naked before him once he'd mended me.
Read MoreThe ego can be an impressively clever and subtle little beastie. Back in April I confronted an impasse, where I couldn't fully surrender to God because I was doing so in order to get something from him in return. This impasse centered on the relationship between surrender and rebirth. An undercurrent had developed in my mind, where I found myself regarding surrender as dying in order to live, losing in order to win.
Read MoreWhy do I approach God or seek communion with him? My motivations have evolved over the years. Recently I've become aware that any such attraction needs to come from a deep, irresistible invitation into his presence, a divine gravity that tugs at the very center of my being. Anything other than this is a form of idolatry, whereby I unconsciously regard my ideas and ambitions as divine and dictate my will to God.
Read MoreWe have the tendency to create divisions over just about everything, categorizing things as either right or wrong or some other similar classification. The ego needs to manufacture as many points of duality as possible in order to keep itself fed, to convince itself of its realness. This is why we always find ourselves on the right side of every division we create.
Read MoreWhile reading Michael Singer's, The Untethered Soul, the writer claims I'm not my thoughts or feelings. I'm the one having thoughts or feelings, the conscious awareness setting behind these things. I submitted myself to plunging the depths of this claim in search of truth. I do believe there's some truth here, but there’s also the potential for great error.
Read MoreThe manner God has answered the deeper longings of my spirit over the years can only be summed up as cataclysmic. He doesn’t wave a magic sky wand that instantaneously remedies everything; neither does he sew patches on frayed fabric, nor pour new wine into old skins. No, when it comes to the deeper, foundational things he's leveled the structure.
Read MoreBeing a loner, an outlier, an ugly duckling who no longer desires a life aligned with societal expectations is very hard for me, since I’ve always associated isolation with failure. Recognizing that I am regardless, whether I give myself permission to accept it or not, helps some, but it's still very hard.
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