Children of the Father

To understand our identity all we need do is look at the Jesus narrative to the prayer he taught his disciples when they said they didn’t know how to pray. In fact, the first two words tell it all. “Our Father.” We are children of the kind of father with whom Jesus had an intimate relationship. Children with whom this father is as well pleased as He was with Jesus at the river baptism. Not well pleased with the ugly, greedy things we say and do. But pleased with the essence of who we are, because the essence of who we are is the essence of God, the essence of the great benevolent energy of the universe. The water baptism is a naming and a preamble to the baptism of the Holy Spirit who enables us to know our essence.

The voice of God speaking on the mountain top when the disciples saw a vision of Jesus along with Moses and Elijah applies to us and all God’s children as well. “This is my beloved. Listen to him” applies to us whenever we speak kindness and compassion. Whenever and wherever that happens, God not only wants others to listen to us. The reality is that others will listen to us. Whenever and wherever we exhibit fruits of the spirit—goodness, patience, gentleness, and joy—others will pay attention. And they will listen to what we say because there will be wisdom that comes from this fruit.

What gifts to wish for!—that we might know ourselves to be God’s beloved in whom He (and we) take great delight and further, that we observe ourselves producing fruit of the Holy Spirit for all who witness to partake of.

27 September 2015

Does God Need Us?

What is the relationship between ‘need’ and ‘want’ in reference to our relationship to God? Is there a sense—a possibility that God wants/needs us as much as we him?

Our ‘wants’ we think can be fulfilled through our own will and effort. And as long as we can satisfy ourselves, there is little impetus for examining what might be beyond us.

If we come to the point where we can no longer give ourselves satisfaction and our wants and needs exceed the material and cultural, a new possibility opens. The possibility that something beyond ourselves might be able to give us something unique and life-changing.

The possibility is always there, waiting for us. Accessing it requires some effort. We must do more than simply consciously want new zest for life. We must engage the Life Force within us and cooperate with it. We must exercise our free will in giving it permission to do whatever is necessary in order to make us ready to receive what we most want.

The fact that we exercise our free will and are not coerced into surrendering anything indicates that God wants us in relationship, that God wants to protect one of the most important gifts he has given us, that God wants our will freely connected to his.

And once we cooperate with our own transformation process and the culmination occurs, we realize God not only wants but needs our bodies, minds, and spirits to transmit his ecstatic energy in the world.

(note: The story of one person’s transformation from the Life Force is available on this website in the book Humpty Dumpty Hatched.)

Fasting

Fasting puts us more in tune with the Spirit of God whose food is not the meat and drink our bodies require.

St. Augustine suggests the ancient directive to wash the face and anoint the head has to do with the inner man even more than the outer—the necessity of washing away whatever stands in the way of our experiencing God and being re-transformed into his image. The anointing reminds us that there is a divinity deep inside us which connects us irrefutably with God.

“Often, too reflection upon the things we need for carrying on this life injures the eye of our spirit and bedims it; and . . . divides our heart.”

Jesus said one lives by the words that come from the mouth of God. How do the words of God come to us? From his Spirit to our spirits. Through silence. Through intuition. Through insights. Far more than any printed page.