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Feinberg, in the organic God, well points out the whole-being receptivity to her God. Our total being, body and mind and soul, is aligned in receptivity to the Light. We are not trying to hear an inner voice by suppressing the body and senses. Hence, we need to be intimate with our daily lives, including our bodies. Apart from an embodied intimacy with life, how can we listen? Out of life comes the living Word, even if we sense it as arising within us.
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Another way of speaking of this listening is "being attentive." In being attentive, we are listening. In being observant, we are welcoming communion with what we are observing. In line with what we spoke of yesterday, this being attentive is welcoming the other into ourselves. When we embrace the Light, we expose ourselves to what arises in and from the Light.
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This embodied Word is intimated in the Christian Scripture of the Word becoming flesh, Jesus, and living among us, as we see in the Gospel of John. The intangible Word comes through various bodies. Many persons receive inspired guidance or reassurance through a holy book. Yet, as with Jesus, the words of Scripture come to us embodied. Persons wrote and edited holy books; men and women translated them. Communities have interpreted and reinterpreted them. All Scripture is of words made of letters. Is there a Word that comes to us apart from life? The incarnated Word flows from the intangible Word, one Word.
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In the mid-1980s, when I was a seminary student, I was going through a troubling time. I have a vivid recall of standing in my tiny apartment kitchen. I was alone and quiet, standing before the stove. I was wakeful, receptive; that is, I was listening. Wisdom from the Christian Bible arose, found in I Corinthians 12.9. I had, when a youth, memorized the verse in the King James Version of my upbringing, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." See, I was awake, fully present, and thereby I could receive this word of encouragement. It was not gotten; it was given.
That is possibly the main hurdle for us in listening to Life-to stay present to Life. If I see listening to God, Life, the Holy Spirit, the Light, ... as something I am waiting to come from outside my life, I will likely not hear the Light.
Like my relationship with dogs, we may have to expand our understanding of what listening to the Divine entails and, thereby, learn better how to listen.
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What is this Voice? Wisdom has often given Itself to me through sacred Scripture of the world religions. The Word comes to me in music. Wisdom speaks to me often through words in a book and, at times, of a friend. The Voice is the wisdom present in everyday living. Creatures can communicate with us by their being what they are, true to their nature. In listening to Nature, we learn the Way.
Sometimes, a subtle sense of guidance within arises, and that is the Word. For many years of writing poetry and persons encouraging me to publish, I refused. I had no intent to publish ever. Then, one day was present the sense of it being time to publish. Within a few months, the book was ready for a publisher. The same has been true of my second book, after writing almost daily for sixteen years since the first book.
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