|
* * *
Here, in time and timelessness, you discover the walk loses its mysteriousness. That is, you have a clarity of insight and an intimacy with your surroundings, seen and unseen, so the Mystery is no longer felt as mysterious. This is not a "metaphyisical" matter of which we speak. This includes the total physicality of the walk, the living, including honor for and intimacy with the body, which is an extension of the body of Earth and Sky. So, the freedom of intimacy in this walking is not an escape, but a closeness with life through Life. This is taught in the Christian Scriptures of the Word becoming flesh, as well as in rituals wherein is mirrored union of spirit and flesh.
So, when sitting in Silence in Quaker Meeting, I am sitting on a chair. The walking in this moment is just that sitting there, including my body, my clothes, the air being inhaled and exhaled, the chair, and the totality of the context, including each one and everyone sitting with me and the unseen, also. This is ritual, grounded in Earth, open to the Heavens. This is prayerful for acknowledging Grace. If I am sitting there only grounded in Earth, what is this? Relaxation? An exercise of imagination? A time to entertain rationalistic reason? ~ What? This sitting is not a place to prioritize the mind, but include the mind in the Universal, to place the mind in service, as servant, to that Totality of Presence. Otherwise, one is sitting in the cramped cocoon of self, even amid others. What is this Totality of Presence, here the mind cannot go whatever words we apply, but bows in feelings of quietness, receptivity, adoration, and reverence for the great Unknown known in the one heart.
* * *
“Spirit” is more subtle than the mind. So, we do not know if the reference in the above scripture is to the holy Spirit, as the Divine, or to the spirit within the human being, or both. Either way leads to the same walk. As I have made clear, spirit is the oneness of who we truly are, not our appearance as person, with the Spirit. So, if one lives from the inspiration of the spirit, his or her deepest self, which is the same in all, that one is living from Spirit, for spirit and Spirit is a unity. Spirit, with a small s, and Spirit with a capital S, are one, for the essence within the creature is the essence of the universal Spirit. So, in our understanding of time and space, spirit flows from Spirit, not Spirit from spirit.
* * *
One can say, as to this walking in Spirit, one walks to know what this walk is.
* * *
My deceased mother had a friend, wife of a man in her church communion. He was a devoted Christian. He was devoted to his work. The friend of my mother informed her the husband resigned his job. Why? He was led to. She supported him, for she knew he was a responsible man, devoted to his job, and would not have quit without divine guidance; she trusted, through experience living with him, her husband was a man who walked in the Spirit.
Whatever path we follow, within whatever tradition, or sect, as we draw closer to Spirit, the whole being, including the body, is drawn into the orbit of Spirit, a shift occurs. We will sense a more subtle leading, and, through time, walking in the Spirit is the only way we know how to walk. We grow to trust this leading, and to expect specific guidance arises timely, spontaneously. Possibly, often, we will not sense any guidance, only how things in our waiting begin coming together for Good.
Continued... |
