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Therefore, if Nature is somewhat like Mind, imbued with the Purposes and Wisdom of God, then, we can trust the processes of Nature. We can learn, likewise, how things naturally operate and, thus, find agreement with our Environment through wise action. The entire corpus of Wisdom literature in the Old Testament is built of this premise: Nature operates according to natural processes, derived from the Will of God, that apply to all persons.
Now, I proceed to amplify this through a popular tale from Buddhism. A farmer and his son work a small farm with one horse. The horse runs away. The neighbors speak, “Such bad luck!” The farmer replies, “Bad luck, good luck.” Shortly afterward the horse returns to her stable and bringing with her four wild mares. The neighbors say, “What wonderful luck!” Replies the farmer, “Good luck. Bad luck. Who knows?” Weeks later the son, while training one of the wild mares, falls and breaks a leg. Neighbors, again, seek to comfort the farmer, saying, “What bad luck, friend!” The farmer responds, “Bad luck. Good luck. Who knows?” Later, the military arrives to recruit all the young men to go to war. The son is of no use to the military, for his leg is broken.
Often, perception is the root of fear. We, limited as we are, cannot know the full context of Mind. What is considered good fortune today, we may esteem bad fortune tomorrow. What we consider a turn of bad luck today, we might, soon, see to be an act of God taking care of us. This year we might lose something and cry, blaming God; then, a year later we might rejoice and thank God that we did not get what we wanted to have. We never fully know the many ways we are being protected from getting what we think we need but would turn to our harm, later.
We will have fear. However, we can live more fearlessly through a contemplative experience of oneness with God through the Word. When we sense the whole Universe is an expression of the graciousness and wisdom of the Creator, we can know that nothing can happen outside that Mind. We can relax more, knowing nothing can happen that is not part of God and cannot be transformed for good, through the Grace of God. Likewise, what appears not good for us might be good, in that the not good for us is for the good of others. Often our esteeming something as good or bad is from the limited perspective of only our selves, as though we can interpret good or bad based in such a limited, narcissistic way.
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How do we practice this faith in meditation, daily? Well, this pertains to how we use meditation and what we believe is the goal of meditation. I teach that meditation is a loving openness to God. In loving openness to the Source, we are practicing how, through Grace, not to shut down out of fear. We sit in meditation, and we give up control, trusting the Way, the Tao, the Process. We are not trying to be in this moment, we are letting ourselves be in this moment. How can we try to be where we are being, already? Underlying this is faith. We trust that God is with us, through the very context of matter. We do not try to transcend matter, for matter is one with God, through the Word. We trust that much is going on, right in our meditation, and for our good. We know that in the very process of faithfully, lovingly being with Christ, the Word, we are learning how to faithfully, lovingly be with God in the everyday events of our days. We are learning to faith. We are practicing our connection to and inhering in the Good Creation. We are learning that faithfulness leads to life, not just life in the sense of afterlife. We are learning how to enjoy Eternal Life, now, as part of the manifestation of the Creator, through the Word, through the living and cosmic Christ.
Spiritual Exercises
1. Read the opening quote from St. John Damascene? What does it say to you about the universe, earth, creatures, and your body?
2. How is Jesus an expression of the Word? If the Word manifested as Jesus, then, what does Jesus as fully human mean in the context of being fully divine, likewise?
3. Read prayerfully St. John 1.1-5 in several translations. What is the relationship between the writing today and that Gospel passage?
4. Do your daily prayer, meditation, spiritual reading, …
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