For God's loving kindness has been shown us, bringing spiritual healing to all people.
*Titus 2.11
In the Christian Reader, Paul Francisco writes the following childhood remembrance:
When I was a child, our church celebrated the Lord's Supper every first Sunday of the month. At that service, the offering plates were passed twice: before the sermon for regular offerings, and just prior to Communion for benevolences. My family always gave to both, but they passed a dime to me to put in only the regular offering.
One Communion Sunday when I was nine, my mother, for the first time, gave me a dime for the benevolence offering also. A little later when the folks in our pew rose to go to the Communion rail, I got up also. "You can't take Communion yet," Mother told me.
"Why not?" I said. "I paid for it!"
The Divine Economy, unlike the economies of this world, is based on undeserved kindness, or grace. The English "grace" has a Latin root meaning "pleasing quality, favor, thanks." Divine Grace communicates something given that can imply graciousness, gratitude, or thanksgiving. Generally, we consider Divine Grace as undeserved love, or unearned kindness.
Grace theologically is an expression of the Being of Divinity. Grace is not just something given, as though separate from the Loving Mystery; Grace is a quality offered of the essence of the Divine Being.
God being present is Grace being present. God cannot withhold Grace, for God cannot withhold God. God is Self-Effulgent Love. For the Divine Presence to withhold Grace would introduce a contradiction into the Universal Substance, Being Who is Perfect Harmony. To pray "Come, Lord Jesus" is the same as "Come, Grace."
We, however, being free moral-agents, can, and do, resist Divine Kindness. In resisting Grace, we resist God, in whatever form Grace offers Itself to us.
Like Paul Francisco when a little boy, we can assume that we deserve something of God, for we have "paid" for it. Then, of course, we judge others whom we decide are "unworthy" or have "not earned" it.
The mystical dimension of the Christ Gospel is most a challenge for it introduces us to transcendence of both deserving and not deserving. In Silence we prayerfully receive Presence and the Loving Kindness eternally given to everyone out of Divine Love.
Divine Love gives neither because we earn or do not earn. In Christ Intimacy, a mystical oneness with God, the thought of "I deserve this ... " or "I do not deserve this ... " is not even a thought.
See, consciousness of duality leaves you with either "I earn" or "I do not earn." Notice, both is still about ~ Guess who? ~ I. Remove the "either" and you simply have Grace.
This duality is a reason, after two-thousand years, most of the Church cannot escape the indulgent self-righteousness inherent among those who claim Divine Grace. Even the pursuit of Grace becomes a pursuit for the self, and about a self not earning or earning. Yet, the claim on Grace leads back to the self that it-self sought only Grace ~ so the self selfishly thought.
Forget about earning or not altogether in regard to all things of the Divine Economy, if you wish to live in sublime intimacy with Christ. Simply receive. Respond in Love to Love. Truly, I believe your deserving or not is of no consequence, ultimately, what is of ultimate consequence is for you so to forget your sense of merit or not as to abandon yourself wholly to God and let the Holy Spirit work Her work within you, without your focus on what anyone esteems of you in their eyes.
Be only for God, and you can be used by Grace, without focus on self, for others. You will be being formed into Grace through engagement in the world.
This, then, is the power of contemplation, and which contradicts much of Christian religion. Only in experience of oneed intimacy with the Holy Spirit, the Presence of Christ, do we so transcend self that Christ actualizes Christ to the other through us, and only Christ, and without any self-regard to the state of our soul or any hope for gain or loss in self-oblation.
Surely, we will not live this consistently, clay beings that we are ~ certainly, I often fail to live this I write about. We distrust and resist this radical Grace. Contemplation, still, gives tastes of it, and is a process of becoming on a journey with a destination bringing us to a fullness the path prepared us to receive and live always ~ the fullness of God.
Our ardent longing itself shines from the Sun of Wholeness, Who is Love, Whose longing is our longing, and this longing summons us all to a gathering, together. In This, all incompleteness is united in the very Harmony and Love of One that radiates Grace in many forms and for all to receive.
*Brian K. Wilcox lives with his two beloved dogs, St. Francis and Bandit Ty, in Southwest Florida. He serves the Christ Community United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL. Brian is vowed at Greenbough House of Prayer, a contemplative Christian community in South Georgia. He lives a contemplative life and inspires others to experience a more intimate relationship with Christ. Brian advocates for a spiritually-focused Christianity and renewal of the focus of the Church on addressing the deeper spiritual needs and longings of persons, along with empathic relating with other world religions, East and West. Brian has an independent writing, workshop, and retreat ministry, for all spiritual seekers.
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