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Quiet is the Flow
River De Chute... Easton, ME
We can open the self to being attracted to Spirit by Spirit. This will happen upon allowing it to happen. Most of the time, this being Spirit-charmed is subtle, often unfelt; at other times, it is striking, sometimes startling, and can be so powerful as to be immediately life-changing.
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February 2, 1997
I am driving toward the little Methodist chapel to lead the worship and deliver the message for my friend Steve. Steve and Faye, directors of the prayer house, are in Atlanta. They are leading a ceremony to ordain Lucy Rose as an associate. I wanted to go but am glad to assist in serving the little congregation in Steve's absence. I recall the request that all associates pray for Lucy at about 2 o'clock, imagining the healing light of the Divine upon her body - Lucy is dying of cancer. The first place I feel comfortable stopping at is about 2:02 pm, a graveyard outside of Tarrytown. I pull my little blue chevy into the yard. I get out, looking for a place to pray as hidden as possible from the sight of passersby. I step within a confinement with a few graves and stand behind a tall, green bush. I face the green bush, being reminded it symbolizes life. I hold my little pocket Bible in my hand. I pray. Though I am far from being a biblicist, the sacred text in my hand seems to vibrate with supernal force. I seem to be in another world. My prayer seems controlled by another power, something outside my normal consciousness. I can see and feel arms bending to embrace Lucy. I get no sense Lucy will be healed. I do feel she is well-loved and taken care of by Another. The prayer is brief, filled with a faith unforced and not of flesh and blood. I get into my truck, back out, begin driving toward the church. Something has opened within me. I sense a freshness of spirit coursing somewhere within me. This I cannot explain. I am gifted now. I stopped to give something to Lucy. I have received. Somehow, in the simple ritual of prayer, Presence was invited to fill me with Itself, love me, and make love within this solitary yet interconnected Self.
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We need to be open to intrusive, surprising visits of the Holy. These times are not subject to our planning. Being charmed by the Numinous is unpredictable. And when these manifestations occur, the duration is variable. They can last only a short time, then things seem to return to normality. At other times, these visitations last much longer.
A late uncle, nicknamed Shorty, for he was under 5 foot tall, had a life-altering rebirth experience in midlife. Lying in his bed one night, he could not sleep. He knew it was his God not letting him sleep. He prayed, giving over his life to Jesus. He fell under a Spirit-spell for about a year. He said it was as though God was manifesting to him without interruption. He could feel this vivid companionship day and night. Shorty began a ministry working with the aged, visiting with them and giving a message each Sunday afternoon. On his drive to work in the mornings, he would stop to have Scripture reading and prayer alone in an upper room at his church. He became a leader in that church. Prior, he did none of these things, though he had been raised in a devout Christian home. When I was around him, I could see the glow on his face. I could feel his joy. He was always smiling. This enchanting time ended, but his devotion to Jesus did not.
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Openness to being enchanted by Spirit calls us to repent. I do not mean repent in the sense of having a big-time pity party loaded with self-centered subjective guilt invited to the boo-hoo. By repentance, I mean what the word means - "turning, returning" ... returning is turning to our natural birthright... turning from the exclusion of the Mysterious from our apparently just-ordinary lives... shutting out Sacredness with its wild, bewitching quality... ignoring the charming Grace potions invisible and moving all about us. We turn from intoxication with the trivial, and we welcome the sublime, and from our grumbling to giving gratitude. Where we had given ourselves to the world of things, now we give ourselves to the Ineffable source of it all, including our own bodies, which Spirit inhabits as Itself. We relinquish sterilized, insipid religiosity and deadening moral legality.
The Inexplicable breaks through our addiction to distractions and our mindless, mindnumbing monotony and barred hearts. We find ourselves again naked in Eden - "delight." We no longer are hiding our nakedness - our innocence. We are grounded in a palpable awareness of the Holy, not as a pious-sounding religious idea but the environment in which we move and breathe. We invite Presence to disturb us, confuse us, delight us, denude us, overwhelm us, and make love with us. We know what Jesus said is true, for we experience it as our new normal - "The Reign of the Supernal is right here, now, everywhere." And, sometimes, we see this by nudges, like the one I experienced in that cemetery praying behind a bush, or with a sudden, invasive, life-altering turn-about, like that of my uncle, Shorty. Amen.
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*© Brian K. Wilcox, 2021
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse. The book is a collection of poems based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
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