*Grace, Glauco Ulcigrai, Flickr
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God has no religion.
*Mahatma Gandhi
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God, Who is everywhere, never leaves us. Yet He seems sometimes to be present, sometimes to be absent. If we do not know Him well, we do not realize that He may be more present to us when He is absent than when He is present.
*Thomas Merton
Be present with your Want of a Deity, and you shall be present with the Deity.
*Thomas Traherne
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*L'absence, Clara L, Flickr
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At about three o'clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" which means "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"
*Matthew 27.46 (NLT)
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There is a somewhat odd sense of acceptance of non-experience that can descend on one, in union with Life. One was seeking intense experience of Life, of Grace, of God. One was panting after feelings of intimacy, running from a lack of experience of Grace toward the next experience of Grace. He or she was wondering, at times, "Where is God?" Or, "What have I done wrong that God is no longer blessing me with His Presence?" And such ruminations.
As intimacy with Grace deepened, there was the discovery of an intimacy beyond experience - Intimacy, not an experience of intimacy, or anything. As says St. Angela Foligno...
Because of love, and in it, the soul first grows tender, then it pines and grows weak, and afterward finds strength... Thus the soul in the beginning seeks divine consolations, but if these are withdrawn, it grows tender, and even cries out against God and complains to him: "You are hurting me! Why are you doing this?" and so forth. Assurance of God's presence engenders tenderness in the soul. In this state it is satisfied with consolations and other similar gifts. But in the absence of these, love grows and begins to seek the loved one. If it does not find him, the soul pines. It is then no longer satisfied with consolations, for it seeks only the Beloved. The more the soul receives consolations and feels God, the more its love grows, but the more, likewise, it pines in the absence of the Beloved.
But once the soul is perfectly united to God, it is placed in the seat of truth, for truth is the seat of the soul… It possesses God to the fullness of its capacity. And God even expands the soul so that it may hold all that he wishes to place in it… In this light it sees so well that God does everything with order and appropriateness that even in his absence, it does not pine. Likewise it becomes so conformed to God's will that even in his absence it is content with everything he does and entrusts itself totally to him.
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Jean Paul-Satre wrote of God, "God is absence. God is the solitude of man." I am not certain what he meant. I, however, feel a resonating with the words. I feel plunged into some state of knowing the Presence of Life intimately, yet searching, like fingers searching in the dark, for some familiar, comforting experience of Presence. I find, like Light moving away in the dark, that experience eluding me. I find that frustrating and calming. Yes, hopeful, for how could I want to return to a lesser knowing of Grace, when I am pulled into an agreement with Grace in this Graceful Darkness? And knowing that this Darkness is not merely a darkness, but is the manifestation of Light Itself - not a light, but the Light, the Light that needs no light to be known? And I see myself saying "Yes" to a new conversion, a learning of the Feeling of Presence in the absence of feeling, or experience, of that Presence. Possibly, the resolution is not about what many call "God," but about life as itself Life. Possibly, in union with Life, even everyday life, I know intimacy with Life, with God, with you and everyone.
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Possibly, what I have learned from Buddhism provides wisdom in this apparent impasse. What do I mean? That God is the Happening of Life Itself, not any addition to Life. God is Happening. And God is not other than Life happening. Here and now, God breathing in the breath, being born in the births, dying in the deaths. If God is not in all this, is not some way so intimate with it that God is This, what relevance does God have for us? And, yet, if God is only this, not more than this here and now, do we even need God?
The answer, if we wish to call it that, is not found in these questions or in responses to them. The answer, if we wish to call it that, is discovered, or better shown to us, in Prayer, in Silence. We do not hear this answer but in the Silence, in entering the Solitude, where we are alone with God and, thus, being alone with God are hidden within God. In this Aloneness, Intimacy reveals Itself as Itself, and each of us within It. In this we know Intimacy, for we have ceased to be merely a happening among other happenings.
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*Kindness, Jan Lakey, Flickr
* * * CLOSING BLESSING * * *
Grace and Peace to All
The Sacred in Me bows to the Sacred in You
*You are welcome to contact Brian at briankwilcox@yahoo.com .
The presentations at this site cover a long time period. Each one represents part of an on-going Pilgrimage, and the writer's ideas, practices, and experience have changed over time. This change is the quality of any living Journey. Please read with this in mind, allowing the inner Teacher to speak to you as you need at this particular time in your own living Journey. Thanks!
