Oct 20, 2015

Ponderings

 

All is Holy

 

I wrote last time that God sees everything as “Good” (see Genesis 1:27), and that God understands we are but infants in the time span of the universe, and is waiting for us to “grow up” and become truly the face of God on our planet.

 

God is Patient

 

God is patient, and will never grow impatient with us. God is “God” after all, and knows what the ultimate outcome of this adventure is: and it is truly “Good”, as the Eternal Wisdom foretold. We are on an adventure, one that never ends, and we have chosen to be part of that adventure in the form we now are experiencing. As I said in my last post, God, the Eternal Wisdom, has been waiting for us to grow up all through the development of our universe. It will take as long as it takes, for God has no timetable, and experiences life through us as it happens, day by day, with all the pain and struggle, for God is constantly, every moment of the day, presenting us opportunities to grow and flourish. We can always say ‘yes’ and experience the joy of growth and new discovery, or say ‘no’ and stagnate where we are today. The choice is ours, but in either case we will be presented with further opportunities of growth in the next instant.

 

We will have plenty of opportunity to grow, each moment of our life, and then depending on our choices, be offered the same or further opportunities to grow another time around. Yes, we will have the choice to come around again, either to repeat and change some of our decisions or have a different life; it is always our choice before ‘doing it again.’

 

But is this Good?

 

Most of us would cringe at the thought doing it all over again. But if we choose to do it again, we would mover to ‘an alternative universe’ where we would have the opportunity to change some of the choices we made, and would hopefully lead to a more positive outcome.

 

The choice is ours

 

The choice is ours, always ours, for we are never forced to make a choice, any choice. It is always our choice. And we will make different choices, to experience all that can be experienced, to discover new depths of ourselves as we process. The options to grow or not to grow are always there, and we see them plainly, either before we make a choice or often immediately after making the wrong choice. Even then we can modify our choice, for the freedom is always ours to take. I have experienced this many times in my life in stark relief, so I can often see the results of my choices clearly beforehand. Do I always make the best choice? No, not even when I can see that the choice I am making is not the best choice to make, but I would find myself unable to make the better” choice at that time. But I now know that I will always be granted a similar choice in the future, and will hopefully then make the better choice at that time; but I am not ready to make the better choice yet.

 

God is Life

 

But why do we have this series of choices, growth or no growth, and if what I said is true that can have this role over and over if we choose? What purpose does it have, in the time of eternity that is God?

 

We have been taught that God is never changing, the Unmoved Mover, just IS. But this does not make sense viewing the cosmos we live in and viewed from Genesis 1:27, that we are made in the image and likeness of God Itself, whatever God is. If we are the Image and Likeness of God, why are we always changing and pursuing knowledge and life itself? Why are we not satisfied just existing in a stagnate form and doing nothing, if God is stagnate and never changing.

 

In the ‘Conversation with God’ series of books, where God or the Higher Power answers questions posed by Neale Donald Walsch, plus adding God’s own points, God points out that indeed we are the Image and Likeness of God, for God is always changing and moving. God is never satisfied with just sitting around; no God is a seething, churning, Spirit whose very Being is always creative and alive. Look at our universe, a seething mass of energy whose content is moving and changing, never the same, going from one symbol to another, that is from pure energy to matter and mass and back again. What we are seeing is God Itself, never stagnate, always changing, never to be measured just as the universe can never be measured.

 

God is Life itself.

 

And Life is Good.

 

And Good is Holy.

 

Yes, the universe is alive. Not life as we understand it here on our planet, but alive as only the veins of God could be; always changing, moving from one state to another, literally humming with Life. All the universe is filled with incredible life, the energy vibrates in a harmony that creates our wonderful cosmos, yet we see only 4% of the energy that is present with our senses. We have to depend on instruments and deductions from the motions of the stars and galaxies to begin to understand the breadth and depth of only our universe.

 

What we see and watch is a glimpse of the life of God that is here for all to see.

 

God Lives

 

God Lives. God is Life. All that we see or sense is alive with the life of God Itself. God is the All in All; God IS the all, including ourselves, including the glory of the universe, including the glory of life, including the glory of life producing life; an example of Creation made visible. All is one, at the heart we are all connected, everything in the universe.

 

God is Holy

 

To say God is holy is a reduntant phrase. The definition of holiness is the definition of God Itself; that is, to be God-like. If we are the Image and Likeness of God, then our essence is Holy, with a capitol H. Since our essence is Holy, that by itself makes all that we are holy, even though it may not appear that way as we observe ourselves or the violent world around us. If all that I have said is true, why does things seem so out of control and ‘unholy’ to the observer? Why is all we see the triumph of the strong, violence in every aspect of life, from the stars to the smallest life we know, to all the animal kingdom to humanity itself. Somehow this does not seem holy.

 

Holy is Life.

 

But what is holy, and what is Life? Being holy is being full of Life, in all its glory and zest. For one thing God is not: stagnant, sitting still, doing nothing but basking in its glory. What glory? How can God know It is ‘glorious’, or the greatest there is, when all it is but God? If God is only ‘glorious’ and that is all there is, God is not ‘glorious’ because there is nothing that is not ‘glorious’. The term “glorious” is a relative (comparative) term, that is, when we say something is glorious we are comparing that to something that is not glorious. If ‘glorious’ is all we have, then we do not have something glorious, we just have what is, and we would grow bored with it, because that is all there is to know. Yes, we would grow bored with God, for are we not made in the Image and Likeness of God, and if we, human though we are, would grow bored with only the mundane life no matter how wonderful it is, that is how God is: God would grow bored with Itself simply because that is all that is.

 

To Experience is to Know

 

We only really know something when we experience it. We can describe the Grand Canyon well, we may have seen countless pictures of it, but not until we stand at the edge and gape at the splendor of what is before us, can we understand in our soul and heart what the power of the Grand Canyon really is. And so it is with God. The impact of the Grand Canyon lies in the impact it makes on our being, our heart, our soul. And this is where our Soul meets the Image of God. Like our soul, God needs the experience of life in order to know Life, and God needs the experience of the negative aspects of life as a whole in order to know the Glory of God. Yes, God is glorious, because we, you and I, have chosen to represent to God those aspects that God is Not glorious, even though we are in the process of becoming more glorious in our path to perfection.

 

Life is an Illusion

 

But where is this opposite of God if God is All that Is, that everything is God, that nothing is not God, when we look at the world we seem to live in. The answer is simple:

 

Life is an illusion.

 

All that we see is but a creation of a passing dream that creates the illusion of terror, violence, and horror. It is not real. The Course In Miracles uses this as the central theme of the message of Christ: we can choose to live in the real world of God or we can choose to live in the illusionary world that seems to be around us. Jesus made it clear: “Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all else will be given to you.” The world we see, the world that grabs us, makes us feel pain and suffering, is but an illusion that we can shift at any time we choose. It can cause us pain, but it can be the leverage where we can see the wonders of God in all that surrounds us: it is up to us.

 

Meditation

 

Divine Wisdom, You have given us the power to alter our lives, to find that Kingdom that lies within as we seek that kingdom, understanding that we will be given all else we need to be happy. We know that Jesus was not just saying words, but showing us the way: Seek first the Kingdom, and without worry, all else will be handed us to have a joyful life. We understand that all we see is but an illusion meant to enable us to experience life in all its glory, and that by looking at this illusion as an illusion You enable us to see the Kingdom that lies within that illusion, the Bliss of Your Being Itself. We are grateful for this chance to experience the power of the Grand Canyon of Life, for only by this experience can we appreciate the Glory of Your Bliss.

 

We are grateful to be able to see this, and to be able to turn to that Kingdom when this seem the darkest, and to see that the darkness is but an illusion; behind this illusion is but the Bliss of Your Being.