Apr 03, 2016

God is Love (10)
1 John 4:8

Love is not Proud (2)
1 Corinthians 13

Ego

Pride and fear make up our most cherished elements of our life. Both are products of our most basic tool of our life, our ego. Our ego is so dominant in our thinking, that we find it extremely difficult to imagine a God without an ego; in fact a god with a super ego is how we imagine God really is. After all, the wrath of God is well known, God becomes angry at the smallest things, is willing to caste us off for the slightest reason even if we do not know that reason, is demanding of our every move, keeps that ‘big book in the sky’ where every action we do or think is gleefully recorded, especially anything that can be perceived as “wrong”, by any of a variety of accounts, etc. We have built up myths concerning this god we ‘worship’ on any number of fronts, far too many to count in this short blog. A good book to read about the number of myths we have invented about God is ‘God’s Message to the World: You’ve got me all wrong’ by Neale Donald Walsch.
All of these various ideas about God are the result of our ego’s refusal to think of any other being without an ego. Thus we imagine a god filled with pride, a being so powerful that we have no choice but to grovel in fear for our very existence. Fear, the polar opposite of Love, is part of our basic response system, a part of the ‘reptilian brain’, that ‘fight or flee’ part of the brain lying just over the brain stem. Our ego exists as a parcel of fear, buried deep with the ‘reptilian brain’, and, depending on how life has treated us thus far and our response to that treatment, that fear is anywhere lying still in the background (always ready to scream) or is a basic core of our everyday existence, screaming at the least provocation.
No way, you say. Tell me, what was your response to the recent explosions in Brussels? Was your first instantaneous response one of fear (My God, it can happen here—I better not go anywhere) or one of compassion (Oh those poor people – how can I help in some way). No cheating, what was your response in the first second you heard the news? How close to one end of the spectrum or the other did your initial response lie?
Most of us responded somewhere in the middle, hopefully closer to compassion than fear, but I am sure all of us had some part of fear in our response, even if only an initial reaction. And that is ok, for we are human; but we are also divine, a being filled with the Love of our Divine One that is always present in our lives, never absent even in the most trying of times, even if we do not feel that Love at all times.
Remember: You are made in the Image of God, now and for all eternity. God is Love, only Love, and therefore YOU are love, only love in your core.
Part of the task we have as a spiritual being having a material experience is to work to put our ego in the place where it was designed to exist: to aid us in this material realm, to be our guide in reaching our physical life’s goals, to be able to find food and shelter. But we have so much more to do: to reach into our Divine being that is our core, that spiritual side that is our true essence. Remember, we are spiritual beings having a physical experience, not a physical being having a spiritual experience.
No, God is not just a super-ego, but is that baffling Being, Love, and only Love, a Being that sees only our perfection and already knows that, as perfect beings in our own right, we will reach perfection in totality, even to that place where we will recognize it in ourselves, when we pass from this world of time-space into the world of no-time, and the veil of unknowing is lifted from our senses.
And then we will know in a complete way that indeed, God is not proud, but God is only Love, in ways we cannot even imagine.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
Who redeems your life from the pit,
Who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy
Who satisfies you with Good
So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
                                        Psalm 103: 1, 4-5

Meditation

Beloved, you have sheltered me in Your arms, keeping me from harm. You have saved me from the pit of shame and iniquity, giving me steadfast love and mercy, satisfying me with good and peace, renewing me like the eagle. For all this I am profoundly grateful, finding solace in Your peace and Joy that fills my life even unto my later years. Your Love is a shining beacon that colors everything I see and touch. Everyday is filled with the wonders of the universe, all tinged with the rainbow of Your Love blazing through all. I am aware that I see your very being in the small portion of even this universe humanity can perceive. I am also aware that I see darkly, even though what I see is dazzling in its beauty. I am filled with Joy at what I perceive, and long to see the perfection that is in this small portion of the infinite realm of Your existence. I am grateful for the opportunities that You present to me in my life to be Your Face in our world, which so needs to have the wonders of Your Love come to heal our existence.
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