10:23 a.m. - 2007-02-26
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There is something I have known for over twenty years. I have tried to �unknow� it. I have pretended I never knew it. But in the truest part of my heart, it has remained. In hiding, for fear of the sin of presumption. I learned it when I thought I was about to lose my mother and could not conceive of a world without her. I learned it when a friend suddenly died at twenty nine of an unknown blood clot. I learned it from a book that I have later, out of fear of displeasing my Lord, disdained as New Age. The book was called �The Dragon Doesn�t Live Here Anymore� and it was written by Alan Cohen. It was placed into my hand in 1985 at the Bodhi Tree bookstore on Melrose. I now believe that God Himself took me through a very traumatic time in the guise of that book. What I learned that so comforted and healed my broken heart (which I am not even certain is really stated in the book � it may just be what God chose to reveal to me with the words � I would have to reread it to know for sure), is that there is nothing outside of God. Simply that. Nothing. And the reason I was given (that resonated in the deepest part of my heart as a memory rather than a new revelation) was that God could not have had anything outside of Himself to create from because if anything was outside Himself, then 1. it was already there and thus predated God � so in actuality THAT would be God or 2. God had to have already created that substance that was outside of Him, as God is the First Cause (which makes this concept absurd, because the First Cause cannot draw from anything else to create from and if He created this substance outside of Himself or else THAT would be the first cause). When this flooded into my shattered core, the pieces began to come together without effort. It was simply and staggeringly true. I spent hours and days in this oceanic peace, the peace that indeed passes all understanding. The circumstances were what they were (and, thanks to God, my mother recovered and is with me still), but the substance the circumstances floated in was the very bosom of God. I was rocked as a child (not around, but through the circumstances). I was exactly where God had placed me to learn exactly what I needed to learn to manifest who He intended me to be. Nothing missing. Nothing broken. I was in the class I needed to take next. My times (and curriculum) were in His loving hands. I was safe. My mother was safe. Even more earth shaking, my deceased friend was safe. We were all where we needed to be. We were all of a cloth. The seamless garment Jesus wore. We were all where Love had lovingly positioned us to learn the next thing we needed to learn to become the person we already were in His eyes. No accidents. Abba, the doting Father, drawing each prodigal (and �elder� legalistic) son/daughter home. Home to occupy the place only that person could fill. Uniquely loved. All one. The drop being the same substance as the ocean. So back to the sin of presumption. I am not in any way operating under the delusion that we are equal to our Maker, that we ARE the ocean. But we are made from His very substance (spirit) and we are meant to worship him in spirit and in truth. As Jesus said � we are in Him and He is in the Father. May they be one as we are one, was His prayer. So as I drove to work today, I was in reverent awe as I beheld the many (as Mother Theresa said) �distressing disguises of God. The homeless man. The gangster. The single mother trying to get her child to day care so as to get to work on time. The child, feeling abandoned in the day care. The crossing guard, so protective and officious. The driver beeping his horn at me because I was veering into his lane out of sheer wonder. All pacing through their daily lessons on their way �Home� from �school� (earth). Some rushing and barely noticing the hummingbird. Some dawdling � taking the long way Home. Stopping to dream in the grass. Some attempting to play hookey from school (but, unbeknownst to them, that very day off playing hookey WAS the next �class� they needed to find their way home). I saw God in the tree. The once cherished chair out by the trash. The puffy white cloud. The dense rain cloud. All that I could see and not see (the atom, the radio wave) � part of the classroom. Perfect. The perfect love that casts out fear. We are in Him. We are loved. Safe in Abba, our Daddy God.
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