Becoming One With God
As I sit here the tears are running down my face… I know many of you know this feeling. Deep surrender, a complete knowing that you are held and secure. To touch the essence of God and feel the profound stillness, peace, love, and joy. It feels like “home times 10”. This morning I read about our perceived separation and how that is an illusion. We feel that separation so much down here in this old world. In fact, sometimes I think that is the point of being born here - to experience the separation and then to be able to have the journey of finding our way back. Each person has their own unique journey back, and their own set of circumstances to navigate back.
2 Peter 3:9 says that “the Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not willing for any to perish, but for all to come to repentance.” The original Greek meaning of the word “repentance”, as far as I understand it, means “a change of mind / a transformation of perception”. And then the verse that says “be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind”. In the past, my perception of repentance was mostly made of deep shame and worthlessness. Now I find immense joy and peace as I leave those feelings out of it and simply allow the transformation. To surrender used to scare me because I felt it meant death to a certain part of me. Now I know it means resurrection of the parts of me that are eternal, a coming alive to who I really am. What joy!
Over the Easter season I continually had the verse going through my mind - “Why seek ye the living among the dead?” I asked God a lot of questions about that. What does that mean, and when do we do that? I think when we are in separation from God, and we fail to realize that we truly can touch His essence, then we look around in what is dead and what holds no life of its own, hoping to find something to ease the pain of separation. Our culture and upbringing plays a huge part in what it is that we turn to. Some will look to substances, some will seek approval from others, some will keep their appearance and dress within certain bounds, some will look for it through money or possessions, power or control. There really is no end to the “dead” things we seek. This does not mean these things are bad. It just means they have no life of their own. They will not live eternally, and they cannot heal or free us. We might feel an illusion of peace because they help us feel safe or taken care of, but this is only because they are helping us deal with a deep fear we hold within that we are not okay without them.
What if I start by knowing I am ok, that nothing can touch the core of who I am? Absolutely nothing can separate us from the Love of God. We could choose to sell our soul to evil, but most of humanity has no desire to do that. So, what is it that brings me life? I think of it like this - in the center of everything is a still point, like an eye of a storm. If I can find the center and cast my anchor there and sink it deep so it will hold, that is life. The center still point is God. Swirling all around Him is life. In the swirl is where we find most of what our life is made up of on the outside. It’s noisy and busy and painful and beautiful and lonely and full of friends and just about everything else. If my anchor is being held fast in the center still point I am still living in all these things, but they are not where my life is flowing from. Deep, satisfying, nourishing life is flowing to me through the tether that holds the anchor. I am drawing from the well of Divine love and am no longer looking to anything else for life.
My deepest desire is for this. To be so securely anchored and connected that I experience the Divine in each part of my life. This is not a guarantee for freedom from grief and pain. Actually the paradox is that the more deeply I let myself feel those things and still remain anchored, the less I fear grief and pain, because I learn it cannot touch me. It changes things, and I will probably feel completely discombobulated, angry, etc. But remember - NOTHING can separate me from the love of God.
The center point is LOVE, because God is Love, the deep, expansive, never-ending Source from which we come. Of course we want to be one with that. It is HOME.
In love, RCY
