Wisdoms from the Journey - Vol IV (Nov 2011 thru Apr 2012)

To find God …
(04/08/2012)
The average man does not know what to do with this life,
yet wants another one which will last forever.” ~ Anatole France
Here we are on Easter Sunday, a day when many will go to church in one
form or another to get back in touch with the Divine – a day when we will enter
“God’s house” and look for answers, or salvation, or grace, or God Itself.
“Any God I ever felt in church I brought in with me.” ~ Alice Walker
Personally, I was taught that God resided in the church, and yet I have
discovered during the course of a life dedicated to spiritual adventure that, while
God does indeed reside in churches all around the world, He (or She, or It) tends
to define “church” a bit more loosely than most of us do. To the Divine, which
encompasses literally everything in this glorious Universe, “church” is wherever
you happen to consciously BE at any given moment in time. Essentially, I have
found that – to truly access God -- it is not enough to go anywhere in particular;
but rather, we must first choose to pause and fully BE wherever we already are.
Of course, step two on this search is even more important: Once we are
conscious of the Divine that resides within everything around us, we then become
aware that the very same perfection reside within us as well — and then we realize
that the only way to sincerely honor that Essence is to ACT ACCORDINGLY; that
the only way to truly “do God’s will” is to reach out to Care for another.
Being a member of a church or attending church regularly or being baptized
in the Holy Spirit or professing Jesus as “your only Lord and Savior” are all fine
and dandy. Heaven knows that the Christianity’s “Apostle” Paul would be
immensely pleased with all four of these choices. Of course, to truly please the
Divine — to actually enter the “Kingdom of Heaven” that Jesus himself describes
in the Bible, it is necessary to reach out for one moment and be Kind when least
inclined. It is necessary to care for the downtrodden; to forgive those who insult
or cheat you; to actually embody the Love we all so wish to see.
“If anyone brands you as an infidel, tell him that Love occupies a position
more exalted than religion, and has nothing to do with faith or heresy. Whoever
sets his feet firmly in the abiding-place of Love transcends both the bounds of
infidelity and the limitations of faith.” ~ inspired by Attar
78