In some ways it might breed up panic, a fear, to hear the words "I'm loosening the faith." When those words flitted through my head this morning, they scared me. Was I facing a dark time? Was I headed into a wilderness experience? Was this time of Lent, of giving up, going to be a time of giving up faith in Christ itself?
No. Definitely no. I am loosening the faith, not losing the faith.
I've long tried so hard. Prayed hard. Worked hard. Thought hard. Tried even harder. And even so, the status of life is not (on some levels, not at all) quite what I think the rewards for all that hard work at trying should yield.
And so comes Epiphany in Lent. As I loosen my faith, I understand differently now. I don't have to try so hard. You don't have to try so hard. Just live. Just breathe. And Trust. Just Trust.
Friday, February 27, 2015
Sunday, February 8, 2015
Gateway to Glory
My husband and I always light what we call a Christ candle as we begin our days together, and this morning the candle caught my eye in a new way. There on the couch, hot coffee in hand, I gazed at the flame. Flame has been present since the beginning of time. It was discovered, not invented. It is not a development of human innovation.
And, so it is with God. Present from before the beginning. Invisible to us, more than a human mind can conceive, yet present in the flames of the burning bush. Visible only in the wind. And it makes more sense to me now. In the lyrics of In the Bleak Midwinter is a key to this understanding: "our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor the earth sustain." Remembering those words and singing them in my mind, I think, "of course!" We not only are not meant to, but we could never see God fully in this physical world. It must be only when the constraints of the physical are released that we are free to see the fullness of God. Because the Earth cannot hold Him.
Even Jesus Christ was to be tempered with the physical limits of humanity in order for God to enter into communion on earth with us. And, even so with Jesus Christ as written in scripture, "If all written down, all the books of the world could not contain the record of all His works."
That which is fully God is Flame. Is beyond our conception.
And, so it is that the labor of death, that struggle to throw off the physical is the Gateway to Glory. It is only then that the Spirit is free to embrace God in the fullness of the Heavens. Those ever expansive, never ending Heavens. God's home in Glory. And there we will be with Him forever.
And, so it is with God. Present from before the beginning. Invisible to us, more than a human mind can conceive, yet present in the flames of the burning bush. Visible only in the wind. And it makes more sense to me now. In the lyrics of In the Bleak Midwinter is a key to this understanding: "our God, Heaven cannot hold Him, nor the earth sustain." Remembering those words and singing them in my mind, I think, "of course!" We not only are not meant to, but we could never see God fully in this physical world. It must be only when the constraints of the physical are released that we are free to see the fullness of God. Because the Earth cannot hold Him.
Even Jesus Christ was to be tempered with the physical limits of humanity in order for God to enter into communion on earth with us. And, even so with Jesus Christ as written in scripture, "If all written down, all the books of the world could not contain the record of all His works."
That which is fully God is Flame. Is beyond our conception.
And, so it is that the labor of death, that struggle to throw off the physical is the Gateway to Glory. It is only then that the Spirit is free to embrace God in the fullness of the Heavens. Those ever expansive, never ending Heavens. God's home in Glory. And there we will be with Him forever.
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