Fresh Thinking, Inspiration, and Vision on the Process of Spiritual Transformation
Out of the dark he came,
Parting the mists of long sorrow before him.
The glittering dawn broke in his wake
Casting its golden beams,
A veil of comforting peace—
Like a lover’s embrace, circling the globe.
He moved with mighty strength in his loins
And the blazing of Truth’s assurance
upon his brow.
He drew up even the faintest of heart
and the wildest of beasts,
in the confidence of his stride—
All converging in the joyful remembrance
of faraway home…
The harmony of blended love…
The Body of the One.
And the land sang
And the nations danced together
And shouted Aumen.
It was the coming of the Sixth Day, at last…
And the earth and all her peoples rejoiced
and praised the God of Life.
—Carol Travis
Thank you, Carol, for that beautiful poem that celebrates the coming forth of the divine through people today. That is what happens on Day Six in the story of Creation.
Here are some ancient words from the Book of Deuteronomy in the Bible:
“Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD:
“And thou shalt love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might….
“And thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.
“And thou shalt bind them for a sign upon thine hand, and they shall be as frontlets between thine eyes.” (Deuteronomy 6:4,5,7,8)
The way I see it, the longer the list of ways to love the Lord, the less “out” we have. There’s not a whole lot of time left where we’re not instructed to be “loving the Lord thy God with all.” Love with everything. That love clarifies consciousness and it purifies the heart. And there you are, in your full presence, showing up in the world.
In the conclusion of that chapter of Deuteronomy, 6:25, it says, “And it shall be our righteousness, if we observe to do all these commandments before the LORD our God, as he hath commanded us.” And it lists all the glory and joy that comes, all that’s promised. We participate creatively when we do this—everything creative, everything wonderful, every joyful thing, every beautiful thing. Just love the Lord thy God with all.
I find that to love the Lord thy God with all, you have to relinquish your concept of what that’s all about. Because the only way you will know who you are and how to do that is to be yourself fully, so you must let go of the concepts you’ve held about yourself and God.
I had a vivid experience of this recently. I was recalling the “Hail Mary,” a prayer I learned in the Catholic Church. That prayer was and is in my cells as much as my parents’ love, the home I grew up in, the bologna sandwiches I ate in school and all the things I did on a regular basis growing up. I found myself going into that sacred territory because I was compelled to look at those words that took me into a mystical place.
Last night a few of us were talking about the spirit of the Holy Family. We spoke of Mary’s spirit and the purity that was present in her, represented through that prayer. As a girl, I always thought of Mary as being the only one who could be so holy that she delivered the Christ. “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee….”
So in stepping into holy territory that is so cemented in my conscious, and letting who I am now flow through it, the words that came to me were mine.
I celebrate myself and am full of grace as my humanity is filled with my divinity.
As this is so, I know the oneness of all things and my place in them.
From this place of communion I am blessed with the wonders of heaven, and that which is born of me is the fruit of my living and brings the Christ spirit into the earth.
May the sacred expression of Mother God within me hold all that is in the creative process—all that is coming, all that is manifesting, and all that is disintegrating—now and forever. Amen.
They were an invitation and an acknowledgment: “I am one with the spirit of God.” I never thought the purification of my heart and clarification of my consciousness would take me there. But there it was. I have found it impossible to talk about this without weeping. I believe it is because of the vision of the divine feminine that has been invested in this prayer. It has been and is a pathway by which so many people connect to a mystical, holy place. I can remember closing my eyes and being in a dark church, praying this prayer over and over again and being transported into what I thought was the most sacred and holy place. In rewriting the prayer for myself, I had moments of dread and a fear that I was doing something sacrilegious. Yet I was compelled to fill my heart and my world with my spirit, carried by the holy message that was coming through me.
I needed to put fuel into the places that have become cemented, so I could release them and own them as my own. Not because those places in me are unholy, but because they are holy and need to be mine. The invitation to be “full of grace because the Lord is with me” was always holy, but if I don’t embrace that invitation personally, it’s only a holy memory from two thousand years ago.
I have no issues with the Catholic Church. I wouldn’t have known the intensity of that feeling if I hadn’t had that experience in my youth. So that transformation happened in me because I was interested in listening to what the spirit was saying in my own soul, and in loving the Lord, my Lord, my God, with all.
When I rewrote that prayer, it had been, quite honestly, nagging me. I kept hearing it ringing through my mind and heart. It kept saying, “I want your attention! Pay attention.” So I finally did and did my work.
I found this interesting little story, entitled “The Expectant Ear,” that invites us to ponder what it is we are listening to. Here’s the story:
“Two men, one of them a zoologist, were walking along a busy city street when suddenly the zoologist grasped his companion by the arm and said: ‘Listen! Can you hear that? It’s a cricket.’
“Listening intently through the sounds of traffic, of people’s voices, the other man could barely hear the shrilling of a cricket.
“‘But how did you notice it?’ he asked in amazement.
“The zoologist took a dime from his pocket and dropped it on the pavement. Instantly half a dozen people turned to examine the sidewalk.
“‘People hear,’ said the zoologist, ‘what they are listening for.'”
What are we listening for? Oftentimes we hear great wisdom but we’re not listening, because it’s our own voice. My voice kept saying, “Do this, Jane,” until I finally couldn’t help but pay attention.
There is one God—one invisible reality, which holds the whole world and everyone in it. As humanity, we are one body. And, as Michael Puharich was saying recently, the one body of humanity is vastly differentiated through the individuals who make up that body. We know this oneness more intimately as we are fully our unique selves, as we listen to the spirit that is speaking to our mind and heart. That listening brings clarification of consciousness and purification of heart, so that who we are may be fully present in our world.
As we pour ourselves fully into the holiness of this moment, we know ourselves—pure, simple and holy. We are in position to hold the creative process—that which is coming, that which is manifesting, and that which is leaving.
In the words from Luke, it says, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart”—not somebody else’s; “all thy soul,” not your neighbor’s. You have these capacities and they are capable and fine. Thy strength, thy mind—these are yours with which to love. Love the Lord thy God with all your capacities because that is what they are designed to do. There are a myriad of ways people are trying to find themselves, searching and studying in the belief that perhaps they still aren’t good enough. Well you are. I am. You are holy. I am holy. We know it when we let the holiness of who we are emerge fully through us, so that it is present in the world.