Welcome guest blogger Felicia Murrell. She's a speaker and author, and she's all about love. You're going to want to follow her on Facebook because her posts are honest, deep and meaningful. And you'll want her book, Truth Encounters, too.
The sun beams. The grass beckons. I heed its welcome and lay on my back. Bare feet to the earth, knees upright to support my frame. Shielding my eyes, I stare at the sky naming each majestic cloud as an image I’ve formed in my mind’s eye. Horse. Chicken leg. Heart. I think about clouds as images. Clouds as covering. And somehow, I think about God…
Where is God in the clouds? How do I name that which I’ve deified? How cloudy are my images of God? What or who do I imagine God to be?
Tradition has given me some answers. Many words have been written to substantiate men’s beliefs about God. I’ve parroted a lot of them. But how do we truly begin to know God in that passionate, deep, mystical, unveiled knowing that Jesus speaks of in John 17:3, “This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent”?
How do we unravel someone else’s ideas from the truth of who God is? Great Spirit of Love, show us where to begin. Reveal to us what is Truth and strip away all that we have created in your image and likeness that does not serve you or our relationship with you.
May we have eyes to see where we or others we look up to have ascribed bad things to your nature to explain away their pain. May we be able to distinguish between theologies birthed in suffering and the truth of who you are. May we be able to identify where we’ve sated ourselves with certainty when you were inviting us into mystery. May we come to know you as good and only good and experience the depths of your Divine Love as healing, regenerative and transformative.
If what we believe to be true about God frames every part of our existence, whose inherited ideas have shaped the foundation of our God concept? What preconceived notions or habits of thought might we be projecting onto God? Are those preconceptions our own? How did we arrive at those conclusions? If what we believe about God frames our lived experience and how we relate to and interact with the world around us, how are we discovering or re-discovering Divine Love for ourselves?
How might God (Divine Love) be inviting us to reorient our mind to its goodness and kind intentions toward us?
For the greater part of my life, I lived with a superficial shallow God who was angry, distant and always waited until "late in the midnight hour" to turn things around or didn’t, using bad to teach me a lesson. Like the clouds I imagined were horses, hearts and chicken legs, I remade God into an undependable, unfeeling, callous Zeus like image. More devil than deity, just white and big instead of red with a tail and pitchfork. Vision clouded, disappointment kept me from knowing Divine Love and seeing Love as Love truly is.
One day, I met a couple who told me about God, as a Father who loves me. A mother who comforts, who welcomes me and prepares a seat for me at her bountiful table. A God who was running towards me and not from me. A God who wasn't withholding good from me because I forgot to pay my tithes. A God who included and affirmed ALL, whose banner over ALL is Love.
The core of my being leaped, inviting me to challenge all that I once believed to be true about God. Like the clouds above, could I have imagined an illusion, an image of God that wasn’t exactly there? Was my mind playing tricks on me? Had I conjured a false, graven image of God? Indeed…I had.
Thankfully, I’m seeing a bit clearer now. I've since come to know this God, this masculine and feminine expression of Divine Love. This generous, compassionate one. This God who lives among us and in us, even when we are completely unaware of its with-ness. This is the God who loves us with an everlasting love.
God in our midst. God who exults over us with joy. Who quiets us in His love. Who rejoices over us with shouts of joy and gathers those who grieve (cf. Zep. 3:17-18a).
But how do we get to the place where this is the God we see, the God we encounter and know? The God who frames our imaginings when we think of God… Stillness, perhaps. Contemplative prayer, maybe.
For me, Divine Love is unveiled through communion, connection, and acts of living that create open-hearted wonder. Consistent engagement with spiritual practices often invite us into such spaciousness creating access points for us to become more consciously aware of Divine Love’s kenotic expression in us and through us.
To that end, all spiritual practices have but one purpose – to allow us to touch the depths of our inner selves and to live a generous life of participation with Divine Love in absolute open heartedness. To move from what we know in our heads about God to living and moving and having our being in God. To be present in this life, to the world around us and to Divine Love.
What is true about God? God is Love. The experience of Love loving us allows us to feel and then to see. As Love invades our numbed out parts, awakening us from cloudy misperception to Truth, we are invited to heal and to believe what Love believes about us. To trust in the benevolence and kind intentions of Love. Trust flourishes in the soil of Love. And there, our God image transforms.
We don’t just decide to see God as loving, Love is who God is. To encounter Divine Love is to encounter your deepest self. You, the imago Dei. The embodiment of Love existing in interior freedom, uniquely expressing its beauty, truth and goodness to the external world around you.
May you gaze in the clouds and experience the wonder of Divine Love loving you.
PRACTICE: If possible, go outside and lie (or stand) in the grass. Look up at the clouds. Hold the gaze of the clouds as your lungs fill with a deep inhale. Holding your breath for 1-2 seconds, lower your gaze or close your eyes. Unfurl your hands in an act of letting go and release the breath. Allow your hand to rest gently over your heart and pray: I release every narrative or false image I’ve created of God. May I see God, not as I have created him/her but as he/she is. May my heart fill with the wonder of who God is and how Love desires to express itself to me. May I experience Divine Love loving me right now.
You can connect with Felicia here: https://www.facebook.com/felicia.murr... https://www.instagram.com/hellofelici... http://www.yzcounsel.com