Advent Travels: A Critter in Creation

Briefly.

What did you think Love would look like, when at last you realized or remembered it? What did you think oneness with God would feel like?

When our fundamental unity with all life is at last revealed, what will it be like to be you?

We cannot crave that which we do not know exists. We cannot long for a state that we have not in some way, however faintly, known.

I mean, theoretically we can. We can play very fancy word games; we can invent states like “enlightenment” or “awakening,” and project them into the future as ideals to pursue. We can build whole thought systems supporting that pursuit.

But in terms of our practice – in terms of how we support one another in a practice – it’s neither a mystery nor a secret. God sugars out on terms you know presently and through means with which you are already fluent.

Whatever God is, whatever Love is, it is trying to get to you as much as you are trying – or professing to be trying – to get to it.

The first time I asked these questions – put both mind and body into them – I realized that whatever Love was, it had to include this. Which this?

This one, right here. This this.

God’s love – whatever it is – has to be here now. I may not right away recognize it – I may even resist it (man do I resist it) – but it’s not being kept from me. It’s not being hidden at the end of a long journey.

God and love – whatever they are – are simple because they are given to everyone equally. It doesn’t matter how you pray or whether you pray or what you believe or what shitty things you’ve done.

The gift is given. It’s yours. It’s one size fits all. It’s really really simple.

So I began to look for love where I was – doing the dishes, weeding the garden, driving to work, talking to friends, reading and cooking.

Not in those activities – not dependent on those activities – but rather the light in which those activities could be known.

That practice taught me the specific way in which separation is an illusion and, in doing so, healed it.

Again, I mean this in an experiential sense. I wasn’t trying to understand any theology or master any metaphysics. It wasn’t about one-upping anybody on ACIM stuff. I was looking at experience and understanding as they were expressed – as they were offered – in the moment.

I looked at the offer, what was offered, the one offering and the one to whom it was offered.

There was no separation in any of it.

Sometimes we try to retrofit the experience into this or that religious language. I really like the Abhishiktananda writes about oneness with God, Tara Singh about A Course in Miracles, and Emily Dickinson about revelation.

All good! All helpful!

But those are pointers and what they pointed at was orders of magnitude simpler and clearer than they could ever be on their own.

The practice became: give attention.

The gift is attention.

If we just give attention – if we are present as fully as we can be in the moment – what is God? What is love?

I am saying, you already know. At a deep level – but not a secret or a hidden level – you know. We all do.

It was very helpful to see this and then to accept it. Wonderful things began to happen. The power to be happy and at peace began to assert itself. A kind of deep coherence – far beyond my ability to disturb or offend or manipulate – began to show itself.

It’s not hard to talk about, though finding a shared language to do so can be challenging. You can get lost a long time trying to police your or someone else’s language. Ask me how I know.

But if the problem is how to talk about God and the gift of God – or what language to use – then we haven’t yet found it. We’re like kids playing with wrapping paper, while the true gift – given and opened – goes ignored.

Here’s the thing. No decent parent makes their kid stop playing with wrapping paper. You want to play with wrapping paper and look at the gift tomorrow? Or in a week? That’s okay! The divine parent waits for us to to finish being distracted by the wapping and turn to the gift. There’s nothing left for them to do.

God waits on us, not the other way around.

Are these Advent posts playing with the paper? Or are they pointers to the gift?

I am saying that the gift is given. That’s what I want to say. The gift is here. Nobody has to go anywhere or do anything to get the gift. After you get it (that is, after you realize you’ve had it all along) your life circumstances might change. Why not? But the gift is not conditional on those circumstances, much less on their being other than they are presently.

Or, rather, the gift is conditional but on one thing: you being a Child of God, a critter in Creation, an extension of Love.

Which you are.

Sixteen / Eighteen