I Just Don't Get It!

After many interruptions and distractions over the past several weeks, this morning I finished reading Barack Obama's book, Dreams from my Father. I found it interesting, enlightening and insightful as he reflected on many of the experiences of his childhood and young adult years, culminating in a visit to his father's home and family in Kenya. Why are so many people afraid of him and his leadership? I don't get it!

-- Post From My iPhone

And my world shifted

My brother died two weeks ago and my world shifted. Life is not the same. Awareness is not the same. I am intensely conscious, every moment, that Ron, as I knew and experienced him, is gone. Gone. No more strong, welcoming hugs. No more wry grins or twinkling eyes. No more wisdom shared in terse one-liners. Ron as we experienced through our five senses is no more. So then, what remains of this man we all loved?

Joan Chittister writes, "People return to us after they die--not in body, but in essence. Then we see most clearly who they were." What is the essence that remains? Is it simply found in our memories of him, or is it more? Is it his spirit, the unique life-energy that he embodied? In any case, how does one best integrate that essence in meaningful, positive and, perhaps, healing ways?

I do not find traditional religious belief systems to be of much help. So many of those constructs seem like the result of our own needs and desires--God seen in our image, heaven as a physical place for autonomous beings and relationships.

Over recent years I've been drawn to an expanding image of God as Spirit, Energy, Love, Mystery--an ever present, vital, life-giving and life-sustaining force, present yet unseen. Is Ron's essence now part of that invisible energy flow?

Is it coincidence that as I ponder these questions, longing for deeper enlightenment and meaning, for expanded understanding and experience of God, that a recent sermon would touch on these very themes--God as creative energy, spiritual electricity, source of our creative essence as explored in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron?

For several years, while a participant in Kairos: School of Spiritual Formation, my daily prayer was "Unite my life with yours, O God, transform me as you will." Yet the prayer became dry and lifeless, blocked by some undefined barrior, abandoned to daily reality. But not forgotten. And now, with my brother's death, the longing returns, a deep soul cry for knowing; and the resulting world shift provides an altered point of entry. The Artist's Way suggests mystical union through opening oneself to creativity, to partnering with the Great Creator. It seems like an invitation to explore, a Divine response to my earlier prayerful pleas.

Let us see where this process leads.