Last week-end while I was banished from the house for the morning while Suzanne and company had their Reunion Group, I spent some time at the public library (across the street from the house). I perused all the magazines to see what might be interesting. I settled down first with The Tricycle.
I don't remember the article, but one paragraph stuck with me. The basic points were something like 1) you did not call yourself into being, 2) a power higher than your own sustains you in life, and 3) you cannot catch yourself (when you pass from life as we know it). Talk about putting me in my place. I love the simplicity of the ideas.
No matter when life begins --with the first mitosis or the first respiration-- I had nothing to do with it. I cannot take credit for the miracle of birth and life. Since all of us earthlings have the same control over our birth, we are united in our helplessness to incite our conception.
I understand that the 12 step programs use the "higher power" phrase to keep from locking people into one box for the power I understand as G-d. I have just started reading Armstrong's The Battle for God. (The was a review in The Tricycle.) Based on the little I have read, I can see the absurdity of the question "Which G-d do you mean, the Christian god, the Jewish god, the ______ god?" I understand the Divine to be the Divine. Can there be more than one? The higher power who sustains me, sustains all life. The Divine sends rain on the just and the unjust, on the believer and the infidel. My life and the lives of all us earthlings (or mud people if you will) is upheld by the one and the same One.
"You cannot catch yourself" to me implies that there is someone who can catch me when I fall through the veil that separates this existence locked in time and space into an existence beyond all time and space, beyond conception and understanding, beyond all boundaries! The one who went on ahead came back for a time to tell us that he had conquered the final fear. Death no longer had hold on him or on those who he leads free from the chains of fear. On this Holy Saturday, the space between the torture of Good Friday and the tumult of the Resurrection Day, I thank my G-d with all that is in me that before time began, the path that would lead me to be had been planned with joyful anticipation. I thank the Living Presence of the Living G-d who dwells within me that I am sustained each day, yes, each moment by the indwelling assurance that no matter the path before me, I am not alone. I thank the one who went before me, the One who conquered death and separation from the One in Three that there is no pit so deep that loving hands will not be able to catch me when I fall. I thank the Divine that even when I fall out of time, that I will fall into the Love the never ends.
I don't remember the article, but one paragraph stuck with me. The basic points were something like 1) you did not call yourself into being, 2) a power higher than your own sustains you in life, and 3) you cannot catch yourself (when you pass from life as we know it). Talk about putting me in my place. I love the simplicity of the ideas.
No matter when life begins --with the first mitosis or the first respiration-- I had nothing to do with it. I cannot take credit for the miracle of birth and life. Since all of us earthlings have the same control over our birth, we are united in our helplessness to incite our conception.
I understand that the 12 step programs use the "higher power" phrase to keep from locking people into one box for the power I understand as G-d. I have just started reading Armstrong's The Battle for God. (The was a review in The Tricycle.) Based on the little I have read, I can see the absurdity of the question "Which G-d do you mean, the Christian god, the Jewish god, the ______ god?" I understand the Divine to be the Divine. Can there be more than one? The higher power who sustains me, sustains all life. The Divine sends rain on the just and the unjust, on the believer and the infidel. My life and the lives of all us earthlings (or mud people if you will) is upheld by the one and the same One.
"You cannot catch yourself" to me implies that there is someone who can catch me when I fall through the veil that separates this existence locked in time and space into an existence beyond all time and space, beyond conception and understanding, beyond all boundaries! The one who went on ahead came back for a time to tell us that he had conquered the final fear. Death no longer had hold on him or on those who he leads free from the chains of fear. On this Holy Saturday, the space between the torture of Good Friday and the tumult of the Resurrection Day, I thank my G-d with all that is in me that before time began, the path that would lead me to be had been planned with joyful anticipation. I thank the Living Presence of the Living G-d who dwells within me that I am sustained each day, yes, each moment by the indwelling assurance that no matter the path before me, I am not alone. I thank the one who went before me, the One who conquered death and separation from the One in Three that there is no pit so deep that loving hands will not be able to catch me when I fall. I thank the Divine that even when I fall out of time, that I will fall into the Love the never ends.
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