“It’s said the proud will ask: If there’s a God, how could this happen? The humble say: This has happened, God is with us.”
– Alastair McIntosh in Poacher’s Pilgrimage: An Island Journey
There is a joke about a Priest, a Rabbi, and a Unity Minister standing on a street corner underneath a power company lineman who was up the pole doing a repair. The three clergy were arguing vociferously about the body position that was the most effective to take for prayer. After hearing this loud dispute for about as long as he could take it, the lineman shouted down, “I’ll tell you the best position for prayer—it’s when I’m hanging upside down from a pole about to fall on my head!”
True! The lineman doesn’t have to debate about the best way to get in touch with God because he has a relationship with God. It’s that simple! It seems to take adversity to get us to make contact with the Divine. It’s not because we are so stubborn, but because until we are overwhelmed we don’t notice that we need something more than our outer wits. There is a saying in Daoism that the Dao—the Divine life force—carries us all the time. It is the basis of our lives. But we don’t perceive it. That’s the good news and the bad news. Good news because this is reassurance that we are held and looked after. Bad news because until we become aware, we don’t let Divine Power flow abundantly into our everyday affairs. We run on such a small trickle of love and light when we could have the whole gushing spring.
What can open us to this flow? Choice. Making the decision to know that God is with us no matter what. We stop the foolish game of wondering “why God permits bad things to happen,” and commit to taking responsibility for our own attitudes and actions. We choose to understand how what we think and do influences our lives. We take action toward healing and we claim our wholeness. This requires psychological awareness, and more deeply it necessitates spiritual awakening. We can debate ‘til the cows come home the best path to enlightenment. But keep it simple–the most grounded way to notice the Presence of the Divine, to build that relationship, is gratitude. When we are grateful for everything, we see God, we feel God, we know God. With Job we can say, “I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;” Job 42:5. God is with us. We are in a Divine relationship that is real and unfailing. It’s that simple.
In the Love and Light of the Christ,
Rev. Anna
