One thing I have learned this year was probably known by the great thinkers two or even three thousand years ago, and it is something I am reminded of when I listen to my CDs of "Imitation of Christ." Feelings are fleeting, they are unreliable, they have a mind of their own. They definitely have an agenda all their own, too. They are most likely the primary source of our ability to sin. In fact, I think, without feelings, we would not be able to sin. The other side of that truth, is that, without feelings, we would not be able to love either.
Why would God wire us like that? Why is love so complicated and sin so easy?
I'm drawing close to an important anniversary. Just about a year ago, I promised to give and do everything for God. What kind of a promise is that, you might think. I mean, everything comes from God anyway, what kind of promise is it to give back what you have been given? How is that a gift? I really don't know. What I do know, though, is that I like myself a lot more now than I did before I made the promise. I love better now that I did before the promise. I give more now than I ever thought I could give. And while I have had my share of darkness in the last year...even the darkness has light, because now my life has meaning and purpose that is defined by that which can never be taken away from me :God. God never leaves. But I can always walk away. I am free, completely free, within my chains.
I have the pleasure of loving everyone I meet with deep and sincere love now. I can go into places of my heart and places of other people's hearts without fear, without expectation, without serious injury. It's creepy and wonderful. I don't know that it is for everybody, but I kind of wish it was...because it really is, I think, a taste of heaven. I want you to have it, but then I don't want you to have to go through what I had to go through to get it...I wish there was an easier way, but it really is all about surrender and a deep "humbling thyself in the sight of the Lord."
That mediation came to me last spring. I was still holding on too tightly to something, something I did not want to lose. Something that I had found that I needed more than I needed anything else in the world. It was the most perfect gift. It allowed me to step out into places I never thought I could go and in those places, I found great joy, I found myself and I found the whole world. But this gift, once it has been opened, has to be given away...once you get it...you pass it on. Keeping it will kill it and killing a glimpse of heaven is the most painful thing in the world. So its complicated.
The only way to get there, I think, is through our feelings. We have to risk love, which means we have to risk every kind of feeling we have, to receive the gift...and that gift, as good as it is, will break our heart, because that is what love does...it breaks our heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh...one that can be damaged and killed, many times over. But a heart of stone feels nothing...it keeps the body going, but nothing enters and nothing leaves. It is safe and completely alone. It risks nothing. It just survives.
So I promised God my love, and my fidelity. So easy and yet, hard. I knew when I was first able to know, that God was all I ever wanted. I see that now more clearly than ever...but being a "willful child," I could not imagine that God would want me.
Now here is the paradox of religion, and perhaps dogma. What might be dogma? Doctrine? I always wondered why we had two words that supposedly mean the same thing. Basically a belief system put in place to establish some kind of order to our faith journey. Lots of fights about doctrine and dogma. I think the devil just laughs at us when we fight over them. The more we fight, the farther we get from God. And the more proud we become of our point of view. That love and surrender thing is a real problem, even for good Christians.
A year and a day. Midnight Mass was fine yesterday. But it was not exquisite. It was not like a year ago. With the snow and losing the crucifix around my neck, praying with the people in the hospital on Christmas Eve...and the painful waiting for the day when I would give myself away for good...
And my heart longed to feel all those intense emotions of the year before, as it remembered the risk and the joy that something new was about to happen. I remember it all...well, I remember what I remember. I remember going to heaven and how very beautiful it was, but nothing like what we think it will be. I know it was heaven. And over the year, as I have sat with so many people who were dying, I could tell them confidently, they have a place to go, and it is a good place, a perfect place. It's not doctrine or dogma for me. I don't have to believe. I know.
And that is what I wish I could give you. There is no doubt inside me. Yes, I still get angry and disappointed and confused and embarrassed and act stupidly...but there is no doubt in my mind. And that is scary and creepy and wonderful. And so confusing. I'm no saint. I have sins enough to fill an entire room yet I also have Him, who loves me completely, accepts me just as I am, as I was, and as I will be. The one who still swears and flips off people who annoy her...God even loves me.
Perhaps this is news to no one...the experience of unconditional love. The knowledge of heaven. The forgiveness of sins. The fact that everything we do matters, yet the world will turn without us, too. All the books and study in the world will not get us closer to God unless we enter with our feelings, with our hearts...and that is so dangerous, yet it is the only way.
You can intellectually come to knowledge of God...but that is only knowledge...and the thing about knowledge...it can always be changed...love does not change. Truth does not change. Truth does not come from a book...you can learn ABOUT truth from a book, but truth enters the heart and stays there...it comes from a feeling...that doesn't change.
Oh now perhaps I have contradicted myself! But I know, we must use our feelings to enter God. Maybe that's a girl thing...well, this is the body He put me in, so this is the body I have to use to do the work.
My goodness, where did the time go? I must get on to my Sunday work.
I am posting this anyway. I don't know if it will help anyone, but I have got to try. When you seek Him, you will find Him, if you seek Him with all your HEART...
Love, Cindy
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