As I search for your love, you always come to me,
You are so beautiful, you make my heart run free.
As I look for your love, shining on your face,
You are so beautiful, you fill me full of Grace.
You are my love, you are my hope, you are my liberty.
Send me your love, send me your hope, you make my
heart run free.
All the days of my life, I will follow you,
You are so beautiful, you make my dreams come true.
Poem by Len Moore
We
often think that God is way out there, apart from us, distant. But that is far from the truth, far from
reality. We experience God as we journey
inward, not outward into the world of changing things. The mountain where God wishes to establish
His home, that highest mountain where all nations shall stream towards too find
justice and to be instructed in the truth, is not some far away place. It is within.
We are so caught in this outer visible reality -- what we see, what we
need and want, what we feel and think -- that we forget and ignore the reality
within, God’s Dwelling place. We search
for Him in distant places, or in our activities, when all that He requires of
us is to be still, and journey within; away from the visible; away from the surface.
St.
Theresa of Avila calls it journeying within the interior castle. Many of us are caught on the outside. We feel isolated from God, unaware of His
plan for our life because we do not venture to where He is. We must leave this outer place and enter into
the inner chamber where He dwells. The
first outer room begins to bring us to some awareness that He is present. We begin, or at least to desire to conform
our outward actions with that inward intuitively call; to bring them in
line. As we venture further in, we
experience more of the warmth of His love.
It touches and sooths our soul, and brings it into deeper awareness that
something special lies ahead, something we want to be a part of. We experience an inner awakening to spiritual
things, marked with peace, love, gentleness, understanding. We not only dare to journey on, we desire to
move on. As we enter deeper into this
inner chamber, this light and love grows more intensely. It exposes us to our own darkness,
unworthiness. We sometimes feel very
unclean in the presence of such purity, yet the light and love have a
transforming effect on us. It actually
transforms our darkness into light. That
which we cling to, or clings to us, fall away, and the inner chamber of our
hearts begin to glow with the spirit. We
experience the living water that wells up within. We experience the light that transforms. We experience desire to be united with the
light, spirit to touch spirit, soul to touch soul. The outer reality is still there, but
sufficiently secure that we no longer seek after it. What now consumes us is our desire to enter
deeper into this new reality that transforms and saves. So we go on, often guided only by our thirst
for that which lies in secret, in silence.
Occasionally,
we touch this inner reality. Love
meeting love. We’ve arrived home,
nothing can surpass the experience of finally arriving at the place sought, but
only for a moment, and then some distraction, some thought, some feeling
carries us away. Yet even these touches
of grace are sufficient to keep us steadfast in our journey.
We now
dare to venture out into our outer reality, carrying with us the remnants of
light, grace and love to be shared with others.
They are such fragile efforts, mere tokens of love compared to its
source. They are more fragments of gold
dust taken from the burning fire that lies at the centre of our being, but
offering them is like offering our greatest treasure. They are offered with fear at first, with
apprehension that they may be rejected, not seen by others as something of
immense value. But later they are
offered more freely, accepted by some, and not by others, but that’s OK. It’s important that they are offered, given
freely away, in imitation of their source.
Isaiah
In the days to come, the mountain of the Lord’s house
shall be established as the highest mountain and raised above the hills. All nations shall stream toward it. Many people shall come and say: Come, let us
climb the Lord’s mountain, to the House of God of Jacob, that He may instruct
us in His ways, and we may walk in His path.
O House of Jacob, come. Let us
walk in the light of the Lord
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