Part 105/6/2009 7:28:19 PM Journal Entry I feel so much more integrated—physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally—so much so that I finally understand how one area can’t possibly be separated out, like the physical. In fact, to even say that sounds foreign. I am so much all of these things that I realize how lopsided my attention to myself has been. Yet without the journey I’ve undergone, I couldn’t have come to this understanding. God has never given up on me. He gives me insights, and even when these fall into the background, he still offers insights, and never gives up. He indeed stays the journey—he is the journey. He is my life. Lord, help me not to give up on others. Help me to allow them their journeys—their times of insights and willful blindness, their ups and downs, their getting it and not getting it—the whole package. As your steadfast love and faithfulness have stayed with me, make it possible for me to be present with others, to allow their anger at me, their need, their joy, their distance—everything. And when they bring themselves into my presence again, help me to welcome them without any judgment for however long they stay. I.E., help me to be for others as you have been for me. No quick answers, but always, what I most need you give, even if I don’t recognize the need and think I want something different. Lord, how many doors have I opened? Are we nearing the end of this particular part of the journey? I sense a sort of completeness, an acceptance that I’ll always be learning, always be journeying. The door at the end of the hallway (from a dream I had), filled with promise, isn’t the end of the journey. It’s an entering in more deeply into the mysteries of life lived out in day-to-day reality. It’s a greater closeness/reliance on you without withdrawing from the real world. It’s all I’ve ever longed for and feared; it is a life willing to be laid down for you. Everything I have, nothing that I have—it’s all the same. And You are You. Journey Entry What matters in life, what really matters, is my openness to God; everything else is secondary. And I mean that unselfishly—in a way that allows God’s purpose for me to be made more fully known. No longer any need for defenses—what on earth is there to defend? My integrity? Not an issue. My intellect? It doesn’t matter how others judge. Purely and simply, I belong to God and no one else has the right to judge me, criticize me, etc. I answer only to God. And that also means I cannot judge or criticize another. I must treat them with the same genuine love and compassion God has for me. With the same steadfast love and faithfulness. I guess in a way it’s a paradox: turned fully (as fully as we sinful people can be) to God, answerable only to him, and yet responsible for how we live with one another. Not a paradox. Everything in our lives is to flow out of our relationship with God. Everything. Journal Entry I can’t exactly say what happened, or pinpoint the moment. I can only say that something has happened and I’m incredibly grateful. More shackles released, more of a sense of dealing directly with God. I guess that’s language of moving beyond another system (construct), feeling less restricted. Whenever I’m afraid, hiding in old defenses, etc., I block God’s work in me. The moment I allow journey, then God can work. I’ve never felt so whole, so completed, so at tune with—not just life, especially as it’s manifested here—but existence. I feel in a way, powerful, but that’s not entirely accurate. Not powerful in that I can get things done or power over anyone, but that everything’s been stripped away and I’m now more centered on God, and it’s he that matters, and no one can take God away. Maybe I mean powerful in that no one can rob me of something that’s a construct, because it’s an illusion in the first place. I don’t hold onto it because it’s false. I feel as though nothing can defeat me, because I’m held in the mind of God. My being has its source in God’s being, and not even death can erase me from God’s memory. Journal Entry I think of this sense of a greater awareness of God—a greater intimacy. My own needs and wishes, relationships, or systems/constructs no longer stand in the way. I’m not talking of sinlessness, but a greater closeness to God than I’ve ever experienced. This truly is a door worth walking through—the promise of God’s presence more fully known, a richer blessing than any fulfillment in human relationships or jobs. I feel as though chains have been taken from me and I’m free to be me with God. Nothing else matters. And I don’t mean isn’t important, beloved, etc.—but everything else is temporary, especially possessions. Living things are indeed more precious because they are held in the mind of God. But still can’t be the same as God. Not even close. Journal Entry Is all of this worth the journey? Yes!! The losses have been many and often excruciating, and life being the way it is—the journey—I know there’s more to come. But I suspect I’m finally emerging on the ‘other side’ of disequilibrium. I am finding—have found—my place, and it is with God—in an intimacy, longing and love that is far beyond anything I have ever known. Journal Entry In reading the Psalms, I realize there’s so many places in Scripture that speak of how we humans experience God, but don’t necessarily reflect how God actually is. For example, when Jesus felt abandoned on the cross. Those were Jesus’ feelings, for his humanness hid much from him; but I don’t believe God actually abandoned him. Journal Entry I think we are immersed in this life; we can’t imagine another. And although we say we love God and look forward to being with him, we mean ‘but not yet.’ God is the best part about this life, so why am I sad that one day I will cease to exist here? Is it because we must mourn this loss—this ultimate loss, in order to embrace the new? We can’t imagine ourselves dead or resurrected. Most of the time when we long to be with God, it’s because we feel so overwhelmed by the world here, and want to get out of it. But we must mourn losing life. Like anything else, we must mourn it. Old age cripples and limits, and makes us feel vulnerable and resentful. But we must face and mourn our mortality so we can look forward to/embrace what will come. Maybe this journey here on earth is part of one big disequilibrium. In any case, I believe when we finally see Jesus, we will feel whole, restored, like we’re truly home—where our heart and every longing yearns toward. So, maybe this life, as we know it, is the last system/construct to go. I don’t know. Journal Entry It doesn’t matter how busy this world gets, how technologically advanced; we are still humans who need our Creator. We never outgrow that. And if we allow any passion for a created thing to distract us, we miss the really important thing. One can be dedicated to a job and still keep it in proper perspective. The problem arises when we want to be consumed by our jobs, named by them, given an identity by them. We demand this, and then feel like it’s the job that’s demanding it. In fact, the demand actually comes from within us. We want these things to complete us. If we didn’t, we’d move on. Does that also have to do with life? Do I want this life to complete me? It can’t. It simply can’t. In the end, that too will fail, and it will be just God and me. I don’t know that we can ever fully see all the constructs we live in. Maybe. An interesting journey. We look for things to complete us; we’re just not aware of what those things are when we’re immersed in them. But if fulfillment of my needs completes me, I will feel the demand that this must be done—driven by it, in fact. Journal Entry I seldom think of this, but this day marks twenty-three years since my sister died. In a way, it seems like yesterday, and in a way, forever. Time isn’t necessarily a reliable system—not the linear time of our human invention. I wonder if our sense of eternity keeps us from feeling entirely at home with the construct of time. Some days it drags on forever. But looking back, it went so fast—so painfully fast—and can never, never be recaptured. Journal Entry I wish I could go on a solo retreat and not be distracted; yet perhaps I also need to discern God in the midst of everyday life. It’s not life I need to leave; only my dependence on it. Wow. I didn’t even know I’d write that. So life itself is a constructed system. How little we see, how little we truly know. This life, the here and now, does not name me. I’m merely a traveler in time who’s on this particular part of the journey. But this isn’t real life—it’s our construction of real life. I can’t hang onto this anymore than I can anything else. This too is created and temporary. Truly, we will not know reality until we are face-to-face with God. How terribly out of place Jesus must have felt. Wow. Without God, I couldn’t be anchored. Without God, this whole thing would be meaningless. I have truly been set free. For this life can’t hold me or name me. It’s another construct from our perspective, since we can’t know God’s true reality. I can’t figure God’s purpose here, in creating us in a world where sin results in illusion. That we can see him at all is a miracle…it is pure grace.
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