Dear Spiritual Companions,
Did you ever wonder why life has to be the way it is? Why people have to treat us so unfairly some times? Why when we are doing what we know in our heart is right and still others attack us for it? Why life has to be unfair? In my daily quiet time I often chat with Jesus. Seeing I am a Christian this works for me. I imagine if I was a Buddhist I would converse with Buddha, or if I was a follower of Confucus I would want to check in with him. There is no magic in whom we choose to communicate, just so that Being opens us to our heart and our spiritual connection to God. I have a picture of Jesus I look at every day and if it is right we talk, and if not we are quiet for five minutes. This has been a helpful discipline for me. Recently there has been something unsettling in my heart. Rather like the questions at the beginning of this paragraph. Jesus said to me in my thoughts today, “Let it be what it is. Why does it have to be different then what it is? What difference does it make what others do or don’t do? Everything that happens in life simply happens, don’t put a value of good or bad on it.”
The most meaningful part of what He said is “Let it be what it is.” I don’t know about you, but for me to let life be what it is seems contrary to everything I have been taught. It doesn’t matter whether you are talking about religious messages or cultural messages. Whatever life gives you we have been told “Do something!” We rarely stop to ask Why? We then become so busy doing something, that often doesn’t change anything anyway, we haven’t stopped to check to see if doing something is what is on our heart to do. Maybe the hardest spiritual discipline is to do Nothing? Often when I was doing counseling with people and they were quiet I found my inner self saying, “Say something.” Now when I am doing spiritual direction with someone and there is silence I find my inner Self saying, “Be still.” I am no longer anxious to sit in the quiet with another while God is working with them. We seem to need some safe quiet times to be able to hear the inner rumblings of our heart thoughts.
As I have discovered over and over again in my journey God speaks in contradiction to what the world is saying. In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus is portrayed as someone who is a subversive in His religious and cultural world. It isn’t surprising this Gospel didn’t make it into the Bible. At the time the Bible was being put together in the mid 4th Century, Christianity was being used to validate the actions of the Roman empire that was falling apart. When you are doing something to change the course of history, the last thing you need is someone who is challenging the powers to be and their actions. Those Roman leaders were saying let life be what it is, but on their terms not Gods. Like Jesus in the Garden you might make suggestions to God about the way life could be, but when it came down to the moment of truth one says, “Not my will but Yours be done.”
It has become apparent to me that those who walk with God often find themselves in hot water. They don’t choose hot water on their terms, but rather they find enough of it happening by simply letting God’s Will be done. The Religious World is in turmoil today because it finds it hard to accept “Bad things happening to good people.” Some religious folk are selling a prosperity gospel where if you do this or that then life will be good to you and you will prosper. Nothing new about that message. It has been one that has been spoken down through the ages. Why? My spiritual hunch is because we have such a hard time letting life be messy with the injustices that come our way. What I have discovered is by fighting against what life is I make it worse. Why do people do what they do is actually a cover for If you would simply do what I want you to do everything would be fine. BUT for who? Them- no! For me! The questions at the beginning of this letter about the unfairness of life can lead us to being honest with ourselves. We think we can avoid pain by our outer world changing. In God’s Truth we need to embrace our pain and find God’s Love in the midst of it. The pain may not go away, but at least we are not spiritually debilitated by it.
I have discovered something in my wife’s breast cancer experience this summer. I don’t like it and I find it very sad to see her in pain from her radiation. Here is the person I love the most in pain and I can’t make it better or go away. BUT by letting it be what it is and simply sitting with her or supporting her through the treatments and operations has deepened our spiritual relationship of Love. Out of my helplessness and doing supposedly nothing God has done Something I can’t even put into words. Her cancer is what it is. The fact that it has been removed and her prognosis is good helps, but not as much as knowing God’s Love assuring us we are not alone. The world sells us value in this world, but God reveals a full life not only here, but in the Kingdom in our hearts which will last forever. Neither sticks nor stones, nor what anyone says about us can change that fact. No wonder Love always remains.
Peace,
Gary