Be Still and Know - DAY 30!

It's Day 30! I have been meditating for 30 days straight, and blogging for most of those 30 days. It's been a really great experiment and an awesome journey. Blogging about my experiences has made me work through things and process more fully the amazing experiences I've had. And for that I thank you, my friends and readers! Thanks for hanging in there with me. Thanks for being open to different things. Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me.

I've enjoyed the blogging enough that I likely will not stop altogether. I'll try to remember to post on facebook when I do write again, but please go ahead and join me via email (see the right sidebar) if you want. Honestly, today has been a whirl, and I don't think I have it in me to share all that these 30 days have taught me, so look for another post in the next few days with that.

All my Be Still and Know blog posts are here for any of you to read through, if you missed some or joined in late. I'd still love to read your thoughts and engage in discussion with any of you who wish to leave comments or even talk over lunch or lattes! It's been fun!

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Today's meditation was simple but fulfilling. I spent time contemplating what God had shown me, after I spent some time in an advent devotional book. This is a book that I had ordered a while back, but it just arrived yesterday. Sometimes God's impeccable timing must involve UPS. It is called Preparing for Christmas: Daily Meditations for Advent by Richard Rohr. And it was just what I needed! The depth of Rohr's wisdom is some kind of wonderful! In the very first entry he explains how Advent is about being awake.

"Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming."

Matthew 24:42

Immediately this resonated so deeply within me. A few months ago I chose the word "awake" to represent the ultimate culmination of my True Self. "Awake" is my focal point, my goal, the destination of my journey. I want to be so completely open to and aware of - awake to - the Spirit's voice and guidance, that I live and move and dance within the rhythms of His purposes and plan for my life always.

So back to the devotional... when I read this part about Advent being a time for us to be awake to the coming of Christ, God had my attention! Rohr says, "Perfect fullness is always to come, and we do not need to demand it now."  For now we stay awake and alert, fully conscious, surrendered with hope for what is to come. He goes on to say, "The theological virtue of hope is the patient and trustful willingness to live without closure, without resolution, and still be content and even happy because our Satisfaction is now at another level, and our Source is beyond ourselves."

Wow, did you get that? It takes a few times reading it and chewing on it.

"...without resolution..." That, I believe, is the restlessness and angst I've been feeling the last few days, fighting against what is unresolved in this whole Advent thing, with an unwillingness to be content in it. Instead, I have to live with hope, being awake and fully willing to accept that complete fullness is to come. I must choose to live in the in-between. ... and that keeps my focus where it needs to be.

What is so stinking cool to me is that what I just wrote above - what I finally "got" through Richard Rohr's short devotional - is exactly the message I received yesterday in meditation from Jesus himself!  I love how God confirms lessons in the echos of His Truth in little details here and there.

(Now, we could debate back and forth about whether I was really talking to Jesus himself or not, during my time of meditation. I know that claim sounds arrogant, or delusional, or maybe to some people just plan wrong. But honestly - other than during this experiment when I'm blogging about my experiences - my deepest innermost personal times of meditation are only between me and God, so it's not really up for debate, even within my own mind. I have to trust. And based on what I know I experienced, I can most assuredly say that I was communicating with some form of my triune Source, visualized as Jesus by me. You may take that for what it's worth. The only way you will be able to know is to experience it yourself. I pray you do. :))

The Spirit moves throughout the weavings of our days, and if we are awake we notice.

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I pray that my journey has inspired you to go deeper with God in whatever way He leads you. I pray that we all will awaken to the abundant life He has called us to live. And I pray that God's love and compassion will flow from each of us more freely and fully to the world around us.

Thank you for joining me on this journey! Love to all!