Standing at the edge of God

I'm living in a state of grace these days.  I've experienced these times before and I am always amazed by them and deeply grateful for them.  The constant prayer of my heart is one of gratitude, both outwardly and inwardly.

It stymies me, though.  Just a few short months ago I was in a dark night of the soul, deeply questioning the existence of any kind of connection with the Presence.  It seemed to me that life seriously sucked at the time.  I actually contemplated ending my life.  It was pretty empty at that moment.  I didn't see the point of continuing.

Then something happened.  Life came flooding in from all directions.  I'm not sure what precipitated it.  And I am glad of it.

Still, I'm more than a little curious.  One would have to be seriously out of touch with mainstream spirituality to have not heard of the teachings like those found in "The Secret" and Abraham and other think-and-you-will-be manifestation schools of thought.  So -- why did my life suddenly become so fantastic if I was so miserable?  It causes me to stop and think (no pun intended).  What's thought got to do with the experience of God?

There have been times in my life when I've felt deep, seemingly irreversible despair.  I'm not thinkin' happy thoughts in those times.  Yet, it's during these periods of desperation and almost faithlessness that grace appears most readily.   Funny -- I didn't notice that until I wrote it just now.  Is grace a direct challenge to the psyche's insistence on feeling separate from life?  It's almost as if the universe is singing, "nya nya nya nya nya na!" to my insistence that I'm not worthy.

In this state of grace, there's this part of me that's waiting for the rug to be pulled out from under the miracles.  So, I went to see my therapist this evening.  Life is good and it scares the shit out of me.  Doors are opening and miracles are occurring almost daily.

He didn't say anything I didn't already know -- Lord knows I've blogged about it enough.  But it was good to be reminded. 

We don't earn grace.  The universe doesn't give here and withhold there.  What we experience has to do with our capacity to allow it to move through us.  How big can we be?  How much God can we stand?  Our experience of the divine has nothing to do with how big God is, but rather, how small we force ourselves to be.  The smallness is the cause of our despair.  The soul wants to have its full expression.  

Even more important is that our self-imposed smallness isn't something that should be judged or ridiculed.  Judgment and ridicule are concrete barriers, hardening us to other possibilities.  The smallness is our edge, not God's.  And it's the place for which we must hold the most compassion for ourselves.  And each time we meet those edges, we're being asked to step beyond our fear and judgment of the situation and to see the larger picture.  
Our compassion is elastic, stretching that edge to allow our capacity for God to increase.  As our container grows, we'll still have those dark nights of the soul.  But our experience tells us that they don't last forever and that grace is just around the corner.

Life is.  We have to accept the bad hair days with the perfect 'do.  The mountains will always be part of the landscape.  The height, width or number of them are not a measure of who we are.  The measure of who we are is what we do when we encounter the mountains.   Just as the amount of grace in our lives isn't a measure of who we are. 

The spiritual life is full of bad hair days, boken appliances, bounced checks and other real-world experiences we'd rather not have but can't avoid.  We get sick.  Loved ones die.  The company we work for shuts down.  Someone leaves a burner on and the house burns down.  That's life.  La-la airy-fairy dreamy-eyed life-is-good ya-ya ain't spirituality.  Living in a way that allows the spirit within move through us in these situations is spirituality.  

Truly embodying spirit is not a badge of honor.  It's war regalia - guiding and protecting us as we climb our mountains.

Those difficult parts of life should not be judged as good or bad.  Nothing is bad or good except thinking makes it so.   Certainly they're not fun.  They're just our edges.  But they should not be negated.  We're having the experience.  What is needed is self compassion and compassion for others involved.    

When I learned that other people were struggling with the same things I'm struggling with, I learned to love them instead of loathe them.  Compassion can only happen when we accept pain as real. 

Our humanity is as much a part of our divinity as the moments of grace that come our way.  This is where spirit resides.  Right here, right now.  And love accepts us where we are.  If it didn't, it wouldn't be love.

All rights reserved.  Copyright 2008.  Karen E. Kelsay