Aflame with Divine Presence

Not long ago, I spent six days backpacking in the wilds of the Olympic Mountains.  Those beauties have been calling my soul for years now—a clarion call that has pierced my body, caused my heart to leap and sing, and, on this particular trip, my feet to dance.  Lao Tzu wondered in the Tao Te Ching, "Who will prefer the jingle of jade pendants if he once has heard stone growing in a cliff?"  That is worth retyping, to say nothing of rereading. "Who will prefer the jingle of jade pendants if he once has heard stone growing in a cliff?"

If you have not yet experienced the truth of this wisdom teaching, friend, the door is open, the way is laid. You needn't do anything, other than show up long enough to allow the whispers of the Wild One to call through their granite voice box.  Even now, your name is being whispered.

Of course, the surprise isn't that when we're finally quiet God begins to speak through creation, but rather the realization that God has been speaking all along, our ears just haven’t been tuned into the frequency.  God has been visible all along, our eyes just overlook it. In the ubiquity of God—in the absolute and unavoidable presence of God, in everything, at all times—God is rendered invisible, seemingly absent, and usually silent.  But God is not absent. It is we who have gone missing, disappearing into the past, into the future, into everywhere but here and now.  

The Illuman logo features the burning bush of Moses, aflame with divine presence.  In this, we celebrate that the great surprise of the burning bush was not that God was present, but that Moses finally was.  Moses was finally present, awake, and in a state to see a bush blazing with God. If he could have looked up and kept his wits, would he not have seen every bush ablaze?

Earth's crammed with heaven,

And every common bush afire with God,

But only he who sees takes off his shoes;

The rest sit round and pluck blackberries.

― from Aurora Leigh by Elizabeth Barrett Brownin

At the beginning of a new year and in the midst of the calamity of these strange times, I wonder for you: Where are you, and how are you caring for yourself to ensure that your vision remains curious and full?  Are you answering the call to wild places?  

My friend and I spent three days and nights fasting in our own respective spots, he down in the cupped stone walls of a valley, and me high on top of my mountain, kissing the stars.  My intentions were to show up, to slow down, and to present myself as an offering, open and available.  "Hineni, Here I am" was my song, though I lost track of when I was singing it to the Friend, when the Friend was singing it to me, and when we were caught up in a duet.  

In some cultures, there are stories that can't be told except in certain settings or during certain times of the year.  There are stories which can't be told at all, only danced or sung.  These stories tell us, as much as we tell them, and in the whirlwind, we are all brought into being.  Coming down from the mountain, I understood this in a new way.

Of course, as soon as we glimpse it, we are apt to lose sight of it.  Jesus exits stage left on the road to Emmaus. Moses and Elijah disappear on the Mount of Transfiguration.  The fire dims, the vision is lost, normal life resumes.  This is how it must be. It is essential to the seeking required by faith.  But we don't actually lose anything, for in returning to what seems like a "normal" way of seeing, we begin to look for God in the cracks, in the corners, and in the faces of those around us.  We achingly remember.  Having ascertained God once, it can be enough to keep looking for God and to recognize that God is present, perhaps in our looking as much as anywhere else: behind our eyes, whetting our thirst, inclining our ears.  

The next taste of union is all the deeper after we return to our sense of a healthy, differentiated self. Now, there is more of us to offer than before, and we can bring more of ourselves back to union on the next dive into Rumi’s wine vat.  The paradox of union with God is that it doesn't grow from the loss of self, but the spiraling into our deepest self.

The beginnings of a new year often are marked by intentions that sprout anew and quickly wither.  We put on constraints to make a marginal improvement in our lives, but without a vision for which we would be willing to live or die, without a great enough love, we abandon our constraints and return to self-medication.  Only a dance with the Friend, an encounter with Love, and surrendering and fanning the flame of a wild love for Life will inspire us enough to make the changes needed to thrive.  

I hope, in the midst of this season, you are able to find plenty of places to stoke your heart-fire with wonder, gratitude, and awe.  These three practices are enough to keep anyone warm through winters like these.