July 13, 2021, Mandala and Celtic tree experience

(Chapel homily, Tuesday, July 13)

I’d like to talk about doorways today, doorways through which each of us can experience and come to know the Divine.  Here’s the story of me finding my doorway:

Sometime in my late thirties, a dear friend, Emily, spoke to me one Sunday after church about a new church group.  She said at their last meeting, the leader had guided the participants to ask God in meditation for help with a current life problem or challenge. Emily asked in meditation for help in losing weight.  “Suddenly, Emily said, “I saw helping hands, reaching out to me, helping me with my journey.”

And I thought “Wow! People see things at these meetings?  I gotta try this!”

Here I’ll read what happened next from my book about finding my doorway:

So I went to the very next Monday night meeting. There, even though I had never meditated before, I responded to the instructions of the group leader, Pamela, and dutifully closed my eyes. I was immediately struck by a sense of a holy, spiritual power that seemed present in the room. It was as if I had opened a door inside myself to an immense space that had always been there but I had never known about. Both that inner room and the physical room in which I was sitting seemed filled with something powerful, something with substance, something like a thickness in the air. I think of that immense space now as “the universe of imagination” and that substance as “spirit.”

That brings me to the Bible passage I chose for today.

It’s Ephesians 3: 20 Glory to God, whose power working within us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

I call this passage THE COSMIC EQUATION.  It would look like this as a math equation. SHOW POSTER

Our part of this equation is to ASK and to IMAGINE.  God’s part is to do infinitely more than we ask and imagine.

AND there are lots of ways to do our part. My own doorway, show painting over time has developed and expanded. Not only do I put myself into a Bible story in imagination, but I often like having imaginative conversations with Jesus, or Mother God, or Sister Holy Spirit about what’s on my heart and mind that day.

  I’ve come to love spending time in the mornings writing what thoughts and feelings come.  I’ve learned to love poetry, from a lovely book intitle, Love Poems from God.  So, occasionally, I even write poetry, especially if I’m extremely happy or extremely sad.   It doesn’t have to be good, it just helps to put words on paper.  

Reading little bits of different kinds of books before I meditate or journal, helps bring up new feelings and ideas 

On rare occasions, I might try to paint in image from a meditation or a dream.  That’s where this doorway painting came from – a meditation image. 

The reassurance that meditation brought me, I’d like to impart to you today.  The message of the lighted-doorway meditation, was that THIS is my doorway.  It is real, it is adequate, it is GOOD.  

But I saw that around my doorway THERE WAS NO WALL!  No Wall!  It meant to me that there are countless doorways into the heart of God.  Show transparency over painting.  I truly believe each individual is invited to find and experience her or his own best ways of connecting with Infinite Love. 

And that’s where I would like to encourage you.  Find a way, or several ways – through meditation, through a group, through art, journaling, silent prayer, reading, writing, painting, cooking, gardening, walking in Nature, Bible study – whatever brings that joy of feeling totally loved and accepted by God.  That loved feeling will become almost addictive.  I think we humans are built to long for love and acceptance, and -when we feel filled by the LOVE- to let that love and acceptance spill out to the world – to people, animals, plants, water, air, to everything created. 

There are many doorways to Divine.  Most are invisible to me, since I’m only one flicker of the Divine fire, one small, tiny facet of the HUGE Divine Diamond.  But if you’d like to see if my expanded doorway fits or suits you, come try some of the Spiritual Saturdays I’ll be giving here at Southminster.  

Most importantly, ask and trust. Ask God and trust yourself.  ASK God to help you find YOUR doorway.  Where do you fell the most joy, the most love coming in and going out?  How do you long for the Beloved (God) or feel united with that ocean, or river of LOVE pouring into you and overflowing into others?  That’s where your doorway is or your several doorways are.

  And trust your inner guidance.  Trust your feelings of comfort or discomfort.  What gives you heart-ease?  What makes you feel the most loved and loving?  Your deepest desires and God’s desire for you are essentially identical.  They line up side-by-side in your heart, in your deepest longing.

Remember that God wants to be with you as much and more than you long to feel God’s love and presence.  Trust.  Explore.  Remember the COSMIC EQUATION.  Hold up yellow poster.  Our part is to ask and imagine.  God’s part is do to infinitely more than we can imagine.  

Glory to God, whose power working within us can do infinitely more than we can ask or imagine.

Amen.