God In The Box

It's safe for ages 3 and up. Oh, very, very safe! You'll know you have a genuine God-in-the-Box by this: the only time God pops up is when you turn the handle. A jaunty tune plays, always the same, one you have memorized. The face has only one expression: a benign smile.

You're a little possessive of your God-in-the-Box and don't like it when someone suggests another way to play. It makes you nervous when someone suggests that possibly, the One in the box might be other than you've always thought. Maybe that One would prefer being elsewhere.

Your life is as tidy and bright and square as the box you keep God in - and about as useful. Yet you understand that some places are not appropriate for your God-in-the-box, and you oblige by leaving it at home, say, when going out to dinner, or grocery shopping, perhaps, out among needy people.

As soon as the time as right, though, you can always crank the handle of that God-in-the-Box. And--thank God-in-the-box! You can easily press God back down when you're done with him.

Do you have one of these? How's it working for you?

Seek First the Kingdom

The Echo Within reminded me how God works through our own personalities and gifts, and I thought with a chuckle of a little question/answer game I've been playing for a few years.

I love to ask, "What does the kingdom of God look like - in me?" For when I recognize it, then I know what direction to take. I know what to seek. It's not always first impulse; no, not at all. Sometimes I want to religious-cize things and create some grand scheme that has nothing to do with who I really am, how I'm made.

I might assume:
I should be taking mission trips. That's what committed folks do.
- or -
I should be on a church committee for ________ (fill in the blank).
- or -
I should be attending functions, like all these other nice people.

By contrast, I'm learning to ask:
Where is the place - in me - that God reigns?
What sort of place is it?
What does it:
look like
smell like
sound like
taste like
feel like - ?

For me, that kingdom has to do with teaching others - specifically, teaching creativity, which leads people to a greater trust in the Creator. That kingdom has to do with caring for my family - cooking, listening, taking out garbage, cutting flowers, walking with my husband. And that kingdom has to do with writing stories both real and imagined, creating art with words and other tools.

Making assumptions about what some other God-place looks like, or should look like only gets a person off track.

You're the you God wants to work with, just the way you are. That kingdom of God? It's in you, remember. You won't know what to look for, if you don't make some inquiries and check out the space.

Where Glory Starts

Sign seen on a Pentecostal church along the highway, somewhere in Washington: "Revival Glory begins in you."

Finding Your True Calling: The Echo Within

The first thing is to take a look at the beginning of things. The Genesis story of creation, according to Robert Mulholland, according to Robert Benson, presents a picture of God bringing the world into being. But the Hebrew word rendered in English as "creating" is a word that means "speaking." In contrast to the idea of God shaping, sculpting, or manufacturing the world, as we tend to imagine, God spoke it. And not only did God speak the universe alive, but you and me as well.

Benson affirms that each of us has been spoken into being. There was a particular speaking, a particular word that meant Lisa, or Jeff, or Andria. If you want to know who you really are, what you should do in this world: listen for that word. It is still echoing within you.

What I love about Benson's insight is how it runs opposite of popular thought. How, we tend to look for answers about ourselves, outside ourselves. (The line that flashed through my head just now was Supertramp's, "Please tell me who I am.") We want someone to affirm us - a parent, a lover, a therapist even. Failing that, we may seek God, but do so scrunching our eyes at the clouds, looking up, way up, trying to scrutinize the inscrutable. Somewhere out there is some key to my life and everything I'm supposed to do. But really, how can I possibly decipher this distant and untouchable message?

We have removed God so far from our own daily existence, we have no idea how close that echo really is. Within. Benson writes, "It is the voice I depend on to warn me and rebuke me, to cheer me on and to wake me up, to settle me down and to lift me up. I know and trust and count on that voice for many things. I also know that voice sounds a lot like me."

We've become much too afraid to connect to any voice within us. We count any such voice evil, or at least dubious. Learning to listen is our main job, then. But keep in mind: God is mixed up within us.

Yep. I heard a minister say long ago, "God is so involved in our lives, there comes a point we don't know which is God and which is us - and that's a good thing." Intertwined with us. Radiating love and hope and good things. Peaceful, too, is that voice.

Don't worry so much about getting you and God mixed up: just practice listening. Robert Benson says,

"We must learn to listen deeper and deeper, seeking out the true voice within us that echoes the Voice of the One Who made us."

And he presents this gem from Thomas Merton:

"For if I find Him, I will find myself, and if I find myself, I will find Him."

That voice is an echo that never ends, a beginning you'll never get over.

Approaching The Echo Within

When I was twelve I joined the Missionettes - a girls' club in our church. Encouraged by leaders, I read the Bible from cover to cover, memorized verses, memorized specific sequences of verses (such as "The Romans Road"), and garnered badges and praise for being a fast reader. Through the years, growing up a preacher's kid and performing ministry in a non-denominational church, I continued to read the Bible fast and often.

I've stopped doing that.

These days, when I come upon words I love, poetry that nourishes me, or transformational wisdom - such as the Bible - I read as if to savor. I don't want to get through it quickly. I want to take in every crumb, and let it become a part of me. I read painstakingly, absurdly slow.

In such a way, I'm currently reading The Echo Within, by Robert Benson. It's a book that is beautiful-true. I approach the understandings like new fallen snow - one doesn't want to trample. I survey the scene, and take in the moment. I postpone the time when I'll have to make footprints from front door to driveway.

Ah, but that time has come. Presently (don't you love the word presently?) I'll be sharing the book, and letting others in on the conversation.

Dark Veil

From a journal entry a couple years back....

Praying just now, I didn't know there was a thin, dark veil shading my mind. Then I saw all my sadness and darkness, and it was nothing but cloth, and behind the cloth shapes were moving, shapes bright and true. What the mind-veil was hiding were the truths of my soul.

Sometimes the truth gets covered. I don't realize it's there. I think the flimsy muslin is deepest darkness and reality. My moods, mistakes, momentary doubts and disappointments are not reality; there is something on the other side.

Look to all things light and bright beyond the veil.

Look for the Hook

How can I discover God's plan for me?

All I have to do is find the fishhook, those places where I am happily caught. I can ask: Where has God's love hooked me? For it is upon this glorious sharpness that I am suspended, surrendered, lifted by peace. --CJ Krug