Suffering

And that Pattern upon your soul Has the signature of God.

Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing

          Why do we suffer so much?  Do we think that somehow parlayed grief and pain will make us more holy, more acceptable to God?  I know that some people believe this but I believe that on the other hand, that “there cannot be a Law in the Universe which demands evil, lack, limitation and the experience of unhappiness to provide shades to magnify Its glory.”  It would seem a contradiction in terms to think that wholeness is dependent upon unhappiness.  Besides, who needs a God that demands human suffering when we are so good at inflicting this upon ourselves?

          Pain is a part of the human condition, and often it comes without warning.  It can be difficult to control the pain that comes with death, loss and private feelings of betrayal, but we can control our responses to the unwanted intrusions into our well-being.

          Soul-trying times are our opportunities to dig more deeply into our spiritual practices.  Prayer is always at hand, and we can contact others to engage in prayer for us when we aren’t thinking clearly.  Suffering, however, is another layer of pain we sometimes add on when we forget our spiritual natures.  This, too, can be healed, but it takes a special willingness on our part.

The Divinity within us is our true life.  It cannot be otherwise.  It leads us; it trails us; it holds us in the arms of spiritual love as we willingly release all pain to the presence of the God within us for healing.

 

Motherhood of Spirit

Today is Mother’s Day, and our mothers have been remarkable persons in their own right as well as because they had us.  If you who are reading this are yourself a mother, then you have an exquisite relationship with another human being that no one not having had that privilege can fully comprehend.  So we honor mothers.  But there’s even more to it:  an archetypal mothering aspect present in the Universe that can be drawn upon and used by anyone anywhere, and that shows up undefined by gender.  Mother-love is nurturing, unconditional, and kindly yet fierce.  If you don’t feel you had enough of that from the woman who birthed you, or long for more of it, it’s still there for in the “ethers” if you will open your self to accept it from woman, man , or both, or neither. 

‘Mother/Father God’ or ‘Father/Mother God’ is an expression that some of us us because we feel the deity is androgynous.  We don’t really consider it to be a being at all, but beingness itself, so It, having both male and female qualities, is a natural as either sunlit and moonlit qualities, or terrestrial and celestial ones.  Deity is infinite and thus contains all.  We may choose to have Its parent-like aspects stand out because these are particularly intimate and special to us in our human condition.

TODAY, and everyday, we can experience the nurturing and giving nature of the Universe we inhabit.  From every direction, unconditional love and encouragement arrive, cheering us on to be fully who we are by glorifying that Indwelling God who is the Heavenly Father and the Cosmic Mother of all.