When all is said and done, Love is all there is. Everything else comes and goes – feelings, thoughts, perceptions, including voices that seem closer than close. People, not only acquaintances, neighbors, and strangers, but dear ones who nurture us, teach and inspire our courage – all come and go. There is a finiteness to our identity as human beings. Contemplating the mystery and synchronicity of how paths cross and how we find one another helps me know that our being and becoming, are the movement of grace. But true freedom is knowing we carry a Consciousness that recognizes the impermanence of all things. Consciousness carries us, through death and back to life again. I am that which remains unchanged, ever-lasting. That which is essential to who I am is Love. My friend JK says “Love will not be denied.”
Last night I was hot and restless and awake in the wee hours. I was also unsettled with recurring thoughts, questions, a sense of detachment, feeling alone, worried about being judged by someone who is often unsympathetic. Turned to check my email and came across a new daily meditation from Richard Rohr, an essay on “Faith as Participation”. He is a Catholic priest and teacher with great understanding of non-duality and Christ Consciousness.
He says to “live the faith of Christ…means we are all participating – with varying degrees of resistance and consent- in the faith journey that Jesus has already walked.” He goes on to say, “but once we know Jesus is the corporate stand in for everybody, we know we have already been taken on the ride through death and back to life. All we can do now is make what is objectively true fully conscious for us.”
Faith isn’t external to who I am. With faith, I can withstand intense feelings and emotions. I can hold uncertainty and unanswered questions close without harm. This is an experience of being “hollowed”, yet never alone. Fully saying yes to all of experience is living the Oneness of Christ Consciousness. Freedom is living the truth of who I am. Freedom is our birthright. Love will not be denied.
There’s a crossing over happening. A self-remembrance, experienced in my mind and body. Sometimes I can’t find the words to express what this is like. So I borrow from others that speak of it poignantly, poetically or practically. Poems lead me Home. Teachers help me to know myself, to know the truth. I am blessed and have deep gratitude for those who light the path; who gently turn me back towards myself. As I deepen and embody the truth of who I am, there is a serenity that flows through me. Love will not be denied.
It’s becoming easier to surrender anxiety and confusion and concerns that take me away from right now. There’s plenty of space within for the questions, the not-knowing. Patience.
Rohr writes: “God refuses to be known intellectually. God can only be loved and known in the act of love; God can only be experienced in communion. This is why Jesus “commands” us to move toward love and fully abide there. Love is like a living organism, an active force-field upon which we can rely, from which we can draw, and which we can allow to pass through us.”
“Do not search for the answer.
It will find you in the perfect moment,
when your defences are down.
It knows where you live.
Befriend the question itself.
Fall into the wonderful not-knowing…
Know that your true Home
is where you are.” -Jeff Foster
Love shall not be denied. Rest here.
Alena Grace 