"Write About Me"
Today makes twice this week during meditation that I felt the words "write about me" gently drift through my mind. Like a shooting star that streaks brightly across the sky one moment and is gone the next, these words left me wondering if I had even heard them at all. It didn't feel like me talking to me or some part of my ego desperately trying to hook my attention. I think it was God. But how could it be? God doesn't say this sort of thing to people. Or does He?
In a previous blog post, "Let's Talk About God," I wrote about my definition of God. Although I feel God can't be really defined, I boldly (or foolishly) attempted it, thinking this would be the end of my feeble effort at putting words to something so great as God. And yet, apparently I'm meant to keep going.
Recently, I've been struggling with feelings of discouragement, loneliness, and powerlessness. My prayers have become more troubled than peaceful as I try to drink in as much of God's peace as I can, like a thirsty traveler coming across a small desert pool. I mentioned my troubled prayers to my brother, who was immediately surprised. "How can you find anything but peace when you pray to God?" he said. It left me wondering, how can I? How can life's ups and downs or my own inner struggles be enough to take me away from God? Unless, they never did. Unless, God was completely with me, in me, and all around me during those times too.
Perhaps God was right there feeling the fear when I opened my latest bills in the mail. Maybe God felt the disappointment when my inbox didn't contain some promised good news this week. Maybe God was feeling the same sense of frustration when my troubled prayers didn't give me the peace I wanted. Maybe God was right there in all of it.
All these experiences are vibrations of God shimmering through my life. And every beautiful or disappointing thing I may experience tomorrow will also be just as divine. God is here, doing all of this with each of us. It is my belief that all of creation is like a puzzle that hasn't been put together yet. While we're sorting out the pieces and trying to figure out how they all fit together, we will encounter the frustration of chaos and disorder. There will be pieces that don't look like they belong. There will pieces we're sure are missing. The world might appear void of God at times during the process of finding Him. But even as we hold a single, lonely puzzle piece in our hands, with no idea how it fits with the others, we are holding God. Every frustrating moment, every fearful emotion is God waiting to be recognized.
As I write about God, I am really only writing about my own internal journey. I wish I could say I have the whole divine picture of my life and it how it fits in God's creation all figured out. I wish I could be as peaceful as my brother is when he prays. I wish the feelings of discouragement, loneliness, and powerlessness wouldn't come to me as often as they do (or at all). But maybe these wishes are also just a few humble notes in the symphony of God.