The tough slog

Peter in his typical enthusiasm wanted to construct three booths constructed one of course for Jesus, then one for Moses, and one for Elijah. He wanted to somehow capture and keep forever what was revealed to him and his fellow apostles.  He wanted to plan for something permanent.  Did he get his wish? of course not.  On the spiritual journey nothing is permanent we are always in transition on our journey to transfiguration and transformation. That is why The Prophet Jesus told Peter that they had to move on there was work for Him to be do.  We must be careful to be to keep reminding ourselves that no matter where we are at, and what we are experiencing, "this too shall pass." This place where I am at is not my destiny.  This is the battle of the faith journey, we want permanence, security, familiarity, none of which will be ours on our endless journey in to the unknown and The Unknowable.  Our egocentric egos will fight us tooth and nail every step of the way. That battle, conflict is constant moment to moment death struggle in the depths of our being. The true self, the one that our Creator lovingly created, lives in the freedom and security of being the beloved. The beloved, the true self knows it is loved without "condition, restriction, or reservation."  The beloved never has to earn deserve or qualify for the love of The Beloved. Religiosity wants to tell us otherwise.  What a battle is being waged in our church right now.(2020).  God continue to inspire and strengthen Pope Francis in this time of transition and change.

Acceptance of this awe-full, wonder-full reality of who we really are is the key to serenity and peace of mind.  Warning this wars against the accepted ways in which the world we occupy works. "The world" as we know it is caught up in the struggle for "power, property, and prestige." (Rohr).  Let us detach ourselves from this losing battle.  Let us rather concentrate all of our God given energy in doing our essential part in the creation" of new heavens and new earths."  The Aisling of our Creator God has been entrusted to each one of us.  SO ???

The Transfiguration

The three favorite amigos of Jesus, Peter, James, and John thought they had arrived when they we privileged to encountered the transfigured Jesus on the mountain top Jesus shared in dramatic way His inner being, and destiny. How wonder-full and awe-full those moments were.  The Incarnate God revealing in His human body, the hidden divinity within. That is part of our Gracious Creator's dream for us. We carry in our depths that same divine life which was revealed through the humanity of The Historical Jesus on that mountaintop.  So, too it is within our mission and whatever ministry we are called to be the manifestation of God, in the place where our feet are grounded "Bloom where you are planted."  St. Paul reminds us that each one of us is in the exact right place for our Creator's dream to be actualized.  We desperately need to recognize our moments of transfiguration, those mountain top experiences that change us so we can come to a deeper realization and acceptance of who we really are in our Creator's universal plan.  A plan that encompasses our life, our cosmos, and our universe.   

We are all part of a greater plan, way beyond our thoughts and imaginings. The Creator's dream has for all of creation.  We are chosen to be an essential instrument in the realization of that dream.  We are little dots on the tapestry of time and creation, little but essential.  Without our dottiness creation would be incomplete.  We are seen as an essential contributors to that mysterious tapestry.  A tapestry we will be able to see and understand "when we know as we ourselves are known." Until then we continue to delve ever deeper into the special unique dream our Creator God has for all of us who carry the dignity of being co-creators.   (Chew on that for awhile.)  The Gracious One does not think small.  That causes a serious problem, and offers us a lifelong challenge.  The challenge we have to face is this "God is The Infinite One and we are finite." "Our thoughts are not God's thoughts. God's ways are not our ways."  We have to let go of our little plans, so we can slowly, and reluctantly surrender to a plan infinitely greater than ours.  This surrender takes place over our whole lifetime.  Darn it!!!

More on the Dream

No matter the place we are at God's dream for you and I is ever and always operative.  Never look to anyone for permission to claim your belovedness.  It is yours without "condition, restriction or reservation."  No action can win or lose your chosen belovedness.  The small hardened, self-righteous, judgmental, yes, I can include here professional clergymen, have real difficulty with God's permanent commitment to us who can be so perfectly imperfect.  So prodigal in our actions but so in need of the love of our Prodigal Father.  We are lead into a new way of seeing.  We are provided, gratis, with new glasses whose lenses open up new horizons, which we will never reach.  This way of seeing and thinking leads to the embrace of The Spirituality of Imperfection!! This is not the road we would choose to travel, but for so many of us, thank God, we find our home on the broken trail which lead eventually to the acceptance of human imperfections. We are now beginning finally to live the dream, the wish that our Gracious has had for us since eternity.  It is only in eternity we will come to see clearly The Divine plan and The Divine wish for us and for all creation.

This wish is annunciated, made known through the mystery of The Incarnation of God's love in the human person we call the historical Jesus.  Then this Jesus of God became The Christ of God through His Paschal Mystery.  As we encounter the carpenter-prophet Jesus in the scriptures we are led to discover that His purpose in coming, and His total immersion in our human reality was that we "may have life and have it to the fullest."  Jesus is God's dream for us, incarnated.  Since God is spirit, and we are spiritual beings immersed in the human condition, God came to join us in our human journey so as to model for in His life and ministry how we can live, the dream. What a mysterious ineffable dream our Gracious Creator God has for us. It is so deep that it demands of us that we go ever and ever deeper.  This journey of ours is endless.  There is no point on the this journey into mystery we can say "I have arrived," or "This is it, I have no further steps to take." Yes, we may have resting stations but that is what they are, resting stations on the endless trail that leads to places unknown.

The Dream

On the website you will see "The Battlefield of The Soul."  It is always there. Why?  Because from my point of view, we need a constant reminder of the choices we have to make.  Choices that are made by us in each and every moment we are given to live.  We live moment to moment.  We make our decisions moment to moment.  As we live the present moment, so will the rest of our life be.  That is why we receive the grace necessary for the completion of our life's mission one moment at a time.  We call that moment,  "right now."  In all of life's  "right now moments necessary grace is showered upon us.  The flow of grace never stops.  It cannot stop, and never will stop. In our next life we will live in the fullness of that Love.  We prepare for that as we respond to the promptings of grace in the here and now.  "Now is an acceptable time, now is the time of salvation.  "Mercy-full love is always in the offering, because of our Gracious Lover's faith-full-ness.  It is not because of anything we can do, but because we have been chosen to be the beloved daughter/son from all eternity.  "God help me to believe the truth about myself no matter how beauty-full it is." The deepening of faith in our belovedness leads to transfiguring and transforming places we would never plan to enter into.  The spiritual journey is above all a journey into mystery.  Are you fed up reading this time and again?  Well time and again we forget, we lose focus and are led astray in living lives of illusion.  Living the life that the false self has created. A living that leads us to alienation from our true self and sets us up for so much pain and suffering.  Then Our Gracious lover, again through the mysterious workings of grace meets us in the place of alienation and lostness. Like the Good Shepherd of the Gospels we are ever so gently lifted up, placed on strong foundational-shoulders, ongoing recovery, and brought home to our real home found in our deepest reality.  Sometimes it takes us a long time to surrender to our powerlessness so we can allow ourselves to be brought back home!!!

The name of the blog is "Aisling on earth."  Aisling is the Irish for a dream.  Over the years, I have been brought to this realization, God has this wonder-full dream for both you and I.  If you are anything like me we do our best to mess it up.  We sabotage the original plan, plan "A," so then The Mercy-full One has no option but to go with plan "B."  I have a sneaky feeling I have run out of letters, yet grace still happens.  St. John reminds us "It is not our love of God but God's love for us" that allows this to happen.  Mercy-full love flowing upon mercy-full love in a cascade that never, and cannot cease.  Faith-full love is THE gift we need to constantly explore and meditate on.  For those who have been gifted with the gift of contemplation, use your gift to become more aware of the action you must take, and ask for the strength required to meet the challenge.  There can be no contemplation without action!!!