The Quiet Voice has been at play in the snowfields of the Lord these last several days, not -so- quietly motoring about the northern UP of Michigan in snow that was five feet deep at the cabin. There were no nasty surprises or hardships this time, but rather beauty and frank awe; beauty in the deep snow trails through the pines and maples, and awe at Lake Superior, which has frozen into fantastic, other-worldly shapes. Most notable were the ice volcanoes, where waves had pushed through ice cracks and then frozen themselves, forming near-perfect cones with large blowholes at the top - exactly like volcanic craters (I will post pictures from my son's IPhone when he wakes up). And once again, I assessed the choice I made several years ago to spend an unexpected financial boon on the land and cabin in the far north.
I came away telling my wife, yes, it was the right choice. Look at our adventures, and the family time that we have. And look - with the road now paved, prices are rising. But of course I comfort myself. Wasn't I only assuaging a life-long desire to have large acreage in the far north?
And so we get to Cal Roeker's comment on the last blog. In that blog, I talked of my long-time friend's confession at having seen Spirit twice in the form of a great, glowing ball. The first time, it filled him with peace, and he became convinced that he should become a priest. The second time, the "ball" told him in its manner that this was NOT the path that was intended for him. In Cal's comments, he wonders if he has taken a sense of spirit's presence and used it to support his own egoistic desires. He questions the value of his life, and assumes that, given his modest place in it, that indeed he has; that, unlike the "burning bush" of a ball that my friend witnessed, the sense of spirit never came back to tell him whether his choices in life were correct. And he assumes that they were not, given his current situation.
Reading a book on consciousness last night, I came across this interesting analogy: that we, the small egos, are like children in a child's seat with a pretend steering wheel. God is driving the real car, and when we turn our little wheel as God does, it appears that we are running the show. But when we turn left to go to the candy store and God turns right to take us to the dentist, we feel thwarted. We are having bad luck, bad karma, whatever. Thus our will only comes to fruition when it is parallel to God's.
This example brings up enough questions to write a master's thesis, but for our purposes, we can see that our will - and that of Spirit or God - are impossible for us to tease out. That we have not gotten our heart's desire in life does not mean that we have chosen a path contrary to God's will - but rather that our limited, child-like ego self doesn't approve - just as the child would rather go to the candy store than to the dentist's. The latter is painful - why must it be so? The limiting factor in this example is that we DO have a degree of free will, and when we turn our little plastic wheel, sometimes the car does respond. We are certainly responsible for our actions. But to judge by our own criteria whether we have taken the right path or not is often impossible.
One way to attempt this, though, might be this: when opportunities for certain actions arise, not from our own volition but from coincidence, and if these actions are not knowingly wrong and we take them, then it seems that we are acting (with our own will) on the will of Spirit. Many of the essays I write are about this - how coincidences come together to form a part of a much larger whole, something with high intrinsic meaning. Look back on the coincidences of life that have affected you: where have they led? Doing that first hit of heroin might have led to a broken and wasted life, but you knew that was probable; still, it might have led you to strengthen your will, overcome the addiction, and then help others do the same. Because we can only begin to judge by taking things as a whole, whether one has chosen God's path or not might take a lifetime - or more. But it seems likely that when one is offered something out of the blue (again, not against your moral code) that starts making effects - and over decades makes long-lasting effects- that one has chosen the right path.
But that is why Cal and my friend - and I - question our actions; we often do not have the biggest picture. But coincidence gave me my wife, and she my son - can I reject that? And it has given me a little cabin in the woods where my family is reunited - that sounds like a good beginning. What more can I do, then, but observe and listen; observe how my actions have caused other actions, and listen for more opportunities that come from a place of burning peace - that come from somewhere out of the blue. FK
I came away telling my wife, yes, it was the right choice. Look at our adventures, and the family time that we have. And look - with the road now paved, prices are rising. But of course I comfort myself. Wasn't I only assuaging a life-long desire to have large acreage in the far north?
And so we get to Cal Roeker's comment on the last blog. In that blog, I talked of my long-time friend's confession at having seen Spirit twice in the form of a great, glowing ball. The first time, it filled him with peace, and he became convinced that he should become a priest. The second time, the "ball" told him in its manner that this was NOT the path that was intended for him. In Cal's comments, he wonders if he has taken a sense of spirit's presence and used it to support his own egoistic desires. He questions the value of his life, and assumes that, given his modest place in it, that indeed he has; that, unlike the "burning bush" of a ball that my friend witnessed, the sense of spirit never came back to tell him whether his choices in life were correct. And he assumes that they were not, given his current situation.
Reading a book on consciousness last night, I came across this interesting analogy: that we, the small egos, are like children in a child's seat with a pretend steering wheel. God is driving the real car, and when we turn our little wheel as God does, it appears that we are running the show. But when we turn left to go to the candy store and God turns right to take us to the dentist, we feel thwarted. We are having bad luck, bad karma, whatever. Thus our will only comes to fruition when it is parallel to God's.
This example brings up enough questions to write a master's thesis, but for our purposes, we can see that our will - and that of Spirit or God - are impossible for us to tease out. That we have not gotten our heart's desire in life does not mean that we have chosen a path contrary to God's will - but rather that our limited, child-like ego self doesn't approve - just as the child would rather go to the candy store than to the dentist's. The latter is painful - why must it be so? The limiting factor in this example is that we DO have a degree of free will, and when we turn our little plastic wheel, sometimes the car does respond. We are certainly responsible for our actions. But to judge by our own criteria whether we have taken the right path or not is often impossible.
One way to attempt this, though, might be this: when opportunities for certain actions arise, not from our own volition but from coincidence, and if these actions are not knowingly wrong and we take them, then it seems that we are acting (with our own will) on the will of Spirit. Many of the essays I write are about this - how coincidences come together to form a part of a much larger whole, something with high intrinsic meaning. Look back on the coincidences of life that have affected you: where have they led? Doing that first hit of heroin might have led to a broken and wasted life, but you knew that was probable; still, it might have led you to strengthen your will, overcome the addiction, and then help others do the same. Because we can only begin to judge by taking things as a whole, whether one has chosen God's path or not might take a lifetime - or more. But it seems likely that when one is offered something out of the blue (again, not against your moral code) that starts making effects - and over decades makes long-lasting effects- that one has chosen the right path.
But that is why Cal and my friend - and I - question our actions; we often do not have the biggest picture. But coincidence gave me my wife, and she my son - can I reject that? And it has given me a little cabin in the woods where my family is reunited - that sounds like a good beginning. What more can I do, then, but observe and listen; observe how my actions have caused other actions, and listen for more opportunities that come from a place of burning peace - that come from somewhere out of the blue. FK
RSS Feed