Come to the Mountain

Stop trusting in man,

who has but a breath in his nostrils,

of what account is he?

- Isaiah 2:22

We all worry too much.  It is almost compulsive, habitual, even addictive.  Somehow we have to stop because whatever it is we're worrying about just doesn't matter.  None of it matters at all. All the worries, all the fears, all the what ifs, all of it is just a mirage in the sands of time.  None of it matters. because none of it is real, really.  And, while we're worrying we're missing the whole reason we're here, the gorgeous experience of being alive.  

The whole world is engaged in a huge planetary drama which we take so seriously - seriously enough to kill one another over different viewpoints or borders and boundaries and stuff.  To really experience this, I think we need to step off the world stage for awhile.  I think we need to go inside our minds and go up to the holy mountain where we can and will encounter what is real, real in time and real in eternity. It is right here, right now, but we can't see or feel or experience it because we're so busy worrying.

We are being called to come to the holy mountain, where we will encounter the great presence that is spread out across the Earth, Who is in everything, knows everything and is of an unimaginable intelligence and awesome love and power.  This great presence is not just a force or another inanimate scientific energy wave.  This great presence is beyond quantum physics, more approachable and relational than religions ever told us.  The great presence is knowable.  We can hear the voice of this presence in our minds when we step outside the mind swamp in which so many of us are so fully immersed that we can't listen to the quiet between thoughts. 

Whether you are a rational scientist or a mystic, despite what faith or culture or clan from which you draw your identity, it doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter who you are, where you are, what you've done or left undone, how much you have or don't have. None of that matters.  All that matters is that you step outside all of it, even for just one imaginal moment and consider that there is an everywhere presence here that is knowable.  The ancients had all kinds of names and descriptions of that presence, who we most commonly call God.

We are all so busy planning our lives, writing our stories, painting our life canvases, marrying and raising children, working or going to school, reaching for some kind of understanding about what's going on in Washington that we might forget to consider the authentic reality of God who is really out there, in here, everywhere, but who speaks to you in your mind if you listen.  You hear God all the time, but you don't know it.  

Recently in meditation I asked God to reveal Himself.  In seconds something in my inner mind said to me that I was going to hear a voice and then I did.  I will never forget what God said to me that day, but there it was - there God was - right there with me in my mind.  More recently, my daughter graduated, we moved - again - and in the busyness of everything never did I forget what God said to me.  It was simple and it was profound; it was powerful and as strong as it was gentle.  What is most important is the news - yes, The News - that God is real and is just as Jesus describes God in the Gospel of Thomas.  He is there, everywhere. In the following quote from the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus, who was filled and completed with God's presence, makes a bold declaration and elsewhere encourages and teaches us how to enter into that same state with God. 

"The (Father's) kingdom is within you and it is outside you ... seek his treasure that is unfailing, that is enduring, where no moth comes to eat and no worm destroys."
77. Jesus said, "I am the light that is over all things. I am all: from me all came forth, and to me all attained.
Split a piece of wood; I am there.
Lift up the stone, and you will find me there."

We are vessels into which God communicates His power, wisdom and spirit and with whom God relates.  This is life. This is the life Jesus spoke about.  It is the ecstasy of Rumi.  It is the wisdom of Moses and love of Krishna.  It is the experience of life. Nothing else matters.  As St. Thomas Aquinas said after such an encounter with God, "It is all straw."

I think we waste so much of our time wandering in the wasteland of this toxic culture we've all contributed to constructing.  I wonder what it would be like if one by one we started stepping away from it all and began climbing up the Holy Mountain in our minds where we might wait patiently, reverently and prayerfully to meet God.  

"Canticles of the Heart" has been published

Finally, Canticles of the Heart, has been published and is available on Amazon. 


Many of you may be familiar with some of these short reflections, but this is a version you can take to the beach or the coffee shop or on a plane.

It is a collection of reflections inspired to help us transform our turbulent world with love.  It draws from the essence of all the world's great religions and spiritual traditions to reveal the common ground shared by our entire global human family.

Each canticle is a love song to the human race, offering a divine wisdom to catalyze healing at all levels of human life - from individuals struggling for a sense of dignity and direction in their personal lives to those surmounting political, economic, or personal exploitation and oppression anywhere in the world.

Drawing from the beautiful love poetry of Rumi, the heart of the Torah, and the mystical theology of St. John of the Cross, each one whispers to the human heart in ways the ancients understood.  Each expressed the power of the heart to raise the level of human experience to a new place, an inner place of magnificence, radiance and creative potential.  The collection supports the relationship between human and divine and invites readers to taste the sweetness of life in all.

For ordering information see: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&sort=relevancerank&search-alias=books&ie=UTF8&field-author=Victoria%20Kearns 

... or for more information, you can e-mail me at www.tigerlilieslife@gmail.com

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A Distant Star

Flowers of thy heart, O God, are they
Let them not pass like weeds away
Their heritage, a sunless day

A very distant star, many billions of miles and light years away, exploded recently. Hubble photos reveal a spectacular explosion bursting with color and light revealing a tremendously brilliant crystal center, startling in its diamond appearance.

The brilliance, power, enormity and intensity is so far beyond our understanding, but as I looked at the artist’s rendering of the distant star’s explosion, I thought it looked like a diamond – a huge universal diamond, a kind of universal heavenly symbol. Perhaps, like the Star of Bethlehem, this star, too, is a sign of another return.

Loose thoughts flickered through my head like butterflies in my garden, as the spirit whispered to me, calling me to look into the deeper meaning locked in this most marvelous event. What beautiful diamond lies at the core of everything? What marvelous power and light is inside even the most remote stars in our universe? All of life is a sacrament, every material thing a reflection of the divine. Truth is buried within all earthen vessels and while we might say that on the surface these are just happenings with no particular meaning or essence, on the contrary, they are all outward manifestations reflecting an inner truth, a greater, more profound eternal essence. We are all particles of the divine. To find ourselves is to find God, distributed like dust across the face of the universe. In every microcosm, lies the entire cosmos.


God’s face is imprinted in the tiniest particle of light, each imperceptible glittering quanta, as much as in every exploding sun. How awesome! Breathless, I knew that for an instant, I had glimpsed a truth so profound.


This new revelation contained an urgency. The sudden bursting forth delivered a perceptual impact; in short, a sense of urgency came with the experience of simply seeing this magnificent cosmic display. It was more than just fireworks. It held a message for me, perhaps for all of us that did not go unseen and unheard. Inside all of life is God. Divinity laid at the most fundamental level of life, even seemingly unintelligible life as a huge galactic rock, exploding across space and time.


Simply, if divinity were inside a star, certainly it is inside we fragile, human mortals with fragile flesh and bone, weeping for a brief while on this earthen plane, looking out of ourselves into the blue abyss, wondering for eons what this is all about. Both the question and answer may be revealed inter-galactically. Who are we? What are we? And where do we come from? Philosophers, theologians and scientists have grappled with these questions forever. Perhaps the answer is simple. We are alive, teeming with life itself and in that life is God’s very selfhood, and our sense of purpose and meaning lies in that awareness.


Buried within us is the light, the power and the dynamism of life itself. Nowhere else is closer to God than right here, within these fragile bodies of ours. As we peel away layers of time and teaching, we find that in our most simple nature, most humble origins, also lay our greatest treasure. We are material vessels for the divine. Within us is also a diamond, exploding with power and light across time, and all we have to do is look within and there we find universes of light, eternally unfolding. As simple as this sounds, tragically, it is one of the most difficult things for us to do. We want to do this, we strive to do this, and oddly, it seems to elude us, sweeping us off course just as we’re about to grasp it.


Everything in our lives leads us to this place of self discovery. And, we know it; individually and collectively, we know this. In fact, our culture has hit critical mass on this subject at long last and only now are we ready for the revelation of the diamond within us. It could be the end of an age or the dawning of new one. Behind every apocalypse lies a bright new renaissance. These tandem riders, give birth to God’s self revelation on an enormous cosmic screen.


As we attempt to reach for this truth and its meaning for us, we are forced to look at life in all its practicality and messy detail. The beginning is within us, like the mustard seed, and begs for wisdom’s water in order to grow.


This was written for "Canticles of the Heart" which will be available within the next couple of weeks from Amazon.