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.