Awaken
Gregg’s Reflection
I grew up in the ‘60’s living through Viet Nam, Watergate, Nixon’s disgrace. I began to lose faith in the America of my youth, and found its institutions failing us. As the son of an entrepreneur, I grew up with the understanding I would follow my father into the family business. It was expected of me.
As I looked at my future through my counter culture eyes, I began to ask: “Is this all there is?” Finish school, spend the next 50 years chasing wealth and success, and then you die? This poignant question and the spiritual longing it represented sparked my spiritual journey in my 20’s. I discovered that by trying to find and follow God’s faint path that I found the answer to my question. It was the spark of God within me that was yearning to connect with God beyond me.
I was awakened to a world God inhabits, putting grace and beauty on display throughout the world of plants, animals, stars and everything that is. God was revealed to me in the mountains and canyons of the West, and I have spent decades seeking the depths God offers.
In my 60’s the question came again in this form: “Am I taking my relationship with God for granted? What would it look like to go deeper?” Again, spiritual discontent led me on a journey into deeper waters, this time into contemplation, reading the saints and mystics, joining the Living School. As I prayed over what it would look like to go deeper, I heard this: Will you trust me with the outcomes?
Pondering this, I came upon this verse from 1 Corinthians 3:6: I, Paul planted, Apollos watered, but only God brings the fruit. As someone who always measured my self by the results I produced, trusting God with results was a huge leap.
As I have waded into these deeper waters, I have changed. Much of that change was prompted by the ways my picture of God changed, from an angry judge to a loving father. I spend a good bit of time with coaching clients examining their picture of God, because it says so much about how we see ourselves.
Journaling Prompt: In what ways has spiritual discontent awakened you to the possibilities of a deeper journey? What would happen if you followed the path spiritual longing might lead you? How can you begin to trust God more deeply with the outcomes? What is your picture of God? How has it changed, and how is it changing?
Scripture
Awake, my soul! Awake, harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.
Psalm 57:8
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.
Proverbs 4:23
The Lord God has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word. Morning by morning, he wakens-wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught.
Isaiah 50:4
Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you.
Isaiah 60:1
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
Matthew 13:16
Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
Romans 12:2
And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over, the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.
Romans 13:11-12
And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.
2 Corinthians 9:8
Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.
Ephesians 3:20
Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God.
Ephesians 6:13-17
Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Phillipians 4:8
Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.
Colossians 4:2
Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
1 Peter 5:8
Ancient Writings
God is delighted to watch your soul enlarge.
Meister Eckhart
If I accept you as you are, I will make you worse; however, if I treat you as though you are what you are capable of becoming, I help you become that.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. I give great thanks for mentors like Richard Kessler and Cecil Johnson, who saw more in me than I saw in myself. Mentors enlarged my world, awakened me to possibilities, and much of my success came because they believed in me. Gregg
If nature is your teacher, your soul will awaken.
Once your soul has been enlarged by a truth, it can never return to its original size.
Modern Writings
Soon you die, when will you wake up?
Zen master to Sherry Anderson, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living p. 199
What is important is that life itself should be “lucid” in me. I am nothing but the lucidity that is “in me.” To be opaque and dense with opinion, with passion, with need, with hate, with power, is to be not there, to be absent, to nonexist.
Thomas Merton, A Year with Thomas Merton, p.180
There is only one problem on which all my existence, my peace and my happiness depend: to discover myself in discovering God. If I find Him, I will find myself and if I find my true self I will find Him….The only one who can teach me to find God is God, Himself, alone.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 36
Above all, faith is the opening of an inward eye, the eye of the heart, to be filled with the presence of Divine Light.
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation p. 130
God surrounds us on all sides like the air. And like the atmosphere he emits visible and audible waves, and we are unable to see and hear them unless we are tuning in on the proper channels. Thus The divine waves are all around us, but we are unable to identify them as coming from him unless we are in tune with them.
God‘s love surrounds us on all sides. His love is the water we drink and the air we breathe and the light we behold. All natural phenomena are but different forms of God‘s love. We move in his love as a fish swims in the water. His love surrounds us on all sides, but we failed to notice it, as we failed to notice the pressure of the atmosphere.
Ernesto Cardenal. Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics, p. 347
Stay Awake: The practice of contemplative prayer is the discipline by which we begin to “see” the living God dwelling in our own hearts. Careful attentiveness to the One who makes a home in the privileged center of our being gradually leads to recognition.
As we come to know and love the Father of our hearts we give ourselves over to this incredible Presence who takes possession of all our senses. By the discipline of prayer we are awakened and opened to God within, who enters into our heartbeat and our breathing, into our thoughts and emotions, our hearing, seeing, touching, and tasting.
It is by being awake to this God within that we also find the Presence in the world around us. Here we are again in front of the secret. It is not that we see God in the world, but that God-with-us recognizes God in the world. God speaks to God, Spirit speaks to Spirit, heart speaks to heart.
Contemplation, therefore, is a participating in the divine self-recognition. The divine Spirit alive in us makes our world transparent for us and opens our eyes to the presence of the divine Spirit in all that surrounds us. It is with our heart of hearts that we see the heart of the world. . . .
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 3/22/23
The deepest currents of awakening and discovery only begin to flow in us through the intentional, practiced silence of the contemplative way.
Brian McLaren
At one point I said, “I’m willing to go through whatever experiences are necessary in order to wake up.” It was very difficult, but every step I took, there was something I saw in retrospect that I absolutely needed in order for part of my consciousness to heal.
Rodney Smith, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living p. 180
We are being invited to awaken to our true nature as spirit beings, energy sharers, and prophets of potential.
Barbara Holmes, Crisis Contemplation: Healing the Wounded Village, p. 119.
When the sun breaks through clouds it doesn’t indicate an increase of sun. The sun has always been fully shining. It is the gradual breaking through of what has always been there. It is simply that more mental clutter has been cleared and now we can see. When the dark clouds return to cover the sun we now realize, sure it’s good the sun continues to shine splendidly as ever.
Martin Laird, Ocean of Light, p. 98
Why do I need to Awaken?
At the center of our beings we know we were meant for more—meant to know ourselves and be known, to forgive and be forgiven, to grasp the gift of life with both hands, experience it to the full, and share that gift with others. Without intentional awakening, we find ourselves performing life to someone else's script... or to meet the demands of an increasingly dehumanizing marketplace.
This is mere surviving, not thriving. Awakening to the fullness of what life has to offer opens the door to peace and vitality, clarity about what is yours to do... and what isn't. When we awaken, we discover our strengths and our limitations. We are freed to leap into service and, when we do, beautiful things often occur. When we make mistakes, and we will, we are quick to acknowledge them and to ask forgiveness when it is required.
When we awaken, people around us sense our integrity and are often inspired to deepen their own lives. We usually aren't aware when this is happening. Rather, when we awaken, we experience other people and the more than human world as reaching out to us with a surprising benevolence. Problems and pain don't vanish, yet some deep part of us holds these with a wider sense of compassion, and even joy.
Illuman Newsletter 8/11/22
Contemplative Consciousness: the awakened ability through solitude to be personally present to divine love.
Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 5/10/20
It’s the human condition that we‘re falling asleep continually. We want to stay awake, we want to stay in the larger consciousness, but we keep falling back to sleep. People understand spiritual practice in that regard, as setting alarm clocks.
Cynthia Bourgeault, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living, p. 190