Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Today’s text

Isaiah 2:2-3

It will happen in the final days that the mountain of Yahweh's house will rise higher than the mountains and tower above the heights. Then all the nations will stream to it, many peoples will come to it and say, 'Come, let us go up to the mountain of Yahweh, to the house of the God of Jacob that he may teach us his ways so that we may walk in his paths.' For the Law will issue from Zion and the word of Yahweh from Jerusalem.

Reflection

I can feel the drawing, the desire of those who come to Zion. It is in me, the deepest part of me. Call it soul, I suppose, or awareness. It is hard to describe and impossible to define.

There is part of me, of everyone, who can stand back and look at the parade of emotions and experiences that occupy the conscious mind, realizing that those emotions and experiences are not me, certainly not the center of who I am.

The center is this one who can stand apart and observe all that it is going on in me, aware it is something more and different from the thicket of fleeting thoughts, experiences and feelings that distract the mind each day.

This center is greater, free and not defined by the driven, busy parts of consciousness needed to navigate through the day.

It is here, at this center, that I feel the desire of the nations to come to Zion, to come home, walking as a pilgrim to the place where I may sit in silence before the Source of Wisdom, the Fountain of Justice, the Origin of my Soul.

The desire to come to the place where Yahweh speaks emanates from the center, the soul, the deepest part of me where I hunger for union with God, the Source, the Fountain, the Origin of all that is.

Only in this union am I completely at home and in peace. Only there do I know myself.

Mystics of the Christian tradition (others, too) suggest the center, the apex of the soul, is the reality of God within us. There is no end of the metaphors for this.

Some say the soul is a plant that grows from the ground of God. Others say it is the God-seed planted within us. Others suggest the soul is a Word spoken by God from eternity into time, a partial of expression of divine life.  Still others compare it to a coin, one side of which is an expression of God dwelling in this world, and the other side is the unseen mystery of Yahweh, himself.

Interesting thought, for it suggests that the home we seek, the pilgrimage we make to Zion to hear God speak, is an internal journey from the edges of who we are to our center where we also meet God.

God draws us home, to that deepest soul, Zion, the mountain of Yahweh where we are aware we are not the parade of emotions, ideas and experiences that fill us every day and too-often define us.

We are expressions of God’s own heart and mind intended for loving communion with the Mystery we each bear.

In this holy communion, we become, finally, human.

Pr. David L. Miller