Awakening

This meditation comes as close as I have come to describing the ineffable event of union with God, albeit temporary in time, though not in effect. It is an analogy, but a somewhat accurate one. I invite you to come along with me and meditate on an inland sea. Find an imaginative place from which to image stilled waters, whether from the shore or from a boat, drifting atop its inviting and silent surface. When the unseen God draws near, both your heart and the water will stir to announce the holy. If and when that happens, do not fear, but open freely, fully, and fondly to the Beloved One whom you already know, yet forgot until such an awakening moment:

Meditating on a calmed inland sea,
Letting go and letting be before its beckoning presence,
My heart stirs at an approaching Other.

I can but wait in hushed stillness,
Breathing in the salted air of promise,
Sensing that Something is about to be.

From the edges of my awareness
Arises a summoned wave of focused water
Washing me overboard into Itself.

Pulled deeper and deeper by a Power unseen,
Into a strangely breathable darkening water,
Encircled and caressed by ineffable
Bubbles of life and love,
I leave language behind on the fading surface.

All motion ceases:
Floating now in the depths of peace,
Engulfed completely by the knowing water,
I yield myself to its naked now,
At unexpected home in the First Place.

Losing myself in what has found me,
With no lingering self-concern,
I simply am, in what I am,
With Whom I am.

After a time between the seconds,
I find myself on a humbled shore,
Dry but awakened,
Walking along the lonely sands
Of driftwood memories.

You may seek but cannot enter the waters of the Spirit of God without God parting those waters and guiding you in. God will do so when you are ready. Let your desire for God and the wondrous waters of the Spirit increase. Loose your hungering heart to fly arrow-like toward God, for it is born knowing the way. If such a desire bursts forth in you, do not tarry, do not let shyness, doubt or uncertainty delay you. Show God by your persistence that it is “God or bust.”