No, this is not another mistaken post like that of December 5 when I posted something here that was meant for unclimber. Sorry about that.
Psalm 2, I have no idea. It sounds violent and scary to me. I fear that I am having problems 'hearing' God through the Bible. I figure that God talks through many means and that the Bible is one of them. Let him who has ears hear. I hear nothing from Psalm 2. But, as Larry has said on his own blog, God talks to all of us and Larry wonders whether what God really wants is for us to ask our neighbors what God told them. I am enjoying reading what God has said to you.
I recently took a yoga class and the instructor would send us e-mails with a Yoga thought for the day, some meditation for us to ponder. These meditations didn't really do much for me, but she inadvertantly gave me one that did.
In one week's class, as I did my pose, I could hear the instructor move about the room saying to various students, "I'm here." I assumed she did that to alert them that she was about to touch them to assist or adjust them in their pose so that they wouldn't be startled.
I thought a lot about that simple "I am here" and all that it means
It means -- I will assist you, adjust you, help you move into the pose
It means -- you are not alone, I will travel with you on your spiritual path, I will be your friend
It means -- I am here, right now, in the present
I am not ruminating on the car that cut me off or a co-worker's comment that seemed insulting
I am not thinking about how I'm going to get a project done or Christmas cards out
I am not trying to escape or dull my senses
I am here
As a mother it reminds me that all my children require of me is that "I am here" for them
to listen to them and love them and care for them, its as simple as being here with them
As a Christian who has a lot of problems with the materiality and consumerism that surround Christmas, it says to me that God came down to be with us for awhile, to live with us, and teach us, and experience life the same way we do.
I am here.
Namaste
5 comments:
Marjorie - Lovely! I must say this Psalm left me high and dry, too. But I have enjoyed reading what others have heard.
In my very first Quaker meeting I heard what I trust was God speak to me -- "Don't worry, I'm here".
Those words are a kind of touchstone -- I go back to them when i think about walking away from this liberal Quaker thing and joining the Methodists or Anglicans or whatever.
Maybe taht's all God ever says to us -- I'm here. I'm here. I'm here.
"I am here." Lovely.
One thing that stuck me reading your post, Marjorie, is when you wrote,
"...that God came down to be with us for awhile, to live with us, and teach us, and experience life the same way we do."
I reflected on Larry's comment on David's post about the nature of spoiritual time that "The Bible said, 'you have been saved' and 'you are being saved' and 'you will be saved' Eternally of course they're all the same."
So, when you write that God came down to be with us for a while, at first I wondered when "he" made this trip? I'm kind of thinkin' that God, in the eternal sense, has always been here, that God is right here, in all things at all times present, living with/in us, teaching us. Indeed, God is the "I" in us, and the "I" in "I am here."
Eckhart said, "The knower and the known are one. Simple people imagine that they should see God, as if He stood there and they here. This is not so. God and I, we are one in knowledge."
"I live, yet not I, but Christ in me." Again, we see this essence: "I am here."
Hillel, the great rabbi is reported to have spoken these words to an assemblage in the courts of the Temple. "If I am here," (it is Jehovah who is speaking through the mouth of his prophet) "everyone is here. If I am not here, no one is here." (Huxley)
Hi Marjorie
Thanks for sharing this. I took yoga classes too and liked them very much ... used to dream of going to live in an ashram :-)
When you talk about "I am here" ... God came down to be with us for awhile, to live with us, and teach us, and experience life the same way we do. ... it makes me think of one of the names of Jesus - Emmanuel .... "God with us". I think of Jesus as coming here to be with us also - the God who came from heaven to earth, to make of the earth a heaven
What a great post, and comments! Folks, we are flying! You girls (pardon me!) have inspired me to revisit Psalm 2:
I can imagine this psalm being written by one of the exiles in Babylon. "The kings of the earth" have destroyed his home, his life, and he's here in a foreign land, a slave of gentiles. He's thinking about a real king, a king with God's imprimatur, a king who could thumb his nose at all "the kings of the earth". And his hope and aspiration is that God will do the same thing for the exiles that he did for David.
Try to live into the poor Jews (exiles for two thousand years). Everything gone (as the N.O. unfortunates said). Nothing left but their spiritual values, the promises of God they're still waiting on. He wrote from his heart.
I think he was dwelling on the material, but God made his psalm into a spiritual gem. God was there; he is here, and ever will be. The Christmas of America is as close as many (most?) people can get to an awareness of God's presence.
Pray for us.
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