Free Will and Choice vs Spiritual Intimacy and Acceptance: Mystic Listening

Yesterday, I chaired a meeting of my spiritual support group on a very challenging subject that I have been listening to and experiencing for several months: Choice and Free Will vs Acceptance.

Where Did Choice Begin
I grew up in a very fundamentalist, Pentecostal religious church community, where we considered ourselves the “only real Christians”. As the oldest child, I believed I was responsible for my family emotional welfare, and for following the “rules” of our religion very rigidly and judgmentally.

My church had a very strong belief in “free will” and the personal responsibility for all of our actions, feelings, and thoughts – everything was considered a “choice”. There were really no mistakes or accidents. Even simple errors were where one did not “choose” to be careful or cautious enough. Everything that we said, did, thought, or felt that was not in line with the church was “sin” – and without “salvation”, we were on our way to the final and eternal abandonment and abuse of a literal burning hell.

As a child, I remember being terrified at night before I went to sleep that I might have a negative thought or feeling about someone just before I went to sleep – before I could repent – and I would die or the Rapture would take place and I would be damned to hell or to the “Tribulation” – a period of major abandonment by God, and abuse by Satan and the anti-Christ. Certainly not “visions of sugar plums dancing in our heads”.

The concepts of free will and choice were and are very critical to beliefs that are focused on controlling people’s behavior. Shame – the hemorrhaging pain of perceived abandonment and rejection by God and others -- is by far the most effective motivator sick humanity has ever created. Without “free will” and choices, you cannot legitimately threaten and damn people to a literal burning hell – total and final separation from God and others. The imaginary “God” of religion would be unjust, and cruel – like the humans who created him.

I Wanted to Be a “Good Boy”: Choice Failed
From this abusive and neglectful background, I went out into the world, to earn “God’s” affection and attention by trying to be a “good boy” – trying to follow the rules, and trying to “give my life totally to Christ” -- operating from the insane delusion that I had within me the ability to chose and execute my predetermined decisions.

Fortunately for me, my life began to fall apart in 1985. Humpty Will fell of his wall of free will and choice and into the abyss of “hell” – the seemingly eternal torment of perceived separation and excruciating loneliness away from my God, from my self, and from others. All the intellectual horses, and all of religions men could not put me back together again. And I am grateful today that they couldn’t. But it hurt like “hell” – literally – for several years – for an infinity of eternities. I felt so incredibly and utterly alone, worthless, and bad.

Choiceless Hope
In 1987, I was severely depressed, terrified, drinking heavily, and so lost and seemingly forgotten and abandoned that I wanted to die. Someone sensed that I was struggling and suggested that I attend a Twelve Step spiritual support group. What I remember was they talked about their feelings and pain and sadness – it sounded just like mine – and they were seemingly not hurting now like I was. They laughed, they cried, they smiled, they were friendly – and seemed accepting in a strangely non judgmental way. And I experienced for the first time -- a sense of hope – a sense of unconditional acceptance – a sense of loving Presence.

After a couple of months of attending these meetings, I got a spiritual advisor, and he began to teach me the spiritual principles of the program. Before this, it had just been so comforting to be with people who did not seem to judge or criticize me – and who understood because they had experienced the same “things” that I had.

The Primary Spiritual Principle: Powerlessness
The first spiritual principle my spiritual advisor taught me was Step One: We admitted we were powerless – that our lives had become unmanageable.

I really struggled with this principle. From my religious background, we were not powerless – God gave us a free will and we made choices for which we would be held responsible. In the depths of my “sickness” I had actually used that fantasy and lie to create fragments of hope that someday I would feel different. If I had no choice – if I were truly powerless – I was hopelessly and helplessly lost. Powerlessness really made no sense within the virus laden programming of my brain.

But with his patience and support, I began to experience consciously what he was saying. I became consciously aware of how I would “decide” to do or say something healthy and positive, and I could not will my self to actually do or say it. My conscious intentions and my actual perceptions, reactions, and actions did not match. I was humanly powerless to control and direct my life – powerless to be happy or unhappy – powerless to control the outcomes and results of my words, actions, and behaviors.

Replacing Choice With Spiritual Intimacy: Acceptance
My spiritual advisor later added to the First Step, a second spiritual principle: We came to believe that a Power Greater Than Ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I am sometimes uncertain what my advisor actually said, and what I heard God say through him. He was definitely a “sacred messenger” of a “power greater than me. At one point in his own struggle, I told him what I had heard him tell me. He said he had never said that – but that it was true and very helpful with what he was dealing.

Over the last nearly 23 years, I have come to hear and experience that I do not have choices of any sort. I seem to be able to decide to do certain things – like get a drink of water – and do it. But I have to be cautious not to accept the implications and temptations of such experiences regarding my willpower.

Let me give you a metaphor of my intimate experience with my God and choice or free will:
Imagine that you have an electrical appliance that has been built properly with all the right wiring and circuits and components to do what the appliance is supposed to do. So you go to the appliance, and you start pushing buttons, turning knobs, etc… trying to get it to work. And it will not work. So you go to the instruction manual to try to find a “solution”, and you start by reading the troubleshooter section of the instructions. Very likely, the first question it will ask you is, “is the appliance plugged into a working electrical outlet?” Is it connected to a power greater than itself, and greater than yourself.

And when you check, you realize that it is not plugged into the active presence of the electricity. When you plug it in, the appliance works perfectly. You had to first accept yours and the appliance’s “powerlessness” to operate without an operating connection to a higher power source.

Choice Creates No Choice
My “will”, in my experience, is this way, too. Everything is there to make decisions and choices – except the Power or caring loving Presence to make it work. And to the extent that I believe and try to practice choice and will power as being mine, I unplug my self from my God’s loving energy – and my life does not work.

I can only be as connected to my God as I am consciously aware of and consciously experiencing that I have no power – at all.

Spiritual Intimacy Empowers Living
In the story of Jesus, some people were one day complimenting his work, and he responded, “It is not me who is doing this – but my Dad is doing the work through me.” Even Jesus had to admit that in his human form His power came from His Father – He was actually powerless without His Father. Taking any credit for Himself for what he did – His choice -- would have separated Him from His spiritual source – his loving, caring, and very Present Father.

Free Will is Not Free
I find it interesting to re-experience the story of the Garden of Eden. Humanity was tempted with the concept of “becoming like God” – which I experience as being able to operate and function with “free will” -- free of the necessity for an intimate connection with God. The fall of humans was one of separation from God created by the attempt to “be” without being in intimate conscious contact with God. Everything that has been and is mankind came from this illness of the soul. We are only as reconnected with our God as we are accepting and experiencing of our own personal powerlessness.

My experience of my God in spiritual recovery has been one of realizing, in the intimacy of Their loving Presence, that they have no judgments or criticisms of me. I do not need Their forgiveness because they are not offended by me or anything I have done. I have unlimited access to their Presence and Power – limited only by my attempt to choose my own life.


Someday, We Will All Give An Accounting
In closing, I would like to share an experience I had some months ago: I was meditating, as I do every morning, and I found my self in my “mind” at the Great White Throne judgment, in front of my God. For those who have not been religious, religion teaches that one day -- probably when we “die”-- we will stand before God and give an accounting of every sin we have committed. Kind of like, “he is making a list, checking it twice. Gonna find out who has been naughty or nice.” (Santa Claus)

So, in my vision, I am standing before God to give an accounting of all my sins. God has this huge book in front of Him, and he turns to my page in the book. He turns the book around so I can read what’s on the page. As I look, I can see that the page is blank – there is nothing written on the page. God then said, “This is not the problem. You have never done anything ‘wrong’.” And then He reached over and picked up a smaller book, which had on the outside of book the following words printed, “The Book of Will by Will”. And God said, “This is the problem. You have to forgive yourself before you will let yourself in.”

Acceptance
If I have choices, on my own, I am a “sinner” and I will damn my self to my own personal and eternal hell. When I have no choices – no free will – no will or power separate from my God, I become reconnected to Their Presence – and I am and I do what is sane, loving, and healthy for me to do – naturally and intuitively – as the beloved and cherished child of my Mom and Dad, the “God” of my experience, strength and hope. I can live freely in Their free and loving acceptance – Their intimate Presence – without choices and without “free will” to harm me.

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The Courage to Be Humanly Conscious and Spiritually Awakened

Courage, it would seem, is nothing less than the power to overcome danger -- misfortune, fear, injustice, while continuing to affirm inwardly that life with all its sorrows is good, that everything is meaningful even if in a sense beyond our understanding, and that there is always tomorrow.

Dorothy Thompson

In January, 2003, Liz was diagnosed with a reoccurrence of colon cancer -- the second time since her original diagnosis in 1995. It was beginning to affect her back and left leg. causing incredible pain, and difficulty walking. The picture above was taken two to three weeks before she died -- in 2005. She was on her way to a support group that had been a major part of her life for fourteen years, and lunch with her friends. I really don't remember if she was actually able to go to lunch -- but that was her intent when we left the house.

I took the picture -- and lots of similar pictures -- because I was so impressed with her incredible courage. I don't believe I could have done what she did.

Courage -- I think it's about perception and our relationship with a God of our personal experience and relationship. Courage is seeing into life and its myriad facets of events, circumstances and outcomes -- and seeing a meaning and purpose that cannot be seen with human eyes -- it can only be experienced by a human heart filled with God's Presence.

Courage is believing the unseen -- and living each moment -- each breath -- in the currents and waves of the unknown and uncontrollable -- opening ourselves to feel and experience and risk being fully human -- and loved fully spiritual.

We are the chosen, the called, the awake and present -- we are meant to live "heart wide open" -- to become "rivers of loving life" to others by being human and spiritually present -- all in the same moment.

Conscious life takes courage -- it requires God's Presence -- it involves a willingness to grieve and hurt and be sad -- and to risk joy and serenity, and closeness with God.

It take courage to do more than just believe in God -- instead to actively live in intimate Presence with God.

There will always be a tomorrow -- I believe Liz "knew" that -- even if it is means leaving --

and going Home.

Courage -- remembering not to forget.

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Experience Life's Precious Moments
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Taking a Good Look -- Remembering to Live in Precious Moments

Every now and again, take a good look at something not made with hands – a mountain, a star, the turn of a stream.

There will come to you wisdom and patience and solace

and, above all, the assurance that you are not alone in the world.

Sidney Lovett

This inspirational life quote is a reminder of some simple truths of spiritual enlightenment. First, we need to stop-- ever so often – maybe, more often – and remember, that we have forgotten something. The material world screams at us in no uncertain terms to pay attention to its useless chatter and clatter. And our brains react with screaming fierceness – “we have to avoid the present moment – human consciousness is not acceptable.” Together the material world and our brains whip up storms of illusion and confusion that keeps us from remembering – to remember – to stop and experience and reside in just this precious moment.

Take a look – open the eyes of our hearts – take a good look – at something – experience fully our experience of who we are – in something we are not – in something that is not demanding our attention – but in something that carries the subtleness of life’s inexhaustible mystery – within each precious moment – within each atom of human and spiritual experience.

Nature – natural -- not made by man -- uniquely transcendent compared to all the illusions we can create – “what is man that thou art mindful of him” – touch the face of God in moments of Their handiwork – because there are gifts hidden in their simplicity.

Wisdom – spiritual enlightenment – where our brains begin to clear of the wreckages of our pasts – where a higher Presence begins to glow in the darkened synapses of our brain – clarity of experience and intimate Presence adjusts our perceptions and reactions – and we are free to be more wholly present – in life’s precious moments. Wisdom is where human experience and God’s Presence join to become consciousness and intimacy into being.

Patience involves the absence of obsession with material outcomes because we have the guarantee of God’s Presence that all is planned and prepared for our best. The neural energy of our brains diminishes and we are no longer driven to control what will not make us happy anyway. Holding their hands – we have no need to be responsible for our outcomes, only for our presence within Their Presence.

Solace – relief from pain and grief. “Blessed are they who mourn, for they shall be comforted”. Their Presence comforts us. We are able to flow through our current and past pain and fear and sadness – and find rest. “Come unto me, all ye who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give your rest.”

When I first began to experience rest, I experienced being a very young child, being held by a very attentive Parent and being gently rocked – safe, nurtured, and unconditionally loved and admired. The cares of my mind’s woundedness flowed out and away, and being replaced by a loving stillness – far beyond my brain’s capacity to create.

All of these gifts – nature, spiritual enlightenment, confidence and serenity, and restful spiritual healing – all these are part of the massive and emerging assurance – the personal experience that we are not ever alone – never abandoned or rejected, except by our own injured brains.

Gifts – from someone who likes us and loves us – without conditions or possibility of rejection – precious moments of God’s love becoming spiritual enlightenment.

No longer alone in our world.

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What Happens When We Stop Falling? Listening Heart Mystic

A baby learning to walk falls a lot.

Kathleen Rowe

What happens when we stop falling? Have we “learned to walk”? Have we “arrived”?

I am fascinated by my own desire to finish something – to step out from behind my human stream of being, and find my self at a predetermined set of coordinates – fixed and whole. And yet I am lost. Erected road signs claim to show the way through life to some desirable and earned place of happiness and completeness. And yet I am not -- there.

My brain seems so foolish. It is programmed to project any version of reality that hides my truths – to keep me away from understanding what can only be experienced – to mislead me away from who I really am.

A child -- learning to walk-- is confronted with a physical force – gravity. Something is sucking him or her toward their own feet – the basic and simplest place on top of this giant sphere of existence – the ground of all human beingness. Wandering around the universe of new sensations and experiences, the child is repeated thrown to its knees – to a place of pain and fear --- and then hope – the belief that someday they will be able to negotiate a working relationship with what they perceive to be freedom.

And the child falls – again and again. Until – something seems mastered – and the ordeal has produced its desired end. And now the child races forward to new experiences – forgetting the struggle that occurred to become – in motion.

I experience that to stop falling is to stop growing – to settle into the world’s glittering illusion of dreams. To fall is to reexperience the truth of my human state: without lasting intimate connection with my God, my self and my others -- I am powerless. Areas of my self are disconnected – in this breathing life. So I should always be falling from my own human graces -- toward a state of being that is “more me” – than I was before.

If this is not happening, I am not becoming. I am disbecoming – losing and leaving the existence of my living selves – aging into the oblivion of what my brain paints as the beyond – to finally stumble – back -- at the last -- into the stream of where I must become – and die into the life I leave behind.

The gift of falling is being given to me today, and I am growing – more and more consciously present – and I am faced with my deepest darkest truest selves. Together, with my God’s loving Presence, we are shedding the darkness and becoming a different light.

Maybe “walking” is overrated.

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Listening to Faces: Remembering My Illness of Co-Dependency

Understanding where our need to control came from is a beginning. Most of us, at least before recovery, were insecure. We wanted to protect ourselves from abandonment, ridicule, physical and emotional harm. The only way we knew to do that was to insist others fulfill our needs. We strengthened, day by day, a trait that hinders us now…

A Woman’s Spirit

Yesterday I spoke at the psychiatric hospital where I first began working with co-dependency. It was a weekend family program for families of patients in an intensive outpatient chemical dependency program. I experienced their faces – stressed, worried, frightened, unsure of what they were dealing with and what they were supposed to do. But courageous enough to expose themselves to the information and assistance that was being offered them.

As I listened to their faces, I remembered my own beginnings of recovery – becoming aware of the cycle of destruction that had so mutilated my living:

1. I was hurting and wounded – and uncertain what was wrong or what could be done – why I was so abandoned and alone.
2. I believed that I had to control the situations, and circumstances – the relationships of my life – or everything was totally hopeless and unbearable.
3. To survive, I had to believe that I could control the outcomes of my life – if I tried hard enough I could change things, and make people love me.
4. As I believed I could control the outcomes, I became convinced that “I Am Responsible”– when bad things happened it was my fault.
5. Because I am responsible, I had to do something – to fix, change, and control what was happening.
6. When I did “something” to try to control the outcome, I appeared to be either successful or a failure, depending on the outcome.
7. When it seemed that I was successful, I became even more convinced that I could control the outcomes – if I “just” tried hard enough – I was even more convinced that I AM RESPONSIBLE for what happened.
8. When I seemed to fail, I believed that I was bad, not good enough, deserving to be punished, and I separated myself from others, from my God, and from my true self.
9. Shame raged – the incredible separation, loneliness, and abandonment – disconnected from love, acceptance, and Presence. And I would try harder than ever to control the outcomes of my life – the endless separations – trying with everything I possessed – to please someone -- to be just maybe good enough – to anybody.

This vicious, vicious cycle continued until I could barely crawl across the landscape of my life -- mangled, beaten, tortured – alone.

The more I force things, the tougher my life. Helen Neujahr

If someone had not offered me the light of their love, I would have certainly continued to die – infinite times -- in the hell of my own self degradation and shame.

• The healing began with someone telling me I could not control others or myself. Alone I was powerless – my life was totally unmanageable – especially on the inside. I could not be responsible for the outcomes – the perceptions, reactions, or actions of others – or my self.
• I could only begin to be healed inwardly myself – if I connected personally and intimately with a Higher Power, who could begin to restore sanity to my bruised and insane brain. I was taught how to connect and listen and experience a Presence Who had no rules, or conditions or restrictions for Their loving me. They were as available as my conscious pain made me willing and open to receive.
• And then I was taught how to “act” within this new relationship so that I could increasingly surrender my illness, and the outcomes of my life to Someone who had all the needed solutions, and cared infinitely about my condition and circumstances.

I am a child. Today I have spiritual Parents. Their love, guidance, and unconditional Presence nurtures and supports my living, loving, and healing. I am not alone. And when I hurt – and I still do -- I listen and They are present -- to love away my pain – and make my life an increasingly better place -- by their loving and caring design.

It is not the passionate appeal that gains the Divine Ear so much as the placing of the difficulty and worry in the Divine Hands. So trust and be no more afraid than a child would be, who places its tangled skein of wool in the hands of a loving mother, and runs out to play, pleasing the mother more by its unquestioning confidence than if it went down on its knees and implored her help, which would pain her the rather, as it would imply she was not eager to help when help was needed.

God Calling

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Answers and Solutions -- Listening and Twelve Steps

When I stopped trying to analyze and explain everything and started living the (spiritual) principles, actually using them in my everyday situations, the (Twelve Step) program suddenly made sense – and I wanted to change….

Does analyzing my situation provide any useful insights or is it an attempt to control the uncontrollable?

I have heard that knowledge is power. But sometimes my thirst for knowledge can be an attempt to exercise power where I am powerless.

The Courage to Change

Answers create the illusion that I can control a situation or outcome. If I understand it, I can control it. And for some, this seems to work. Knowing that what is going on is normal under the circumstances, and sorta knowing what to expect in the future, gives many enough relief that addressing the problems and changing becomes unnecessary. Or just thinking about the answers may be able to anesthetize enough of the brain to make solutions unnecessary.

For those people, the road to spiritual ecovery ends here. “Just the facts, please!”

For others, the answers do not give enough relief, and actually increases the level of conscious pain, fear, hopelessness, and helplessness. If we know what the answer is and we are still messed up, what else can we do?

Twelve Step spiritual support groups have the incredible capacity to give both answers – understanding and information-- and solutions – actual spiritual healing and change. And I have to remember the difference, or my disease will try to make the answers be my solution. It’s like taking a Tylenol for a brain turmor – it only treats the symptom, and never addresses the cause.

For me, it has been critical to see solutions as a spiritual process and practice of spiritual living to use in place of my thoughts and intellect. This process starts with the experience and admission that I am totally unable to control the outcomes of my life – including my own perceptions, reactions, attitudes, and actions. This has to be experienced and not thought or reasoned, or I am again trying to solve my problems with answers and not with solutions.

From this experience of powerlessness, I am moved toward conscious contact with a higher Power or Presence, who begins to heal and reprogram my brain: consistent contact with meetings, spiritual advisors, other recovering people, and spiritual readings and literature.

From here, and with help, I begin to identify actions that will encourage and support my surrender to my God’s loving will for me: breathe, do the dishes, shave, get information, ask for help, etc…

And then I continue repeating this process, continuing to inventory and monitor my levels of emotional balance, and ability to love and serve others. When there seems to be a problem, I promptly admit it and improve my conscious spiritual contact with my God.

For those who experience more intense pain and motivation, there are more intense spiritual diagnostic tools in the Fourth through Ninth Steps.

The ultimate question is how important is it – how uncomfortable is it. This will be deciding factor regarding how satisfied we can be with answers, and how motivated we will be to live the solutions.

Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

Soren Kierkegaard

If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.

Zen Proverb

For related, click here: Abandon Reasoning for Spiritual Truth.

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Spiritual Awakenings By Listening to Daily Inspirations

God is presence, warm, all-enfolding, touching
The drab world into brilliance, lifting
The sad heart into song, indescribable, beyond
Understanding.

Yet by a bird’s note, a chord of music,
A light at sunset, a sudden movement of rapt insight,
A touch of love, making the whole universe
A safe home for the soul.
Anonymous (1st Century AD)

Let’s take some deep breaths and listen gently to the words of this inspirational life quote.

What do we hear? What appears on the conscious screens of our minds? What do we experience on the edges of our consciousness? When thought ends for a moment, where do we find ourselves? And where do we find ourselves when thought reemerges. Listen gently……………..

Stopping to listen. A sound ripples across my brain. A warm, somehow all encompassing energy – personal and unconditional – gently flows into my conscious feeling thoughts. A livingness emerges on the edges of what was and is – touchings of someone beyond me – comforting spiritual Presence.

My challenge -- my brain’s perceptions and reactions. I cannot see except what I am – and without Presence, all seems very drab and lifeless – bleak and desolate.

Silence. A sadness – many sadnesses – merging softly -- as warming Presence flows in growing brilliance – changing the beats of my heart into streams of lifting loving connecting experiences. Light and sound, breathing, beating heart, flowing Presence, wisps and mists of growing closeness – beyond my brain’s programming to understand, predict, or know.

Small sensory events – sounds, changes in motion and light, glances and brushes of affection and truth – emerging awareness of a place, within my heart, a home, a loved place, where higher Presence gives safety from the world’s dreaded and anticpated separation. Flowing energies of affections – coming into conscious view -- touch – Presence. What comes, what goes, what becomes – we can be -- in intimate Presence.

God is Presence.

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Mystic Dreamers Bring Life Out Of Darkness

Within our dreams and aspirations we find our opportunities.
Sue Atchley Ebaugh

Our dreams beckon us to new heights. All that we may need is the courage to move toward them, taking the necessary steps to realize those dreams. Trusting that we will be shown the steps, one at a time patiently waiting for the right step and right time is all we need to do, today.

Our dreams, when they are for the good of ourselves and others, are invitations from God to spread our wings, to attempt new heights. Those dreams are part of the destiny designed for us. They are not happenstance. Our gifts are unique. Our contributions are ours alone. Our dreams reflect the contribution we are called on to make in this life.

Our opportunities for fulfillment are varied and not always recognized as for our good. Again and again we need to turn to God, be patient, and trust that we are being called to offer something very special to those around us. And everyone of us is inspired in particular ways, with particular talents. Our recovery is clearing the way for us to burst forth with our talents.

I will be grateful for all that I am, for all that I have. And I will remember, what I give today to friends around me is mine only to give.
Each Day a New Beginning (Hazelden)


I realize sometimes that I am just an instrument, a channel, a conduit for a spirit far greater than myself. There is something truthful coming through me, partly because I am so emptied by the (Way of Darkness) that I am not sitting around controlling things anymore. The (Way of Darkness) is an immense experience of divinity for people. We all have it because we are all creative at some level of our being. This is the experience of cocreation. We realize that, “My God, we are creating with God and God needs us to create.”
Matthew Fox


The intersection between our material and spiritual existence is the mystical power … the point where the axis of God meets the axis of humanity. The modern mystic is someone seeking to embody that point in his or her own experience. … The seeker in us is always seeking more truth, knowing that the search goes on forever. The mystic in us, on the other hand, is trying to practice what we’ve learned of it – right here, in this moment, whatever we are doing.
Marianne Williamson

The space between Heaven and Earth is like a bellows;
It is empty, yet has not lost its power.
The more it is used, the more it produces;
The more you talk of it, the less you comprehend.
Tao Te Ching


Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewal of your mind, that ye may verify with you living what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2

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Most of the world operates only on “facts” – verifiable data, information and knowledge. Facts seem dependable, real, practical, and emotionally secure. The problem is that it is an eventual set up for major personal harm and self destruction.

“If we have hope only in this material world, we are of all people most miserable.” The Bible

The “facts” ultimately leave us abandoned, alone, and desperately hurting – betrayed by what was supposed to be “real”.

The “facts” cannot hold my hand when someone I love is suffering or dies. The “facts” do not give me a sense of hope based a loving confidence in Someone’s loving care. With the “facts” I don’t know how to stop being depressed, or angry or scared. The details can only provide the temporary relief of being distracted -- numbed by thoughts and understanding – and then abandoned to the hopeless and helpless states of my own brain’s racing imaginations.

I heard in a movie, and it is my experience for myself, that a mystic is a person who talks to his or her God – and believes God speaks back to him or her – a Listener. In this twilight of conscious Presence with our God, we “hear’ things within our “hearts” that leads us closer and more consciously present with ourselves and others. The voice of our God becomes present in every person we meet, in every object and event that catches our attention, and in every word that enters our mind’s eye.

From these kinds of experiences, we begin to discover a different “world” – a world of experience and Presence – of unconditional love and limitless inner possibilities. – a world where facts collide in shattering blasts of transforming awakenings – beyond thought and knowledge and intellect – revealing within the mind’s dreams -- hidden truths. Our God’s Presence creates “sensations” not generated by our physical senses – a collection of warming impressions – brushes and touches of hearts melding into oneness –perceptions forming, reactions flowing – a swelling of living impulse – hearts pumping life through the veins of our spirits -- Visions of what cannot be seen, but lives in fullness – another world.

Take a breath – step back – no accidents, mistakes, coincidence – all perfectly balanced – becoming by being – vessels of Presence offered to other craving souls – words, nods, touches, hugs, eyes and hearts touching – most frequently beginning -- borne out of the darkness of our souls – consciously being human and wounded -- fragile to life’s “random” events -- and sadness – when separation – occurs. What we lose we become – the last gifts of pending Presence from shaken walls of shivering selves – creation out of dust and tears.

The space between Heaven and Earth is like a bellows;
It is empty, yet has not lost its power.
The more it is used, the more it produces;
The more you talk of it, the less you comprehend.
Tao Te Ching


Bringing human and our God’s Presence together, we begin to create that for which there are no words – only impressions of our hearts.

Our God’s Presence restores us to our consciousness of mind, joined to hearts -- we experience what is spiritually and humanly healthy, unconditionally loving, and experientially balanced – the willful deliberate plan of our God for our desired better living. Out of our darknesses, mystic selves emerge – and our life becomes -- together -- mystical.

Mystic Dreamers Bring Life Out Of Darkness -- Daily Inspirations

The Article

Within our dreams and aspirations we find our opportunities.
Sue Atchley Ebaugh

Most of the world operates only on “facts” – verifiable data, information and knowledge. Facts seem dependable, real, practical, and emotionally secure. The problem is that it is an eventual set up for major personal harm and self destruction.

“If we have hope only in this material world, we are of all people most miserable.” The Bible

The “facts” ultimately leave us abandoned, alone, and desperately hurting – betrayed by what was supposed to be “real”.

The “facts” cannot hold my hand when someone I love is suffering or dies. The “facts” do not give me a sense of hope based a loving confidence in Someone’s loving care. With the “facts” I don’t know how to stop being depressed, or angry or scared. The details can only provide the temporary relief of being distracted -- numbed by thoughts and understanding – and then abandoned to the hopeless and helpless states of my own brain’s racing imaginations.

I heard in a movie, and it is my experience for myself, that a mystic is a person who talks to his or her God – and believes God speaks back to him or her – a Listener. In this twilight of conscious Presence with our God, we “hear’ things within our “hearts” that leads us closer and more consciously present with ourselves and others. The voice of our God becomes present in every person we meet, in every object and event that catches our attention, and in every word that enters our mind’s eye.

From these kinds of experiences, we begin to discover a different “world” – a world of experience and Presence – of unconditional love and limitless inner possibilities. – a world where facts collide in shattering blasts of transforming awakenings – beyond thought and knowledge and intellect – revealing within the mind’s dreams -- hidden truths. Our God’s Presence creates “sensations” not generated by our physical senses – a collection of warming impressions – brushes and touches of hearts melding into oneness –perceptions forming, reactions flowing – a swelling of living impulse – hearts pumping life through the veins of our spirits -- Visions of what cannot be seen, but lives in fullness – another world.

Take a breath – step back – no accidents, mistakes, coincidence – all perfectly balanced – becoming by being – vessels of Presence offered to other craving souls – words, nods, touches, hugs, eyes and hearts touching – most frequently beginning -- borne out of the darkness of our souls – consciously being human and wounded -- fragile to life’s “random” events -- and sadness – when separation – occurs. What we lose we become – the last gifts of pending Presence from shaken walls of shivering selves – creation out of dust and tears.

The space between Heaven and Earth is like a bellows;
It is empty, yet has not lost its power.
The more it is used, the more it produces;
The more you talk of it, the less you comprehend.
Tao Te Ching


Bringing human and our God’s Presence together, we begin to create that for which there are no words – only impressions of our hearts.

Our God’s Presence restores us to our consciousness of mind, joined to hearts -- we experience what is spiritually and humanly healthy, unconditionally loving, and experientially balanced – the willful deliberate plan of our God for our desired better living. Out of our darknesses, mystic selves emerge – and our life becomes -- together -- mystical.

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