Hello friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in docks.
Welcome back to the last episode in this series of Look Again.
Maybe we'll do another season,
I'm not sure,
But at least for today.
The last episode of this particular series.
So here's what I want us to think about today.
What if you don't need more God?
Seriously,
What if you don't need more God?
You don't need a better prayer life.
You don't need a deeper spiritual experience.
You don't need to read another book or go on another retreat or become more religious.
You don't need to find the perfect spiritual practice.
You don't need to climb higher so that you can get close enough to God.
What if God is already here.
And not just God here,
But God in all of who God is.
The totality of God already here.
We've spent.
12 episodes now looking again.
We question the way we imagine God's presence.
We question the way we think about goodness.
We questioned the divide between the spiritual and the ordinary.
We questioned heaven and sin.
And faith in scripture?
We question doubt and calling and God's will,
And we even question what it means to participate in the life of God.
And I think all of that holds one beautiful discovery,
And that you've been looking for something that was already here all along.
God isn't somewhere else.
God isn't waiting for you to become worthy.
God is not confined to religious or sacred moments.
God is not asking you to escape the world.
God is not frightened by your questions,
Not hiding A secret blueprint of purpose for your life?
God isn't asking you to become an impressive religious person.
God is here.
God is love.
And God is giving.
Life.
And so the problem?
It's not that God's absent.
It's the.
.
.
We are distracted.
Think about how much of your life happens.
Without you actually being there.
You're eating.
But you're thinking about tomorrow.
You're talking to someone.
But you're composing your response.
You're walking,
But you're staring at a screen.
You're sitting in a beautiful place,
But worrying about somewhere else.
You're praying.
But you're wondering whether you're praying correctly.
You're with someone you love,
But mentally you're somewhere else entirely.
Your body's here.
Your attention is elsewhere.
And I think this is one of the great tragedies of being human.
We keep missing the life we're actually living.
My hunch?
That's exactly what Spiritual Awakening is.
Not becoming someone amazing,
But becoming present.
Present to this breath,
This body,
This person,
This moment,
This world,
This life.
And that's why Jesus keeps saying things like,
Watch.
Listen,
Pay attention,
Stay awake,
Look.
Consider.
Notice.
He says things like,
The kingdom is already among you.
He says the treasure's hidden in the field.
The pearl is already there.
The seed's already growing.
The birds are already flying,
The lilies are already blooming.
The child is already standing there.
The stranger is already beside you.
God has been whispering the same thing to us for 2,
000 years.
Look!
Not work harder or get impressive or figure everything out,
But look.
Because maybe the world is more saturated with God than we've allowed ourselves to believe.
And because of that,
Maybe you don't need to drum up a spiritual experience.
Maybe you just need to notice the experience you are already having.
You are alive right now.
You are breathing right now.
You are being held in existence right now.
You are surrounded by people.
Who carry their own stories and their own wounds,
Their own hopes.
And beauty.
Right now you're standing inside a world that you did not create and cannot fully control.
And yet.
.
.
You've been given another moment.
Another breath,
Another chance to love.
What is that?
What if that's holiness?
What if that's already holy?
What if we just stopped trying to make life spiritual and started paying attention to the life that we already have?
Because here's something I've noticed.
The more we chase after extraordinary spiritual experiences,
The easier it becomes to miss ordinary grace.
We would love a burning bush,
But we miss the person who's sitting beside us.
We love to have the voice from heaven,
Right?
But we don't even listen when somebody tells us where they're hurting.
The mystical experiences.
We read about them,
We wonder what they'd be like,
We think we'd love to have them.
We won't be patient with the person who makes us cranky.
We want to feel close to God,
But.
.
.
We keep walking past the people God loves,
And that's backwards.
Maybe the deepest evidence that you're becoming more alive to God.
Is not how we feel.
It's not feeling spiritual.
It's about becoming more available to love.
Coming to a space when we notice more and listen more.
Where we judge less and less quickly.
Where we become more compassionate,
More honest.
We find ourselves more capable of wonder.
Um,
We become less obsessed with ourselves.
More present.
We become easier to be with.
And this all happens,
Not because we've become the perfect people,
But because we've become free.
And that's what all of this has been pointing to.
This series has not been about 12 new things to believe,
Or 12 new spiritual practices,
Or 12 answers,
But this is about a way of seeing.
A way of being awake,
A way of looking at the world and realizing,
Hey,
God is here.
And then asking,
Well,
What does love ask of me now?
That's it.
That's the whole spiritual life.
God is here.
I am here.
This person or this moment is here.
What does love ask of me?
And then.
.
.
Responding.
You don't need more God,
Friend.
You just need to notice.
And you certainly don't need to become more worthy of God.
You simply need to receive God's love.
And for the want of thinking it's the answer,
You don't need to escape ordinary life.
We just need to wake up inside the life that we're in.
We don't need certainty about everything,
Just the courage to keep walking and take the next step.
You don't need to find the perfect core.
You just need to become love wherever you are.
You don't need to control your life,
You just need to learn how to live it.
You don't have to master scripture.
You just have to allow it to change the way you see.
You don't need to eliminate every single doubt.
You just have to remain open.
Maybe you don't need to become somebody else.
You just need to become fully yourself,
Who you are in reality.
God.
When the series ends.
Don't go out looking for the next things straight away.
Don't ask what am I going to listen to now,
Just for a moment stop,
Look around you,
Really look.
Look at the room you're in,
Look at the light,
Look at your hands,
Listen to the sounds around you.
Notice your breathing,
And notice in all this that means YOU breathe.
Are here and God is here.
Is.
Here.
And that's not because there's this special spiritual sacred moment or you prayed the right prayer or you've done the right thing.
It's just because God is here.
And I think you'll look back and see that that's been true every single day of your life.
That God was there before you knew how to look and before you knew the language or any theology or how to pray or what you believed,
Before you became good,
Whatever that means,
Or successful,
Whatever that means,
Or before you became spiritual,
Whatever that means.
God was there and God is here now.
So maybe the spiritual deep practice doesn't add anything.
Maybe it takes away.
Maybe our spiritual practice.
Is about taking away the noise and the hurry and the performing and the pretending and the certainty and the fear and the distraction and it keeps chipping those things off until There you are.
And there is God.
And there's this thing called life.
And you realize.
.
.
That you were never trying to get to God.
Instead,
You were waking up to the God who'd never stopped being with you.
And that's why I called this series,
Look Again.
Because sometimes the thing we're looking for isn't actually hidden.
We're looking past it.
So the invitation to you,
My friend,
I hope you'll take out of this session and out of the whole series is look again.
At God,
At yourself,
At other people,
At scripture,
At your ordinary life,
At the world,
At this moment.
And maybe for the first time.
You'll see it.
And it won't be because anything has changed,
But because you.
Have changed.
And that's the whole invitation.
This is not about finding God,
It's about noticing God.
God.
We don't become spiritual,
We become awake.
And we don't escape this life,
We receive it in all its fullness.
And we don't become worthy of love,
We learn to live from the love that's held us all along.
And when you don't know what to do next,
Just come back to the very simple question,
What is love asking of me here?
And then look and listen and breathe and take the next step,
Even if it's just as far as you can see.
Because,
Friend,
God is not somewhere else.
God is right here,
Right now.
And my take is that God has been here with you,
With me,
With all of us,
All of us.
Long.
All we had to do was look again.
I invite you to join me as we close this series with a prayer.
God of Presence.
We've spent these days looking again at you,
At ourselves,
At our faith.
At the world around us.
And we're beginning to see differently.
So slow us down.
Quiet and still the noise and the movement within us.
Those parts of us that are always searching for something more and help us to notice what's been here all along.
That you are here in this breath,
In this body,
In this moment,
In the people we love,
In the people we struggle to love.
In beauty,
In grief,
In silence,
In ordinary things,
In the questions that we can't answer,
You are here.
Forgive us for the times when we've searched everywhere else except where we were.
Forgive us for the times we've turned faith into a performance.
Forgive us for turning scripture into something that was going to give us certainty.
Forgive us for turning holiness into the way we looked and appearance.
Forgive us for imagining that we had to become worthy.
Before we could receive your love and instead teach us to receive and to listen and to notice and to become present.
And when we doubt,
Meet us there when we fail.
Meet us there when we become distracted.
Call us back.
When we're afraid,
Remind us that we're held.
And when we don't know what to do,
Give us the courage to just take the one little step we can see.
And above all,
Teach us to love.
Because we've discovered that we've already loved.
May your life become more alive in us.
May your love become more visible through us.
May we become people who notice the lonely,
Welcome the stranger,
Forgive generously,
Speak truthfully,
Live courageously and remain awake to the mystery of your presence.
And when we forget or when we rush or worry or lose sight of what matters,
Bring us back.
Back to this breath and this moment.
Back to love.
Back to you.
Because you're not somewhere else and you've never been anywhere else.
You are here.
You've been here all along.
So give us eyes to see.
Ears to hear,
Hearts willing to receive,
And the courage always to look again.
And may faith,
Peace and love hold us and be with us as we do today and always.
Thank you so much for joining me for this journey,
Friends.
I hope that this series has helped you to,
I guess,
The words of Paul,
The scales have fallen from your eyes and you're starting to see more clearly,
Not just about who God is or where God is,
Because God's always been here.
But who you are.
And you are loved.
Till next time.
Bye for now.
