27 God Is... (...Becoming)

There are some sentences we spend our whole lives finishing. “God is…” is one of those. Drawing from Scripture and Christian mysticism, theology and philosophy, and the words of Jesus alongside some surprisingly ancient wisdom, we explore the strange territory where Christianity begins asking questions about consciousness, reality, incarnation, presence, love and being. And we are going to do this with one firm rule: We don’t have to resolve everything. The goal isn’t to come out of these thirty days with a better definition of God but with a larger capacity to notice God. Let's see what happens when we make room for more.

Transcript

Hello, Friends. This is Mark Gladman, Also known as Brother Frederick James, Your friendly neighborhood monk in dogs. Welcome to Day 27 of our series, God Is. As we enter our time today, I invite you just to come into that time of stillness. And quiet of heart. Recognising that we don't need to find complete silence. Or even stillness around us, To be in that quiet, Still place within. So as we come into this time together i just invite you to take a nice deep breath in and out. Before you close your eyes, Just look around and notice three things that you see. And now close your eyes. . . And listen to two things that you can hear. And then as you come fully to rest. One thing that you can feel. In this moment now. As we ask God to speak to us. As we rest in the words, In the presence of the Spirit of God today. Along with the word ABIDE. And my word for. Next year. Stay tuned for that. There's a word. That I sit with a lot right now, And that word is becoming. I like that wit. Because it suggests some movement. I mean life isn't static and neither are we. We are always becoming something. Every experience leaves something behind. Every relationship, Every loss, Every act of love. Every choice changes us or opens some possibilities and closes others. You and I, We're not finished. And we're not finished as long as we're breathing. That's part of what it means to be alive. And the spiritual life. Has sometimes talked about spiritual maturity. As a kind of getting there. You make it there. To holiness or goodness or some sort of spiritual maturity. You know, That eventually, Presumably. . . You'll reach some stable state where you've got everything sorted out. But I've become really suspicious of that picture because transformation, I don't think, Is about arriving anywhere. At least not as a finished version of ourselves. So what is it? Well, How about. . . Becoming increasingly alive to God. God isn't becoming God because God doesn't need to develop into God. God doesn't need to become more divine, But we, We are becoming. We're becoming more awake. And more attentive and more capable of love, More able to receive grace, More able to let go, More able to live without fear, More able to see. And so maybe God isn't standing at the end of this process waiting to see whether we make it or not. I think God is present within the process itself. The invitation, As we've seen, Is already here. The grace, As we've seen, Is already here. Love, Also, Already here. And our becoming. Is the gradual awakening. To it all. This, I think, Is where spirituality becomes very different from religious compliance. Again, Compliances. What have I done? Or what was I supposed to do? But becoming says who, Who am I becoming? Compliance measures something completely different. It measures behaviour. Whereas becoming notices direction, Which way am I moving? Compliance often stirs up fear. What if I don't comply? But I think becoming creates a curiosity in us. Compliance asks us whether we've met a standard, But a becoming, That's different. It asks what love is making possible in and through us. And it's not that they're necessarily opposite. Sometimes. . . Becoming will require some discipline for us. Sometimes it'll require sacrifice or saying no. But the motivation, That's completely different because we're not trying to earn God's acceptance, We're learning to live from the acceptance that's already there and that we already have. Think about a plant. You don't stand over a seed after you've put it in the ground and shouted at it become a tree. What you do is you give it the conditions in which life can unfold. You give it light and water and soil and space and nourishment and time. The growth, Well that comes from within the life of the plant itself. And I'm beginning to see spiritual practices working something like that. Things like prayer and silence and scripture and community and service and attention and beauty and rest. All good things, But they don't persuade God to come closer. What they do is create space. And nourishment and light and water and time for us to become attentive to what's already happening. So that the seed. . . Can sprout. They help us cooperate with the grace of God that's already there. And most importantly, I think this is why failure. Is a part of transformation. You've often heard it said, You know, Failure is how we grow. Well, There is a why to this. Because if becoming. . . Is the goal. Then failure is not the opposite of growth. Failure reveals something. It reveals a fear or an attachment or a wound or an assumption or an old way of seeing. Sometimes. . . We see something that we didn't know was there because of the failure. And it's not to romanticize the idea that we've got to fail so we can, You know, Have this triumphant return. But we don't waste failure when it happens either. It can become material for becoming. We can ask, Well, What is this showing me? What's love inviting me to learn? What needs to change? What needs to be released? And again, We don't try and become. . . The person that we were before we filed. Instead, We're asking, Who am I becoming now as I emerge from this? And it also means that we don't have to be frightened of unfinishedness. Some of us are so exhausted by the feeling. That we should have arrived by now. Let it go, Friend. You know, We don't have to be more patient or prayerful or compassionate or disciplined or certain or holy altogether. You know, Being unfinished. Isn't evidence that God's failed to complete the project, It's simply what becoming looks like. There's still room. There's still possibility. There's still life. There's still invitation. And this gives me a different way of thinking about Jesus. I don't think Jesus invites people into a static religious identity. He says, Follow me, Right? That's a verb, It's movement, It's a way, It's a journey, Following, Keep walking, Keep seeing, Keep coming. Keep beecoming. Keep journeying. So discipleship. Isn't about there's this final, You know. Mastered Christianity. That we head for. That we have to reach. It's just becoming someone. Who's more and more capable every day of living the way that Jesus lived. More awake, More free, More compassionate, More courageous, More present, More loving. Way that we're awake and free and compassionate and courageous and present and loving today is going to be. Less than how it might be in the future. And then more again as we keep becoming and keep living into it and keep understanding it and keep following and practicing and journeying. And allowing ourselves to be open. And I think this is what it means to say that God is at work in us, As Paul said. It doesn't mean God's constantly fixing the defective bits or that God's dragging us towards an external standard that needs to be met. It means that the life of God is drawing us towards greater participation. And freedom and love and awareness and wholeness. We're becoming fully alive. And as we become more fully alive, We discover that the aliveness was never something that we had to create, Never something that we had to conjure up or stir up. It was a gift. It was there the whole time. Grace was already there. Love. God. Already there and we, We're just learning to live awake. To it all. So today. . . The challenge to let go. Of that question, Have I become enough? And to start asking the question, Am I becoming? Am I becoming more open? More loving, More attentive, More free. More capable of receiving, More willing to let go, And more able to see the sacred in the ordinary. More willing to follow the invitation. What is God inviting me to become? For this site. Of love, Because I think love is always opening another possibility for us, Another way of seeing Another way of living. And another step. And that, My friends, That's the great adventure. We don't have to arrive, Whatever that means. We just need to keep becoming more alive to the God who is already here. And may grace, Peace and love stir in us and around us as that awakeness to this God who is here right now. Brings life in abundance to our spirits and souls and bodies today and always. Amen. Thank you so much for being here, Friends. Our journey continues tomorrow, So until then. . . Bye for now.

Reviews

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Yes and Amen! I appreciate the contrast of compliance and becoming. Thank you and bless you💞🕊️

🙏 thank you. Love this encouragement to be available… becoming