I met God, and she is 86 years old... Seriously, I'm not joking!
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A skeptic said, "It amazes me people claim they'll meet God after they die." The Sage replied, "What amazes me even more is so few persons recognize God is here to meet them before they die."
*Brian K. Wilcox. "Meetings with an Anonymous Sage."
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Gospel of Matthew 5.8 -
How blessed! the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
2 Corinthians 5.16 (NRSV) -
From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view (lit., according to the flesh); even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know Christ no longer in that way.
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To see the other is to know the other as more than an appearance. The door opens to an unfathomable mystery. Walk in!
Much religion, like secular thought, leaves us standing at the door. But we are so much more than what we appear to be, and we can meet that of the other and ourselves.
What is that we are? To see another in the Light of Love unveils to us the answer to that question. But it is not merely another answer. The answer leaves us without an answer, like love leaves us without a "why."
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Sitting outside the cafe on Main Street, basking quietly in the sunshine on a May morning, I hear a voice: "That's a beautiful smile." I see a woman's bright, alert eyes looking intently at me. I had smiled at this apparent stranger. I had thoughtlessly smiled, for the smile had arisen spontaneously. I voice gratitude to her for her recognition, surprised by what she had said.
She walks up near me from my right and stands to my left. She looks down at me, wearing a Covid mask. I say jokingly, "I can't see your smile for that mask." She pulls it down. I comment on her radiant smile, then say, "I learned to smile in my 30s." "I'm 86," she says, still beaming, "and I've smiled my whole life."
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Richard Rohr, in Just This, writes, "We become what we are willing to see." Spiritually, this raises the question, "Do we see?" Do we look at the other person or see her? This seeing is intimacy, intimacy is this seeing.
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We meet Sacredness in many places by intention to do so. We do not seek to manufacture these meetings. Like all things of the heart, this arises naturally. Self-effort recedes in surrender, for, as writes the Quaker, David Johnson, "intentionality trumps inability" in the spiritual life (Surrendering into Silence).
A key to experiencing these liminal moments is twofold. First, we prepare ourselves for these moments to arise. Second, we remain in a state of wakeful readiness for them to happen when the conditions are present. When we are ready, we will see, for the eyes of the heart is by nature this seeing. We are this seeing.
