Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. We welcome your insights, too, in the form of comments or even your own article. Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor
If you bring out your soul for someone starving and satiate an afflicted soul, in the shadows your light will rise, and your darkness will be like midday. (Isaiah 58:10)
And he [Abram] moved from there onto a mountain to the east of Bethel and spread his tent; Bethel was toward the sea and Ai toward the east. And there he built an altar to Jehovah and called on Jehovah’s name. And Abram traveled, going and traveling toward the south. (Genesis 12:8-9)
Toward the south means into goodness and truth and so into a condition in which inner things would be clear. (Secrets of Heaven 1456)
Heading south sounds pretty nice right now given that the thirteen winter storms so far this season have made this the third snowiest winter in Philadelphia’s recorded history. Actually, I like snow—it’s the cold that’s really getting to me. I long to be somewhere sunny and warm! Not coincidentally, going south on a spiritual level would feel pretty good, too! What’s going on before Abram travels south? He builds an altar on a mountain between Bethel and Ai. Without going into details (details you could go into on your own by reading Secrets of Heaven 1449 – 1458), Abram going to this mountain is a picture of the Lord’s (during his life on this planet) and our own introduction to being able to love wisely. Bethel is heavenly things, Ai worldly—so being between the two suggests a state of confusion. And here’s where the passage starts speaking to me. Confusion, used as any part of speech, is probably in the top three of words I commonly use to describe many aspects of my life these days. I’m sure it’s just a phase, but here I am. Abram is on this mountain between Bethel and Ai for a time before heading south and thus to clarity. So what does he do in the meantime? He builds an altar to Jehovah and calls on Jehovah’s name. This means outward worship, building the altar, and inward worship, calling on Jehovah’s name. Meditating on this, I ask, what am I to do when life feels so confusing? Confusion is deflating; the energy of it induces me to drop on the floor like an empty, overstretched balloon. Taking this course of action obviously would not help me get anywhere. The answer I get from this brief verse is to focus on outward and inward worship: continue to pray daily and serve others by doing what love would have me do.
Taking this insight to test, I did things, even though initially I felt like an empty balloon. I washed the dishes, I did the laundry, I tidied up. I realized as I did these things that it was like the actions themselves created an interference pattern such that negative thoughts and feelings were cancelled out and resonant thoughts and feelings were amplified. By just doing it, doing what I knew would serve love and life that day, I found that doing other things I know to be loving came more easily as well—comforting my kids, having patience, restraining my tongue.
Later I read further about what it means to travel south, which is equated with the midday sun. The passage from Isaiah is given as an example. How do you make light rise out of a shadow? Or turn your darkness into the light of midday? How do I reorient my life when I find myself saturated with confusion? Put simply and beautifully in the translation of the passage: bring out your soul for someone. A holy and promising command.
Chelsea lives with her husband and three young children in Willow Grove, PA. She is an assistant editor for New Church Connection and an editor and writer for New Church Perspective.