Meditate | Maybe 'Gain' Isn't So Hip After All...

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. You could write for Meditate, too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor

“'And you shall not accept a gift' means detesting any kind of gain. This is clear from the meaning of 'a gift' as anything worldly that is loved, whether it is riches, positions, reputation, or something else that gratifies the natural man, for these worldly things generally are called gain and in the internal sense are what is meant by 'a gift' which blinds and perverts; and from the meaning of 'not accepting' as detesting, for unless such gain is detested it is still looked for and accepted. It is detested when what is heavenly and Divine is loved more than what is worldly and earthly; for to the extent that one is loved the other is hated, as accords with the Lord's words in Luke,

No slave can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other ... You cannot serve God and mammon. Luke 16:13.

'Hating' means detesting, for detestation is a feeling of hatred, and hatred is the opposite of love, which is why it says 'or he will love the other'. From all this it is evident that 'you shall not accept a gift' means detesting any kind of gain.” Arcana Coelestia 9265

So hopefully you’ve already scanned the above quote, but just take a minute to let sink in how extreme that idea really is.  Is there any bigger motivator out there than “gain” (or “self-advantage” in another translation)?

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Meditate | Maybe I'm not so busy...

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. You could write for Meditate, too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. This week Brian Smith is our guest writer. -Editor.

I'm busy right now, which makes a meditative approach to revelation much harder to come by. But I've been reading over Divine Love and Wisdom 333 and 334 a couple times and thinking about the seeming conflict between receiving life as a gift from the Lord and working within the appearance that we are responsible for everything we achieve.

The things we typically try to achieve – food, clothing, shelter, recreation and enjoyment – are all mirrors of what are called the the “uses of religion and worship.” The text says that all the uses of religion and worship “are given by the Lord according to the acknowledgment that all the bodily things are also from the Lord, and that man is only a servant and domestic administrator appointed over the goods of his Lord.” (Divine Love and Wisdom 334)

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Meditate | How It's Been

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. You could write for Meditate, too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor.

“The Holy Supper has three things within it: the Lord, his divine goodness [the flesh and bread], and his divine truth [the blood and wine]” (True Christianity 711). “From these come the three grand faculties within our inner self: the soul or mind as a whole, the will, and the intellect. These three are vessels for receiving the three universal qualities mentioned just above…The reason for this is that we have been created to be an image and likeness of God, so that we can be in the Lord and the Lord can be in us” (True Christianity 712).

“Both [the Lord’s] glorified humanity and his divinity, which was the source of his humanity, are present in [the Holy Supper]” (True Christianity 716). “Where the Lord is fully present, his redemption is also fully present. In his humanity he is the Redeemer, therefore he is redemption itself…Being redeemed means being liberated from hell, forming a partnership with the Lord, and being saved. Moved as he is by his divine love, he would prefer to give us all of these gifts [at once]. Instead we are given them in accordance with our own receptivity: however receptive we are, that is how far the process of redemption takes us” (True Christianity 717).

 “The Lord is love itself and wisdom itself; therefore we are endowed with an endless capacity for uniting ourselves to the Lord and the Lord to ourselves. Nevertheless, because we are finite, his actual divinity cannot become an integral part of us; it can only make contact with us and affect us…We are not life itself the way the Lord was, even in his humanity (John 5:26); we are vessels for receiving life” (True Christianity 718).

The part of these passages I felt drawn to focus on the most in my meditation was the point about how “being redeemed means being liberated from hell, forming a partnership with the Lord, and being saved.” The first and last parts are passive—we are liberated, we are saved. The middle is active—we form a partnership with the Lord. I see a reflection of this point in the way my life has been recently. Over the past six to eight weeks I was going through an incredibly arduous time and felt beaten down by life.

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Meditate | Receiving Life

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. You could write for Meditate, too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor.

“[6] We are not born human, we become human. The form in which we are born is that of an organism for receiving life from God, for the purpose of being an entity into which God can bring all that is good and, through union with him, make that entity blissfully happy forever…[8] They saw themselves as nothing more than vessels to receive life from God…with all their heart and soul…[9] If we attribute all the goodness related to goodwill, and all the truth related to faith, to the Lord and none of it to ourselves, we are human and we become angels of heaven” (True Christianity 692).

How can we be blissfully happy forever? What does it look like to attribute all goodness and truth to the Lord on a daily basis? In one way, I sense it as a lot of letting go and trusting that the Lord’s work and will are being done through whatever is manifesting in my life.

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Meditate | There Ain't Nothing Like a Sound Mind

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. You could write for Meditate, too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column. -Editor.

New arrivals to heaven relaying an idea found in Swedenborg’s writings: “Every single thing that exists on earth exists in an infinitely more perfect form in the heavens… After death, we are perfectly human. In fact, we are more perfectly human than we were before in the physical world...”

One of the new arrivals, a politician: “I cannot actually tell any difference between my being alive then and my being alive now, except that my reasoning is now sounder. When I have reflected on what I used to think, a number of times I have felt ashamed of myself” (True Christianity 693).

This meditation helped me in the circumstances I’m in right now. My one-year-old son is sick and I feel a lot is being asked of me. Well, not a lot, but one big thing: not to put myself first, but instead put my children and my husband first, and handle it gracefully, that is, with Grace, without turning the experience into resentment and reason for blame—which I did just this morning.

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Meditate | Mindfulness and Most Ancient Breathing

Meditate is a monthly column in which insights gained from meditating on the Word are shared. This month Stephen Muires writes about the subtle breathing that ensues during periods of mindfulness and its potential to connect us with heaven. You could write for Meditate, too! Contact us if you'd like to write a submission for this column.-Editor.

If praying is talking to God, thanking God, asking God, then meditation is listening to God answering.

In mindfulness our own thoughts are temporarily invited to leave center stage and leave space in the middle for a fullness of experience involving the full mind. That’s why it is called mind-full-ness.

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