Meditate | What Does It Mean To Be Alive?

Nothing that is a person’s very own has any life in it. When presented to view, it looks hard as bone, and black. Everything that comes from the Lord, on the other hand, has life. It has a spiritual and heavenly quality and looks like something living and human.

Incredibly, perhaps (although it is absolutely true), each word, each mental image, and each scintilla of thought in an angelic spirit is alive. Passion received from the Lord, who is life itself, permeates every single thing about such a spirit. Secrets of Heaven 41

The Lord is life itself. This amazes me. Life is something we receive from the Lord. It is so easy for me to get more focused on the concept of “having.” I have life. I have love. I have passion. But all these things we receive from the Lord. My concept of reception has been shifting. It is now a much more dynamic, moment-to-moment, real time experience of receiving things (like passion and life and good and true thoughts) from the Lord. Recognizing that, that it’s a constant flow is hard for my small, limited mind to handle sometimes, but it excites my spirit.

Also this passage changed my ideas about what is our “very own.” I often in the past have equated what is our “very own” with what is physical. The physical parts of me are inherently lifeless and it is only through the Lord’s influx that I get to be alive.

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Tent Talk: Unexpected Treasures

If you ever find yourself in the wilds of Alaska, stuck in a tent with an obnoxious teenager, you will wish you had read this article by Lauren Anderson. In it she recounts her experience of a surprising opportunity to talk about the big questions of life. Are humans more than animals? Did the universe come from nothing? -Editor

During the month of July, I embarked on an outdoor adventure that would test my tolerance for adverse weather, steep boulder-clad slopes, and adolescent men with drug and attitude problems. My sea-kayaking and backpacking trip through south-central Alaska, indeed, was more of a social challenge than a physical challenge. The challenge was that the average age of my eleven-member student group was seventeen. The culture shock of interacting (for the first time ever in my life) with teens from affluent families and worldly backgrounds of blatant abuse of drugs, alcohol, and sex, was quite shocking and rather dismaying. One lad, in particular, let’s call him Peter, was a huge test of my patience due to his meticulous ability to shirk most work with procrastination and poor excuses, his disrespect of others made apparent by his colorful and repugnant vocabulary, and his disrespect of the environment, which was unfortunately exacerbated by his laziness. It pains me to speak ill of so ill of one, however, which is why I am quite pleased to relay my best (as in, most pleasant and somehow profound) interaction with Peter, and the coincidental – or, more accurately, providential – lessons I learned from it.

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Meditate | Evening to Morning

“Every single moment of regeneration carries us forward from evening to morning, just as it takes us from the outer self to the inner, or from earth to heaven.” Secrets of Heaven 24

“’A crushed reed he does not break, and smoldering flax he does not quench; he propels judgment toward truth. [In other words, he does not break our illusions or extinguish our cravings but bends them toward truth and goodness.]’ Isaiah 42:3, 4, 5.” Secrets of Heaven 25

Whatever my life feels like in a given moment, even when I feel stuck, I can trust that the Lord is using everything of me, my illusions, my false ideas, even my perception of “stuckness” to bend me toward goodness and truth, to lead me to peace and trust.

The evening often feels interminable. I am reminded of a time when with a couple of friends on a trip we ended up camping one night along the way. The camping gear we had with us was limited and we didn’t have very good rain protection. It down-poured all night long and our tent, our sleeping bags, and ourselves got soaked through. There was no sleeping and we had no clocks or light; we only could wait for the dawn and trust that sometime once again the sun would rise.

The possibility of the sun rising can feel so distant and hard to believe in on many levels in my life, when in reality the entire evening is not separate from the morning, but rather is in service to it; it is transitioning to morning constantly; it never stops. Even if the false ideas that come with the evening would like to have us think that the evening is independent of the dawn and can convince us that we’re going nowhere, we’re stuck, and that the night is everlasting, even these ideas the Lord uses to bend us to good and truth. The evening is becoming morning. The Lord is carrying us from evening to morning.        

Meditate | What's in it for Me?

Read the Word and believe in the Lord, and you will see the truths which should constitute your faith and life. Everyone whose soul desires is capable of seeing the truths of the Word in light. (Apocalypse Revealed 224:3)

Enlightenment through the Word comes by an inward route. (De Verbo 13)

So what’s in the Word for us? To put it briefly: the opportunity to enter into a living relationship with the Lord.

The addition of this column was inspired by Alanna Rose’s article, “Meditate on the Word of God.” After reading her article I began to practice daily what she suggests. Each day I read a few numbers from Secrets of Heaven and write down any sentences or phrases that strike me. I choose one or two of these and sit for meditation, concentrating on the passages and what they mean. In time, the passage, like the bud of a flower, begins to unfurl itself in my mind, releasing sweet scents and radiant colors. I take the time after meditation to write down what has come to me.

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It Will Not Be So Among You

With excitement and urgency, Isaac Synnestvedt asks the reader to consider the Lord's powerful and present rule in this world and in the lives of all individuals. He considers the difference between useful and destructive loves of ruling. Finally, Isaac leads the reader to consider the amazing blessings in store when we “persist in charity against all odds.” -Editor.

In actual fact heavenly blessedness does not consist in wishing to have dominion and to be served by others but in wishing to serve others and to be the least, as the Lord teaches.... (Arcana Coelestia 6393:2)

Can our love and good works be filled with the glory of the Lord? Yes! if we prepare ourselves and receive Him. Can we shine from our hearts and rule nations and peoples in the presence of the mighty God of the universe? Yes! The nations we will rule are the affections of good flowing in continually from heaven that we will form into beautiful vessels receptive of life according to our art and skill. The peoples we will govern are the tools of thought and reflection that we will use with intelligence and increasing knowledge to shape our offerings of service. This humble rule will be ours as we turn away from any desire to exercise external compulsion of our neighbors' words or actions. We shall inherit our thrones as we decline the invitation to control our neighbors.

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Skinned Knees and Hurt Feelings Build Character

One of the things Chad does is raise children. Here he shares an anecdote of hiking up a mountain with his kids. Through analogy, and reference to the work Divine Providence, Chad explores ideas about the Divine perspective when caring for His Human children. This essay comes across as humorous and light hearted while conveying satisfyingly grounded philosophical conclusions. -Editor

Lately I have been thinking about the Lord as the Perfect Parent and Divine Providence as His consistent implementation of a flawless parenting philosophy based on the everlasting mercy of His Divine Love and Wisdom! I like this approach because it helps me think of Him in a more intimate way: He is the Person who has been in my life from the very beginning, making things work and loving me unconditionally—rather than my boss, or my coach, or my best buddy or some of the other perfectly acceptable ways of thinking about God. What I like best about this concept of the Lord is that, being a parent myself, it helps me: understand the limited nature of my own freedom; recognize some of the ways that the Lord is raising me toward heaven; and accept that I cannot grow up to be an angel unless the Lord lets me learn from my own mistakes and the mistakes of others.

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