Connecting with the Divine

April 5, 205

I woke up early this morning to drive to Detroit to help my sister with packing for a move she will have to make at the end of the month. As I rushed around getting dressed, preparing breakfast and packing my purse, I suddenly told myself or someone told me to sit down for a minute and try to do some silent worship before leaving my apartment.  I had made a promise to my spiritual friend to pray for her and I had not done that in several days.  My friend and I had talked about what prayer meant to her and her explanation allowed to include was spacious enough to include activities I could engage in on her behalf. 

 

I don't really do prayer; I don't believe in a God who has a personal interest in whether or not I get a new car or recover from a disease.  I do believe that there is an energy running through the universe that is accessible and that can help us navigate through life but I do not pray to it.  And until recently I felt I had no access to it. The Quaker idea of prayer or at least an aspect of it is the concept of holding a person or a situation “in the light”.  So if someone would ask to be held in the light, initially I would think of that person and surround them with light.  I had no faith in this practice because it seemed I could hardly hold someone else in the light when I felt I had no access to it myself. 

 

A few weeks ago, I asked a fellow Quaker to engage in a spiritual friendship with me which is basically a commitment to support each other through our spiritual growth by meeting on a regular basis to worship and share about our successes and challenges on our spiritual journeys. It was during one of my conversations with my spiritual friend that I realized I do have access to the light, to that universal energy. 

 

I had always believed that if I was able to access this divine energy that 1) the presence of such a connection would be dramatically evident and 2) I would suddenly experience the peace of mind and spirit that has eluded me all of my life. And since neither of these had happened I assumed I had no connection to the divine.  But it hit me, during this conversation with my friend, that I had indeed felt that divine presence.  I felt it when I silently worshiped with my fellow Quakers.  Not every time but often I feel the deep sacred silence within my being, something that settles everything within me and I am able to rest in that silence.  This was an unacknowledged miracle.  I was able to experience that profound peace I have been seeking for a lifetime and did not recognize it.

 

There was no fanfare, no dramatic outward evidence that I was in the presence of the divine but I was suddenly able to see that I had been all those times that I was able to settle into silent worship. I was not able to immediately recognize it because there were no fireworks and the heavens did not open in any obvious way but also because in my everyday life my mind was still troubled and my spirit unsettled.  And then I had my second revelation:  I could access this deeply restful and peaceful energy at any time.  I only had to be still and silent and rest in it.  And I have slowly, in fits and starts, been able to stop myself at different points during the day to take a few moments to connect with spirit, God, the universe, however I name it in that moment.  And it is what I did this morning in the middle of my frenetic activity.  I sat down and connected with the divine.