Author: Cherie Renae

Tarot cards are sometimes part of my morning devotions. They aren’t future-telling devices, at least not for me. Over many years, I’ve found they help me clarify issues and events. They provide an objective perspective and point out things I may have missed – my own private counsel.

Lately, I’ve been drawing the Judgment card. Every time it comes up, my shoulders scrunch and I have the urge to hide in a corner, because to me, judgment sounds a lot like tried, convicted and hung. I decided to do a little research.

Since I follow the Christ, I looked to church teaching for insight. I didn’t have to dig very far. Every Sunday we recite the Nicene creed, which states that Jesus will return to ‘judge the living and the dead’. What do we mean by that?

I found that the culmination of judgment isn’t verdict and sentence, but wisdom and joy. Christ didn’t come to condemn, but to save. In the original Greek,  in this passage (John 3:17) the word ‘save’ means to make whole, to heal. Being saved isn’t about avoiding damnation; it’s about developing into our best selves, into the people we already are in the eyes of the Divine.

That means judgment isn’t about conviction or absolution, payment or reward, but rather, it’s a method for personal evolution. It’s really a five-fold process:

· reflect and evaluate – what were the events, the emotions?
· discern and learn – what caused hurt, healing, pain, joy?
· release the negative – letting go is necessary.
· enfold the positive – be lifted. Grow!
· clear and open – relax and be ready for new things.

Judgment is something to anticipate, not shun. I am reminded to enjoy this moment of culmination, and to take time to embrace the merciful gift of judgment.

At the beginning of the year, I wrote down a set of truths by which I choose to live:

1. I live transparently and authentically in abiding love and joy.
2. I embrace unfolding truth, affirming thoughts and constructive action.
3. I reject outmoded beliefs, negative notions and destructive impulses.
4. I let my voice be heard, and I share my path with others.

I’ve been deeply considering #4. How can I best share my heart and my vision? I love sharing through my photography and writing. Recently, I’ve also been considering public speaking and/or workshops.

Would people be interested in journaling workshops, photography workshops, or a combination of the two? What about short talks or articles on concrete ways to lead creative, affirming lives? I have so many ideas!

I picture the Divine as a mountain. There are many paths already worn up and around this mountain: major paths like Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Judaism & Islam, as well as less-worn paths. Most of us choose a path whose entry point is near us – Christianity in the West or Hinduism in India, for example.

Those who say, “I will forge my own path,” rarely ascend beyond the foothills. It is a lofty goal to strive to be in the trail-blazing company of Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad & others. The danger of ‘my own path’ is that it is very difficult to forge a new way. It is much more likely that we will miss out on most of the journey by giving up while still on the gentle slopes, after using up our energy hacking through thorns & brush. ‘My own path’ is usually a short track that leads only to a shallow spirituality.

How blessed are those saints who light the path for us, at least for a few steps! They illuminate, for a glimmering moment: granting us a vision of beauty, love, hope & joy, & giving us the strength to clamber on.

We who have no hope must yet hope. We who have tasted death must look through it to life. We must journey & believe that we will arrive, though we suspect we cannot.

We must wear our inside on the outside, & believe that we can internalize that which is external, believe that we can transform it through our spiritual bowels into hope.

What madness is this?

It is the madness of mercy. It is divine mercy, which transforms all things into glory through love, mixing & blending all – good, evil, up, down, right, wrong – into a mad swirl Beyond our senses. We Name the swirl Nirvana, Heaven, Paradise – unknowable & yet deeply known.

1. The religious paths are true. Whether they are ‘real’ was never the point. Choose one.

2. You have to know what you’re looking for. Spirituality takes training.

3. Matter matters. Spirit suffuses every space between the electrons. You cannot separate matter from Spirit. It is all sacred.

4. Spirit is not some ephemeral, intellectual abstract. It is tangible, it is palpable, it is both real and true.

5. The point of religion is to make us better able to see Spirit, to be Spirit. It is deep love, deep passion, deep thought. To be alive, to connect with Spirit – which is every bit of matter, living or quiescent – this is ‘esse’, the essential.

6. Religious belief & practice open us to Spirit. We hear about ‘spirituality’ vs. ‘religion’, but religion is just our spirituality developed & put into practice. Without it, spiritual progress doesn’t happen, & it remains in the realm of fantasy. Just like great dreams of earthly accomplishment – without a concrete plan, action & follow-through, they remain castles in the air.

Wings.
I feel my
WINGS.
Unfurled,
heavy attachments
to my shoulders.
The breeze,
the Holy breeze
as they flap lazily
keeping my spirit aloft.
Wings.
I had forgotten.

If God created everything, and if everything God created was Good, then what we call evil must merely be Good twisted and warped beyond recognition.

In that case, a seed of Good must still lie at the heart of every terrible act, thought & event, because evil is not stronger than God. It cannot destroy what God creates, but only mask it from us temporarily.

That means what we view as evil cannot be the final result, but only an intermediate step visible in this complicated universe. We can trust that in the end, every painful, sorrowful, heinous thing will be transformed: subsumed by the Good that lies hidden deeply within.

In the end of all ends, Good wins. And that is a hopeful thing.

What do you have for me, O Divine?

The response: “In this time of holiday celebration, go deeper. Reach inside the season.”

I see an explosion of glittering red. Red for sacrifice. Red for passion. Red for wild joy. I see glimmering shards of deep red Christmas glass, each one capable of piercing the human heart with a fierce joy that changes the way we view the world, that changes the world itself.

I am pierced. My heart is torn as the shard enters. The blood, my blood, nurtures the sharp sliver of glass. My heart becomes a womb which quickly bursts forth with the birth of a new batch of glimmering red, shooting through my body & out my fingers & toes.

“Go forth as a fierce messenger of a wild joy – shower others with shards as well, so that one may pierce through each heart and they in turn may be seized by fierce joy. It is joy and love that conquers the world.”

In a Taize service, I sit before cross & candle, meditating. God stands before me. She reaches into me and starts pulling on a large tumor of pain & hurt. The tumor has tentacles that reach deep, twining around my essential parts, its stringy fingers reaching even into my brain.

She gives a hard tug. It hurts like crazy when She does that, making my eyes water. But it is too twisted and tangled in my essence to give way.

“I just wanted you to see how deeply embedded your pain is,” she says. “There is no way you can get it out yourself.” I nod agreement, my eyes still stinging.

Then she taps her fingers together. The stringy, globby mess turns to dust & blows away.

“But I can take care of it all,” she notes. She taps her fingers again, and the tumor returns.

“I just wanted you to see how easily I can heal. When you’re ready, ask,” she says.

A bell rings. Meditation time is over. The vision fades. The reading begins. It says,

“The pain & the wounds go too deep for us to heal alone. Only God, only a far Greater Power can penetrate such depth of pain, & gently, gently soothe & kiss us into wholeness. It is too much for us, all of it has to be given over entirely to God. All of it.”

Why do I hold so doggedly to my sorrows? Uncurl your fingers, let loose the pain, be healed.

What do you have for me, my dear crazy Divine? You are crazy by any human measure, crazy judged by what you have us do, crazy beyond measure. Sane beyond measure. Beyond measure, truly.

How do you measure light? How do you measure the darkness? How do you measure when both burst in far beyond human capacity to experience, yet register deeply on the human soul? What am I to do with the darkness, lord of the Holy? What am I to do with the light?

You push me – I think you push too far. Do you delight in exploding this fragile earthen jar again & again?

I see your face ever before me. Playful yet intense, & always asking “Can you stay with me now?” Your dark eyes are filled with love & concern & support…and desire. Patient desire, but desire all the same. You want me. You want my heart, my soul, my mind, my all.