Inner Experience of Oneness
Inner Experience of Oneness
Friday of the First Week of Lent – March 6, 2020
To engage the interior work of the spiritual life means that we begin a journey which will be long, slow, and messy. I don’t know any way around that reality.
I first made conscious contact with God in the context of a faith tradition which promised – both implicitly and sometimes explicitly – that conversion was a one-time decision that would set you up for a lifetime. The goal was the moment of conversion, and any growth or becoming after that initial experience was a bonus.
I quickly realized within my own self that simply responding to an altar call and mouthing some words about giving my life to Jesus did not change all that was sideways in my life. But at that time, I had no idea what to do about it. My best guess was that every time I “sinned,” I lost Jesus and had to go back through the process all over again – I must not have “really meant it” when I gave my life to Jesus all those previous times, don’t ya know? – just to be safe and sure. The cycle was endless.
For me, it took 15 years before I began to get glimpses of another way. In the beginning, I didn’t know it would lead to another way of being with God or thinking about how God was at work in my interior. I was looking for something, and thankfully I began to take some baby-steps toward exploring a more intentional spiritual path.
I’ve come to see in the days since that conversion is not a one-time event; rather, it keeps happening day after day. God continually creates each of us, converting us moment by moment, shifting our life-stance, attitudes, ingrained patterns of behavior, and ways of thinking. It is not enough to have been converted once if we are not also being converted day after day.
Henri Nouwen talks about conversion and transformation in terms of an inner experience of oneness. I like his phrase a lot. Conversion and transformation happen inside us, not outside us, and the long, slow, messy process always involves oneness, that is, joining Jesus in what he is doing in the world.
Read below how Nouwen talks about it.
Indeed, living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness. We realize that we are in the center, and that from there all that is and all that takes place can be seen and understood as part of the mystery of God’s life with us. Our conflicts and pains, our tasks and promises, our families and friends, our activities and projects, our hopes and aspirations, no longer appear to us as a fatiguing variety of things which we can barely keep together, but rather as affirmations and revelations of the new life of the Spirit in us. “All these other things,” which so occupied and preoccupied us, now come as gifts or challenges that strengthen and deepen the new life which we have discovered. This does not mean that the spiritual life makes things easier or takes our struggles and pains away. The lives of Jesus’ disciples clearly show that suffering does not diminish because of conversion. Sometimes it even becomes more intense. But our attention is no longer directed to the “more or less.” What matters is to listen attentively to the Spirit and to go obediently where we are being led, whether to a joyful or a painful place.
Poverty, pain, struggle, anguish, agony, and even inner darkness may continue to be part of our experience. They may even be God’s way of purifying us. But life is no longer boring, resentful, depressing, or lonely because we have come to know that everything that happens is part of our way to the house of the Father.
[Henri J. M. Nouwen, Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981).]
For Reflection:
o We often think of conversion as a one-time event. In fact, conversion is ongoing. It refers to the continual transformation or shaping of our hearts.
o What evidence of transformation do you see in your life over the past 10 years? 5 years?1 year?
o All the experiences of our lives are part of our ongoing conversion. There is no experience we walk through that God does not use somehow to shape us. Reflect on this for a few moments.
Friday of the First Week of Lent – March 6, 2020
To engage the interior work of the spiritual life means that we begin a journey which will be long, slow, and messy. I don’t know any way around that reality.
I first made conscious contact with God in the context of a faith tradition which promised – both implicitly and sometimes explicitly – that conversion was a one-time decision that would set you up for a lifetime. The goal was the moment of conversion, and any growth or becoming after that initial experience was a bonus.
I quickly realized within my own self that simply responding to an altar call and mouthing some words about giving my life to Jesus did not change all that was sideways in my life. But at that time, I had no idea what to do about it. My best guess was that every time I “sinned,” I lost Jesus and had to go back through the process all over again – I must not have “really meant it” when I gave my life to Jesus all those previous times, don’t ya know? – just to be safe and sure. The cycle was endless.
For me, it took 15 years before I began to get glimpses of another way. In the beginning, I didn’t know it would lead to another way of being with God or thinking about how God was at work in my interior. I was looking for something, and thankfully I began to take some baby-steps toward exploring a more intentional spiritual path.
I’ve come to see in the days since that conversion is not a one-time event; rather, it keeps happening day after day. God continually creates each of us, converting us moment by moment, shifting our life-stance, attitudes, ingrained patterns of behavior, and ways of thinking. It is not enough to have been converted once if we are not also being converted day after day.
Henri Nouwen talks about conversion and transformation in terms of an inner experience of oneness. I like his phrase a lot. Conversion and transformation happen inside us, not outside us, and the long, slow, messy process always involves oneness, that is, joining Jesus in what he is doing in the world.
Read below how Nouwen talks about it.
Indeed, living a spiritual life requires a change of heart, a conversion. Such a conversion may be marked by a sudden inner change, or it can take place through a long, quiet process of transformation. But it always involves an inner experience of oneness. We realize that we are in the center, and that from there all that is and all that takes place can be seen and understood as part of the mystery of God’s life with us. Our conflicts and pains, our tasks and promises, our families and friends, our activities and projects, our hopes and aspirations, no longer appear to us as a fatiguing variety of things which we can barely keep together, but rather as affirmations and revelations of the new life of the Spirit in us. “All these other things,” which so occupied and preoccupied us, now come as gifts or challenges that strengthen and deepen the new life which we have discovered. This does not mean that the spiritual life makes things easier or takes our struggles and pains away. The lives of Jesus’ disciples clearly show that suffering does not diminish because of conversion. Sometimes it even becomes more intense. But our attention is no longer directed to the “more or less.” What matters is to listen attentively to the Spirit and to go obediently where we are being led, whether to a joyful or a painful place.
Poverty, pain, struggle, anguish, agony, and even inner darkness may continue to be part of our experience. They may even be God’s way of purifying us. But life is no longer boring, resentful, depressing, or lonely because we have come to know that everything that happens is part of our way to the house of the Father.
[Henri J. M. Nouwen, Making All Things New: An Invitation to the Spiritual Life (San Francisco: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1981).]
For Reflection:
o We often think of conversion as a one-time event. In fact, conversion is ongoing. It refers to the continual transformation or shaping of our hearts.
o What evidence of transformation do you see in your life over the past 10 years? 5 years?1 year?
o All the experiences of our lives are part of our ongoing conversion. There is no experience we walk through that God does not use somehow to shape us. Reflect on this for a few moments.
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