Cynthia Bourgeault, mystic theologian, author, and contemplative, says that beneath the surface of Western culture runs an ongoing current of 'existential anxiety'. Most of us can relate to this, both in our own experiences and in the experience of those around us. The culture feeds on fear.
Yet there is another choice: the way of Love and Grace. One lives in the thinking mind, the other lives in the Wise Heart.
Far from being impractical or lofty ideals, choosing Love and Grace over fear opens the way for a wholly new experience. Yes, it takes practice; daily. And with practice, a space is opened and grace flows in.
This is such a different way than the fear and anxiety we consider 'normal', though it's not. It's a miscreation, a false reality, born of a belief that we are separate: from our own Divine Nature or higher wisdom, from one another, from the glorious Life that breathes in and out of us and connects all things, and from the Divine or higher intelligence at the center of seeming chaos.
The intelligence of Life beckons us, nudges us, calls us to our birthright - that knowing and experiencing of Love and Grace. There are also times when radical events shock us out of an old worldview or habitual pattern, and space is created in that way.
I've often required the latter, though my heart yearned for the former ... the gentler beckoning, the graceful response to that invitation. Thankfully, with practice and heartful intention, that's changing.
Yet I have watched in wonder time and time again how grace arises in the space that has been created by my own intention or by a jarring circumstance that in one fell swoop, brings down the walls of my resistance. Angels in human form come out of nowhere to assist, synchronicities happen, seemingly impossible obstacles fall away through surprising and often amazing ways.
I find myself ever grateful for this 'evidence of Grace', and it gives me courage to invite that way - the Way of Grace - to dissolve the old 'Law of Karma' belief in the necessity or 'normalcy' of fear, struggle, existential anxiety, and separation, and reveal the beauty and connection that exists at all times.
Some call this Pronoia - the Universe conspiring on your behalf, if you'll allow it. Others call it Love. Either way, the signature, the hallmark, is Grace ... a Grace which unfolds with such simplicity, such elegance, that it gives us some idea of how it might be possible for Heaven to exist on Earth.
May this Way of Grace open more and more in our hearts and minds, and may we more and more easily allow the space for it.
Joyful Blessings,
Jamie
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