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| When I read John Main and listen to him again on the tapes I am reminded that this is the work of meditation and the fruits he so urgently wanted to communicate. To prepare our hearts free of ego and addiction to receive this incredible gift that he called the human consciousness of Christ. |
On this Christmas day I want to send greetings and a message of gratitude to all
those who share this journey of Christian Meditation and whom I consider my
community. My heart is full of gratitude for all the ways I have been blessed, and
been able to grow through my encounters and experience with you all.
There are two people who have been hugely influential in my life and represent
the best of living the call of God to be transformed into examples of His love. The
first is Bill Wilson the co founder of Alcoholics Anonymous and of course you all
know the second, John Main. Both were men who allowed the Grace of God to
transform their lives and communicate a necessary teaching to help many to
return to their spiritual home. For me Bill Wilson and the AA experience gave me
the tools for reformation and John Main and the teaching of Christian meditation
the way of Integration. The combination of the twelve steps and meditation has
brought me to the point that Gerald May calls consecration of life, which leads to
transformation. This requires commitment, fidelity and simplicity, things I have
found extremely difficult to live up to. But it seems that all my mistakes and false
starts have only aided in my becoming more available because I recognize my need
for ego deflation at depth as Fr Ed Dowling described the “ bottoming out”
experience that we all need in order recognize our own need for God and then to
experience his unfailing Love. This I believe is what is called a spiritual awakening.
Bill Wilson describes spiritual awakening this way: “When a man or woman has a
spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that they are able to do,
feel and believe that which they could not do before on their unaided strength
and resources alone. They have been granted a gift which amounts to a new state
of consciousness and being. They have been set on a path which tells them they
are really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be
endured or mastered. In a very real sense they have been transformed, because
they have laid hold of a strength which, in one way or another, they had hitherto
denied themselves. They find themselves in possession of a degree of honesty,
tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind and love which they had thought
themselves quite incapable. What they have received is a free gift, and yet
usually, at least in some small part, they have made themselves ready to receive
it.”
When I read John Main and listen to him again on the tapes I am reminded that
this is the work of meditation and the fruits he so urgently wanted to
communicate. To prepare our hearts free of ego and addiction to receive this
incredible gift that he called the human consciousness of Christ. I remember
distinctly on one of the tapes when he was speaking about Christmas, him saying
something to the effect that it may be great historical fact that Christ was born
2000 years ago but what good does that do us if He isn’t born every day in our
own hearts!
I was particularly struck by his words in Letters from the Heart of December 1979.
He had just recovered from surgery and I am sure there was a heightened
awareness that the time to communicate his message may be growing short. Here
is what he said: “So often in the past I have urged you to be faithful to the
recitation of your ‘one little word’ in the time of your meditation, as a means of
leaving behind all the noisiness of your own words and thoughts. At this time of
Christmas – the time of the Incarnate Word– let me urge you to utter faithfulness
during your morning and evening meditation, the word and only the word.
I am so grateful that I found these two great teachers and I would like to give John
Main the last word from one of his last conferences on tape where is you could
sense an incredible power of experience in his voice when he said: God is…..God
is Love……His Love dwells in our hearts!
My experience of this in the community of meditators is that in the very space of
silence among us we are bathed in the healing power of God's Love.
PAX
George
Dec 25/03
those who share this journey of Christian Meditation and whom I consider my
community. My heart is full of gratitude for all the ways I have been blessed, and
been able to grow through my encounters and experience with you all.
There are two people who have been hugely influential in my life and represent
the best of living the call of God to be transformed into examples of His love. The
first is Bill Wilson the co founder of Alcoholics Anonymous and of course you all
know the second, John Main. Both were men who allowed the Grace of God to
transform their lives and communicate a necessary teaching to help many to
return to their spiritual home. For me Bill Wilson and the AA experience gave me
the tools for reformation and John Main and the teaching of Christian meditation
the way of Integration. The combination of the twelve steps and meditation has
brought me to the point that Gerald May calls consecration of life, which leads to
transformation. This requires commitment, fidelity and simplicity, things I have
found extremely difficult to live up to. But it seems that all my mistakes and false
starts have only aided in my becoming more available because I recognize my need
for ego deflation at depth as Fr Ed Dowling described the “ bottoming out”
experience that we all need in order recognize our own need for God and then to
experience his unfailing Love. This I believe is what is called a spiritual awakening.
Bill Wilson describes spiritual awakening this way: “When a man or woman has a
spiritual awakening, the most important meaning of it is that they are able to do,
feel and believe that which they could not do before on their unaided strength
and resources alone. They have been granted a gift which amounts to a new state
of consciousness and being. They have been set on a path which tells them they
are really going somewhere, that life is not a dead end, not something to be
endured or mastered. In a very real sense they have been transformed, because
they have laid hold of a strength which, in one way or another, they had hitherto
denied themselves. They find themselves in possession of a degree of honesty,
tolerance, unselfishness, peace of mind and love which they had thought
themselves quite incapable. What they have received is a free gift, and yet
usually, at least in some small part, they have made themselves ready to receive
it.”
When I read John Main and listen to him again on the tapes I am reminded that
this is the work of meditation and the fruits he so urgently wanted to
communicate. To prepare our hearts free of ego and addiction to receive this
incredible gift that he called the human consciousness of Christ. I remember
distinctly on one of the tapes when he was speaking about Christmas, him saying
something to the effect that it may be great historical fact that Christ was born
2000 years ago but what good does that do us if He isn’t born every day in our
own hearts!
I was particularly struck by his words in Letters from the Heart of December 1979.
He had just recovered from surgery and I am sure there was a heightened
awareness that the time to communicate his message may be growing short. Here
is what he said: “So often in the past I have urged you to be faithful to the
recitation of your ‘one little word’ in the time of your meditation, as a means of
leaving behind all the noisiness of your own words and thoughts. At this time of
Christmas – the time of the Incarnate Word– let me urge you to utter faithfulness
during your morning and evening meditation, the word and only the word.
I am so grateful that I found these two great teachers and I would like to give John
Main the last word from one of his last conferences on tape where is you could
sense an incredible power of experience in his voice when he said: God is…..God
is Love……His Love dwells in our hearts!
My experience of this in the community of meditators is that in the very space of
silence among us we are bathed in the healing power of God's Love.
PAX
George
Dec 25/03
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