Magic of Beginnings

Do you remember the first day of a new school year? Maybe your senior year in high school? Or the first day you met your best friend? Those days reach deep into our memories because they hold the magic of beginnings.

I recall not the first day of meeting my best friend in high school, but the first day of our friendship. We were freshmen, working in the library, shelving books. We were teasing each other ~ about what, I'm not sure exactly ~ just banter. As she shelved a book titled The Ugly American, she said to me, This is what you are. I retorted, You too. And she replied, Oh, no. I am not an American. I was born in Germany. Somehow, that precise moment began something deeper. The joking around stopped ~ at least temporarily ~ while we began a new conversation about the more intimate features of our individual lives.

Then there was the day I went to visit a particular college campus. Applying to that university was linked to that high school friend. She was planning to go there. I hadn't even considered it. Then I did. When I set foot on the quad and walked under the trees, across the grassy spaciousness, it felt like home. The irony was that I completed my undergraduate degree there; my friend never attended a single day.

Beginnings. As 2016 begins, I look back at those quixotic moments that led me to turn a corner or a page or .... whatever diverse object or subject set before me .... and my entire world shifted accordingly. Though I have no set resolutions, I have a practice of watching for changes bubbling the surface and creating patterns. If I pay close attention and trust the process, the magic will show itself.

What beginning moments do you most vividly recall? Can you describe them in detail? Where did each of those moments lead you? What magic occurred for you? What are you watching happen as 2016 begins?

Choices

"God must act and pour himself into you the moment he finds you ready. Don't imagine that God can be compared to an earthly carpenter, who acts or doesn't act, as he wishes; who can will to do something or leave it undone, according to his pleasure. It is not that way with God: where and when God finds you ready, he must act and overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure, the sun must overflow into it and cannot refrain from doing that."

~ Meister Eckhart

Before anything else, my disclaimer: I generally don't use 'he' God language. However, I am quoting Meister Eckhart and that's the language he used. Think about this in whatever terms feel most comfortable for you.

How amazing! I have free will ~ I can determine my actions or inactions. They are governed by my 'pleasure' ~ simply put, my own personal choice. If I want to stay home in bed until past noon, I can do that. If I want to sew a dress for myself, I can do that. Everything is governed by my choices.

Yet according to Eckhart, God doesn't have that same opportunity to choose. If God finds me ready ~ whatever that may mean ~ God must act. Like the river rushing to the sea ~ encountering rocks and a drop off, it becomes a waterfall or a set of rapids. The river has no choice. It can't say, "No, I don't want to do this now." It can't wait until later or change what it does or where it goes. It becomes a force that acts because it IS...... not because it chooses.

I've never thought of God in those terms ~ acting in certain ways due to His very nature. It's a thought I will continue to ponde

How do you experience God? What do you think is His nature? What do you think about His actions?