Deepening Realization

I was fortunate to attend a short contemplative prayer retreat out at Mustang Island Retreat Center this past weekend. We spent three hours a day in prayer and three hours a day in class, being taught from the book The Lessons: How to Understand Spiritual Principles, Spiritual Activities, and Rising Emotions by its authors Sandy Casey-Martus and Carla R. Mancari. It was much like the retreat I described here. (You may recall that the Reverend Sandy Casey-Martus is the priest of All Saints Episcopal Church here in Corpus Christi.)

There were 21 people in attendance, some from different churches and locales. Two people who attended the retreat linked above were there. Friends from All Saints and my lectio divina group also attended. I met an older woman who lives in Austin, who surprisingly grew up in Lynden, WA where my mother lived after she was seven years old.

One of the topics discussed was realization: A realization stays with you, as it helps you realize your Godly nature of love. Experiences and insights will come and go, fading from memory--but not realizations. A realization marks a moment of clarity and insight that causes one to change something about one's life or attitude. What is more, understanding takes time to develop. That reminds me of how many years it took Julian of Norwich to write with more understanding about the visions of Jesus Christ that she experienced on her supposed deathbed. It took Paul ten years to integrate his experience on the road to Damascus.

"Realizations and enlightenments require time to expand and deepen. For this reason, wisdom may seem to lag behind a realization and often does. Wisdom comes naturally from within awareness in due time." (78)

An expansion of a a major realization of my life occurred this weekend. When I was still depressed and spending too much time on suicidal ideation in 1999, I was blessed with an indescribable flooding of God's love, which I understood to mean that I would never kill myself. That realization changed my life in that I knew I would never sink into such depression again. And I progressively grew healthier.

11 years later I suddenly realized that I needed that interpretation for the past decade, but that it also has a fuller meaning: God infinitely loves and exists and I (and humanity) will always be in the Divine with no end. I believe that this understanding came from my practice of sitting in Christ-Centered Prayer twice a day since January 2009.

"It is in God-awareness that you live, move and have your being. You are the heart, mind, intellect, and voice of an individual expression of the Father/Christ Consciousness on this earth." (78)

(The quotes are from Best-Kept Secret by Sandra Casey-Martus and Carla Mancari. This describes Christ-Centered Prayer in a more narrative form than The Lessons, which is more of a workbook and teaching aid to the prayer.)

I am glad I was at the retreat, which ended this morning so there was time to go to church with MJ and CB. (MJ drove back to San Antonio this afternoon. She starts working for one of the Trinity University professors tomorrow--doing chemistry research.)