Journal of Sacred Work

"Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" – words of Jesus spoken to the Apostle Paul on the road to Damascus (Acts of the Apostles, verse 9.)

   Enter a time machine for a moment and imagine yourself a contemporary and friend of Saul's before he became Paul. You, Saul, and others spend your days tracking down and persecuting Christians. You torture every Christian you capture and think of yourself as successful. You and your friends hurl epithets at your prisoners and deride them for their foolish beliefs.

   One day, Saul comes to you a changed man. "I have heard the voice of Jesus," he tells you..You mock him. But, soon, you discover that Saul has become Paul and is now passionate about his new faith. Those he tortured he now sees a martyrs. Paul has become a Christian.

   The conversion experience that turned Saul, a persecutor of Christians, into Paul, among the greatest champions of Christianity, has inspired hundreds of millions since it appeared in the New Testament of the Christian Bible.

   It may seem strange to imagine that such an experience might come into our lives. The truth is, transformational experiences are common among many, though most are quiet and far less dramatic. We may not hear the voice of God. But, we may hear other voices within that tell us we need to change our lives.

   Where attention goes, energy flows. This is one of the two or three most important sentences in my life and I hope it will become so for yours. When our attention heads toward bitterness, energy and a feeling of desolation, we can begin to change this by remember that God is always present, even especially in our darkest hours.

   In order to live Love, most of us, as caregivers, need to experience some kind of epiphany. Otherwise, we may remain stuck living in some of our most negative patterns. Further, we will not be able to resist the seduction of the status quo. To enter a life of living Love continuously and consistently, we need a turning point that will bring us face to face with a choice to transform, or to stay the same.

   The world has taught us how to be selfish. In fact, the body we occupy in this world seeks patterns of comfort that may be inconsistent with Love. God's Love informs us of the need to serve others in deeper ways.

   Sometimes, transformation takes years of effort combined with a series of transformations of lower magnitude. Sometime, it takes a jolt as strong as Paul received for us to change life-long behavior patterns. 

   Epiphany may arrive amid a sudden, traumatic event. Following a death, or over severe and sudden loss, we may experience a "death" of our old way of looking at and living in the world.

   In these moments, sometimes when we least anticipate it, comes a moment of deep epiphany, a time when God's Love appears clearly and powerfully in our lives. Loss can lead to bitterness. Or we may find a sudden change can lead to the richest kind of joy.

   Epiphany can be experienced as sudden flood of unique energy. In this wake, we may discover a whole new consciousness. 

   I have experienced two of these moments that I can identify. The first happened when I was four. The second happened fifty years later. I had no idea how to act. After the second, I enrolled in divinity school and graduated. Still, I find myself struggling to follow up on and live out what I know to be true. Love is the only way, yet I allow myself endless diversions.

   I know of those who have experienced near death. These traumatic events, in which some feel a great blaze of light or (less often reported) a frightening darkness. The occurrence always changes the person for the rest of their lives.

   The importance of these moments is not only that God appears to us, but whether we are able to follow up – to integrate and sustain this new knowing through our life actions. It is all too easy to marvel at the experience, decide we are going to commit to Love's path and then slide back into our comfortable old patterns.

   To hope for an epiphany, and decide the pathway is to do nothing but wait, is to mistake the nature of such an experience. Out human will, combined with loving service in the world, will always move us closer to Love's light. 

   Moments of epiphany are precious. We increase our chances by forgetting our selfish desires and letting the doors to our hearts fall open. Then, like Elijah, or like Saul, we may one day here the voice of God's Love more clearly than ever before.

   Our epiphany may come through something ordinary, the discovery of beauty in the appearance of leaves in spring or their departure in the fall, the birth of a baby, the death of a friend, the discovery of a new and gorgeous love, all events that prove to us that God has present all along. Or it may come with no apparent provocation. The event simply allows us to glimpse God's light.

  Because of the nature of our human weakness, we are likely to block Love from our hearts. We may think of Love as calling for sacrifices we don't wish to make.

   In fact, Love enables us to endure sacrifice in the service of others. Suddenly, what seemed like sacrifice becomes joy. But, this is often unclear to us beforehand.

   Engaging the seven energies of Radical Loving Care is certain to change our lives for the better. However, we are will not engage these energies in a meaningful way until we experience the power of our own epiphany (or, sometimes, epiphanies.) 

   As we begin to live Love using these energies, a day will come when the doors to the richest rooms of our heart tilt open. Out spills the Love that was always within.

   It is then that we need to use our worldly energy to guide Loves practice into our everyday behavior. Epiphanies are times of discovery and learning.

   Absent the conscious integration of Love's learning into our lives, Love's power eases and we fall back into worldly patterns. This is because we thought Love would work through us by itself. We forget that we must continue to nurse the growth of spiritual Love into a sullied world.

   Love does not force itself upon us. It flows where it is received. It is seen with our sacred eyes. It is heard with our innermost ears. It is practices with hands informed by its grace.

   To live in our world, our garden of Love requires constant tending with the seven energies. And this is what the apostle Paul did as he roamed from the Holy Land into ancient Greece and Italy preaching Love in the face of persecution. 

   Love's epiphanies, gradual or sudden, lead us to the "living water." This is the only water that can satisfy our spiritual thirst.

   Coming, as it does, from beyond the world, Love is not measured in units. No caregiver has to think, "I only have four units of Love to dispense today so I'd better save them." The more Love is shared, the more we find is there.

   The gift God offers us is endless. What matters during our worldly journey is our human ability to receive and use the gift and to rest and replenish our bodies periodically so we can continue as vehicles for Love's expression.

   Are we open to receiving and using this gift? We will know Love is passing through us when we find we are unable to keep it to ourselves. 

   Saul was an ordinary person. Paul is one of the great, saintly figures of human history. What happened?

   For Saul, Love was a foolish idea. God had lots of boundaries. Life was a set of transactions.  

   Paul discovered Love knows no boundaries. The same man became a different person because he allowed God's voice to change him. Love flows wherever hearts are open. And it flowed into his.

   Can our hearts be as open as Paul's? Will we choose to live our one and only life in a new a richer way?

   Where attention goes, energy flows.

-Rev. Erie Chapman