Cheryl Kirk-Duggan

Spirituality: EGO (a.k.a. Engaging God Often)

Sometimes we are overwhelmed by our own human frailty and the large amount of pain and injustice that exist in the world. One of the marvelous things about God’s grace is that as we can release all our cares, in praise and thanksgiving – admitting that we have no power over anything – we become powerful! With this power comes the
ability to know joy and to laugh despite circumstances. As the act of releasing becomes a worshipful, spiritual experience, we can confess any complicity on our part and begin the process of being open to God.

The Undivided Soul

Prayers of Commitment

One of the beautiful experiences of petitioning God through prayer is that, as the psalmists knew, we can trust that we have been heard. Here is one time when we know that the longing of our hearts is known by a Lover of deep commitment and fierce intensity. Some things we long for are frivolous, some even deleterious to our health. But the longing for God and the desire to connect with others in love are the seeds of a grounded, spiritual life that has great depth and inspiration.

The Undivided Soul

Spirituality: EGO (a.k.a. Engaging God Often)

Just as we seek connectedness and balance in our lives, we want to be clear that our lives are rooted in God. A life of balance that meshes faith, health, and spirituality is a life framed by the fire, passion, and compassion of God. The fire warms us and energizes our bodies to breathe and exist as an independent entity, within community.

The Undivided Soul

Spirituality: EGO (a.k.a. Engaging God Often)

Engaging God Often

Becomes a blessing for those:

Who know their divine creativeness,

Who want to learn to love,

Who can love themselves and others,

Who want daily connection with God,

Who experience prayer.

The Undivided Soul

Spirituality: EGO (a.k.a. Engaging God Often)

Given the complexity of our lives and experiences of others, we must make room to sense God’s presence and to open our eyes to see and know on a deep level. When we open our eyes, despite our joys and sorrows, our doubts, desperation, and fears, we have an opportunity to know sacredness, to become an integrated self: a self who can see God in others, a self who can see God within.

The Undivided Soul

Spirituality: EGO (a.k.a. Engaging God Often)

When one comes in tune with God, particularly the Holy Spirit, one is better able to hear, see, and know various manifestations of God. Some experience God’s presence as a living force in their lives. Others actually hear words of knowledge from God as prophecy and as answer to prayer. Some know God in the majesty of Creation and in their ability to create magnificent works of music, poetry, novels, and song. Others see God when they gaze out across the many terrains within our universe. Some experience God in the daily miracles of life itself as we are born, live, function, and engage with ourselves and others. Like Leonard Bernstein, some know God best in the simple things, in simple songs, “for God is the simplest of all.” Amid this simplicity is great complexity, mystery, and that which can never fully be known.

The Undivided Soul

Spirituality: EGO (a.k.a. Engaging God Often)

Touching the omnipresence of God,

Creates a sense of wonder,

An explosion of amazement

Sometimes a quiet voice.

Other times a cacophonic, thunderous drum roll:

Resounding across the abyss of nothingness

Calling forth vital, effervescent beings.

The Undivided Soul

Spirituality: Looking for a Way into Ourselves

Many biblical stories depict the disturbances and the miracles that can happen when one stands in God’s presence. Moses’ countenance changed. Hagar saw and named God, the only person to have such a privilege in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Joseph experienced divine wisdom through dreams. Hannah was so deeply engaged in prayer that Eli, the priest, thought she was drunk. Lazarus returned from the dead. An unnamed woman’s faith caused her daughter to be healed. Clearly, there are so many different ways that one can be conscious, aware of, fully alive in God’s presence. The moments of illumination are available to us if we but look and see and taste and smell and touch the authenticity, innocence, and pleasure of God. For as we are made in God’s image, we possess that same dignity and value and love. God is worthy to be praised. Each of us is worthy to be loved.

The Undivided Soul

Spirituality: Looking for a Way into Ourselves

We certainly have to engage critical listening and discernment so that we can know the Divine as our source. We must be conscious and willing to learn, that we might know a sense of our own human responsibility. We must also be willing to stand at the apex of the paradox between ambiguity or fuzziness and revelation or radiance. We can prepare for some of the renewal process by clearing our schedules of tasks that can be delayed or those to which we now need to say No. We can make use of familiar spiritual books and disciplines or begin a quest toward new, fulfilling practices. We can seek counsel with others. Most important, we need to be open to an ongoing process of valleys and mountaintop experiences. We need to stand naked before God, willing to be shaped and transformed, and willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary to nurture and maintain our newfound selves.

The Undivided Soul