Answering by Fire

There’s a story in the Bible where the prophet Elijah goes head to head with the prophets of Baal. He challenges them to make an offering to their gods, while he makes an offering to God. He says, the one who answers by fire, let him be God.

So the prophets of Baal do their offering first, and though they pray all day, they get no answer. Then Elijah prays to God and, even though he’s had the people pour twelve barrels full of water all over the offering and the wood, fire comes down and consumes the whole thing. So all the people fall on their faces and say, “The Lord, he is the God, the Lord, he is the God.”

In the past I’ve been somewhat incredulous about this story, even to the point of wondering if Elijah could have tricked the people somehow (like maybe it was mineral spirits instead of water they poured on the fire). But when I was reading the story last week I realized - this was then, and still is, a very accurate measure of the presence of God, and it’s a test that I do all the time. I look for the god that answers by fire. I look for what it is in my life that ignites me and makes me feel alive.

God is everywhere, so it’s not surprising that there are so many ways to get the feeling of aliveness. And feeling alive comes so often that I don’t always remember that it is how I know the presence of God. But from the perspective of darker times I’ve noticed that this answer by fire is even more essential and convincing than physical fire. It is impossible to conjure it up or construct it from any materials other than itself. It is the quality that makes me want to live, the desire without which it would be impossible to explain the presence of life.

Preparing the soil (more)

Jesus tells a parable about a sower, casting seed. Some of it falls by the wayside, and it gets walked on and the crows eat it; some falls on rocky ground, where it springs up quickly but soon dies; some falls among thorns, where it’s choked by them; and some falls on good ground, where it springs up and bears fruit. Jesus explains that the soil is the Word of God. Those by the wayside are the ones who hear the Word but the devil comes and takes it out of their hearts. Those on rocky ground receive the Word with joy, but have no root within themselves, and soon are offended. Those among the thorns have the Word choked by the “cares and riches and pleasures of this life.” Those on good soil bring forth fruit.

One way I’ve looked at this is to sort of hope that I’m one of the ones with good soil. The sentence from Mary Baker Eddy that I quoted at the top of my last post leads to deeper consideration. She talks about God preparing the soil for the seed. This awakens my awareness that my consciousness is liable to all the conditions in the parable, and that it’s good to be open to receive God’s preparation, because I can sure use it.

The wayside, in my consciousness, is the place whereon the traffic of the world moves - the place where I consider my relative accomplishments and failures, where I try to make a name for myself or at least, within myself, to justify my actions and failures to act. The devil that steals the Word from me is that old paradigm that tries to interpret my experience along a scale of winners and losers, in which worth is a relative commodity which may be earned by some, while others must languish, worthless, in the dust. If I try to interpret any glimpse of the Word within that paradigm, I have lost it. If I think my gains in understanding will help make me better than other people, or better than the person I was before, they won’t be able to do anything - no growth, no fruit.

I have a couple of different thoughts about the rocky ground. One is about when I feel my intention has sprung up fast and then withered. It’s often been when I’ve made a resolution to do something better next time. Then when the next time comes, I find myself in the same struggle. It occurs to me that those resolutions are planted in the belief of temporal life - a state of imperfection that has the possibility of improving along the path through time. Doing well can’t take root in that belief, because doing well needs to be rooted in the fertile knowledge of timeless perfection. If, instead of making a resolution to be better, I find and take in the truth that my being comes from the One sustaining infinite, then my roots can drink and send that truth through everything I do.

I also thought about rocks in terms of what in my consciousness is hard and impermeable. Judgments about others, resentments, self-consciousness, fear. When these are in my thought, I can’t let anything tender in. If I want to bear fruit, I need to let Love prepare the soil by breaking up those hard thoughts with tenderness towards me, melting them away.

As for the thorns - I note that cares and riches and the pleasures of this world can all choke the Word. Cares are not any more virtuous than riches - both of them are material. That is, they act as if certain material conditions determine whether goodness is present or not. The pleasures of the world are the same way. Pleasure is the natural state of being at one with God, but the pleasures of the world say that this good feeling is the result of certain conditions being met. So if I’m following the pleasures of the world, I’m looking for those conditions instead of finding joy here and now.

So I remind myself: God prepares my soil. Love draws my attention to the true things, the ones that absorb the water of Life and nurture sweet seeds. Love compels me to leave the wayside and kneel on the soft ground. Love sends grass and dandelions to break up the rock - experiences that force me to question my assumptions and opinions. Love teaches me to stop spending time among the thorns - stop looking for happiness-engendering conditions and look at present happiness. I am willing to have this be done to me. Which is good, because ultimately I have no other choice.

It Matters Not ...

There’s a place in Science and Health where Mrs. Eddy says, “A germ of infinite Truth, though least in the kingdom of heaven, is the higher hope on earth, but it will be rejected and reviled until God prepares the soil for the seed.”

At times I have wondered what about Truth would be rejected and reviled. After all, it’s all good stuff - it’s all about goodness, so why should it be rejected? More recently I asked myself, like what? What germ of infinite Truth would be reviled before the soil was made ready for it? - And then I knew. This one, for example: It doesn’t matter what your material circumstance is (or, as Mrs. Eddy says, “It matters not what be thy lot”).

What does that mean? That it doesn’t matter whether I got what I wanted, it doesn’t matter whether I’m cold and wet or dry and warm, whether I’m rich or poor, whether I have any friends, whether I have succeeded or failed in my life pursuits, or even whether I have failed to try?

Yeah. It really doesn’t matter. But God has to prepare the soil for the seed. What is that? How does God do that?

God prepares the soil of consciousness by so infusing it with the sense of goodness that all sense of material requirements for goodness is overwhelmed. Material things can no longer say that they are needed for goodness to be here, since goodness is so obviously the very substance of being.

Then none of the circumstances of life that I’ve deemed so crucial to my well-being matter, because the good they promised to withhold or deliver is already here.

I’ve visited this concept before. I asked myself, so what would be the incentive for doing anything at all, if I don’t stand to gain anything by it? And I answered, I do things because I’m the expression of Life, and Life is active. I do things because goodness directs me to do them, and I am joyfully humble enough to listen and follow. I do things because I love, and I love to express Love.

It doesn’t matter what my material situation is, but it does matter that I know God is here, and owns each moment. It matters that I notice goodness, and its constancy, and that all my actions proceed from the awareness of goodness. It matters that I keep myself from being deceived into thinking that any picture of someone else being less than good is true.

If my soil isn’t prepared for the seed, I will think it callous to hear that my material circumstances don’t matter. It will sound to me like I don’t matter, or that the standard of goodness demands that I deny goodness for myself. So when I speak to others, I must be very clear in my message that they matter, and this will include careful attention to their creature comforts and to their sense of self-worth. It will include honoring of their stories and their circumstances. It will include compassion for them in whatever difficulties face them.

It is with myself that I have the opportunity to consider that none of these things matter, to be unfazed by cold-and-wetness or lack of sleep, or inattention to my story or disregard of my point of view. And God must prepare my soil for the seed, too. I can only do it as it feels joyfully right, as I move in the consciousness of God’s ever present goodness. I, too, deserve compassion from myself when my consciousness is tangled up in a story. God’s story is always about goodness, and it’s able to reach into any story I might be running and turn me to the consciousness of good.