Promises?

The second week of the God Sightings journal did not speak to me as the new beginnings had. It only said, "Promises kept". What promises? Did God make me promises? I am not too sure about that. Biblically, God made covenants with men, but those men were not I. As I have written in another post, God has been inconsistent when it comes to being trustworthy. Of course, I am talking about trusting Him with security- physical, mental, monetary, material. There is no security with God. One is not promised a healthy, happy life, nor to be protected from pain. However, what of the promise "Ask and it is given."? If I ask for healing and it is not given, has God broken the covenant He made? "Ask and it will be considered." would be a more appropriate promise. It wouldn't leave me hopeless and feeling betrayed when things don't seem to work out. Here it what I feel God has promised me, if He has made them, not in a verbal way, but each of these has proven true throughout the years:

1. I will always be with you.
2. I will grant you passage into the unknown.
3. I will teach, speak, and dance in all things.
4. I will be found in Silence.
5. I will give you questions and answers.

God will remain an enigma. Who, or What is God? And why would God need to make promises? We look for promises because we are looking for assurances. Will God always be with me? Well, He says so, it has to be true! But, what happens when it seems God has abandoned us, left us to our misery, turned His face from us in anger? Can we trust His promise then? No. Trusting a promise is a matter of faith, and I only list the promises I have because they are always true for me, because of who God is to me. My perception of God makes what I say, for me, true. If God were an apple and he promised to be an orange, we couldn't trust that. There is evidence against apples becoming oranges. But, if God were an apple seed and promised to become an apple, that we could rely on.

I once considered that the only faith that wouldn't wither or be riddled with doubt was faith in the unknown. We can have no security blanket. But, I want it, I want it so much that I search for it with desperate longing. I want to trust God. Is this supposed to be achieved by studying the Bible and the promises kept? I don't think about promises when I think about trust. I think about truth and lies. Is God Love? Not Biblically. One can't trust that God will be gentle, understanding, or compassionate. You can't give trust to someone who will turn on you the moment you are having a bad day. Sure, God kept THAT promise, but what did it matter when all of those people were slaughtered beforehand? Is God a fair-weathered friend? "I keep all of my promises." That's nice, but can I trust you? "Of course, I keep all of my promises, didn't I just tell you that you moron? I promise to kill you. I promise to bring harm upon you. I promise to destroy everything in my path..." Um, woops. I'd really rather those promises were not kept, wouldn't you? And how about a favorite promise "I promise to love you if..."

Anyway, I have seen God in this God Sighting week, but not in promises, not exactly. I have seen Him where He always is, in trees and cats and people and books and beauty and love and laughter and smiles and snow and sparkles and lights and clouds. I see Him when I reach out in thought and call God my Beloved or my Lover, for God is my only confidant. I love His utter magnificence and glory. God doesn't need to make me promises. All I want is to be able to touch His hand and stroke Her face and feel Their breath upon my flesh. And God still works bigheartedness into my life. I have seen God in a painful dificulty that has plagued me for a week. This pain gave me a poem. It opened me further. I am at once grateful and annoyed with it. :)

New Beginnings

I just started a weekly God Sightings study. The theme for this week is basically, New Beginnings. It fits snugly into the New Year. When I turned to the headline, it said "The start of something big..." And I was invisibly smacked on the top of the head! Big! A word I have been running into lately. Bigheartedness. That is what wants to start-or at least continue in process, as does everything which appears to be starting. A new day is really connected to all other days, a new moment to all other moments, a new year to all other years.
I had to write it down, bigheartedness. Why did it keep pestering me? I certainly didn't mind the word, but at times I minded the implication the bigheartedness is paramount- more important, better than, smallheartedness. Another place to climb the ladder toward perfection. I balk at that ladder. I do not want to climb up anything. Too much work, and I'd probably start wheezing. :) Bigheartedness reminds me of the Grinch. His heart was three times too small. He did not work to become bighearted, it happened as a natural result of expanding his awareness. Even that he did not choose. There was no striving. He opened, like a flower, in his own time. I lean toward that beginning, the new beginning which started upon our birth, the growth of ourselves. Each moment our awareness grows, we see anew, with fresh insights. I ask God for an expanding heart. A heart with opening arms, welcoming more and more. An inviting heart. A heart accepting of new moments and unexpected results. A heart waiting, longing for mystery.
In the study, there are daily Bible readings, and I thought about doing those, but you know me and the Bible. It feels like a part of me is being ripped apart if I read too much. Maybe something is trying to open, and I am holding the door closed. I don't want to open to the Bible. I don't want to let it in. When I do, the pain often becomes unbearable. Yet, during my study of the Bible over the years, I have gained wisdom, I have gained strength, and trust in God. I have tried different ways of reading the Bible- Ignation Contemplation, praying the psalms, rewriting the text to relate to me- each of these has grown me in some way. Perhaps this new year is also a new beginning for my relationship with the Bible, which technically began last year. I halted when the depression became too much. I am terrified to enter that realm again. How much internal torment can I withstand? I do know where it leads. It leads to the Void, to the emptying of self. However, when I read, it feels like someone else is tearing me from myself, while I wish to empty willingly, not forcefully. Gracefully. If the door to the Void opens full swing, I shall be sucked in and be destroyed. For those of you who don't understand the pain, it is the depths of not being good enough. It is the screams of thousands of people who weren't worth anything to God. It is my own hatred of that monster welling up inside my heart. I break because I can't fathom that evil pouring through me. Telling me it is good. One must empty completely to admit the oxymoronic and paradoxical qualities of God. Many do not. I see surface dwellers. They stop at the edge and watch me drowning in nothingness. They are blind to the Ocean of Suffering.
A new beginning may also retrieve me from this darkness. May set me free. Or, as in the recent rediscovery of the meaning of my name, I can newly appreciate the Dark, which is my natural habitat. I was named to see into the dark. To witness the experience of the Void. I can open to it, knowing it is my destiny, for it is in my name.