Sunday, May 19, 2013

Pentecost Prayer Day 46

I read a post today explaining the ecstasy of relationship with Jesus/God. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/badcatholic/2013/05/virginity-is-sexual.html

The relationship with The Sacred Spirit is described often in the Bible as comparing in ecstasy to sexual love between man and wife. Clearly, we are supposed to reach a higher plain of spirit when involved in either pursuit. Ecstasy on earth, I believe, is a bit of heaven on earth. But, ecstasy  like the drug named after it, is highly addictive, even when it comes through our religious rituals and practices.

In marriage, we must not ignore our responsibilities to earthly endeavors, like dirty dishes and diapers, in order to endlessly experience ecstasy. So, too, can earthly relationships frustrate us in the pursuit of this spiritual high. We must, in order to be fully responsibly compassionate humans, choose when to turn in and when to reach out.

The Sacred Spirit needs nothing from us other than to honor The Sacred Spirit in all of the physical world. To believe that The Sacred Spirit needs our worship is to diminish the infinite energy of The Almighty. Prayer is sitting in the presence of The Sacred Spirit in whatever is going on in our lives at the time and listening closely for what is sacred about this moment in our own lives on earth.

Pursuit of the next big moment of ecstasy takes away the joy of the small things in our spiritual lives. It invariably leads to the balance of agony. This is a bipolar way to live our lives. "Go with the flow," is much more than an old Hippie mantra; it is a spiritual exercise.

My prayer for Pentecost is that we accept both the fire and quietly burning embers that can be made to flare when the time is right in our earthly and spiritual relationships.