(This weblog creates, for us all, a chance to meet at the interaction of Life and the New Spirituality. It is written by the author of Conversations with God, the worldwide best-selling series of books. The “New Spirituality” is defined by the author as “a new way to experience our natural impulse toward the Divine, which does not make others wrong for the way in which they are doing it.”)
Saturday is Prose & Poetry Day here on the blog, a time to take a moment once a week to relax the mind, open the heart, and access the soul through the gift of prose from one of the many books of The New Spirituality, and through the poetry of m. Claire, author of the forthcoming volume, Come As You Are.
This week’s prose…an excerpt of dialogue from Friendship with God…
Most people do believe in God. Surveys show that in recent years belief in God has actually increased on our planet.

Yes, I’m happy to say that the largest number of you do believe in Me. So it’s not your belief in Me that creates problems, it’s your belief about Me.
One of the things you believe about Me is that I do not want you to know Me. Some of you even believe that you dare not so much as utter My name. Others feel that you should not write the word “God,” but, out of respect, should write “G-D.” Still others of you say that it’s all right to speak My name, but that it must be My correct name, and that if it’s an incorrect name, you will have committed a blasphemy.
But whether you call Me Jehovah, Yaweh, God, Allah, or Charlie, I am still Who I am, What I am, Where I am, and I will not stop loving you because you got my name wrong, for heaven sake.
So you can stop quarreling over what to call Me.

It’s pitiful, isn’t it?

That’s your word, reflecting a judgment. I’m merely observing what’s so.
Even many of those religions which are not arguing about My name are teaching that for you to seek too much knowledge of God is unwise, and for you to say that God has actually talked to you is heresy.
So, while a belief IN God is necessary, your belief ABOUT God is also important.
That’s where Willingness comes in. You must not only believe in God to know Me, you must also be willing to really know Me — not simply know what you think you know about Me.
If your beliefs about Me make it impossible to know Me as I really am, then all the belief in the world won’t work. You’ll continue to know what you think you know, instead of what is really so.
You must be willing to suspend what you imagine you already know about God in order to know God as you never imagined.
That is the key here, because you have many imaginings about God which bear no resemblance to Reality.

How can I get to this place of willingness?

You are already there, or you wouldn’t be spending time with this book. Now, expand on this experience. Open yourself to new ideas, new possibilities about Me. If I was your best friend, and not your “father”, think of what you could tell Me, what you could ask of Me!
In order to know God, you have to be “ready, willing and able.” Belief in God is the beginning. Your belief in some sort of Higher Power, in some kind of Deity, makes you “ready.”
Next, your openness to some new thoughts about God — thoughts you’ve never had before, thoughts that may even shake you up a bit, like ”Our Friend, who art in heaven” — signals that you are “willing.”
Finally, you must be “able.” If you are simply unable to see God in any of the new ways to which you have opened yourself, you will have completely dis-abled the mechanism by which you would come to know God in truth.
You must be able to embrace a God who loves and embraces you, without condition; be able to welcome into your life a God who welcomes you into the kingdom, no questions asked; be able to stop punishing yourself for acknowledging a God who will not be punishing you; and be able to talk with a God who has never stopped talking to you.
All of these are radical ideas. The churches do indeed call these heresies. And so, in the irony of all ironies, you may have to abandon the church in order to know God. Without a doubt, you will have to at least abandon some of the church’s teachings. For churches teach of a God Whom you are told you cannot know, and Whom you would not choose as a friend. For what friend would you have who would punish you for your every misdeed? And what kind of friend considers it a misdeed to simply be called by the wrong name?

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This week’s gift of poetry
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There was that moment, when our souls paused.
There was a second of contemplation;
a weighing of all the odds, but
conversations filled our ears again
and everyone had continued eating,
so we lifted the food to our mouths
as if nothing had passed, as if what
I asked and how you answered,
hadn’t broken our hearts at all.
And I took one more bite,
even after I had witnessed
such a longing in you, that it simply
could not let us look away.
I wondered then, if you would
remember me, and if I would
ever forget this living, wordless
moment between two paired souls.
I wanted to take you, hold you, and
give you the one thing you had never had,
but that empty place in you –
it also dwells in me.
Neither one of us can offer anything
but condolences.
So then, we will be Mirrors.
I will reflect to you your Wholeness,
all of your Light, and the many ways you love.
And You, You will dance lightbeams
across my breast…
(Lightbeams – m. claire – copyright 2007 – all rights reserved)

For more of the work of this new American poet, go to www.mclairepoet.com.