The World is Our New Cloister

Canadian City

 Reverence and devotion open the soul to intimacy with God…

When you pursue a relationship with your soul and God you are answering a call. You are being called to build your spiritual stamina so that you can channel grace in this world for this world. Our new monastery, the world, is in desperate need of the strength of your soul. Caroline Myss, Page 96, Entering the Castle

Jesus challenged us to be in this world but not of it. The mystics of today try to fulfil Christ’s challenge. Though some mystics still do enter a convent or a monastery in order to pursue a relationship with God, many more live in this world as contemplatives without a cloister. They pursue their ordinary day to day lives while living out a life of prayer within their souls.

These modern-day mystics are answering the call of God to channel grace into the world. They see the desperate needs within the world and they bring them before God in their time of prayer and praise of the Sacred One.

Getting Boats to Harbour, Italy

As they open their souls in intimacy with God they build up their spiritual stamina. They receive grace from God in order to channel God’s grace into the world. They live in this world whole-heartedly and, by living in God and God in them, they understand the call of God to them is to be an intermediary for God’s grace and blessing on the world that God has created for us to live in.

© Judith Lawrence

Called by Name

You know that you are being called. Your soul is unsatisfied, starving for purpose. Some part of you knows—feels a pull beyond reason deep within the core of your being—that God is calling you by name. And you realize that you must have an intimate relationship with God above all else.…You finally recognize that you need to experience God—and you need to experience your divinity, your route to God. Caroline Myss Entering the Castle Page 78

You may have a job that fully satisfies you; you may have worked in the same field in which you are working now for many years; you may have presumed that this is your calling, your vocation. Gradually, however, you become restless, dissatisfied, and starved of purpose.

Perhaps you have had this feeling before and know what it means; you may not have experienced this feeling before and think, perhaps, that it indicates a yearning for a new job, a new town, or a desire for new learning.

Quiet Morning on the River in Fall

This “pull beyond reason deep within the core of your being, is God calling you by name”. God wants a relationship with you, desires to be a part of you life, and God awaits a response from you. God is not satisfied with a one sided relationship—yes, God loves you and desires to be with you—but, more than that God wants a mutual relationship with you, a two sided relationship, a give and take; God desires that you want to be with the Sacred One as much as the Sacred One wants to be with you.

Begin to take a few moments each morning to be in God’s presence and see where it leads you; take time to be quiet with God; take time to experience your divinity and find your route to God. Your route to God and relationship with God will be unique to you. Search deep in the centre of your being and find your new life.

© Judith Lawrence