Journey of Courage and Faith

Pathway

Your soul will move you always deeper within yourself. You cannot stop that process any more than you can stop aging.…[T]he mystic in you longs to go home; it longs to stop running from a fear of chaos.…You want to trust life itself and the God that gave you life. You want to surrender yourself into that same cosmic trust that the mystics had—and have—that your needs will be met. You want to find your highest potential. You want to heal from the burdens of resentment.…

Ultimately, this is a journey about personal courage and faith; your soul knew long before now that you would inevitably enter your Castle [the Castle that is you]. Caroline Myss Entering the Castle Page 79

Odessa Monastery

When I entered an Anglican Convent in 1964, I did so believing that I would never leave there again. I wholeheartedly gave my self to God and, in 1971 I made my final vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to God, within the Order of St. John the Divine in Toronto, Canada.

I felt called to become a nun and followed that call. No one was more surprised than I was when I felt called to leave the convent in 1980. As Caroline Myss said, in the quoted words above, “Your soul will move you always deeper within yourself. You cannot stop that process any more than you can stop aging.”

I felt called to enter the convent; I felt called by God to leave the convent and enter into the world once more. God had much to teach me in the convent; I learned much about my own short-comings, both spiritual and emotional; I grew in love of God and love of others; but God had so much more to teach me and God showed me that I could not learn more of God’s teachings where I was. I had to leave everything behind and follow Our Lord.

I had to surrender and trust myself to God knowing that my needs would be met even though all my supports had been cut away. It was not without sorrow and guilt that I left the convent, my vows, and my old life within the community of sisters where I had everything and wanted for nothing. God’s ways are not always straightforward. I was taken on a way that I had not expected but my soul leads me ever on to a deeper union with God through a journey of courage and faith.

© 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

A Mystic’s Calling

Snow Blowing

A mystic is called to come into an intimate relationship with divinity. A calling is not a job, a career, or an occupation, but a pursuit that transcends ordinary life. Your soul becomes a channel for grace. This changes everything, and it changes nothing.…[Y]ou have a passion to be congruent, to have your instincts, conscience, intuitive guidance, and mystical relationship to God exist in harmony. You may live a perfectly ordinary life in the world, but your interior life is anything but ordinary. You continue your external life, but on the inside you are awakened, fearless, conscious, a resource for others. Caroline Myss Entering the Castle Page 78

A mystic does not call attention to herself by looking or acting differently from any other person in this world. A mystic’s life will look like any other ordinary life. She may have a regular job, she may be a stay-at-home mum, or she may be in a creative field.

A mystic’s external life will be lived in a normal everyday way; but a mystic’s interior life is in constant relationship with God. Everything she does is done in harmony with God’s presence in her life.

People sense something different about such a person—a mystic—they may feel at peace, secure, and understood in her presence though they may not know why because she seems so ordinary on the outside.

Polish Salt Mine Entrance

Like the Polish salt mine, which looks unspectacular in its external building and entrance way, it reveals unsuspected treasures, beauty, and hidden glory in its internal depths.

Chapel in Polish Salt Mine

Such is the life of a mystic.

© Judith Lawrence

The Relentless Soul

Winter Stroll

The soul is a relentless companion. It never rests in seeking its freedom and voice. It will do what it has to do to release your physical body, your mind, and your emotions from the debris of untruths and self-deception that keep you chained and unable to see your purpose. People often wonder why their spiritual lives began with an illness or a life trauma; illnesses and life crises are often the ways the soul finally gets through to you to take charge of you life. Caroline Myss Entering the Castle Page 77

When we can no longer depend upon ourselves or upon our significant other to get through the day due to illness or loss we have to find some other way. When there is no one who is able to support us from family or friends then we have to depend upon strangers or government agencies to care for us physically.

Milky Way over Jackson Lake

When we are physically dependent on others, we are released from constant concern and anxiety about our physical needs—we no longer have to worry about what to do next for it will be done (or not done) by someone else who has taken charge of us.

This leaves us free to take care of our spiritual needs; we may begin to pray to God, to listen to our soul, or to take a look at our lives as we have lived them, giving thanks for what we have been given and asking for forgiveness for sins from our past. We have time to examine our spiritual lives and time for oneness with God.

This is one of the ways in which our spiritual lives may get a chance to begin and this chance is given us through the efforts of our relentless soul.

© Judith Lawrence

Toward Transformation

Womb of the Morning Celtic Knotwork J. Lawrence

Questioning your life purpose invites the divine to come closer, to pull you inward so that you can hear direction and revelation. It alters your relationship to yourself as well as to God, placing the journey of your soul at the forefront of your life path and making ego its servant.…[Y]our personal transformation will be dragged from inner chaos to a still point. Paradoxically, your soul thrives on chaos because it recognizes the hand of the divine at work in upheavals that push you toward transformation. Caroline Myss Entering the Castle P. 77

Am I still questioning my life purpose? Has my life purpose not already been revealed? Am I still to seek direction and revelation?

I should surely know by now that life purpose is not a once and for all decision of what to do with my life as it refers to vocation. Life purpose is the ongoing journey of my soul, opening me to continual transformation toward becoming who God wants me to be; transforming me to the spiritual being who is one with God; ever proceeding on that journey, which is my transformation into oneness with the divine.

The glorious chaos that brings all new life into being brings about the spiritual new life in us; continually transforming us into the spiritual beings who are united with the Sacred One.

As God created the earth out of a formless void, so the Creator slowly creates us from the foetus, which began its life in our mother’s womb, and brings us into spiritual beings full of light, life, and love.

© Judith Lawrence

Silence as a Path to God

Seeking a Path to God

Contemplation nourishes the soul. It stimulates your relationship with the divine.…All religious traditions have a history of seeking silence as a path to God, the Light, and the Way.

Silence is an invitation to the divine to come forward, to reveal itself to you—as a presence more than an active guidance. You wait to experience the presence of God without an agenda, without a prayer list filled with requests that cover myriad fears and insecurities. This is a new experience for many people who seem to lack the patience to wait for God.…

Contemplation is the discipline of piercing through the ego’s self-centeredness and impatience. It may include the boredom of waiting for God to show up. Contemplation is like falling into your soul and away from the world. Caroline Myss Entering the Castle Page 68/69

The mind talks so much that it is hard to keep a silent space. When I get into a mode of contemplation and actually manage to be run through with silence then I often find myself sinking into a sleep-filled place. I doze off.  The silence is so peaceful it is conducive to rest and sleep.

In the parable of the Ten Bridesmaids, Matthew 25: 1-13, we read, “When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.” Matt 25: 5 (New Living Translation). Christ, in the telling of this parable doesn’t have any condemnation of the fact that they fell asleep for, as soon as the shout went up that the bridegroom was coming, they were immediately awake and prepared their lamps ready to greet him.

Five out of the ten bridesmaids were described as wise and were ready for the bridegroom to come, they had extra oil for their lamps, and as soon as the bridegroom appeared, they trimmed their lamps and their inner selves shone with prepared light. They had waited through the dark times, the boring times, and the uncertain times; they did not give up in the dry times.

They were ready to accompany the bridegroom—the Sacred One—to the place where he would go and they rejoiced and celebrated with him. We must be like the five wise bridesmaids, ready to meet our God and accompany him whither he would have us go.

© Judith Lawrence

Qualities of the Soul

Rain on the Pond

The soul is a vessel of power.…You uncover the different qualities of power that each soul contains, all of which the individual needs to explore and refine, including humility, dignity, integrity, honor, wisdom, justice, harmony, and endurance. These qualities enable a soul to discover his own divinity and consequently, to embody the qualities of light essential to an experience of God. A soul with these characteristics is strong enough to be in direct contact with God—it is a soul with stamina. Caroline Myss Entering the Castle Page 57

Caterpillar

The soul is inherently powerful. When we are born on earth the soul is already equipped with qualities of spiritual power. But we, as human beings, have to discover these qualities which make up the essence of our soul’s being.

We need to supply the soul with a regular daily quiet time of solitude where it can reunite itself to the Sacred One so that its inner qualities can grow in divine strength and function in its role as spiritual guide as we navigate through our humanity and increase in our spiritual growth.

Butterfly

This is the way in which we evolve toward the next stage of human development, adapting and growing in our spirituality with help from our soul’s increasing spiritual strength. Our soul and our humanity must cooperate with one another in order to become this new spiritual person.

© Judith Lawrence