con-vertere

In the Immortal Diamond Richard Rohr writes, "Before radical conversion, you look for God as if God were an object like all other objects. After conversion (con-vertere, to turn around or to turn with), you look out from God with eyes other than your own."

What does this mean for you? For me it means infusion, communion with the Divine... recognizing oneself as not separate from the Divine. It means a constant practice of connection so as to see with eyes of God/Source. What happens, I wonder, when a person reaches Source and in turning to face humanity, loses that connection? Yet, they teach as though they are still a clear channel for Source. This happens quite often, in spiritual spaces and in any space where people provide a channel from ignorance to competency, like higher education. When ego suppresses humility and teachings are filtered through the desire for credit or the idea of being special or chosen, the classroom and the sanctuary become places of indoctrination rather than unencumbered spaces for opening, evoking wisdom, and healing.

It is an effort-full practice to continue to seek humility all the while turning "with" Source to face humanity. To teach by example. To be the eyes of ‘God.’ This is not a hobby. It is an every minute kind of thing.

*I find the impulse to explain my definition of God because I grew up in an atheist family where I was scrutinized for my mysticism. For me, God is not a man-made deity who judges and blesses. The ‘what’ God is part actually feels unimportant to me (and I rarely use the word ‘God’ in my own work and practice. What I feel invited to concern myself with is communion with a deep (more than Blythe) wisdom that includes all life and provides me with access to compassion, reverence, healing, and connection to self, others, more-than-human-nature, the cosmos, and the mysteries that connect us all.