“All that exists is spirit, before, now, and forever more.” If Bob Dylan is right, the spirit who created and sustains the universe, exists in every aspect of what we see, know, or experience, regardless of our names for better and worse. The divine spirit exists in the desk under my paper, in the paper itself, in my hand, mind, and eyes guiding this pen. If Dylan is right, there is no final separation of spirit and matter, nor are the distinctions we make between the physical and heavenly orders true. The distinctions are matters of perspective: our own.
Suppose Thomas Aquinas was wrong, and God is the substance or spirit of all things, and their good, beauty, or perfection squares with our capacity to perceive these qualities. Suppose Dylan is telling the truth. This means it is possible to see and so find God in all there is; through history, and at those times we choose to be healed of the blindness that darkens our vision of the present and future.
The healing begins with prayer ….
When established in the light, you might call up images of those things you wish to pray about specifically. If it is a healing, see the perfection of health already accomplished in the person for whom you pray, whether yourself or another. Send light to the one being healed, as if channeled through you by God. This releases the personality or ego from the task and results that are indeed God’s doing. Affirm the healing, giving thanks and praise, which accelerate the activity of the spirit. And affirm God as life, placing the healing in the hands of the Divine, and trusting your vision to be guided in future times when necessary to complete your part in the prayer.
Here you will come to know God as the source of all that lives, for in the work of healing, you will find yourself experiencing the world about you as a living creation. Your gaze will transform even the so-called inanimate object, in the same way an artist’s rendering of a still life transforms and makes beautiful an ensemble of ordinary things.
To know God as love is to empower prayer with the highest state of consciousness. If you enter into the light with the intention of love, you become invincible to any doubt, worry, or darkness that may assail your field of vision. As Paul the Apostle knew, love is a great healer of the interior self; it cultivates a disposition most harmonious with the Divine Self, and creates within a wisdom capable of blessing even the darkness, the enemy, the fear. Herein is the power to undo these appearances of evil. Herein is the power to send them back to God to be readjusted in the Creator’s light. When you contact and image God as love, see yourself and the conditions for which you pray bathed in a light the color of the sky at sunrise: the radiant red, rose, and golden light of new beginnings.
Every beginning in God has its origin in truth, for God is truth. The author of the Book of John wrote the truth shall set you free. Free from what? Perhaps that which separates, oppresses, or deceives; to be freed from greed, envy, falsehood, strife, disease, and hatred is to be free to choose truth. At the outset of any effort to contact God, ask for truth, and the guidance that attends all that is true will make itself known to you. If for.example you seek to root out the unknown cause of a problem, declare God as truth and acknowledge the cause as an opportunity to engage yourself in prayer. If you discover the cause to be a hidden strife, bless it, and give thanks for the remedial work your prayer sets into action. All that is hidden is brought to light in prayer for truth; let that light be the color of sapphire, and let your prayer be answered in the days of freedom that follow your work.
At times the work may seem beyond your reach or ability. You may confront obstacles appearing to be boundless – although these too are opportunities to contact God, as soul. In prayer, sit very still and iµiagine the soul of God. What do you see? Do you see the kingdom as Jesus compared it to a grain of mustard, grown to a tree nesting birds of the air? Do you see a few fish and loaves made to feed five thousand? Or do you see the house that wisdom built, or the lillies clothed more radiantly than Solomon? The soul of God created those things we call miracles, those ordinary things whose substance can never be truly separated from their Maker.
When you must bring into being a result that seems impossible, contact God as soul and know that nothing can impede the work your prayer sets into motion, for God is the very substance of the thing for which you pray. However, bear in mind that exacting a definition of a result limits your contact. God’s activity is without limit, and often manifests in ways greater or other than those expected. Think of God as intelligence as you pray, faithful that the outcome will realize the greatest good possible. Surrender the realization to God, who loves surprises. Miraculous surprises.
— © Fellowship In Prayer, by Valerie Condon