CONSCIOUS CONTACT WITH GOD

“Half measures avail us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked for His protection and care with complete abandon”

Years ago a dear friend of mine, sister Mary who attended OA meetings said to me that it was great awakening for her when she pondered those words ‘the care of God’. She said to me just think of that. God cares for us, takes care of us, nothing is more important than believing that.

We walk by faith, not sight. Whatever it is that we believe about God, it is an act of Faith. That is why every day, every time I start to meditate I say, O God, I believe you are here and I adore you profoundly. Teach me to do your will for you are my God.

For, in the words of St. Paul: In God we live and move and have our being.
We are more immersed in God more than a fish is immersed in water. And when we say that, I believe we are immersed in love. Foundational to our lives is the belief that God is the creator of heaven and earth. Is this just a past event? Do we think of God as out there some where? Really God is sustaining us in life even as we sit here.

TRY this: Try saying in your own mind and heart and with eyes closed, what I am about to say, phrase by phrase, closing your eyes for a moment between each phrase. AS I sit here, the beating of my heart…the ebb and flow of my breathing…..the movement of my mind…the sensations of my body…are all signs of God’s ongoing creation and care of me…it is God who sustains me in life…I pause for a moment …and become aware of the presence of God within me…If I do not feel this way…I make a simple act of faith in the reality of the Presence of God….I believe that You, My God are here with me…I entrust my life and all my concerns to you, my God.

Many through the ages have called God the Ground of our being. Then Father John Main, in the book, The Way of Unknowing, writes that we need to adjust to the reality that God is the ground of our being. This means that we are invited to adjust to this reality. God is with us. And God is for u. As it says somewhere in the Bible, if God is for us who can be against us…

Remember that beautiful Psalm 23? The Lord is my Shepherd., there is nothing I shall want.. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for Thou art with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me. My Mother told me in later years that when we were little my brother Joe and I used come home from school along a dirt road in the city of Yonkers New York and we would be saying in a singsong way: Thou are with me, Thy rod and Thy staff they comfort me.


This valley of the shadow of death comes from not only our own sorrows that we have had, but the sorrows of the world. While some suffering such the death of a child or young person comes from an illness, most sorrows are caused by unloving, power struggles, hatred, unfogiveness, retaliation, cruelty, endless put-downs, resentments and petty criticisms. In lesser ways all of us know we are not 100% forgiving or encouraging to everyone we meet and know. Yet here we are believing that God has care for us, for every least person on earth. God loves us for nothing! God has first loved us that is how we can afford to turn our lives and wills over to His care.

“Meditation comes to put an end to all the dullness, the fear, the pettiness, all the lack of love in our lives as we return to it each morning and each evening, with an absolute seriousness and deepening joy” John Main
Our real life is a journey into love; our life is going to go on forever, We do not have a limited supply of life. I may be old and gray and falling apart, and not have more the 15 more years on earth, but then my life is not at all ended, Life is changed not taken away.. What we are invited to do in this human journey is to improve our conscious contact with God who gives us life forever.

How then do prayer and meditation improve our conscious contact? The first thing to remember is that we walk by faith. This faith is prompted by the witness of others and sustained by the sense of belonging, which is totally real.

And we long to be totally real.

So let us talk about prayer and meditation and looking only for the knowledge of God’s will.

How shall we let prayer become integral to our every day life? Well, one way is to take up the practice of a walking prayer. Another is pondering our sacred scriptures. And of course, Meditation. Ways of praying may differ but the call to pray is an invitation to live more intimately with God. and to do the Will of God.

We are not at all taking about techniques. We are talking about the inward journey that makes us real. There is so much more to us that the outward..

Since God is our constant companion then trying to be attentive to God’s presence is certainly not a technique, but a way of love. A way of love and a work of love.