“I and the Father are one.”  Jesus

“You are closer to me than I am to myself.” St. Augustine

“The Soul’s Center is God.” St. John of the Cross

Where is your center?  The center of your being? 

Another way of asking the question is “What is it that makes you You?”

Most people probably don’t consider that question.  That is the reason that we see such superficiality among so many people.  It is the reason that people spend their lives posturing, posing, or pursuing power in order to impress others or please themselves.  We see it most clearly displayed in politicians, but the truth is it is everywhere and in everyone to some degree, including you and me.

People who are in touch with their deeper, spiritual self not only have asked that question, but can answer it. 

For most of my life I wasn’t aware that I had a center.  Or if I was, I mistakenly thought it was my ego.  I identified myself according to my career and accomplishments.  I was driven by doing, not being.  I was always thinking about the next “big” thing—whatever that was. I worried a lot about what people thought, or would think of me, and so I placed a great deal of emphasis on appearances.  Being a pastor was a REALLY good way to impress people, and God—or so I thought.  If someone had asked me the above question I would have been taken aback and dumbstruck.  My answer would have been disingenuous and superficial.  The truth is, like most people, I didn’t know that I had a center of my being, let alone who or what it is.

Each of us has a center to our being, and that Being is God.  That center is certainly not externally based on all that we have or have accomplished.  It is internal, but not found in our mind, reason, logic, or knowledge.  The Center of our Being is the Being of God.  And that Being of God is not distant, only to be discovered by fervently seeking, zealously doing, or determinedly trying to believe the “right” doctrinal formula, or attending the “true” church, or claiming to follow the correct religion.  Rather, that Center of our Being is already present, and it is simply a matter of us becoming aware that God is closer to us than we are to ourselves, as St. Augustine says.

For religious people who claim a Biblical faith one of the biggest obstacles in discovering the Center is the teaching that after The Fall into sin by Adam and Eve, everyone and all of creation is separated from God.  As the result everyone starts on the outside of God, trying to find this elusive God and, once we think we have found God, then seeking to find favor with God.  Yes, I was told that Christ had resolved that problem of separation, but not for everyone.  And even He had ascended into heaven and was therefore also far away—and would come again in “judgment”, making the Good News not really so great at all.  The basic message was that God was a transcendent tyrant who wanted little to do with me and absolutely nothing to do with my sin. Many have believed and taught that.  It has been good business for the Christian church but has had the tragic result of tormenting countless souls, including mine.  And maybe yours?

In time, and by sheer coincidence and the grace of God, I discovered that this teaching, called the doctrine of Original Sin, so popular and promulgated from traditional church pulpits, was not held by everyone.  I’m not referring to the “unbelievers”, or “pagans”, or people who claimed other religions, but by the very committed followers of Christ throughout the ages.  The ones that today we call Mystics.

The Mystics didn’t use logic to define God, nor did they develop doctrines that helped to resolve certain dilemmas that result from trying to use mankind’s limited knowledge to figure out God.  Instead, they simply moved into the belief that a God of love would not intentionally create people just to send them to hell.  And that God was close, really close.  The problem was not that God was separate from us, but rather that we don’t realize how close God really is.  And so the mystics simply practiced the awareness of God’s Presence.  How did they do that?  We’ll explore that in future blogs.

How would you describe your Center?

What is preventing you from seeing yourself, and others, as being united with God, rather than separated?