I often write about my spiritual experiences, whether it’s about astral travel, visions, or conversations with my Guides, because I believe that what I am learning and experiencing is not just for me, but it is meant to be shared and given to whoever will receive.
But I have found that the most spectacular spiritual experiences of all are found in the silence between breaths when my mind is quiet, my heart secure in love, and I’m overwhelmed by a feeling of Unity with God, with Self, with Humanity.
When I am walking in the woods, my footsteps dampened by the carpet of pine needles, and I hear the wind whispering in the branches high above me and the piercing call of a hawk, and I spy a brightly colored snake slithering through the fallen leaves and under broken branches, and an orb weaver spinning her web in the empty space between two trees.
When I drink morning coffee and watch through the curtains of my window as a little gray mole pushes dirt from her tunnel in a perfect mound of sandy dirt that will dress my potted plants later when she’s finished her work.
When I step outside in the darkness and gaze at the moon bright in the sky, a blanket of stars spread above, and I marvel at how I can feel so incredibly small and so incredibly large at the same time.
When I watch an artist work her craft at the spinning wheel, or on the canvas, or watch a baker create a beautiful edible work of art.
When I see kindness displayed between two strangers.
When my cat is curled in my lap and sleeping, her soft purr vibrating with each breath.
When I am with my family and we are walking through the park and laughing together, and my granddaughter stops me so she can stuff another acorn and a tiny fistful of dead leaves in the pocket of my pants to save for later, and I feel belonging.
When I hug my children and they tell me they love me.
Spectacular spiritual experiences can also be found in the spaces between tears when my heart is filled with grief, and I’m overwhelmed with the Sorrow of God, of Self, of Humanity.
When I see the pain of children who have suffered without reprieve and without justice in this life, their screams and cries swallowed by the darkness, and through my own cries, I vow to not forget them.
When I see the haunting look in the eyes of an addict, the mentally ill, the lonely, and I offer compassion, a smile, a conversation.
When I see animals, great and small, who have suffered, and I say a prayer for their spirit to rest in peace.
When I hear the forced laughter of the one who hides his depression, and I offer a safe space where he doesn’t have to pretend any more.
When the child who lives down the road is hungry, but his mother is still at work and his older sister threw him out of the house and locked the door behind him, so I set a place for him at my table, and after dinner we sit on the back porch and eat popsicles and watch the birds fly by and talk about school and football and the teachers he doesn’t like.
When I see a young woman behind the register at McDonald’s loudly smack the counter with her fist, angry and frustrated, and I remind her that her worth is not in the job she holds, that this is not her life, that she has far to go, to not let the bad attitude of a surly demanding boss cause her to forget who she is.
When I sit beside a woman in the waiting room of the cancer ward as she nervously awaits to hear the results her husband’s fourth surgery, and keep her company for the next several hours as she tells me all about her life.
These moments and more are the most spectacular spiritual experiences: being reminded in sorrow or in joy of the Unity we all share, the breath we all breathe, the love and the pain we all experience. Of being reminded both of our shared Divinity and our shared Humanity, each moment a Holy expression.
Don’t run away from these moments. Sit with them, learn from them, accept them, and find healing.
Don’t despise these moments or overlook them as not being spiritual enough. Be a conduit for Spirit, our experiences giving form to God’s experiences, and our emotion expressing God’s emotion. Be the medium through which Light and Love and Healing is brought into this world.
Embrace these moments as they come, both the joy and the grief. The very essence of our spirituality is found when we quiet our minds, open our hearts, and receive each moment of our lives as a Sacred expression of our connected existence.
Diary of a Christian Mystic 