Coming Home to God
Nearly thirty years ago when my youngest daughter turned three as seen in the blurry image above, the family gathered around to celebrate her birthday. One of the gifts she received was a new bathing suit which she promptly took to her room, put it on, and returned wearing it. Then with hands on her heart and smile to melt the world, she proudly proclaimed, “I’m a real person!” Something in that moment brought her to an awareness of her individual personhood and she felt the joy of who she truly was in her little three-year-old body. Her exclamation has stayed with our family ever since. Whenever someone has something to celebrate, or feels proud about an accomplishment, someone likely will say, “You’re a real person!”
As we find our true self, our authentic voice, and learn to love life in our own skin, we touch the Divine image of God. Image has the same root word as imagine. So the true self can be thought of as what God imagined or dreamed about your personhood even before all of creation. You may wonder if coming to know ourselves is the only way to come home to God. Can’t we find God in nature, or in silence, or through reading scripture. Of course. These are all expressions of God’s being. However, even these vessels of Divine glory are realized only as we perceive them with our senses. What we see, hear, touch, experience, contemplate, and lean into. These are the gifts of being human that awaken our own souls.
So how do we discover that true self and come to know God? First, let’s agree that this work is not something we do once and check it off the list. Knowing God and knowing self is an every day, every hour, every minute possibility. It’s a constant give and take, receiving and releasing, embracing and letting go that occurs as we continually turn our lives toward God and pray, “Search me, O God, and know my heart…”
A regular commitment to spiritual direction has encouraged me to come home and abide with heart, mind, and spirit turned toward God. Some may see spiritual direction as a tool to use like a crowbar, to pry us out of a bad spot, or as a prod to get us unstuck so we can move on. Meeting with a director isn’t just about figuring out life and faith in one particular season of life and then moving on. For me, it’s an expression of devotion and a commitment to the slow work of God, even when I don’t perceive progress. This “tending the Holy” by regular habits of abiding has the potential to utterly transform life into a comfortable place to belong and dwell with God.
What spiritual practices bring you home to yourself and home to God? How do you tend to the on-going transformation of heart, mind, and spirit each day?
