What If I Just Can’t Connect To My Inner Knowing?

Recently I sat with someone to pray after service who deeply wants to feel a connection with Spirit, but cannot believe that it’s true. She couldn’t let it in. She couldn't let herself feel it. Since these are 5 minute meetings, I didn’t have time to ask how it got to be that way, but I knew exactly how it felt when I didn’t believe, when Faith was a fairy tale that couldn’t possibly be true.

So I listened. And felt for her. And then I let Spirit tell me what to say in the prayer.

Believe It Or Not, It’s Still True

The prayer invited her to pretend to believe that maybe possibly some day just a tiny bit, she could feel some connection to Spirit. Maybe, just maybe, even if she doubted, even it she thought it wasn’t true, even if she argued, even if she didn’t think it would ever happen, it was just possible that it could be just a tiny bit real. It let her know that arguing is OK. That not believing is OK. That having doubts and struggling are OK, and even interrupting the prayer with words of disbelief was OK. That Spirit doesn’t care if she argues. Spirit doesn’t mind if she doesn’t believe. Spirit just Is. Spirit is real whether she feels it or not, whether she believes it or not, whether she knows it or not, whether she accepts it or not. And it is right here right now holding her in the same way the chair is holding her. It is here under her just like the floor is here. It is here around her like the air is around her – invisibly present, sustaining her, filling her, giving her a space and place to move and live and be. It is here like the room is here, enclosing her in a safe place out of the weather. And it is here in the form of the two people speaking and hearing this prayer.

Whole Perfect and Complete

When I look at the sky, or a tree, or my cat, or a baby’s eyes, I see that there is something there that no person could create. They are what we call whole, perfect and complete. There is something in them that, when we look at them with soft gaze, opens the wonder and the stillness of mind called awe. I look and know the part of me that knows.

When I see a baby’s face, full of life and light and love and joy, I feel the Presence of that which created that precious life. And even though my body was capable of creating one of those, I could never design one myself. No one knows exactly what mystery gives life to when that sperm and egg get together. There is some part of me that knows that there is something beyond what I see. It knows that it knows.

No one knows what makes a tree grow, what makes a mind think. In fact, no one has ever seen mind. No one can see thoughts. We can see a brain, but we cannot see thought. We cannot see a mind.

What Is It In You That Knows That You Know?

And what is it that I am seeing when I watch my beautiful cat sleeping in her bed? What is that invisible thing that brings tears to my eyes with the love I feel for her? And what is it that knows when I see an animal on the road that has been hit that knows it is not alive? Not just that I see my cat breathing, and the possum laying still. What is That Thing that tells me it is alive or not? We cannot see it, but we know it. We recognize it. What is it inside you that knows that it sees this? What is it inside you that knows that you are reading right now? That hears your mental responses, opinions, and thoughts? It cannot be seen. It cannot be touched. And it cannot be denied.

How about you? 
 
What is it that puts you in that place that knows that it knows?