making love to god: part three

This is the third in a series from Making Love To God, my memoir of Divine Union and contemporary spiritual relationship. The series began on July 29, 2008, with the Introduction and Chapter One, and will continue through completion. You may resonate with the material more powerfully if you follow it in order; all posts are categorized in the Making Love To God category in the sidebar to your right. May we all find the courage to strip away anything that separates ourselves from our own Divinity.

Author’s Note: I have relied on the words God, Goddess, Creation, Divine, Jesus, and Beloved to represent energy that is inherently indefinable. Interpretation lies with the reader.

You can see more of Leon Silver’s art at www.thomasoliver.net/silvergallery#top. Be sure to scroll to bottom.

Two
from Making Love to God
by Rachel Snyder

Divinely inspired, spiritual love is not solely the province of saints and mystics: It is the firmest foundation on which contemporary love can rest. This is precisely the kind of life paradox that confounds us so. To create a deeply committed, mutually nourishing, and authentic love relationship that knows no end, you must begin squarely in the arms of God.

In the throes of fiery relationship conflict, I once hurled at my sweetheart what may be the harshest possible indictment against a man.

“What’s wrong with you,” I declared flatly, “is that you’re a mortal. And quite frankly, I’m seeking the Divine ecstasy that only God can offer.”

With a wisdom in the moment that surpassed my own, he replied without skipping a beat.

“But I am God,” he said absent a hint of arrogance. “And so are you.”

In its simplicity, his uncluttered pronouncement struck to the very core of our relationship. How many times had one or both of us turned away, beaten back by utter frustration or exhaustion? How often had our attempts to deal with mundane issues such as money, living arrangements, and Saturday night plans, collapsed into a morass of finger-pointing accusations, raised voices and tears? How often had we hit our walls of tolerance, patience and compassion?

In the midst of such fogbound interactions, I was often struck blind while I simultaneously argued mightily with the perfect expression of Creation right in front of my eyes. Seized by fear of being left alone, of being proved unlovable and declared undesirable once and for all time, I was paralyzed, unable to step into the light of love that lay before me.

My black-and-white, either-or thinking precluded the notion that my stormy, wild, and passionate partnering was not so much a portrait of conflict and incompatibility, but a tender rendering of two souls learning how to love in new and unfamiliar ways.

Nothing was ever about what it appeared to be. Stripped of form, every issue boiled down to the same question: Could my lover and I genuinely accept our selves and each other as whole and perfect reflections of Creation — and thereby enter into a union more sublime and lasting than either of us might have imagined?

Seeking the answer to this question requires a deep inner knowing that something much grander than psychology or emotion or simple romantic love is at work. A transcendent quality must pervade, a sense that an indefinable alchemy is transforming two individuals not into one, but into a limitless, formless iteration of Spirit. Only from that beginning can a deeply grounded love emerge and endure.

Yet for all our aching and yearning for the perfect mate, how many of us have acknowledged and honored the perfection within ourselves? Too often we find discomfort in receiving love freely offered. What’s the catch? we wonder, and while we seek to identify the manipulation that must surely be at work, we miss the opportunity to drink in the sweet nectar that can quench our thirst for love. Amidst our fear of being deluded by love, love eludes us once more.

If you are sufficiently blessed and aware to find yourself in such a wholly spiritual partnership, you will see glimpses along the way. You may discover that your highest spiritual truths are discovered within a deep, compelling physical ardency. You may ask yourself how you are able to tumble repeatedly into the darkness together, yet return with an even greater radiance surrounding your union.

Partners who embrace the presence of God in each other, experience themselves as something so much more expansive than a couple. Old concepts of dysfunction, co-dependency, and addiction do not resonate. Traditional marriage ceremonies and symbols are limiting; language is inadequate. In the most real sense, words cannot express that which defies definition.

Infused by wildly irrational Spirit, everything takes on epic proportions. At the precise moment you are convinced you are but devils bound on excoriating each other, you will discover a startling truth: You are newborn earth angels, tripping over your own magnificent wings as you bushwhack new pathways through love’s holy jungle.

Little did I know that my belittling pronouncement of my lover as “merely mortal” was a first step toward creating a true holy triad of self, beloved, and God. The aching hunger to join in union with the Divine signals a readiness for something larger than a twosome. It is a call for an expanded reality, one that tosses either/or thinking out the window and invites integration to enter.

Something inside me had shifted. I had moved from the belief that only God could satisfy my cravings, to a passionate desire to merge with the Christed yet human son of God. Now, I was called to leap even further and recognize the absolute divinity in the man standing before me in blue jeans and torn t-shirt.

Something was quickening, yet this revolutionary new consciousness could not simply spring to life fullborn. In my limited perspective, I still saw but two choices: To dance in eternal ecstasy with God, or to fight endlessly with my partner over who did the dishes.

That said, I faced no choice at all.

(to be continued…)