This is the seventh 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 with Part Eight.
If you’ve been following the series, you may have noted that the format interweaves the mystical spiritual journey (The Awakening, The Invitation, The Dark Night, The Unfolding, Peace Everlasting) with the more earthly journey of spiritual relationship (identified by numbered chapters).
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.
Chapter Five
from Making Love To God
by Rachel Snyder
Energy spent proving your love is energy wasted.
Any attempt to save, to rescue, to care for, to protect, to heal and to hold another human being, thwarts the natural flow of Creation. In the headlong rush to solve problems, figure out answers, and do everything humanly possible to shape your own or another’s experience, where is there room for God? How can the mystery of love undulate its way in, around, and between the beloveds?
Eros weeps outside the door while you rush to fill your plate.
The ground in which love flourishes is not a competitive playing field. Your mission is not to be the best provider, the most glorious lover, the most efficient homemaker, the superlative parent. You are not obligated to rearrange your schedule, your life, your priorities, your values, your finances, or your needs to demonstrate how deeply you cherish another being.
Your task is simply to prepare your own heart to receive the grace of authentic love. To crack and to clear away the hard-edged shroud encasing your most tender edges. Only then can you allow yourself to open the door when love comes knocking. Only then, once you have given up your frantic eagerness to please, will you delightfully discover that you have become the beloved you always hoped you would meet.
When you enter into true Divine partnership, you commit to the dance, but not to the steps.
Our culture would do well to replace the words, Will you marry me? with Shall we dance? Traditional weddings honor the first dance of the newly joined couple, who try their best not to trip or fall while the audience watches.
The dance of Divine love does not begin with two lovers moving together flawlessly: learning a tricky counterpoint is indeed the journey. Better we acknowledge that early attempts to blend two intrinsically complete beings will be fraught with missteps – and check in on progress at a later date.
Committing to the dance means showing up in as full a form as you can muster in every moment. It means trying out new steps and resisting the urge to repeat the same, tired 1-2-3-4 throughout the many cycles of relationship. It means being present enough to notice when the waltz gives way to the tango – and to shift your rhythm accordingly.
Yes, you’ll stumble.
Yes, you’ll look foolish to those who thrive on superficiality and see life as a television sitcom with all the ends neatly tied up within the half-hour.
And yes, you can choose to go to your knees and stay there as long as you wish, before you get up and try again and again.
Grace comes to us on golden feet when we let divine timing set the pace.
The Unfolding
I carried God in my loins today. Kept Him close, where I could feel the uninterrupted beating of His Being.
With every step I took upon the earth, His presence strengthened. Unceasing, calling me to deeper yet deeper-still places where I met His grace as close and fragrant as the tip of a lily bent to kiss the morning dew.
Oh God, the home in which you dwell is but my home. We share the space between all things and of all things; there is not a molecule which does not seep inward in searching. The Light has taken me, and all I am, all I see, all I breathe, is the Light!
Keep me close, for the trembling courses through my every cell as a rainbow streams across your glistening sky. Hold me ever-closer, your strong arms folded around me sweetly, in an embrace of everlasting love. Time stands still, the moon so high yet I feel its lustre wash over me as the tickle of a tender waterfall. I fall, O! let me fall into your lap where I let go of every worldly care.
How quickly flutters my heart, dear God! Swift and sure, as the hooves of the deer on spring’s fresh meadow of newness. For are we not one? Is there not a ribbon of light that lightly encircles us, binding not, an intertwining of souls brought to Oneness by love’s surging?
Sing out my Beloved, for it is the breath and the word and the story that quicken within me. For You have placed it there and it is You and You alone that calls forth its being. My being. My being of You, for You, from You, strands of undulate light.
Scoop me up in wings of glory, for the beating of my heart carries me aloft. Fly me home! For that which matters is wholly spirit and nothing more. Close off the corridors to need and want, fear and guilt, and illuminate the one golden passage to true Heaven on Earth.
Come God, for I await your touch, your healing breath, and I am purified. The choice, mine, to enter into your world head, hands and heart outstretched. Receive me now, for more ready a soul could never be, as I am for your loving arms.
Those who would forsake you, leave them live their lives of despair and darkness. Their courage will arise out of time, as the first bud of spring arrives at its moment of readiness and not but an instant before or after. So too is our unfolding. So too do we feel the gentle jolt of connectedness when and only when our souls have ripened to a juiciness, a readying for the joyful union. Amidst the mist, enveloping love, for here I am myself and I am You and I am every soul that ever was.
Is this not joy beyond measure? Does Your touch not capture my urge without hesitation and make it still? Quench this fire, sweet God, for it is but the light of the infinite, home to rest in the chambers of my heart.
Gladdened am I, at peace, I rest as the softest babe, in your heart.
(to be continued…)
words divinely wrought 