On Meeting God

A deep breath,
filing your lungs with impossibly cold air,
almost painful,
then letting it loose, slowly, deliberately,
releasing
far more than air.

Repeat. Slowly.
Release reaction,
Create space in your mind
empty walls
waiting for the next perfect painting,
able to see your own beauty
even in a world bound by it’s own fury.

Breathe.
For this is where it begins.
This is where you meet God.
In stillness.

The rest? The World and the busyness and bluster?
Mere distractions,
designed to drain you,
to keep you weak,
to make you the victim, not the victor,
to separate you
from the you you were meant to be.

Breathe.
Breathe.
Become.

About this poem. 

There has been a lot of talk over the past couple of years, about whether eastern style meditation and Christianity are compatible practices. I think it’s a silly argument. My almost daily meditation is a part of what keeps me grounded as a person and in my faith.

I have learned in my own life that peace comes in stillness. The full realization of love comes in stillness. Revelations come in stillness, or soon thereafter. That may be as close to God as I get in this world. And that’s good enough.

The picture was taken in Massachusetts, near Amherst.

Tom