Are You Ready?

In the first century before Christ and throughout his youth, there were many Jewish groups who knew the expectations of the Season of Grace and set themselves to prepare for the coming messiah. Most wanted to get their doctrine right and to participate in the coming kingdom. Few readied themselves to be the messiah. Whether human or allegory, Jesus Christ moved from the study of scripture to the creation of scripture. He engoddened himself.

When Jesus was ready, he went to be baptized by John the Baptist. In true humility and submission, he was baptized in the Holy Spirit. Driven into the wilderness to be tested of God, he tested God. That was his test. The question on the test was, "Does it work?" As Neville often said, "When it works, you have found Him." Not when I work, but when it works. Because he was ready, Jesus waited until it worked: his hunger was fed.

Do we, have we, can we wait until it works? We have to engodden ourselves. In the wilderness of the silence, we have to take on the assumption that what good thing we desire IS that which exists. We must learn how to pray, how to surround ourselves with our answer, and how to be enveloped in it. And how to wait. If in this we find Him, we must teach it instead of just doctrine.

Again, the two necessary attitudes I see: faith in God, humility and submission unto Him; and the presence of the future assumed to be the surrounding, enveloping reality.

May I suggest the book Jewish Meditation: A Practical Guide by Aryeh Kaplan (1982, New York: Schocken Books)? It is what I am reading again right now. There may be more recent and better books explaining meditation, but I am unaware of them.