We are living in a world that is absolutely transparent and God is shining through all the time…but the problem is, we don’t see it. ~Thomas Merton
In The Rebirthing of God, the theologian and spiritual teacher John Phillip Newell tells us how we might go about reconnecting with the Divine. Newell, who identifies as a Celtic and a Christian, believes that “God is the Light that flows through all things,” and “everything originates in the Light of God.”
For Newell, this also means that “the Light we glimpse in the trees, in the creatures, in the eyes of another, is the Light that is also within us.” It is a light so powerful and all-encompassing that “no darkness on Earth can extinguish it.” Yet, as Merton points out above, many of us do not see it. Which raises the question:
How do we see the light that is in all things (including ourselves)?
Newell advises us to follow the lead of Thomas Merton and engage in spiritual practice. But he’s not talking about reading a holy book or attending Sunday services. Our goal should be not to “know about God” but to “know God.” For Merton, knowing God was about direct personal experience, “seeking the experience of presence.” Newell explains it this way:
Spiritual practice is about remembering to see. It is about intentional disciplines, individually and collectively, that will enable us to be more aware of the shinings of Divine Presence that are within us and all around us.
What was important to Merton was not the idea or concept of God. It was the ability to push past an intellectual understanding of God and access “something at the heart of life.” Or as Newell puts it, “experiencing the Essence, rather than holding particular beliefs about the Essence.”
Newell quotes Nietzsche who famously once said “God is dead,” and finds an element truth in that declaration. The author believes what actually died is “our experience of God.” This was due to “the way in which Western Christianity had focused not on spiritual practice but on spiritual belief.” He continues:
The West has confused faith with a set of propositional truths about the Divine, rather than a personal experience of the Divine that could be undergirded and sustained by particular practices and disciplines.
What spiritual practices enable us to see the light?
Newell says that Merton’s teachings contain 3 key points on spiritual practice, each centered around “moving deep into the heart of all things.” They include:
Remembering our “diamond essence” and that what is deepest in us is of God.
Knowing this diamond essence is at the heart of each one of us and at the heart of all things.
Finding true strength by digging deep into the foundations of our being—not in our ego but in our essence.
We then need to bring this knowledge to each of our spiritual practices, be they meditation or prayer or walking in a natural setting. Newell advises us that “the simpler we can be in our expressions and practices, the closer we will come to the Truth and our diamond essence.”
One of Merton’s favorite spiritual practices was contemplative prayer. Also known as centering prayer, many forms of this practice include using what is the equivalent of a mantra, a word or shore phrase repeated over and over. But Merton preferred to “listen in silence…often making use of no words and no thoughts at all.” According to Newell, Merton believed:
Spiritual practice is not about self-important seriousness. It is “a Cosmic Dance” in which we discover that we do not have to take the lead. We can ourselves be the Dance. We can let go with abandon to it, be carried by its endless rhythm, in a relationship that is deeper than our consciousness can comprehend.
When practicing a silent contemplative prayer like Merton, this means digging a little deeper. It means getting past the surface level of our being where the ego exists, deep into the abyss that is the domain of our soul. But rather than finding darkness there, we can find Light, a Light that connects us with all other beings. Find this Light and you have also found God.
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