Question
Dear Jay,
From nearly 30 years of personal meditative work, I am interested in exploring together the deeper concerns of our lives. How can we shed light on these concerns for ourselves - directly, clearly, moment by moment? At the same time, how can we come in touch with the simple beauty and affection of live that reveals itself from time to time even though our lives often feel anything but simple, beautiful or loving. If you have a question, I will try to work with you to clarify and explore it. I read your info. I like to meditate in life. An I was just wandering see I am a Catholic. I love God with all my heart and I love children. I am a happy person too I feel like I am called to religous life and that I am a holy woman. I know that God is calling me. I feel so connected with the church. I meditate a lot on this and sometimes I am confused but by all means how do you know if your being called by God to become a sister. I see angels in my dreams and I see heaven a lot I feel spiritually connected some how can you help me that would be very helpful.
Answer
Hello!
Thank you for sharing your feelings and concerns. I don't know if I can offer anything helpful but we can at least look together at what is causing you some confusion and concern.
Let's see if I understand what you are saying. Your direct question was how to know if you are being called by God to become a sister. I don't know if you mean formally becoming a nun or if you mean making some other informal changes in your life to do things that feel "spiritual". It sounds like you are torn a little between two things, otherwise you would not be asking the question. So there are two possibilities and the direction to go is not clear to you. And perhaps the decision you make will have a serious effect on your life, so there is some anxiety about what to do.
When you consider each choice, I imagine that you probably consider the images that you associate with each. When you consider spiritual life, you are thinking/feeling the images of love, of God, of the church, of angels, of heaven, of connection. When you consider the other choice, there are most likely images that go along with that.
The only advice I can give is to point out that imagery is extremely unreliable. Explore this for yourself. What is the image of an angel? Is it not a internal picture, an image recorded in the memory and which can be played back, that is associated in the recordings of memory with certain very pleasant feelings? Is this image not called forth in a programmed kind of way by certain circumstances - when I am sad, or when I feel I need support, or when I have seen ugly things, etc? The programming is different for each person but the fact that our imagery is programmed is the same for all of us.
This is not to say that there might not be something meaningful for you but the meaning, the truth, is not in the imagery. This is perhaps the most critical truth of spirituality - imagery, associations, the names we give things, how we think and feel about our ideas - these are arbitrary associations. To find our truth we have to look beyond and behind these things.
To look beyond the ideas and images that we decorate our lives with means, really, to look at oneself in a very honest way. Beautiful imagery, loving connections, lofty goals, all of these things can keep us from really seeing ourselves as we are. In fact that is often their purpose, though we don't usually see that.
Now of course love can be a very natural response to life. When it is, it is simple and not complicated. It is not torn between different possibilities. Simple love does not come from imagination or images. It is a response to what is right here at this moment - alive, real and beautiful. But more often our feelings of love are just habits, ways of making ourselves feel better, ways of avoiding noticing that we are in pain or are lonely or are uncertain of our place among people. If it is possible to start to distinguish the difference between these two - let's say Love and love, that is a beginning of being honest with oneself.
Maybe it will be helpful if you take all of the concerns you mentioned - loving God, loving children, dreaming of angels and heaven - and address them in the unconventional way of turning to really look at yourself. Who am I? How do I really live? How do I honestly relate to people? Am I really that loving person or is that just my idea of myself? Are there deep concerns inside - fears, emptiness, loneliness, the desire to be someone, the desire to be loved - that I am reacting to without really listening to them?
The way to being alive, to living in grace, is through becoming a light to oneself, seeing what is honestly inside, with an interest and an attention that also includes what is around me. Stopping to listen silently inside and out. This is meditation. There is no movement in it toward a goal. There is no imagery in it. It is completely vulnerable listening and being, moment by moment.
If you can begin to know yourself in this way, your life may change naturally on the inside and how you express this on the outside will come naturally.
Maybe I have said enough for now. I don't know if I have addressed your concerns. Please feel free to write back and ask me to be clearer about something or to let me know if I have not understood you exactly.
Best wishes,
Jay
