How do we find God? How do we even start?
Meister Eckhart says that the man who finds no taste of God wearies of looking for him. One of the criticisms of Christianity, and one of the reasons why many young Christians turn to the East, to Buddhism or to Hinduism, is that in Christianity there is no apparent help with method. How do we find God? How do we even start? Eckhart is one of the Christians who faces this and accepts it as a problem. Good intentions are not always enough. We need instruction in how to make ourselves fit to receive the revelation of God, to receive the eternal birth.
Ursula Fleming
When the Quarantine of 2020 hit and we were shut down, many of us opened up and felt the stirring of our awakening hearts in new ways.
Two years later, I continue to feel this as a collective call to the interior life necessary to find God within and consent to the birth of the Word in our innermost beings.
Meister Eckhart (c. 1260 to c. 1328) was a German theologian, philosopher and spiritual seeker who speaks deeply to my heart now.
As I turn to his teachings, I look back at my 2014 painting of his “Mystic Heart” which became the featured artwork for the song “Every Breath is Yours” on the 2015 Album “Behold, I Make All Things New” by Alana Levandoski.
What does it avail that this birth is always happening, if it does not happen to me?
That it happens to me is what matters.
Meister Eckhart, Sermon One
In this painting, I see the fire of eternal birth rising from ground of our shared being in Christ.
I feel the longing of my own awakening heart to align with and be held by the One in whom all things hold together—
And, in the words of Ursula Fleming, I understand that instruction is needed in order to make myself fit to receive the eternal birth I long to experience.
The Episcopal House of Prayer, where I contribute as an Artist in Residence and serve on the Board, is about to bring to life an experience of teachings, narratives, conversations, gatherings, and art to feed our collective hunger for this kind of instruction.
Please join me here, and there, as I participate with my own reflections and artwork and we “Awaken to Wholeness” together.
Let’s take a journey into your heart together.
JULIE ANN STEVENS 