Mutual Indwelling

God is creating Real Presence, which is probably why the images of an intimate bride and bridegroom are used throughout the Bible. Mutual presence, even intimacy, is clearly the ultimate goal. Presence is the naked language of union, of being lost and found in the face of the other, or in Jesus, the very breath of the Other (John 20:22).

If that is the core meaning of eternal life, then why wouldn’t we practice it now, enjoy it now, choose it now?

Why has so much of Christian history settled for a courtroom instead of a bridal chamber?

You don’t have to figure it all out or get it all right ahead of time. You just have to stay on the journey. All you can do is stay connected to the Source, which connects you to everything else. We don’t know how to be perfect, but we can stay in union. “If you remain in me and I remain in you,” says Jesus, “you can ask for whatever you want and you’re going to get it” (see John 15:7). When you’re connected, there are no coincidences or accidents anymore.

Union realigns you with everything, and synchronicities, coincidences, and “providences” just keep happening. Science now calls this “quantum entanglement,” and it is even provable! I myself cannot explain the physics of it all. All I know from my side is that “the branch cut off from the vine is useless” (John 15:5), and connected to the vine it bears much fruit (15:5, 7).

 

The False Self is fragile, needy, and insecure; the True Self is endlessly generative, in touch with its Source, and inside the Big Flow.

 

~ Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation