blurry lines

I have a favorite sweatshirt. It's bright blue and says Jones Soda Co. It's warm, fuzzy, and cozy. Cuddling in front of the fireplace kind of cozy. It's got elastic bands around the sleeves and around the waist. But the one around the waist doesn't fit snug around my hips anymore. The threads that are meant to flex and stretch, then return to their hip-hugging shape, have been stretched too much. Some have broken, and the band isn't able to return to it's original shape.

So it is with my perception of reality. The threads that had been stretched and tested have been broken. I can't return to what I 'knew'. I can't re-assume the old shape, the old understanding. And it's good, but has left me feeling a little shaken.

I spent my formative Christian years in a church that didn't believe in things like healing prayer, or miraculous signs. They believed "God doesn't work that way anymore". I'd always struggled to accept that belief. The idea that we can know how God will or won't work seems quite arrogant, and places man on a higher plane of understanding than I think we're capable of. Plus, it lacks the very faith by which we're meant to live.

Over the last couple of years, through various people and places, God has been peeling back the veil of "reality". That thin veneer which separates the physical from the spiritual. This past week He removed it completely. And I finally understand.

The spiritual isn't something we try to attain, or reach. We're walking, talking, living, and breathing in the spiritual every moment of every day. Like walking through the marine-layer fog that rolls into the coastal towns of California, the spiritual surrounds us. We just have to learn how to see and hear it.

We are, primarily, spiritual beings. We've let ourselves be convinced that this physical world is the only reality that exists here. We've let well-meaning preachers and teachers convince us that true spiritual experiences must wait until we cross the gates of Heaven. Yet Jesus came to declare "the kingdom of Heaven is near".

Truly, it is near. Nearer than we can imagine.