Following our opening prayer, we began a new semester. “As I read aloud the first paragraph of our book, notice which words pop out to grab you,” I encouraged. Together we listened attentively.
“When applied to the spiritual life, the metaphor of a journey is both helpful and somewhat misleading. Helpfully it reflects the fact that the essence of spirituality is a process – specifically, a process of transformation. Unhelpfully it obscures the fact that we are already what we seek and where we long to arrive – specifically, in God. Once we realize this, the nature of the journey reveals itself to be more one of awakening than accomplishment, more one of spiritual awareness than spiritual achievement.” (David Benner’s The Gift of Being Yourself: The Sacred Call to Self-Discovery, p. 3)
Journey. Process. Transformation. We are already what we seek. We are where we long to arrive. In God. More awakening than accomplishment. More awareness than achievement.
Collaboratively we learn. We are in God. God is in us. We are transformed as we gradually wake to awareness in God.
And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all (Acts 4:33b, NIV).
