God dwells within you, as yourself.

I am reading the book, Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert again. My first encounter with it was during my trip to Sudan in January 2009; I can remember sitting outside my tukul in Narus, sun beating down on my back as I felt so connected to her words and her vagrant wanderings that I couldn't tear myself away from the pages long enough to notice that lunch was being served. I skipped an entire meal (which for me, is a real statement of devotion) to be encapsulated by her notion of God and what meditation and commitment to prayer can do to one’s relationship with Him. It was a very life-changing moment, on many levels, to be sitting in Sudan wondering how God might reveal Himself to me and how it would affect my life. For many years I've struggled with my idea of faith and how I identify with religion… it’s no secret, I've written about this topic over and over again.

So when I picked up Eat, Pray, Love for the second time a few days ago, it was more out of unconscious instinct than desire to experience the story again. I felt like the book calling my name, urging me to read it in this new context but with the same old questions burning in my mind. I am enthralled by the desperate restlessness of a woman on the search, but for what? It would be too simple to say God, because it’s not an external thing… but something within. And that’s precisely how I feel now; I’m looking for an answer to a question that I don’t know how to ask. Looking for something inside of myself that I know exists, I’ve just yet to identify, much less define, it. One quote in particular has resonated with me…

“God dwells within you as yourself, exactly the way you are. God isn’t interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality. To know God, you need only to renounce one thing – your sense of division from God. Otherwise, just stay as you were made, within your natural character.”

So I guess what I’m trying to figure out is, how do I use these years to mobilize the characteristics that make me who I am, in order to better myself and this world? How do I let God into my life in a way that won’t force me to do a complete overhaul of my personality, but in a way that will calm my mind and give serenity to my soul? Lately I've made some genuine attempts at meditation after I do yoga, but I really struggle with silencing my mind. I try to focus on images or mantras that sound legit enough, but honestly I don’t know much about meditation so I've found that my mind turns, sadly quickly, to a million other ideas and tasks. It’s as if my thoughts are having a feeding frenzy up there, and I can’t just close the door and shut them out. I would love to one day sit for even 10 minutes and focus only on blankness; to be in peace with the nothingness in my mind.

In light of this dream, with Lent approaching, I’ve decided what I will give up. Or rather, what I will take up. I’m going to give meditation a real shot, with full commitment of body and mind to it this time. My friend Caitlin has a book for beginners, so we’ll see how that goes. Maybe by Easter, I’ll have reached that goal of 10 minutes of pure silence.