Reconciliation is the action of making one view or belief compatible with another, to bring back into agreement or union. As we look at the world today, we see great need for reconciliation among nations, among political parties, between courts and citizens, among sexes, between races, within families. Though as important as these issues are, our need for reconciliation with God is greater.
Beginning with God seems rudimentary. Yet, humans do not tend to start with God when reckoning reality. They start with themselves. Customarily, we think about who we are based on what the five senses tell us. What we see, taste, smell, hear or feel establishes our reality. Or so we think. Yet, isn’t this a flawed starting point?
Shouldn’t truthful reasoning begin with God, Spirit, the Supreme Being? Shouldn’t mankind reconcile himself to God, not make God fit a human concept? God is Love, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, the intelligent life force, and perfect principle behind all. No lesser trait than good can come from God. And God being All, where, how, can anything unlike good originate?
Reasoning out from this standpoint, we realize that God’s creation–which includes us–cannot be less than what our Creator knows and embodies. Then we arrive at seeing who we really are, as Genesis’ states, made in God’s image and likeness.
But you may quickly counter: Humans lie, cheat, steal, murder! How does this reflect God’s goodness? We aren’t like God!
It is easy to see why we get confused about our relationship to God. Nothing in our five-senses world tells us we have any connection to Spirit. So how can we unite or reconcile with Spirit, God?
But there’s the key to reconciliation! Nothing in our five-senses world tells us we have any connection to Spirit. It isn’t the mortal sense of things that defines us. Our Creator defines us. We are His/Her good offspring. To reconcile with God, or each other, we need a more God-like view of ourselves, of others, of situations and things. We need to understand that God made us, not we ourselves, that we inherited a higher nature, reflective of our Creator’s attributes. Attributes such as honesty, justice, kindness, compassion, courage, generosity, goodness, peace, life, creativity, abundance, joy–none of which are matter-based or sense-defined. Striving to express God-like characteristics, we see ourselves and others as we truly are, in a spiritual light that reconciles us to God and to all issues needing reconciliation.
Recently I experienced reconciliation with a neighbor. For several years, he seemed hateful toward me and my dogs; we did not speak. Then, inspired prayer led me to see him in a new light and to reach out by taking him a loaf of my homemade bread. In this simple doing, reconciliation happened for us both.
To experience reconciliation, we simply need to know ourselves and others as God knows us: spiritually, radiantly reflective of the characteristics an only good God creates.
Meditation Beside a Waterfall, oil, 24″ x 24″ SOLD. By Gwendolyn Evans.
Artwork: Meditation Beside a Waterfall, oil, 24″ x 24″ SOLD.
This is one of my all-time favorite paintings. It sold almost immediately after it was painted. Thankfully, I’d a jpeg image of it which I had made into a canvas reproduction that hangs on my gallery wall. Where we once lived, we had a huge natural waterfall on our property–its flow and moods were part of my every day, inspiring beyond a mortal sense of things to a deeper beauty.