Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Daniel Day 31

A dialog between The Bible and ACIM:
  • Psalm 36: You're (The Lord) a fountain of cascading light, and You open our eyes to light.
  • ACIM: When God said, "Let there be light," there was light...light is understanding.
  • NT John: Jesus said, "I am the light of the world."
  • ACIM: The miracle worker begins by perceiving light...
  • NT John (letter): God is light. In Him there is no darkness.
  • ACIM: Can you find light by analyzing darkness...looking for a distant light...
  • NT 2 Corinthians: For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ
  • My prayer: Christ be my light.

We focus on love: God is love. Love makes us feel good. Usually it is just our egos that feel good. Light and love are the same thing. We ignore the light, yet it is the most persistent thing of our lives.

Well, I survived my hunger experiment and am still continuing it.

Last night, I had to go to the waste water treatment plant at 10 and when I got home at 11, I was hungry. I just went to bed and thought about it: Here I am, an American with a kitchen full of food, laying in bed hungry and not responding. I was practicing self denial. What a concept. I'm not sure I have ever faced this practice in such a stark reality. Eventually I went to sleep.

The implications of experiencing hunger as a prayer form in relation to world peace are tremendous. Voluntary hunger is different than third world starvation, but it does remove my consciousness from our ordinary American material satisfaction to meet God's Light in prayer.

This morning, I got up at 4, drank some green tea while I did my spiritual reading, went for a walk, made some juice and got to work by 6:30. Now, I have not yet ate, but drank juice, tea and water. I am not hungry right now. I have before gone on juice fasts for many days; but during this Daniel Fast, I didn’t even try. The fear was too great. Yet, somehow I have faced the fear and gone through it. I had to find the spirituality of it before I could.

Today there is word that the union will vote again on Friday to extend their old contract. I hope they do. Maybe my fasting and prayer will help.

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