TRUITY Spiritual Mentoring

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On this way to Haran, Jacob stopped along the way to spend the night, because it was getting dark. He took one of the rocks to use as a pillow, and lay down to sleep.

He dreamed of a tall ladder. The bottom was set on the earth, and the top reached up to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.

Then God stood beside him and said, "I am the Holy One, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. I will give the land on which you lie to you and to your children; your descendants will be like the dust of the earth: you shall be spread to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south — and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your descendants. I am with you and I will protect you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you."

Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "God is right here — and I didn’t even know it!" He was awe-struck. "What an incredible place! It’s nothing less than the House of God; and right here is the gate of heaven!"

The next morning Jacob arose early and took the rock he’d had under his head, and set it on its end as a marker, and poured oil over the top of it. He called the place Bethel (which means "House of God"); but the name of the city was originally Luz.
            ~ Genesis 28:10-19a



Last week I got a call from a neighbor who was leaving on vacation to Hawaii. "We’re renting a condo on the most perfect beach," Janet gushed, "We’ll be surrounded by waterfalls and ferns and hibiscus flowers — and mangos literally grow on trees there!"

"Sounds wonderful." I said.

"It is heaven on earth!" she declared.

After we hung up I got to thinking about the concept of "heaven on earth" — and how it always seems to be somewhere other than where we are.

Less than a month ago, one of my husband’s colleagues was visiting the Bay Area from England. As they walked out of the office into the springtime sunshine, Michael looked up at the sky, sighed, and said, "Another day in Paradise!"

His "paradise" was the very same place Janet couldn’t wait to get away from.

In the Scriptures we are told that Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden — the way back eternally barred by a fiery angel guard. Peace and happiness, communion with our God would always elude us; no longer would humankind share the same space where the Creator walked in the cool of the afternoon. We would always search for — but never find — "heaven on earth" again.

But I wonder.

Time and again the Scriptures also tell us that God is still around: that God still speaks to us, still appears to us, still creates and blesses and sustains us. People have stood in the presence of the Eternal in any number of places:

Noah hears from the Rider on the Clouds in his own backyard. Abraham and Sarah discover the Eternal outside their tents at midday. Hagar speaks with the One Who Sees while wandering in the desert. Isaac finds the Rescuer on a mountaintop. Moses will meet the Creator in a meadow filled with sheep. The list goes on and on ...

And in today’s lesson we hear about Jacob’s discovery of God on the road to Haran.

The Holy One clearly isn’t "stuck" in a particular spot, but can be found anywhere. God can be wherever God chooses to be. Sometimes the appearance is dramatic — a burning bush, wheels of fire, the parting of a sea; and sometimes God’s revelation is as soft as a whisper, as gentle as an infant’s touch.

No matter how it happens, when someone meets up with the Eternal they get pretty excited. As we see with Jacob, the experience is astonishing, overwhelming, awe-inspiring. It is a life-transforming event that he wants to commemorate: "Something tremendous happened to me. Here. In this very place. At this exact spot. I met the Living God."

Rightly, Jacob wanted to give thanks to the Holy One for God’s self-revelation and for the terrific promise that was given to him. He wanted to celebrate his experience, and to tell everybody what happened. And he wanted to mark the spot as a Special, Holy Place: to alert others that this is "the very gate of heaven" — here is the entryway to God’s house.

Jacob must have believed that Bethel was the only sacred place on earth. Only there could God be reached through a portal to paradise unavailable elsewhere. That precise spot was holy ground, and there only. Time and the Holy One proved otherwise.

From Bethel Jacob continued on his journey — onward to meet Rachel and Leah, to contend with his crafty father-in-law Laban, to father the remarkable Joseph, and eventually to make peace with his brother, Esau. As his life went on, Jacob learned that there wasn’t a single "doorway to heaven," He received holy messages, stumbled across angel encampments — and even wrestled with the angel of God — in places far from Bethel. Wherever Jacob was, God was.

The Holy One is in a quiet place by the side of the road that leads to Haran, on a rocky mountaintop, in the center of a crowded market; God travels with desert caravans, school buses, and fire trucks; God is in Honolulu and Hayward, in Boston and Beirut. Wherever we are, God is.

It is tempting to believe that the Holy One — being Perfect, Unique, and supremely Wonderful — can only be found in a unique and wonderful place far beyond our "everyday" lives. It may seem that way because that is when we are truly open to God’s communication.

We strain to hear holy whispers in the waves that kiss the island sands good morning, or the soft breezes of a moonlit night — but shut our ears to God’s voice at our kitchen table or in the traffic’s roar. We look for God’s fingerprints in redwood trees and Monarch butterflies, and fail to see that Love is writ large in dandelions and honeybees.

The Beloved is not secluded in a far off place: the Holy One doesn’t live "off the beaten track," and is not hidden from view behind grape arbors or magnolia blossoms or stalks of sugarcane. We don’t have to travel to foreign lands or exotic locations. Wherever we are, God is. All ground is holy ground. Every place is a place filled with sacred potential.

Where you are right now is holy ground. God is with you, right now.

Rejoice, and be thankful.

Virtual hugs and real-time blessings,

Deborah +

This Week’s Suggested Spiritual Exercise: What has been your experience of God’s presence in your life? Is it an idea, a feeling, a sense, an understanding?

If you thinking to yourself, "I have no idea what she’s talking about," — don’t worry. Don’t try to "have an experience of God." Simply rest in the knowledge that the Holy One is with you: at all times, in all places — and understands you perfectly, and loves you completely. That is enough.

Late in his life the Holy One calls Jacob to return to Bethel. There his new name is formally bestowed upon him — Jacob becomes "Israel," and the promise given in that place so many years before is repeated; it has not been forgotten or withdrawn. Thus we are reassured: God keeps God’s word (Genesis 35:10-12).