Summer before last I was out on my kayak Frida on Duck Lake in the Pacific Northwest. It was early evening and I had just finished a long paddle. The brilliant sunset, smearing blue, orange, yellow, green, and purple light created a perfect mirror so that the sky and lake became one.
Two dear friends had passed suddenly a few months prior. Through many years of study, trial and error I’ve learned that in order to talk to the dead we have to be willing to listen to them. I was speaking to one of these friends during my paddle. My friend Kay was quite spiritually advanced when she left her body and so I assumed she would communicate with me and I was right. She was very relieved to be out of her earth body. “So much drama” she told me, “we take everything so seriously on Earth, not so here.” She was so light and rapturous that I was both uplifted and a bit jealous of her lightheartedness.
Near the end of the paddle I rested by the island across from our little lake house. I could still see Kay’s glowing presence above me to the right of my internal vision. I could still feel her friendship that would never die. Just then a deep rumble began, like the sound of the Seven Thunders spoken of in Revelations. I could hear what I can only describe as the arrival of the Creator. This sound roared from the shore to a point inside of my heart. An enormous presence spoke to me. It felt like a great, loving King. He said, “Do you like how I am doing Kay?” I was suddenly aware that this powerful love force was disguised as one of my best friends. I answered “yes!” I was amazed and grateful that God not only created Kay but was Kay! Then the voice said, “Do you like how I am doing the lake? Do you like how I’m doing the island? Do you like how I’m doing the sky?”
I realized in that moment that God was doing everything and everybody. God was not only creating but sharing very personally in this Creation. Then I heard great, rumbling Laughter that was so deep, loving and compassionate that I felt like I was in on an wonderful joke. As the Divine merriment filled me I heard “ Do you like how I am doing you?” In this instant I knew that God was sharing my joys, sorrows, confusion and awakening with me as me! I had never felt such friendship and “withness” until this moment. I understood that we are never alone, that God is traveling with us as us! God is blindfolded from his/her/its own Truth as I am blindfolded. God is also awake and aware at all times. It is up to us to discover this Oneness when we are ready to take off the blindfold.
I looked lovingly at the little house, the lake, my beloved Frida and the Island. I saw Kay glowing to my upper right, glad that I understood the secret as she understood it. I stayed in this awareness for a long time and knew that when I paddled ashore I would need to remember and share this experience as the blindfold would go back on.
We are all waking up to this knowing. The world is full of beauty, tragedy and drama. I am writing this on the eve of yet another school shooting. My heart hurts. We are all in shock. Children are hurting. Parents are hurting. God is hurting and God is awake.