Practice II: All Physical Reality as a Mirror
Having looked at the objects of the universe, I find there is no one,
nor any particle of one, but has reference to the Soul.
—Walt WhitmanAs I have often said, salvation is not a question of if but when. Once you see
with God’s eyes, you will see all things and enjoy all things in proper and full
perspective. Some put this off till the moment of death or even afterward
(“purgatory” was our strange word for this). Salvation, for me, is simply to have
the “mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16), which Paul describes as “making the
world, life and death, the present and the future—all your servants—because
you belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God” (1 Corinthians 3:23).
Everything finally belongs, and you are a part of it.
This knowing and this enjoying are a good description for salvation.
I want to close this book with an extended Mirror Meditation I once wrote.
The goal of this meditation is to rewire you—both in your mind and in your
body—to see all things in God, and God in all things. I find that if you practice
this kind of seeing regularly, it will soon become an entire way of life, in which
the natural and physical world can work as a daily mirror for you, revealing
parts of yourself that you might not know otherwise, revealing the deep
patterns of things, and most of all, showing that what we say about the Christ is
true: the outer world is a sacrament of God.
Read this meditation slowly, in parts or as a whole. If you notice that a
particular line is speaking to you at some depth, pause and reflect on it until the
feeling passes. Don’t mistake this sensation for your own thoughts or mere brain
chemistry. Instead, receive it as the flow of Divine Love.