Where is God?
This morning as I was reading Spiritual Direction by Sue Pickering, I was struck with the image of God's welcome when any of us come to prayer.
I got the image of coming into God's home as I enter intentional prayer (the kind of prayer where I sit down and intend to focus on my relationship/interaction with/presence of God). It seemed to me that sometimes I experience God meeting me right at the front door, actually being out on the porch waiting for and waving to me as I come up the front walkway. There's a glass of wine in God's hand and a hearty welcome as God ushers me in through the front door and robustly welcomes me to have a seat and sit for awhile.
Sometimes as I enter God's home, I feel I have had to tap gently on the door, and sort of let myself in. As I walk through the door, I sort of call out, "God?" I may have to walk through the front entry, through a few rooms, asking, "God?" But if persistent and earnest enough, I will come to the place where I find God sitting by the fireplace, quietly poking the fire, having set a small table between us with a couple cups of coffee. God silently but warmly welcomes me to the adjacent seat, and we might just sit and gaze into the fire for a few moments before either of us says anything.
God is always there. God is always home. I just might experience God to be in different places at different times, with different degrees of access.
But God is always home. God is always hospitable.
I got the image of coming into God's home as I enter intentional prayer (the kind of prayer where I sit down and intend to focus on my relationship/interaction with/presence of God). It seemed to me that sometimes I experience God meeting me right at the front door, actually being out on the porch waiting for and waving to me as I come up the front walkway. There's a glass of wine in God's hand and a hearty welcome as God ushers me in through the front door and robustly welcomes me to have a seat and sit for awhile.
Sometimes as I enter God's home, I feel I have had to tap gently on the door, and sort of let myself in. As I walk through the door, I sort of call out, "God?" I may have to walk through the front entry, through a few rooms, asking, "God?" But if persistent and earnest enough, I will come to the place where I find God sitting by the fireplace, quietly poking the fire, having set a small table between us with a couple cups of coffee. God silently but warmly welcomes me to the adjacent seat, and we might just sit and gaze into the fire for a few moments before either of us says anything.
God is always there. God is always home. I just might experience God to be in different places at different times, with different degrees of access.
But God is always home. God is always hospitable.
Why Am I Doing This?
I'm in an emerging place right now. This place is sort of foreign to me. There's depth, healing, questioning, a lot of resting, and a fair measure of vulnerability to all of this. This is called Soul Massage because I got a massage this past Wednesday, and as I was lying face down on the table and the therapist was working on my back, the image came to mind of the love, skill, insistent tenderness, and full knowledge that God has for working out the kinks in my own life, for making me feel better, for accepting me right where I am with the hope that I will always relax, heal, and be whole even more than I am right now. So God is my massage therapist in this regard. There I am, not much on, sort of vulnerable, but trusting that the skilled hands have the best intent for me and my wholeness. This is during the Spring Break week, and I've given myself lots of time to read, ponder, craft, go slowly and quietly through the days, and see if I can get an even greater sense of God's love for me, and what that love can draw out of me naturally. So I'm going to submit to regular and frequent soul massages, and write down what I'm discovering. This week has already been ripe and full, but I'm just going to start with today.
So that's it for now.
So that's it for now.
Sitting with What Provokes You
Through my Sensible Shoes book study with my Sensible Sisters at SLUMC this past January and February, and through revisiting and taking more seriously the Jesuit Examen, I've been learning to pay attention to what provokes me, upsets me, or "sets my hair on fire" (as my friend, Karen Lang, says). Not to dwell on it, but to learn from it. To learn from it, not to fix it. To learn from it in the loving lap of God, and then let it go. To learn from it as a I would a very kind friend who is pointing something out to me so I will be more whole.
So Monday, I got provoked.
I was leading a workshop for students at school on Motivation and Goals. It was an extracurricular workshop through our Student Success Advising department. Near the end, one of the participants said, "How come I'm often sabotaging myself when it comes to setting my goals and then achieving them? How come I can set them, but then I don't follow through?"
Well, I don't know exactly what happened at that point, except that I had a visceral response. My insides lit up, and I knew I had an answer. Now, I realize that my answer may only have been for me, and I'm smart enough in situations like that to know that when I propose answers I can only do them from my own truth, and I have to say that openly to the participants because sometimes participants swallow what the leader says as gospel for everyone, and it's only gospel for the speaker.
The gospel, the good news that set me free, was the realization that when I set goals and sabotage myself it's often because I'm so damn sick of being judged by my performance and my production, that I just want to derail the efforts as performance or productivity to see if anyone will like me, approve of me, validate me anyway, just because I'm me. I'm becoming much more comfortable with the notion that God loves me in this way, so I think I'm getting more rebellious about performing or producing as goals would dictate.
SO THEN...
The next day happens. Just when I'm feeling pretty cool about the discovery I made on Monday, I got a little more education on listening with true intention and obedience to the Holy Spirit. I got a little more education on honestly trusting the Spirit of God within myself, and that this Spirit speaks, is active and alive and speaking. The chair of our department and I had to have a tough conversation with one of our colleagues. We've had some time to think about it, and so the day before she sent me an email to see if I had a plan. I gave it some quiet reflection and told the Spirit I would trust what I intuited was the way to go. I got a plan.
As the time drew nearer for the conversation, I found myself growing uneasier with the plan because I thought it wasn't as "tough" as the expectation might be for me to be. I started doubting and second guessing the plan because I was afraid of what someone else might think of me.
Thankfully I didn't blow it completely. But I did veer off course from what I intuited just a bit and then I was uneasy about it and why I had done it. Christ really does live in me, and I need to trust that, to quietly listen to the deepest of promptings, and go with what I know to be the Way of Christ, not the way of what others might expect from me, as I perceive it. My disconsolation was indeed palpable, and I brought it to the light of Love and got further clarification on who I am and Whose I am. And I once again received grace.
In the next entry, I'll write about two very powerful consolation moments, moments when I gave and received love, moments in which I felt most connected to God, moments that were just right.
So Monday, I got provoked.
I was leading a workshop for students at school on Motivation and Goals. It was an extracurricular workshop through our Student Success Advising department. Near the end, one of the participants said, "How come I'm often sabotaging myself when it comes to setting my goals and then achieving them? How come I can set them, but then I don't follow through?"
Well, I don't know exactly what happened at that point, except that I had a visceral response. My insides lit up, and I knew I had an answer. Now, I realize that my answer may only have been for me, and I'm smart enough in situations like that to know that when I propose answers I can only do them from my own truth, and I have to say that openly to the participants because sometimes participants swallow what the leader says as gospel for everyone, and it's only gospel for the speaker.
The gospel, the good news that set me free, was the realization that when I set goals and sabotage myself it's often because I'm so damn sick of being judged by my performance and my production, that I just want to derail the efforts as performance or productivity to see if anyone will like me, approve of me, validate me anyway, just because I'm me. I'm becoming much more comfortable with the notion that God loves me in this way, so I think I'm getting more rebellious about performing or producing as goals would dictate.
SO THEN...
The next day happens. Just when I'm feeling pretty cool about the discovery I made on Monday, I got a little more education on listening with true intention and obedience to the Holy Spirit. I got a little more education on honestly trusting the Spirit of God within myself, and that this Spirit speaks, is active and alive and speaking. The chair of our department and I had to have a tough conversation with one of our colleagues. We've had some time to think about it, and so the day before she sent me an email to see if I had a plan. I gave it some quiet reflection and told the Spirit I would trust what I intuited was the way to go. I got a plan.
As the time drew nearer for the conversation, I found myself growing uneasier with the plan because I thought it wasn't as "tough" as the expectation might be for me to be. I started doubting and second guessing the plan because I was afraid of what someone else might think of me.
Thankfully I didn't blow it completely. But I did veer off course from what I intuited just a bit and then I was uneasy about it and why I had done it. Christ really does live in me, and I need to trust that, to quietly listen to the deepest of promptings, and go with what I know to be the Way of Christ, not the way of what others might expect from me, as I perceive it. My disconsolation was indeed palpable, and I brought it to the light of Love and got further clarification on who I am and Whose I am. And I once again received grace.
In the next entry, I'll write about two very powerful consolation moments, moments when I gave and received love, moments in which I felt most connected to God, moments that were just right.
If I Open My Eyes
This isn't actually the entry I was thinking of when I finished the last entry. In fact, that was months ago. But I'm making a promise to myself to be more consistent, even if the entries are banal and uninteresting, because I need to discipline myself to honestly do things that I think are important, even when I don't feel like it, or when I don't feel like they'll truly make a difference (probably both of those are the same thing).
The other day I was just messing around in my kitchen and I discovered this little heart in the pattern of my fake wood flooring. As I searched for others in the pattern, I found they're all over the place on the ground level of my home. So I took a picture.
Maybe that's what I'll do with the blog for right now. I have made another promise to myself that for the next 30 days I'll take a picture of something that captures my attention, even if it doesn't look remarkable to anyone else.
I am realizing that I have been in a fog for about 54 years of being concerned if others are going to think that my discoveries, thoughts, pictures, activities, etc. are worthwhile. What I am discovering through my reading and my time off and my reflections on what might be coming next ~ I don't really care what others think of the profundity of my inner workings. They are profound to me. For so long I was saddled by the thought that everything had to be "marketable" and packaged correctly so that others would "buy" it ~ literally and figuratively. Now that doesn't matter so much anymore. I sold my soul to the devil in the guise of being a great "Christian". Odd.
So I'll be writing and taking pictures and making things and doing life, and I'll just be me and not be concerned if anyone is going to "buy" it. That's easy to think, say, and do while I'm on break and have lots of time to myself. We'll see how things go when I get back to school.
All night last night I kept waking up to the thought, "Show, don't tell." So we'll see where that one is going, too. I wonder if it's connected to my current reading which is My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen.
The other day I was just messing around in my kitchen and I discovered this little heart in the pattern of my fake wood flooring. As I searched for others in the pattern, I found they're all over the place on the ground level of my home. So I took a picture.
Maybe that's what I'll do with the blog for right now. I have made another promise to myself that for the next 30 days I'll take a picture of something that captures my attention, even if it doesn't look remarkable to anyone else.
I am realizing that I have been in a fog for about 54 years of being concerned if others are going to think that my discoveries, thoughts, pictures, activities, etc. are worthwhile. What I am discovering through my reading and my time off and my reflections on what might be coming next ~ I don't really care what others think of the profundity of my inner workings. They are profound to me. For so long I was saddled by the thought that everything had to be "marketable" and packaged correctly so that others would "buy" it ~ literally and figuratively. Now that doesn't matter so much anymore. I sold my soul to the devil in the guise of being a great "Christian". Odd.
So I'll be writing and taking pictures and making things and doing life, and I'll just be me and not be concerned if anyone is going to "buy" it. That's easy to think, say, and do while I'm on break and have lots of time to myself. We'll see how things go when I get back to school.
All night last night I kept waking up to the thought, "Show, don't tell." So we'll see where that one is going, too. I wonder if it's connected to my current reading which is My Grandfather's Blessings by Rachel Naomi Remen.
New Game to Play for 30 Days
I have decided that I'm going to play a new game for the next 30 days. It's called "Today I have discovered..." It started with two posts that I made on Facebook on successive days that started with "Today I have discovered..." So I thought that would be a fun game to play.
Yesterday I discovered gel highlighters from Sharpie. Very, very cool. And yesterday I discovered an emerging, very maternal, tenderness for my little vegetable/herb garden. It will be interesting to see how that develops throughout the summer.
So that's my game with myself. Along with taking a picture every day for 30 days. I'm hoping it will all help me keep my eyes, ears, and heart open.
Yesterday I discovered gel highlighters from Sharpie. Very, very cool. And yesterday I discovered an emerging, very maternal, tenderness for my little vegetable/herb garden. It will be interesting to see how that develops throughout the summer.
So that's my game with myself. Along with taking a picture every day for 30 days. I'm hoping it will all help me keep my eyes, ears, and heart open.
Something is Brewing
There's something afoot in my life. There are threads drawing together, I think, for some sort of new emergence to what I did for so long with speaking, writing, crafting, teaching... Here's what I see:
1. Taking writing classes at the Indianapolis Writer's Center. Next class up: Creative Non-Fiction.
2. A re-emergence of Write and Wine. This time with expanding the venues in which I do this, and expanding the offerings. For examples, my current list includes specialties in Discovery, Healing, Legacy, and Change. So instead of one general Write and Wine, there will be several.
3. My ground of being is more along the lines of Rachel Naomi Remen, although I am still pretty Christocentric. I'm most drawn to writers like Sue Monk Kidd, Brenee Brown, David Benner, and Rachel. I'm sort of mildly repulsed by the exclusivity, anxious vigilance, constant second guessing, and arrogance of my heritage, although I seek to be gracious and recognize that it is part of who I am and what has shaped me to the current me.
4. Beginning a course in becoming a spiritual director this fall.
5. Seeing crafting as a means of grace ~ to myself and for others. The crafting heals me, and the cards hopefully touch others in a variety of ways.
6. Wanting to open "Mae Zing Ink".
But instead of my usual rush in and get it done (because I'm afraid someone is going to take my ideas or they'll pop up somewhere else and I will have lost the "market share"), I'm letting this simmer. I'm seeking to intentionally listen to the Holy Spirit, move when I feel it's natural, stay put when moving forward would mean being aggressive, and seeing if there really is anything to be made of these rumblings.
I'm very grateful for my "day job" that affords me the underlying financial stability to be more quiet, deliberate, attentive, and not so frantic about building a business for the money.
1. Taking writing classes at the Indianapolis Writer's Center. Next class up: Creative Non-Fiction.
2. A re-emergence of Write and Wine. This time with expanding the venues in which I do this, and expanding the offerings. For examples, my current list includes specialties in Discovery, Healing, Legacy, and Change. So instead of one general Write and Wine, there will be several.
3. My ground of being is more along the lines of Rachel Naomi Remen, although I am still pretty Christocentric. I'm most drawn to writers like Sue Monk Kidd, Brenee Brown, David Benner, and Rachel. I'm sort of mildly repulsed by the exclusivity, anxious vigilance, constant second guessing, and arrogance of my heritage, although I seek to be gracious and recognize that it is part of who I am and what has shaped me to the current me.
4. Beginning a course in becoming a spiritual director this fall.
5. Seeing crafting as a means of grace ~ to myself and for others. The crafting heals me, and the cards hopefully touch others in a variety of ways.
6. Wanting to open "Mae Zing Ink".
But instead of my usual rush in and get it done (because I'm afraid someone is going to take my ideas or they'll pop up somewhere else and I will have lost the "market share"), I'm letting this simmer. I'm seeking to intentionally listen to the Holy Spirit, move when I feel it's natural, stay put when moving forward would mean being aggressive, and seeing if there really is anything to be made of these rumblings.
I'm very grateful for my "day job" that affords me the underlying financial stability to be more quiet, deliberate, attentive, and not so frantic about building a business for the money.
Back to Work
Tomorrow I head back to work. I've had three weeks, three luscious weeks of break, that help me to rebalance and to become reacquainted with myself in a more "normal" and unstressed state. I really like who I am when I'm in this state. I don't get a lot accomplished from a to-do list standpoint, but I heal, recalibrate, read, craft, cook a little, clean a little, and reconnect with the pace of life I would much prefer to have.
It sounds like I don't like working, but I honestly do. I just am not totally fond of who/what I become when I'm working. I think that I am truly a slow person. I like the pace slow, I think slowly, I work slowly. I'm also a very solitary person. I'm truly the consummate introvert who loves the company of a few people and truly hates the rush and press of lots of people, lots of noise, lots of the time.
So going to work can be a real challenge for me spiritually. Mission-wise, it's awesome. I work with, interact with, students all the time who I think would be seen as needing assistance. They are in under-resourced situations, often the victims of abuse, neglect, and just plain indifference. While I'm still working through what it means for me to be who I am with my privilege, and I seek to be very careful to avoid labels and the notion that I am the great hope that will save them, I still see this as a field for service and love.
But sometimes that service and love are really hard for me. And I struggle with the sense that I would just rather leave people in the messes of their own devising. I know I struggle with the feeling I get when I'm trying to be helpful and all I'm meeting with is rudeness and disrespect. I KNOW that comes from scripts and culture and etc, but I still struggle. As I prepare to go back to work, I struggle with the feeling that going there is a place that just sucks me under, that disturbs my happy juju that I have when I'm off work. But life isn't all about happy juju, so I know that being in my job is a spiritual stretch and something that I need to embrace in order to grow. But it's hard. I want to feel that it's all holy, even if it's not all sweet and calm and lovely.
I don't want to just live in a situation where I think to myself, "Well, I'll just gut this out for 7-8 hours a day because it's making me a better person", when I really feel like driving out of the parking lot is like shooting to the surface once I've been held under water for so long.
The thing is, I really do, for the most part, like my job. For the most part, I like my colleagues, my conditions are very nice with having my own office that is for the most part a haven. I like many, many of my students. My friend Pam says if you like your job 70% of the time, it's all good. Well, I like it more than that! So why do I feel like I'm entering a hole as I enter my thoughts of returning to work? It's like that is a murky place, removed from my regular life, when in reality, it's probably more the real life, and my "out of work" life is the exception.
One of my colleagues dropped in yesterday while I was there for just a few hours doing a little prep work. She's not faculty, so she doesn't get the breaks that I get. We were talking about all the things I do on break that make me feel human. And I sort of shrugged and grinned about being back to work (which I am SO grateful for, believe me), and she said, "Well, I think this job meets a need for you, too." And that was wisdom.
I am VERY grateful for my job. But I don't want to be grateful just because it's a WONDERFUL steady paycheck, with terrific breaks throughout the year. I don't want to be grateful just because I get to "help people". I want to feel that every day is truly a blessing there. I want to be able to be thankful IN every moment, even if I'm not thankful FOR every moment. I know that I need to be stretched and deepened ~ and that's why I look forward to going back tomorrow.
Do you get what I'm saying?
It sounds like I don't like working, but I honestly do. I just am not totally fond of who/what I become when I'm working. I think that I am truly a slow person. I like the pace slow, I think slowly, I work slowly. I'm also a very solitary person. I'm truly the consummate introvert who loves the company of a few people and truly hates the rush and press of lots of people, lots of noise, lots of the time.
So going to work can be a real challenge for me spiritually. Mission-wise, it's awesome. I work with, interact with, students all the time who I think would be seen as needing assistance. They are in under-resourced situations, often the victims of abuse, neglect, and just plain indifference. While I'm still working through what it means for me to be who I am with my privilege, and I seek to be very careful to avoid labels and the notion that I am the great hope that will save them, I still see this as a field for service and love.
But sometimes that service and love are really hard for me. And I struggle with the sense that I would just rather leave people in the messes of their own devising. I know I struggle with the feeling I get when I'm trying to be helpful and all I'm meeting with is rudeness and disrespect. I KNOW that comes from scripts and culture and etc, but I still struggle. As I prepare to go back to work, I struggle with the feeling that going there is a place that just sucks me under, that disturbs my happy juju that I have when I'm off work. But life isn't all about happy juju, so I know that being in my job is a spiritual stretch and something that I need to embrace in order to grow. But it's hard. I want to feel that it's all holy, even if it's not all sweet and calm and lovely.
I don't want to just live in a situation where I think to myself, "Well, I'll just gut this out for 7-8 hours a day because it's making me a better person", when I really feel like driving out of the parking lot is like shooting to the surface once I've been held under water for so long.
The thing is, I really do, for the most part, like my job. For the most part, I like my colleagues, my conditions are very nice with having my own office that is for the most part a haven. I like many, many of my students. My friend Pam says if you like your job 70% of the time, it's all good. Well, I like it more than that! So why do I feel like I'm entering a hole as I enter my thoughts of returning to work? It's like that is a murky place, removed from my regular life, when in reality, it's probably more the real life, and my "out of work" life is the exception.
One of my colleagues dropped in yesterday while I was there for just a few hours doing a little prep work. She's not faculty, so she doesn't get the breaks that I get. We were talking about all the things I do on break that make me feel human. And I sort of shrugged and grinned about being back to work (which I am SO grateful for, believe me), and she said, "Well, I think this job meets a need for you, too." And that was wisdom.
I am VERY grateful for my job. But I don't want to be grateful just because it's a WONDERFUL steady paycheck, with terrific breaks throughout the year. I don't want to be grateful just because I get to "help people". I want to feel that every day is truly a blessing there. I want to be able to be thankful IN every moment, even if I'm not thankful FOR every moment. I know that I need to be stretched and deepened ~ and that's why I look forward to going back tomorrow.
Do you get what I'm saying?
Simplicity
Today my thoughts are trained toward simplicity. It's a word that surfaced several times in my vacation reading, and I think there really is something to is. I have been thinking about how I can make my job more simple. I have been thinking about all the things in my life that I have done, accumulated, expected, or believed that have just brought on complication and confusion. And I think simplicity is a really good idea.
It's definitely not the same as easy. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is make something complicated because you just don't really want to do it, it looks like it will make you clever or smart, or you just don't know what the hell you're doing. Sometimes we make simple things complicated because the simplicity is just too good to believe, so there must be some tricky catch that goes along with it.
I've decided that just about anything I do to make myself look more clever, more talented, more well-versed, more with-it, is probably just going to complicate things for me.
I need to do some research on simple and simplicity. I love definitions, synonyms, quotes. It can be my word playmate for the next few days.
On another note, I have found it to be a fun little practice to say "Bless you" to all the cars that pass me as I'm driving to and from work. I wonder what would happen in a day if each person truly understood they are blessed by God, and decided to return the blessing in heart and voice. Well, it can't hurt to wonder.
It's definitely not the same as easy. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is make something complicated because you just don't really want to do it, it looks like it will make you clever or smart, or you just don't know what the hell you're doing. Sometimes we make simple things complicated because the simplicity is just too good to believe, so there must be some tricky catch that goes along with it.
I've decided that just about anything I do to make myself look more clever, more talented, more well-versed, more with-it, is probably just going to complicate things for me.
I need to do some research on simple and simplicity. I love definitions, synonyms, quotes. It can be my word playmate for the next few days.
On another note, I have found it to be a fun little practice to say "Bless you" to all the cars that pass me as I'm driving to and from work. I wonder what would happen in a day if each person truly understood they are blessed by God, and decided to return the blessing in heart and voice. Well, it can't hurt to wonder.
More Found Than Ever
This morning I was journaling while I was sitting in church. It was just a free writing sort of exercise, interacting with what was happening in the service. The choir sang an anthem during which the names of God were moving in and out of the screen at the front of the church. The word "Deliverer" came up on the screen and that's the one that stuck.
I have learned through my year of pondering spiritual practices, especially from the Examen and my experience in the Sensible Shoes study, that I sit with what strikes me, especially if it's disturbing. Well, that word struck me this morning, but it wasn't disturbing.
What I wrote about next, I believe, was a soul response to having just finished Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. What I wrote next was:
God has delivered me from "God".
God has comforted me as I heal from "God".
God walks with me as I walk away from "God".
God has held me and loved me as I have wondered why "God" was so mean, vindictive, cold, demanding, perfectionistic, and distant.
God has spoken to my heart and my soul to help dispel all the things others would say that "God" says and expects, according to them.
God has been with me when "God" has forsaken, judged and betrayed me.
God has been my Shepherd while "God" was trying to herd me in directions that betrayed my truest created self.
God has been my lover in the midst of what "God" has said I must be, do, think, look like and say to be beautiful and acceptable
And THEN I realized that the minister was talking about Second Conversions, ie. Peter realizing the expanded truth that God is for the Gentiles as much as God is for the Jews. And I realized that I was just then writing about a Second Conversion (or third or fourth, I've lost count). But what I was indeed understanding in the writing was that I have experienced and am now living in a new revelation of God in me, around me, for me.
So, that's all.
I have learned through my year of pondering spiritual practices, especially from the Examen and my experience in the Sensible Shoes study, that I sit with what strikes me, especially if it's disturbing. Well, that word struck me this morning, but it wasn't disturbing.
What I wrote about next, I believe, was a soul response to having just finished Dance of the Dissident Daughter by Sue Monk Kidd. What I wrote next was:
God has delivered me from "God".
God has comforted me as I heal from "God".
God walks with me as I walk away from "God".
God has held me and loved me as I have wondered why "God" was so mean, vindictive, cold, demanding, perfectionistic, and distant.
God has spoken to my heart and my soul to help dispel all the things others would say that "God" says and expects, according to them.
God has been with me when "God" has forsaken, judged and betrayed me.
God has been my Shepherd while "God" was trying to herd me in directions that betrayed my truest created self.
God has been my lover in the midst of what "God" has said I must be, do, think, look like and say to be beautiful and acceptable
And THEN I realized that the minister was talking about Second Conversions, ie. Peter realizing the expanded truth that God is for the Gentiles as much as God is for the Jews. And I realized that I was just then writing about a Second Conversion (or third or fourth, I've lost count). But what I was indeed understanding in the writing was that I have experienced and am now living in a new revelation of God in me, around me, for me.
So, that's all.