To be in Christ

I have recently become facebook 'friends' with a guy I went to school with. I remember him as a fun, funny, popular, cheerful and happy-go-lucky kind of person; I also knew that for quite some time he hadn't been in contact with his family and there was the intimation of a problematic phase of life. But God is in the problematic phases of life (thank you God), and in looking at my friend's info page on facebook, it is most obvious to me that he has been on a life-changing spiritual journey for the past few years. He has become what some might call a follower of the New Spirituality, along the lines of the Christ Consciousness movement, which is an attractive spiritual quest and one that I think has some truth to offer us all.

My friend makes inspirational videos and posts them on You Tube under the name Amplifying the Light (Atomas Victory), if anyone is so inclined as to look at them. An interesting thing that my friend has written in his You Tube profile:

This channel is dedicated to broadcasting (Amplifying) information and knowledge (Light) about, what may be considered "Secret Teachings". Of course none of these are really secret but it's probably not the type of information that you would find at the local church (lol).

I'll admit that a lot of these 'secret' teachings would be considered gnostic and heretical by many Christians. But I also think that the Church is missing something significant if it doesn't take more seriously the meaning of what Jesus said in John 17 when he prayed to the Father for his disciples that they would be one with him as he is one with the Father. By the Holy Spirit, we live in Christ and Christ lives in us. And Christ is One with the Father. So not only does Christ give us 'access' to God, he also makes possible the intimacy between us and God that Christ himself has.

Meditation features highly in New Age Spirituality. I don't think Christians meditate enough about the fact that God is in Christ and therefore through him God is in us. This morning I decided to try and meditate on the concepts of 'One' and 'Oneness'. It was lovely, though I only could sustain it for 15 minutes as I'm not well-practiced in meditation. I would like to try and keep this up though. I'm grateful to my old friend for helping me to remember the intimacy that God offers us all when we are open and seek this.

I realise writing about this stuff is risky - it's on the edge. But the attraction is in the emphasis on love and on freedom, which is exactly what the gospel proclaims. It's interesting how this resonates with the writings of some of the Christian mystics like Meister Eckhart, Teresa of Avila and Julian of Norwich, and the more contemporary Thomas Keating. And it resonates directly with my own conversion experience, too, when the purity and clarity of God's love was shown to me 12 years ago. 'Awake, O sleeper, and Christ shall give you light'. It seems that our fear is a block. I want to try and get rid of that block. I'd like to engage in this conversation with others who are either attracted by this or repelled.