More thoughts of eternity

So skip this if you don't want to think of inspiration.
Skip this if you want to look at the funny papers...
and not consider the divine.

The good thing about my thoughts on eternity are that I won't use the G (od) word once.

I even will refrain from calling the Source of all by any name besides that.  I like that Jews don't have a name for the eternal one that is spoken.  Kind of smart.

Anyway, in a group last evening, I shared a couple of really important (for me) thoughts.  They were maybe considered by others, but quickly the topic was changed.  I think I may have gotten off into my comfortable place, but the others weren't there with me.  Happens a lot.

I have a watercolor which I painted on the wall where I usually see it when I first wake up in the morning, and when I go to sleep at night (when I can't really see it because it's dark then).

The painting has a pair of hands posed as if in prayer, within a circle.  Then above the hands and touching the tips of the fingers is another pair of hands, also in a prayer position, but facing downward.  They are both my hands as model.  They both are within the circle.  One pair has thumb closest (the bottom set) and the other has pinkie showing close to view.

For me this always was just a pleasant picture, reminding me of the circle of connection between what I know and what I don't know.

But in the last week or so I've become more aware that people do pray with fervent desire, even yearning in their hearts.  I may have prayed like this during crisis, but I seldom do it as part of my daily meditation.  I spend most of that time being empty of thought, and listening for something, which I don't think is considered prayer.

So back to praying and yearning for something from the Source.  I realized that perhaps the Source of all could have similar feelings toward the people praying; that the infinite all knowing might be yearning for us to do/say/think/be as much as we might be yearning for Source to do/say/think/be.

So when I look at the painting now I've got a different slant on things.

Today I noticed how much love I feel toward my small animals.  It's similar to parental affection and perhaps replacing that since my kids are all grown and not part of my daily life any more.

  Again the big jump to thinking that Source of all might feel the same love and affection toward the beings that walk around on earth.  This is very much like my sense of Buddhist  reverence for all life.  But it goes one step further in having that emotion of love shared equally but magnified to include me.  Am I loved in the same way that my animals are by me?

When was the last time you felt like you were embraced in love by a diety?  I gotta say most of my sense of love has been from humans.  I feel that the beauty and blessings and grace from a divine source are part of my existence, but that love, mmm, maybe not so much.

I can't say I've ever thought "well, that experience sure says that the divine loves me."  Unless it was the kind of "I must be loved or I wouldn't have had that experience."  No, really never felt love from the Source...warm fuzzy comforting.  Nope.  Missed out there.

There's more, but I'm tired of writing for now.  I'm not posting my picture of praying hands meeting hands from "above".  I don't want it out there in the land of internet.  It's too personal.