Week 1 Recap
Week 1 Recap: Recognizing Our Image(s) of God & Healing Our Relationship with God
Throughout this week, we have been invited to remove the veils that distort our vision of God. Just as we cannot truly see another person when we project our past wounds onto them, we cannot encounter God if we are still looking through the stained glass of fear, judgment, or misconception.
This first week of our Lenten pilgrimage has been a sacred journey of recognition, healing, and renewal. As God rested on the seventh day, we too take this time to pause, reflect, and deepen our connection with what has been revealed.
We began by turning inward, examining the wounds we carry in our relationship with God, and then moved toward reclaiming a life-giving spirituality that is rooted in divine love rather than fear.
What We Explored This Week:
📍 Reflections 1 & 2: Healing the God Wound
We acknowledged the impact of religious trauma and false images of God that have shaped our beliefs. Healing begins with awareness, and through deep reflection, we started the process of releasing burdens and reclaiming a spirituality that nourishes rather than wounds.
📍 Reflections 3 & 4: Healing Our Image of God
We explored how to restore our vision of God through the love we already trust. God is not distant but revealed in the hands that have held us, the eyes that have seen us, and the love that has carried us. Through prayer, we invited divine love to heal any distortions we may carry.
📍 Reflections 5: We Become Like the God We Worship
We reflected on a profound truth: the way we perceive and relate to God shapes who we become. If we long for a God of mercy, compassion, and love, then we must embrace and embody these qualities in our own lives.
📍 Reflections 6: Naming the Unnamable
We wrestled with the mystery of speaking of the One who is ultimately beyond words. Naming God is a paradox. It invites relationship but must never become a limitation. The invitation is to dwell in awe, knowing that God is always greater than our understanding.
📍 Reflections 7: Communing in Sacred Solidarity
Today, we pause to honor the wisdom of our Muslim sisters and brothers who are observing Ramadan. Their practice of fasting, reflection, and prayer reminds us that the Divine is closer than our jugular vein (Qur'an 50:16). We open ourselves to the beauty of interfaith wisdom, recognizing that God’s love knows no boundaries.
“And We have already created man and know what his soul whispers to him, and We are closer to him than his jugular vein.”
Healing our relationship with God is not about finding the "right" concept of God but encountering the living, loving Presence that is always here.
As we close this first week, let us hold this question in our hearts:
Who is God calling me to become through this healing?
May this pilgrimage continue to guide all of us deeper into the love, freedom, and truth that have always been ours.
With love and blessing,
Swaady
Before radical conversion, you pray to God as if God were over there,
an object like all other objects.
After conversion (con-vertere, to turn around or to turn with),
you look out from God with eyes other than your own.
— Richard Rohr
Mystics and Non-Dual Thinkers: Week 1,
"Meister Eckhart, Part II," Thursday, July 16, 2015,
https://cac.org/meister-eckhart-part-ii-2015-07-16/
