What does it really mean to be saved? I think this is something that off and on puzzles me. This word, "salvation" is not one we use much these days. I suppose a lot of people use it to refer to life after death, but I want to know what it means right here and now, in the life I have on earth. It doesn't mean we won't encounter difficulty or challenges, or that bad things won't happen to us or to those we love. It doesn't mean we don't have to do stuff, take care of business, work hard, be responsible. It doesn't even really mean we won't sin anymore, make mistakes that may have real and even terrible consequences. Paul tells us here that salvation is calling out to God, to Jesus, and trusting. Makes me think of the trust exercise they do on a lot of team building retreats: one person closes his/her eyes and falls back, trusting that the other person/people will catch him/her before hitting the ground. Jim Finley, in his talks about Contemplative prayer and mystic experience, talks about an endless tunnel -- a little like Alice falling into Wonderland -- where you continue falling, endlessly falling. When you stop, it's actually because you've hit a snag! Then you can fall back and trust again. It's a weightless feeling, but also that sense of all that troubles you falling away. Letting go. Trusting. Surrender. This is a daily, hourly process.
Of course, not "doing" anything may be one of the hardest things for people to do in our American culture. Maybe it's hard in other cultures, but I don't know. Give it a try. Just try to sit and do nothing. Trust me, it's hard! I start thinking, or I get bored, or I get an idea I want to follow through on, or I fall asleep, or just about anything to avoid doing nothing! I am what I do in this country, which is really hard for all those people who are unemployed. Learning to do nothing, just to be, opens up space for me to experience myself in a new way: not as the center of a vortex of energy and activity, but as a still, quiet place that flows out into eternity.
How does that save me? I'm not sure I understand it exactly, and it often seems counter-intuitive, but when I am able to practice that surrender, regularly, life seems possible, even right in certain kind of way. Even though nothing has changed, everything falls into place. What was out of joint, out of alignment, fits smoothly and seamlessly together. I'm not getting in my own way anymore. So maybe saving has to do with saving me from myself; maybe surrender is about letting go of me, of all my ideas about what is right or isn't right, what should or shouldn't be, of all my plans and ambitions and desires and falling into what's real.
What's real? God, the gound of being, what Buddhists call Basic Goodness, that is the foundation of life. My life. Everyone's life. But until we let go, we don't see it, we don't feel it, we don't experience it. We think it's all about what we are doing. Some people talk about "the Universe" which is simply all that is. It's really a mystery how all that is came to be, despite what the physicists can tell us about it. It's a mystery how life came to arise. Human beings are a mystery. As long as I keep trying to figure it out, like some kind of puzzle, I don't really get anywhere. It's when I can surrender to the mystery, let go of my attempts to understand and allow that Ground of Being to make itself known to me in the magic of the present moment, then suddenly life is. And that is all that's necessary.
Prayer: Dear God, Let me trust in your saving grace this day and every day as I deal with all the challenges life brings. Thank you for life and all its blessings. Help me remember that You are in charge, and that, with You in this present moment, I have all that I need. Amen.
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