God Giving Birth to You - Fourth Week of Advent/Christmas
Growing Up into Our Christ-Being this Christmas
“In my soul, God not only gives birth to me as a son or daughter, God gives birth to me as Godself, and Godself as me . . . our truest I is God.”
Throughout advent, we have been exploring how we are all mothers of God. This week, we might now come to see how we are also the children. You are the birther, and you are the born. Even, in many ways, what we are birthing is us! So, what does it mean that we too are the begotten of God?
“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God.” (Gal.3:26)
The children of God. We hear this a lot in Christian language and scripture without fully taking in quite what it means. We don’t always think through the powerful implications of this declaration. For instance, we know that the children of horses are horses. Also that the children of dogs are dogs. And the children of cats are cats. So then the children of God are . . . gods!
Do we believe it?
Our minds may still have a hard time getting us there. That’s because it’s not a truth for our minds alone. It is much more a knowing of our innermost being. A truth of the spiritual womb, that we have been born in and of God. It is something we feel into, we intuit deeply from our deepest core, from the divine wellspring within.
Let yourself accept that, if you might, releasing any resistance from your mind. Allow yourself welcome this truth from the depths of your being.
You are a child of God, not just as a son or daughter, but in your deepest being as Godself, as Meister Eckhart said. This Christmas, might we dare to celebrate Christ being born not just in Jesus, but also in us? Can we move from the waiting and the beginning of advent into our divine birth, living from our Godself?
And therefore not just born, but raised up from spiritual childhood into our own true identity, living into our specific call and purpose, our Christ-Being in the world.
A Divine Upbringing
There comes a point for every child when their orientation toward life flips, and everything no longer exists for them. But rather, now their lives are about who they will be, what they will do, how they will give. To take up one’s own unique calling and contribution in life.
We call this growing up. To grow up spiritually, we stop looking so much at how we are being served and what we are being given, but how we are to serve and what we are to give.
It is a major energetic shift. You might picture a whirlpool with all of the flow around it being drained into a hole in the center, absorbed within. It should be said that this is not an entirely negative or bad thing. We all need to receive deep care and support, but that is not the end of the flow.
Now picture another energetic movement—this time a vortex of outflow, spreading in all directions. A surge out into the flow of creation, the generative unfolding of divine presence and love pouring forth across a parched earth.
Yes, we need the flow in both directions in our lives, but the more we’re able to draw from the divine source within, to receive that inner flow of vitality from our deepest divine identity—then are we growing up into our spiritual adulthood.
In this shift, we are taking up our divine calling, owning our participation in our divine nature, living from our own divine wellspring in the depths of our being. We are becoming the outpouring and the offering into the world, just as Jesus did.
To be a follower of Jesus in this sense is not just to follow his teachings and wisdom, but to truly follow his path into co-being with God. Brought up into the body of Christ, each in their own form and part.
What that looks like specifically will be unique. We don’t often do the exact same job our parents do. Our manner of work and contribution to the world is found in and of ourselves, even as part of our larger family. We all have our own divine vocation.
“My life’s work . . . is much more fully represented by what I succeed in producing, deep within myself, that is incommunicable and unique. My personality, that is, the particular centre of perceptions and love that my life consists in developing – it is that which is my real wealth.”
—Teilhard de Chardin
The Calling of St. Matthew by Caravaggio
Our Sacred Vocation
This invitation to grow up into our own divine calling does not mean a call to ministry or that our jobs must be “religious.” Growing up spiritually does not mean becoming clergy!
This is an important and significant perception shift from the more common modern-day vocational approach to life and spirituality. We would do well to move beyond in many ways the old distinction between “the ordained” and “the laity.”
The separation of the clergy from the “churchgoers” throughout most of church history has set a barrier between the work of God and the work of the people. “Religious work” is for those with a special calling, while all the others go on with “worldly” jobs with different aims, usually primarily “to make a living,” a thoroughly sad and misguided phrase.
Even the Reformation’s emphasis on the priesthood of all believers did not often go beyond a nice idea and into practical application within the structure of the church or life. Tragically, the majority of Christians (and other religious followers) continue to be infantilized and disempowered, always. And sadly, some prefer to remain in this state.
The world can no longer bear the religion of a few professionals, with the rest receiving as passive consumers of religious services. The need is too great. The work is too essential.
We need a Christianity where all followers of Jesus might see themselves as Christ participants, fully filled with the ordination and divine light of the highest calling: to live their lives from their deepest human and divine identity. No longer children, but adults brought up into divine maturity and responsibility.
To grow up means to take that personal ownership of our lives. To become a spiritual grownup is to do the work set before us, to be accountable for our own spiritual lives in the calling and necessities of our own inner needs and outer responsibilities—not externally imposed, but coming forth from the impulse of love within. For goodness, beauty, and truth in the world.
The specifics of this vocation comes forth in forms cocreated by God and you. That is what it means to be living “in Christ.” The interfusion of the divine and the material expressing, living in this particular incarnation that is you. As such, the expressions will be myriad and boundless—not defined by a job description. Only you can discern your own form.
An Embodied Spiritual Practice of Discernment
This practice can be done individually or in a healthy community context, such as a WeSpace group. Even if you already have a strong sense of your sacred vocation, you can use this practice to attune into any shifts or new possibilities that might be coming forth within your current work.
1. Start by spending some time moving into a state of deeper consciousness and awareness, however you best do that. For this practice, I recommend a form of Whole-Body Mystical Awakening or a practice that will actively engage you into embodied presence.
2. Let your awareness move into your trunk, your entire torso, perhaps placing one hand over your womb and the other on your heart. You may find yourself gravitating toward a center, perhaps the womb or the heart. But also welcome the flow between, the movement in and around. When you’re ready, settle into your womb space.
3. When you are ready, raise the question, “What was I born to do, now in this season?” Receive and listen.
Then, a few moments later, “Who was I born to be, now in this season?” Receive and listen.
Let yourself move between these two questions spaciously, repeating as necessary, allowing for plenty of time to receive any responses from within. It’s very likely that a definitive, direct answer will not come forth in words. In fact, if you do hear words, it might be best to receive them (maybe even write them down) and then deepen into and beyond the words. Welcome the energetic, nonverbal response. Welcome the answer of your body. Welcome the holding of these life-long questions that are never fully and finally answered.
4. Gently, whenever the time feels right, you might begin to welcome an upward flow. Whatever has come forth from within—energetically, intuitively, personally—let it flow upward towards your heart – if it is ready to move there. Maybe it needs to continue to stew and gestate deeper within, and that’s completely welcome as well. If your heart is ready, welcome it in. This may come with a felt sensation or not.
Let your heart hold what has been given to you today, trusting that when the time is right, you will follow it.
So, here is the practice again with short directives. Feel free to be for as long as you need in each step:
1. Move into mystical awareness.
2. Move into your trunk, your whole core—heart and womb space, and in between, gradually sinking into your spiritual womb.
3. Raise the questions, “What was I born to do, now in this season?” and “Who was I born to be, now in this season?” Allow yourself to move between the questions, repeating as necessary, welcoming any responses.
4. If the time is right, welcome the upward rising into your heart.
If you’d like, you can use a recorded guided meditation of this practice at the bottom of this page.
For Unto Us
We can no longer wait for the Christ child to be born. He has been born already. She is born today, again and again. And as we celebrate every birth into every new and broader Christ consciousness, we need no longer infantilize ourselves as only children of God—but even grow up into our divine adulthood, owning our divine participation and deepest charge.
To take up our sacred vocation and be the work of God in the world, flowing forth. To be the Christ in our very lives, according to our sacred vocation. To advent a new heaven, step by step and day by day, for a world in desperate need of restoration. To be birthed into the creative work, divine presence made manifest in the world—bringing forth new reality.
Behold! A child has been born. Behold! And they will call her Emmanuel, which means “God with us.” And the government will rest upon your shoulders, upon all of ours together. We will be called the wonderful counselors. And the world’s peace will know no end.
If you’d like to be part of a WeSpace group that engages in practices like this together, you can sign up here for groups starting in January!