“Intimate relationship” with "God..." by THOR

I have been under a new insight or understanding of an intimate relationship which I have been experiencing for over ten years. If one were to categorize relationships I would say they start at a simple introduction, an acquaintance, a working relationship, a friendship, a family member and finally an intimate relationship, and each one having many levels. I have learned I have a very special and intimate relationship with God. I will expand on this concept by giving a correlation between our daily experiences and that of a person within a faith based relationship. I say faith based for I truly believe no matter what religion or form of spirituality a person indulges in a higher understanding and enlightenment leads a person to a closer relationship with God. I don’t want to split hairs with what religion is right. I feel that is just presumptive and incorporates us judging each other and on some levels judging, whose God or scriptures are correct, and whose are wrong, and most of all my strongest argument is the expansiveness and greatness of the concept God that we as humans can conceive is unable to understand and comprehend the vastness and infinitesimal entity of God. If all religions build a better person, community, or relationship with a spiritual path; who are we as humans to judge what is considered holy by a people?

I digress but that being said let us create our comparison of relationships. An introduction to a person may take the form of a social surrounding meeting, a work meeting, or a gentle passing through which we may learn the persons name what they do, where they are going or maybe what they like what they did; for, the forms of human contact and communication are many and varied. In comparison a person who does not know a spiritual path or an inclination of social religious community when first introduced may have and ask a simple question.

Little Todd a boy of maybe five asked me once. “Thor. Who is God? I just don’t get it.” I looked over my shoulder to Todd his father and Wendy his lady and partner in their new relationship. One that now included a new and blossoming spiritual path of Christianity and waited for a response from them; for , I would not answer such a question without a parental approval. They gave their okay, and replied in the simplest answer I could. “God is love, he is everything and everywhere’ He is in your parents and in the air and even in this table.” as I rapped my knuckles on the coffee table. “He loves you and I and wants us to be good people, so we can share our and his love.” I waited a moment while he figured out what I said and gathered his own understanding, and then asked, “Does that make sense?” He screwed up his face like only a little boy could and said, “Yea I think so.” What Little Todd had just gone through was a move from his introduction of God through going to church with his parents to an acquaintance with God.  

            I find a friendship requires work a sharing of experiences, and emotions that take many forms. I could be grown from a work relationship, a common goal, or a close proximity like family or community. I could be based on shared ideas, feelings, or desires. What is does require is a personal investment from an individual reaching out to another individual, pet, or entity in this case we speak of God. To become a friend of God one must communicate with God through prayer, read scriptures to find a spiritual path, or become God like in human form by such acts as charity, service, or expressions of our own love. In doing this one creates a personal connection to their higher power. People may strive to become part of a religious community, to follow others in this quest, and emulate through this understanding a way of life that brings them ever closer to them selves, and to God. This is a friendship with God and can be seen in patriarchs and matriarchs of given church families or by the holy persons or priests, that give their lives to such an endeavor. The friends we have in life may range from passing to life long depending on circumstance or involvement, and directly proportionate to how much personal investment is made in the relationship. A friend from work may be a comrade in business, but not in community, or a parent maybe a friend in your life giving love and investment through childhood and beyond. I find this relationship can be very full filling if God is the friend and creates assurances of faith and love. This is in essence and understanding what a friendship with god is and I can sum it up by repeating a very well known poem called foot steps.

   Footsteps In The Sand

One night a man had a dream.
He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the LORD.
Across the sky flashed scenes from his life.
For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the sand:
one belonging to him, and the other to the LORD.

When the last scene of his life flashed before him
he looked back, at the footprints in the sand.
He noticed that many times along the path of his life
there was only one set of footprints.
He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times of his life.

This really bothered him and he questioned the LORD about it:
"LORD, you said that once I decided to follow you,
you'd walk with me all the way.
But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life
there is only one set of footprints.
I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me."

The LORD replied:
"My son, My precious child, I love you and I would never leave you,
During your times of trial and suffering,
when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."

Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen, and is the first line of Hebrews chapter eleven. To maintain a friendship with God requires a heavy devotion  and faith and can lead to an intimacy equal to a best friend, a brother or sister, a husband or wife who shares this commitment, joys and sorrows to a higher level never leaving your side. This person is building upon an intimate relationship with another human or their higher power. We reveal our inner selves without a façade, raw and visceral, learning giving and changing in tandem over the years. A life time is revealed and so with it the shared grace, enlightenment, or blessings become part of the relationship. I would say most of these relationships have evidence of the path spiritual and to some extent material signs of growth in their nature. An individual who has expressed, nurtured, and devoted their faith and spiritual energy into this arena with God begins to see the results in life by developing eye and heart to recognize the cause and effect of the spiritual path. At this point intimacy is attained by mans toil and work, and by our own spiritual growth.

Another way intimacy with God can be attained is through direct evidence by our higher power within our material and spiritual world. It could be by miracle, intervention, a message or as in my case a path likened to destiny. I say this not to gloat or raise feelings of pride within myself but more of a realization of the many steps of my spiritual growth that have blossomed within me in a very short period of time. I was barely an acquaintance of God or a spiritual path and more over a unbeliever of direct interaction of a spiritual form on this world and even further from the concept of God in my life not just ten years ago. I often have herd Pastor Bolden of my church Grace Memorial say, “We found God because he wanted us, and if God calls you. It is your time to come to him” Most would see this expression as cause and effect. The cause being looking for a spiritual path or turning away from a less noble way of life thus finding a higher, better, or religious way of living and then, finding God as the effect. A very small amount of us truly believe that God came and interacted within our life so we could follow a path to him. I find myself in that group for I wanted no such expression in my life. What I did want was a way to let loose my pain and there bye find a way to help others who might have had experienced the same suffering that I had. At that point of despair and lack of faith I reached out my heart and asked for healing. What I got was ever so much more. I received an experience with God and knowledge of him working, leading, and preparing me for his work, by overcoming the shortfalls in my character, and the troubles of my life. I began to have direct evidence of good and evil, of the spirit world, of the powers of not just light and God but also the darkness and the cohorts of the devil. This applies to this material world and my inner world as each one changed with every experience and tribulation I underwent. God became as real to me as the rain falling from the sky and the wetness it lay upon my hand. God is not something I can dismiss or explain away. God has become concrete and real in my life. I realize I may have put myself in company with saints and prophets. I do not deny or assert this as correct. I often wondered why others of faith did not act in the same way as I when it came to beatitudes and spiritual affirmations and was at a lost when I could see clearly what others could not in vision. What I do come to realize is what I have is very special and is very personal, and for that I have realized how blessed and graced I am.

Thor

"Grandpa's Toes"

(I got a face book question from one of my cousins so this story started from the letter I wrote her) Yes. (in rely to her question, if I was one of her forty five cousins, Jerome’s boy?). I just started my chapter in Minnesota in the book I'm writing.  I asked Dad, Jerome Ernst for the listing of who's who of my 16 Aunts and uncles and forty five cousins just last night in an email. I remember a lot. Grandpa's funeral was the last time I was there. I kind of knew then I wouldn't be back for a long time and haven’t been since. The year was 1987. I was 19 and the life of childhood kind of ended with the lowering of him in the grave. Bobbie Ernst and I were both on the ground on our knees with tears streaming from our eyes attempting to fill the void and hole that lay before us. My father stood behind me and Uncle George stood behind Bobbie.  There hands resting on our shoulders in gray understanding in the gravity of our moment, the change that we were weathering and holding us up as long as they could. We were silently, reverently, flowing our grief out long after everyone had left at the side of Grandpa’s grave. I think we both knew something very significant was happening. I had been chosen to be one of the pole bearers and had stopped at the hearse saying, “We can carry him.” breaking the great silence that thundered from the shuffling feet of over a hundred people, punctuated by the sound of someone’s grief in a small cry or loosed whimper, or wail that came from the hearts of the gathering outside the church where Grandpa had played the organ for over forty years. As if by shear will and strength we could hold back my growing up and keep my boyhood summer alive again, forever. The answer given by quiet words and gentle gestures was no, and we loaded Grandpa into the hearse and followed him around the building. I was one of the ones who had place at the funeral, and five other pale bearers my cousin Ritchie beside me with aunt Cathy leading the voice in our hearts as she struggled through tears to speak when her turn came upon the churches pulpit, and Bobbie. Bobbies “Grandpa’s Fingers”or "Grandpa's Toes" was the name he gave to the song or something the like with love written into the title he skillfully picked out on his guitar echoing the laughter and smile in Grandpa’s way and face. We had lived in the world of boys and were stead fast friends on my visits to Uncle George’s farm. Kneeling side by side, hands loosely at our sides while our frames wracked by unanswered grief and sorrow. We shared for the last time, a moment as boys again on the side of Grandpa’s grave. I remembered his laughter, his devotion; I remembered his working hard and his knobby hands. I remembered playing in the back yard on the metal swing set and slide as our parents visited inside making plans before I would be off on some adventure to Aunt Ireans to play with Mark and goof with Mary. I remembered getting in trouble for blowing up eggs with fire crackers and Bobbie and I having to scrub the pole barn clean. I remembered being locked into the washing machine out back of the barn when Ritchie and Mary asked me if I could fit into it. I remembered having to gallop Ginger and Buttercup when Michael and I went riding in the evening to keep the mosquitoes away. I remembered the way Grandma’s apple pie smelled when she had been baking all day. I remembered the great meals and boundless food when we all gathered for reunions filling the house chosen that year with more than people but with laughter and great whoops of joy. I remembered catching a croaker fish, one that voiced its displeasure for being caught with verbosity one cold morning when Grandpa, Dad and I went fishing, and how that was the only fish we caught all day except for a mini perch which Grandpa said was to small. (We took it home and Grandma fried it up anyway.) I remembered the chorus of this song that year that seemed to be repeating itself in my ears with the same chorus line repeating over and over as in some inner mockery. I looked up at my father as he held on for those few more seconds and said through wet checks and blurry eyes if by these words alone I could chase the dread away and repeated the line bright and cheery as I could. One last humongous herculean effort daring anyone to stop our boyhood, I put on my best smile with teeth drawn back and said while turning my head so all could see my defiance and said, “Don’t worry be happy!”

Thor