You have heard the old adage “what you see is what you get”. Now often folx use this phrase to describe or justify a perceived flaw or a particular action or response to a situation. I think I may have used it in just this way a time or two myself. However, I am suggesting this phrase has the potential to take on a higher meaning. I have been ruminating on this idea that we are all individualized expressions of the Divine, in essence the Divine manifesting itself within time and space. At face value this is something we often say reflectively in spiritual circles and communities, but I would like to challenge us to pause an extra second and let the power of it sink in. Did you take the extra second?….I did….and do you know what my mind said back to me?….”Yeah Right…that can’t be true…not you…”. If I am honest this voice is a frequent flyer more often times than I would like to admit. But you see, being an individualized expression of the Divine, that one thing that is back of all things, doesn’t mean that we don’t have bumps, bruises, dents, flaws, mess, challenges, tangled hair…you get the picture. In fact, we are divine expressions not in spite of these things, but because of them. It is in these areas or these moments of mess that we are actualizing the principle of wholeness. Wholeness is found in the Divine, this doesn’t mean just the stuff we like, but it includes all the things we would rather not have, see, or experience. It is all a part of that Universal presence that is found in everything we see, and all the things we can’t see. So the call is to look a little closer in the mirror, even squint if you have to, and begin to see the blueprint of the divine that is expressed in us as us…and I do mean all of us. When we can authentically show up to life the fog that once blocked our view of this truth begins to lift, and what remains is the truth of who we are. It is then that we can boldly and emphatically exclaim “what you see is what you get”….and truly understand what that means.
Rev. Ryan