Today is the fourth anniversary of my bishop ordination. This week I've been pondering what these four years have meant to me personally, beyond the role of teacher and ordainer of priests, parish minister, and spiritual director. I'm most pleased and grateful to have had the privilege of training and ordaining many ministers in the Way of the Christ. That has been a joy beyond measure. But more than that has been my inner experience of this four year journey of deepening in God.
The spiritual name I received when I was ordained a bishop on 12/5/20 is Liya. It means 'with God.' In these four years, I have had the experience of disappearing to myself as Mary Francis to the point of becoming unrecognizable to myself...and to others, I imagine. The Sanskrit term Neti Neti, not this not that, comes to mind as I attempt to relay the experience of non-dual consciousness or God consciousness that shifts the internal point of reference from 'me' to 'I Am.'
I've just returned from another sabbatical in Ireland where I was attempting to write about the experience of being Liya...the shifting and expansive perception and depth of awareness that has arisen since my bishop/mastery initiation. Like all initiations, the event on 12/5/20 was a starting point that led to a cosmic revision of my being. This revision has thrown open the doors of perception and, as William Blake intimated, everything appears infinite. I hope to publish this new book by the end of the year. It's called 'Take Heart: Encouragement from the Visions and Visitations of a Modern Mystic.' The purpose of sharing these stories is to offer hope and a semblance of normalcy to others who have similar experiences.
When one's identity is transcended, one is left with a state of being in the world but not of it. This is not a nihilistic or psychotic detachment, rather a deeply intrinsic expression of the ground of being as perceived through a single point of consciousness but not separate from all of consciousness. This non-dual state has the felt experience of being all that is...whatever is being perceived is being experienced first hand as itself...its very self. What a wonder and a joy this can be. It can also be a state of deep suffering in the awareness of suffering; a state of deep sorrow in the awareness of sorrow; a state of deep fear in the awareness of fear. Maybe that all sounds horribly scary, but when all of it is felt with equanimity and without judgement; there is truly nothing to fear.
God only knows how the continued unfoldment of Liya will go from here. I Am present to what is and available to what will be, according to God's will and in God's timing. There is joy and wonder in the journey. See you out there...and in there.
Liya
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