“Now We See …”

“For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: Now, I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
This famous quotation from St. Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and how it is generally understood by Christians, is yet another example of how his words have been twisted by theologians. Paul knew more about the nature of spirit, our structure of mind, body and spirit and the spirit world after death, than any of the disciples of the Nazarene. Yet his words have been used to prop up the fallacy that a) the physical body is resurrected into heaven and b) every one of us must wait in our graves until some imaginary trumpet sounds and we all go to spirit together. That is if we are all Christians!

The “see through a glass darkly” letter has been used to uphold the idea of a vengeful God who punishes us ‘miserable sinners’ when we arrive in spirit eventually. How we are supposed to equate this with a God of love has always been beyond my power to understand. Read with an open mind, unsullied by Christian dogma, this letter is an explanation that while we are here on earth, our spirit, which is our true self, is unable to operate freely because of the restrictions imposed by a material world and a material body and there are sound reasons for this.

We have inklings of the power and love of spirit at certain times in our lives but most things about spirit, what we are and what eventually becomes of us are shrouded by these restrictions I mentioned. We only see part of the picture. It is like looking through a darkened mirror, which is exactly what Paul is saying. He goes on however, to say that “then shall I know even as I am known.” In other words when we lose the constriction of a physical body and can be our true, free, spirit selves in a world of the spirit, we shall understand the reasons why we chose to come to earth, why we ended up living the life we did, what spiritual lessons we learned from it and the fact that all are eternal spirits, part of the Great Spirit. In addition, others will be able to know and understand us as we really are. Here on earth, we are able to hide certain aspects of our character from other people but there we can hide nothing – all is revealed.

“By your light shall you be known” and that light is bright or dim dependent upon the way we have lived our lives on earth. It matters not whether we have been what the world considers good or bad, what matters is how we have used the opportunities life has presented us with to be of service to our fellow creatures, human and animal. Have we given service to others or have we been totally selfish? Of course we are human and none of us can be good all the time. There will be occasions when we have erred, done what we shouldn’t have done or failed to do what we should. The occurrence itself is less important than the outcome. Have we learned from the error? Are we trying harder to avoid making the same mistake? Sometimes when we realise our mistakes, we are filled with remorse and become depressed and withdrawn. This is unfortunate, for rather than being so, we should be asking God to give us the opportunity to make amends so that we can show that we have truly learned our lesson. There is no point in depressing ourselves because that drives us within and makes us introverted. Then it is all the more difficult to recognise an opportunity to make amends when it appears. Do not fear that you may not be given another opportunity or that God will desert you. You are eternal, you are part of the Great Spirit and as such will never be abandoned, will always be forgiven and always presented with opportunities to make up for your transgressions.

Time is part of the magic of life. Today is of itself; tomorrow is a new day, with new opportunities and new challenges. We should try hard not to carry into the new day the rubbish from yesterday. What happened yesterday, try to leave with yesterday and rejoice in the dawn of a new day with all its promise and excitement. Don’t spoil the dawn with regrets. Look forward to tomorrow in that spirit and the ‘problems’ of today will assume their true perspective. You will find, as a result, you are more relaxed and in that relaxation ideas will come to you, ideas to take you forward, that you would never have when you are tense, anxious and worried.

Part of the challenge of physical life is that we can only see with partial sight. Our spiritual eyes are clouded deliberately in order to force us to work harder to break through the dimness, even just a little, and espy the glory from which we came and to which we will inevitably return.