God Juice

Hildegard of Bingen wrote about being verdant and juicy. Jesus talked about vines and branches. I spoke about this in my homily/sermon yesterday. Let's explore the vine and branches metaphor.

I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. --- from John 15:5   NIV translation

Many philosophers and theologians have spoken about God being The Ground of Our Being. Imagine a vine being deeply rooted in that Sacred Ground, drawing up its sustenance, its nourishing juice, and that juice flowing to the entire vine, to the branches and then to the fruit. 

Now the metaphor from Jesus points to this process. He draws from the Divine Ground, the Source of all (it is the Father within doing the work), and when we are in tune with that Christ awareness, the juice flows into us, the branches. If we stay connected, we produce good fruit. If we disconnect, we have no such Divine sustenance and can produce no good fruit. So much of Christianity has dried up, disconnected from The Vine and full of fears, superstitions, idols and hoops to jump. 

We can tell when we disconnect by inner clues, if we dare look at our own selves objectively. If we are judgmental, angry, hostile, excluding this or that group of people, feeling superior, etc. - we think, speak and act from ego, not from the juiciness of God. Jesus told us to get the log out of our own eyes before we try to get the speck out of our neighbor's eyes. Ego wants us to keep busy shaping everybody else up, thereby avoiding doing our own inner work - which can be arduous and painful but necessary in order to get to the amazing Oneness for which we hunger.

Keeping our connection, once awakened, becomes top priority. Seemingly magical things can happen the the life of those connected to the Divine Vine. It is as if caught in a special kind of jet-stream. 

Divine Presence, Holy Ground, lead me to live rooted in You, producing fruits of beauty, peace, love and light. I come to this day assured from the depths of my being that what I have sought so very long is You. I surrender all that is not of You, and I come humbly to this moment wishing with all the fiber of my being to keep constant connection to You. May Your juiciness feed my life. Lead me to be a lifter, a healer, an avenue of You. May this be the day through which I walk into an awakened life in connection with You. I ask this in the name of the Christ and seal with the ancient seal of faith and integrity, Amen Amen and Amen