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Recently I sat at my altar to meditate and listen to any whispers that Divine might have for me, and a thought rose up from my inner life: “I come to my altar to be held. I come to the quiet of prayer and meditation to be held.” This is the one place that is ever able and trustworthy. This communion that I find in quiet and prayer is the very ground of existence that I can trust to hold me, to catch me, to offer respite every time, without fail. But I must turn toward it faithfully, willing to bare myself in communion with this holy place.

When I give way to this moment, to this breath, and allow myself to stop, rest, and fall into myself, I begin to fall into the dark and quiet of my own inner being. I begin to touch the life that awaits me in this unplanned and unformed space. I meet all that I have put on hold, or set to the side, even the stuff I have actively shunned the days before. But meeting all that is waiting for me in the quiet and stillness is the WAY I welcome myself more wholly back into the fold of my awareness. I pause the outward noise, if only for a breath, again and again. I sometimes laugh at the ridiculous thoughts running through my mind. But, with enough time and fortitude I land. I find a gentle sweetness always lurking right under the surface of my anxiety and grief. Just beneath the surface of my overthinking is a lush bed of sweet belonging that is always prepared to receive me, ever inviting me to lay down, rest, and take a load off.

I have come to trust this sweet and soft place that awaits me like a knitted blanket worn soft after so many winter naps. After years of forgetting and remembering, I have come to rely on the always waiting open arms of the Divine. This trust has blossomed out of blind faith that fueled my countless attempts to quiet my mind, to talk to God, to feel the sacred, to taste the numinous. My faith didn’t come easily or from inside church or temple walls. It grew from seeds of suspicion. I had enough of my own experiences of glimpsing something normally unseen, of sensing something beyond this physical realm, and sometimes knowing more than I knew to be suspicious that just maybe there was a benevolent force underpinning this thing called life. I was suspicious enough that there was something more that it grew into a shaky faith that I was willing to leap for.

Every time I came to sit still in meditation or simply be with the silence and presence, I felt like I was taking a leap of faith, actually terrified of my own inner life. Maybe you too are frightened of what awaits you in the quiet of your inner life. What revelations, unfelt grief, unwanted insights might meet you there? What guidance, messages, or downloads might point you in a direction that feels impossible and scary? What if you do meet more of who you are and find the holiness and sacred nature of yourself? These are just some of the conscious and unconscious fears and worries keeping you and I from spiritual practice. But the very good news is that it is just that—practice. You practice quieting, you practice talking to God, you practice turning your attention within. And because you practice, the seeds of suspicion grow into wonder and curiosity that blossom into sweet belonging, grace, and experiences of the sacred beyond words and explanation.

This is where the heart of a mystic lives: in the place of quiet courage. A mystic isn’t someone who has all the answers or who knows the way perfectly—they’re the ones who are willing to sit in the silence, to listen, and to fall into the unknown, trusting that the Divine will be there waiting for them. The mystic’s heart is one of devotion, of deep love for the unseen, the sacred, the hidden threads that weave all things together. To be a mystic is to be deeply in love with the sacredness of life itself, to let go of fear and let yourself be led by the heartbeat of the Divine that is beating in your own heart.

And so, this is my invitation in the New Year—join me in the courageous practice of turning down the noise and chaos of the world and going within to discover the sweet and powerful ground of the sacred. Here, we are held. Here, we can rest, and in that stillness, we will find that the very love we seek has been here all along, graciously waiting for us to meet it.

So grateful to be practicing with you,

Rev. Amani