Julia Cameron - Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives

Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...46

Table of Contents

By Julia Cameron

BOOKS IN THE ARTISTS WAY SERIES

The Artists Way

Walking in This World

Finding Water

The Complete Artists Way

The Artists Way Workbook

The Artists Way Every Day

The Artists Way at Work (with Mark Bryan and Catherine Allen)

Inspirations: Meditations from The Artists Way

The Artists Way Morning Pages Journal

The Artists Date Book, illustrated by Elizabeth Cameron

OTHER BOOKS ON CREATIVITY

The Writing Diet

The Right to Write

The Sound of Paper

The Vein of Gold

How to Avoid Making Art (or Anything Else You Enjoy), illustrated by Elizabeth Cameron

Supplies: A Troubleshooting Guide for Creative Difficulties, illustrated by Elizabeth Cameron

The Writers Life: Insights from The Right to Write

Money Drunk, Money Sober: 90 Days to Financial Freedom (with Mark Bryan)

PRAYER BOOKS

Prayers to the Great Creator

Answered Prayers

Heart Steps

Blessings

Transitions

BOOKS ON SPIRITUALITY

Faith and Will

Prayers from a Nonbeliever

Letters to a Young Artist

God Is No Laughing Matter

God Is Dog Spelled Backwards, illustrated by Elizabeth Cameron

MEMOIR

Floor Sample: A Creative Memoir

FICTION

Mozarts Ghost

Popcorn: Hollywood Stories

The Dark Room

PLAYS

Public Lives

The Animal in the Trees

Four Roses

Love in the DMZ

Avalon (a musical)

The Medium at Large (a musical) Magellan (a musical)

POETRY

Prayers for the Little Ones

Prayers to the Nature Spirits

The Quiet Animal

This Earth (also an album with Tim Wheater)

FEATURE FILM

(as writer-director)

Gods Will

To my creative elders

I WOULD LIKE TO BEGIN at the beginning, but I do not know what the beginning is anymore. I am a person at midlife. I am a believer who is trying one more time to believe. That is to say I am caught off guard by life and by feelings of emptiness.

I want there to be more reassurance than I currently feel that we are on the right path. By we I mean God and me. I have been trying consciously to work with God for twenty-five years now, and a great deal has been made of my life that I think has a lot of valuebut I am one more time asking for something to be made of me and it that I myself can hold on to. Me. Personally. Not as some abstract but as a genuine comfort.

I am a writer and a teacherworthy things, but I am not feeling my worth in them right now. I must again come to some relationship to God that will enable me to pursue my career as an outward manifestation of inwardly held values. In other words, what needs mending here is probably not the outward formI suspect that after a great deal of soul-searching I would still come back to being a writer and a teacherbut the inward connection. I must feel I am doing what God would have me do.

To be comforted, I must feel connected to God and that I am acting out of some inner sense of guidance. Guidance is what is missing right now. I feel that I have come so far and suddenly, pfft, God is missing. I know that the phrase for the period I am in is dark night of the soul, but that seems very dramatic for what is essentially a broad daylight problem. It is three oclock on a dreary, gray early autumn day and I do not know where God is.

It seems to me it takes faith to say God is right here. Right now. Right where we are. To do that is to assume that no mistakes have been made. But maybe no mistakes have been made or, if mistakes have been made, they must be able to be unmade. God, merciful God, must be able to incline himself to the exact point, here, where we are crying in the wilderness.

And so, because there is no point in positing God as misplaced, let us assume God is right where God is supposed to be, right where we are. Here. Now. In the midst. If God is right here, then what is my problem?

My problem then comes back to faith. God is here, but I do not believe God is here. I do not believe, but that does not mean I am right. I may very well be blind to God right now. God may be everywhere, all around me, completely involved and infusing all of my affairs and I still might just miss his presence if what is going on is somehow counter to my sense of God or godliness. If I cannot see how and why God is using me as he does, then I stubbornly find myself thinking that there must again be some mistake and I must have lost God somehow. I turned left and God turned right. I went north while God went south.

Ah, but I have not.

God is our milieu, every compass point, our entire universe. God cannot be misplaced. Then it follows that everything is in divine order and that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, feeling exactly what it is I am supposed to be feelingwhich is lost. Why, God, must I feel lost?

There must be some purpose to my feeling lost. If it is Gods will for me to be wandering without a compass, there must be some point to such meanderings. God, where are you? I ask, and in the question there must be some worth because Gods will is not purposeless. God has intentions for us and the one intention that I can see in my current dilemma is that God must want me to grow and to grow toward God. Well, I am trying. I am sending stalks out blindly, like a plant seeking the light and groping upward.

God, where are you, God?

I am right here, I can imagine God answering me, so real I must report it. I am in the very air you breathe. I sit with you at your desk. I look outward with you to regard your vista. I am not lost. I am not missing.

If God is not missing, then why is my sense of God missing? It may be something as simple as absence makes the heart grow fonder and God is growing me a fonder heart. For my own good. I could use a fonder heart. I could enjoy having a heart more fondly open to God and more open to seeing God in all I encounter. Surely, living in New York as I do and encountering great crowds of people as I do, it would be comforting to see the eyes of God looking outward from each face.

Now you are onto something, I can hear God sayingalmost.

If I let myself, I can imagine how God might talk with me, gently, as though trying not to startle a child. Here I am, I can hear God saying to me, not lost at all, just misplaced by you. Why do you need to have such a sense of emergency?

When I have a sense of God, there is no sense of emergency. There is a sense of wonder and calm unfolding. Then I can watch my life as time-lapse photography and see the great good being brought to bear simply because I am practicing enough patience and faith to let God have his way with me. I am cooperating. That is, co-operating.

When I have a sense of God, there is a sense of synchronicity. All things work toward the good, and I am able to see that good when I look with the eyes of faith. But the eyes of faith are blinded right now. I grope in the darkness. Again, I can hear God saying to me, What darkness? I am right beside you. See things in my light.

Next page

1234567...46

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives»

Look at similar books to Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Julia Cameron

Walking in This World: The Practical Art of Creativity

Julia Cameron

Write for Life: Creative Tools for Every Writer (A 6-Week Artists Way Program)

Julia Cameron

The Artists Way Workbook

Julia Cameron

The Prosperous Heart: Creating a Life of Enough

Julia Cameron

The Artists Way Every Day: A Year of Creative Living

Julia Cameron

The Artists Way for Parents: Raising Creative Children

Julia Cameron

Prosperity Every Day: A Daily Companion on Your Journey to Greater Wealth and Happiness

Julia Cameron

Seeking Wisdom: A Spiritual Path to Creative Connection

Julia Cameron

Finding Water

Julia Cameron

The Artists Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

Julia Cameron

The Sound of Paper

Julia Cameron

The Creative Life: True Tales of Inspiration

Discussion, reviews of the book Faith and Will: Weathering the Storms in Our Spiritual Lives and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.