In the Christian Mystical Tradition, "The Birth of the Son" means "the Awakening of God's Self-Awareness" within Human Consciousness.

In the Christian Mystical Tradition, the birth of Christ means the awakening of God's Self-awareness within human consciousness. John Ruusbroec, a 14th century mystic from Belgium, says that "the birth of the Son" is the awakening of a light - whose other name is "SEE!" - from within the dark intimacy and mystery of the Father's loving abyss. This light then shines back on the abyss, revealing it as the Source of all creation. Ruusbroec's insight corresponds to the Aramaic word - "rehem" - that Jesus often used for "love." Literally, it means "a shining from a dense or dark interiority."

This is precisely what occurs during contemplative prayer. Here, we find our awareness embraced - "hugged" - by a magnetic love welling up from the core of the dark, endlessly deep canyon of the soul. This deep, magnetic love is what the mystics mean by "the Father." Meanwhile, our thoughts and emotions - corresponding to the birth of the "light" or "the Son" about which Ruusbroec speaks - circulate like stars, meteors and moonlight in the sky high above the canyon walls. During meditation, these "lights" are viewed peripherally, for the bulk of our attention is drawn into the magnetic depths, the source of our being. Thus, in meditation, the thoughts we often find so distracting actually serve a purpose, for they reveal - by the contrast they provide - the depths and the dark intimacy of the canyon below! During contemplation, we simply let these thoughts flow of their own accord, while the light they provide automatically reveals the dark intimacy of our innermost depths, rooted in God!

This Christmas, may we go out with love to the world around us - a world that is often chaotic, stressed and suffering - and allow it to be magnetized and drawn into the innermost canyon of our being, where IT TOO can experience the dark intimacy of divine Love!

Photos: (Top) Sunset on Bellvue Dome, over the Poudre River, Bellvue, CO, November 25, 2014: (Second)  Sunlight entering "The Joint," Canyonlands National Park, UT, November 28, 2014; (Third) Alpenglow on Long's Peak, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, December 8, 2014; (Bottom) Sunset on Mills Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, November 21, 2014

God has created each person’s soul as a living mirror

“God has created each person’s soul as a living mirror, on which he has impressed the image of his nature.  In this way, he lives imaged forth in us and we in him . . . This mirror remains constantly before the face of God and therefore participates in the eternity of the image which it has received.  In this image God knew us in himself before we were created.”

John Ruusbroec,
14th century Belgian mystic

Photo: Peaks above Skinny Fish Lake, Flattops Wilderness, CO; June 15, 2013

The act of divine seeing is itself a Light.

"In the empty being of our spirit, we receive an incomprehensible resplendence which envelops and pervades us in the same way that the air is pervaded by the light of the sun.  This resplendence is nothing other than an act of gazing and seeing which has no ground."

John Ruusbroec, 14th century

Photo: View of Long's Peak through golden aspens on Deer Mountain, Rocky Mountain National Park, CO; September 30, 2012