The Divine in Disguise

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.
– Matthew 25:40

After the woman had gone, Martin ate some cabbage soup, cleared the things away, and sat down to work again. He sat and worked, but did not forget the window, and every time a shadow fell on it he looked up at once to see who was passing. People he knew and strangers passed by, but no one remarkable.
– from Where Love Is, God Is by Leo Tolstoy

Most everyone is lousy at math and does that to God – dissects the Indivisible One, by thinking, saying, “This is my Beloved, he looks like this and acts like that, how could that moron over there really be God.
– from Lousy at Math by Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Love said to me, there is nothing that is not me. Be silent.
– Rumi

Encountering the divine in disguise is a common and beautiful theme in many traditions.

How would it be to meet the person in front of me as Christ? How would it be to meet this experience – the one right here right now – as Christ?

How would it be to meet the woman on the tram, looking like a veteran meth user, as Christ? How would it be to meet the noisy neighbors as Christ? How would it be to meet someone not giving me what I want as Christ? How would it be to meet whatever is here as Christ – pain, illness, discomfort, anger, grief, hurt, reactivity, contraction, confusion, thoughts, beliefs, identities and identifications? How would it be to meet that in me I have the hardest time befriending as Christ?

How would it be to meet whatever I recoil from as Christ?

The Divine or Christ is not in disguise. The Divine is here plain as day as everything and everyone.

The disguise is in my own mind, my own beliefs, my thoughts saying something is not OK, not good, not the Divine and then taken as true. The disguise is only created in my own mind.

What I am most interested in meeting as Christ is (a) tiredness, (b) a sense of (energetic, emotional) congestion, (d) a sense of hurt, (e) any reactivity, and (f) any sense of I having/experiencing/relating to it.

Note: What happens when I meet whatever is here as Christ? I find a shift into kindness (meeting it with love, noticing it as love, a more friendly relationship to it) and wisdom (noticing it’s all the Divine, Christ, love, the play of life).

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draft….

– Christ, the Divine in disguise – common and beautiful theme in Christianity (and other traditions)
– the woman on the tram, noisy neighbors, someone not giving me what I want, pain, grief, anger etc.
– whatever I recoil from, is Christ
– and Christ is not in disguise, the Divine is there as plain as day
– the disguise is in my own mind, my own beliefs, my thoughts saying something is not OK, not good, not the Divine, and taken as true