The Communion of Saints

Brother Lawrence (1614-1691) began his life as Herman, a foot soldier in the army. A poor man, the military gave him promise of regular meals and housing. One day while in service of France, perched under a tree, he saw the barren, almost deadlike state of it. He became awakened to the realization the tree was sitting fallow, as he saw his current state of being, to realize someday the tree would be filled with the vibrant leaves of life, as God would enliven him. This mystical moment deeply informed him and once his military service was complete he entered into an abbey and served in the kitchen. Daily he would prepare food, cook meals, and clean up afterward. He came to see everything he did as a service to and relationship with God.

“Nor is it needful that we should have great things to do. . . We can do little things for God; I turn the cake that is frying on the pan for love of him, and that done, if there is nothing else to call me, I prostrate myself in worship before him, who has given me grace to work; afterwards I rise happier than a king. It is enough for me to pick up but a straw from the ground for the love of God.” Brother Lawrence

Brother Lawrence admitted this was a practice; an active training of attention, until it wasn’t any longer. “I began to live as if there were no one save God and me in the world.”

There are times on my journey I return to his writing, The Practice of the Presence of God, and this week was one of them. I read the first line of his book and didn’t go any further. It read “I believe in the communion of saints.” This phrase I heard often growing up in the Episcopal Church, and something about these words provides a warm heart response that I continue to sit with in meditation.

What does it mean to me to believe in the communion of Saints? My mind goes to an interview I heard Ken Wilbur give (from Kosmic Consciousness with Sounds True) where he says that the pronoun “we” happens when there is no longer an “I” and a “you,” but instead two “I’s” exist  in agreement. I’ve adopted the saying now, “I plus I equals we,” meaning that as long as there is a “you” there is a separation in perception and we aren’t joined as one in agreement. Or, as long as I am the “you” the same remains.

Could communion of Saints mean the multiplication of “I” consciousness? The collective agreement in the Presence of God as the ground of all being?

I am currently writing a book on the job quest for many of my friends and clients are looking for work. The book is written from the perspective that All is God and right work is and must be available to all; it probably looks different than our mind imagines it. It is most likely in a different form, yet it is never the form we seek, is it? It’s the expression of the Soul; the gift of our Being from which humanity and and the expressed will benefit. The energy within the statement “the communion of Saints” continues to ooze all over me informing the work I am doing, including writing this book. What a lovely consciousness in which to approach a job quest. Imagine an interview where you show up willing to be the place where communion is normal. What a regenerative way to approach all of life.

So this morning, during meditation, I sat with my Buddhist 108 mala beads speaking aloud this Catholic and Episcopalian statement that “I live in the midst of the community of Saints” as each bead is touched. I will be meeting a friend in an hour to shop for some kitchen cabinets. I look forward to connecting with my brethren dressed up as store clerks.

What a Holy Day!