Spiritual nudges can be very insistent. On a particular day recently I heard this phrase in a secular context: ‘If you invite me I will come,’ and I felt a resonance. Later my attention was caught by an almost identical phrase in a novel. Throughout the day this ‘message’ was repeated in multiple forms. My playlist shuffled to Enya singing O Come, O Come Emmanuel. A podcast spoke of a growing expectation and longing for spiritual evolution using the metaphor ‘waiting for the return of the Jedi’.
The repetition set up an echo in my mind. I searched and found it in Revelation 22:17
And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!”
And let him who hears say, “Come!”
And let him who thirsts come.
Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.
What a full-hearted invitation this is to all people, for all time. How open, how inclusive and how deserving of delighted acceptance. Coming to sit in meditation is one way of accepting the invitation.
Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus, makes meditation a two-way invitation. Though we use it as a mantra to still the mind, the literal undercurrent resides beneath hundreds of thousands of repetitions across the community. Come Lord, Come Love.
Sadly, the wide angle view is that love is not made welcome on this planet. Yet it is so needed. In these transition times different traditions frame a second coming, or spiritual renewal in different ways, a dawning of Christ consciousness, the Buddha returning through the Sangha, the growing interest in the figure of Jesus and an increase in Bible sales to the young, the value shifts away from competition, towards connection and community, and the recognition of a societal need for a spiritual framework.
What the nudge seemed to spotlight is that now is the time to roll out the red carpet in the whole-hearted spirit of invitation and welcome:
Maranatha, Come Lord. Please.
Ana Salote
Preface to Meditation in a small weekly online Group