‘Sunshine on my Shoulders’

(title from Song:John Denver)

I have only appreciated ‘mystical’ experiences

later in life – not because I didn’t have any such experiences

rather because I didn’t have the language helpful to wrap

around such experiences. I think we have a lifetime of

such unique experiences – things that are beyond the everyday

that, if pondered, are treasures. One such experience happened

to me on the way with my Dad to feed the pigs. Seemingly prompted,

I stepped off the slide with the drums of swill, and

sat down in the about one metre high golden strawlike grass.

It was a delicious autumn day and I remember savouring the

streaming down of the sunshine which seemed to be eating into

and through my skin, into my inmost being. I was aware in that

moment sensing a connection with the elusive mysterious Higher

One who was beyond all my conceptions. In hindsight this, I see was

a revelation through the mysterious. In that experience

no name was given but somehow I can return to this experience

today and rejoice in the revelation which now seems to be a

gift to treasure.

I see it now as a connection of ‘knowing’. ‘Be still and know’.

Something in me ‘knew’ – no I couldn’t and can’t prove it. I don’t

even want to, it is a mysterious knowing.

Some would call this a mystical experience. It was a foretaste of

what can happen in the silences. Some of the best gifts of

travelling with this mysterious one is that I can ask re my puzzling

everyday realities, my desires a bit out of reach, my griefs, and there in

the silence the messages come. Sometimes not so. The static

of my life may get in the way or perhaps it’s a matter for holy

waiting.

Should I comb through my life there would be other experiences

Where I know ‘the mysterious presence’ is with me calling me

forward through fears, disasters, confusions, so called coincidences,

glimpses that came not by my intellect but rather to my heart and

my intellect bringing a feeling of wellbeing, delight, and gratitude.

Take a look through your experiences. See the experiences that

You didn’t manoeuvre yourself into but they just happened. Call it

mystical for it is, but really don’t get carried away with the ‘oooaah’

part of it. To me it is quite simply the unexplainable connection

that is available to every human to look and see. The Word says:

‘Taste and see that the Lord is good!’ As I go on I notice that connection

is more and more delicious.