I can close my eyes and still see.
I can shut off my ears and nose and still hear and smell.
I can shut out the sights and the sounds and be alone;
and in the silence and solitude be transported to a ‘whole new world’.
Psychologists call this an altered state of consciousness.
I know that this is the realm of the spirit.
If I do not consciously try to live in this realm of the spirit,
I will never be aware of it and, even much less, grow in it.
Often, I am so inundated, benumbed and even addicted to the pleasures
I experience through my physical senses that I get stuck in the material world.
But I can use the same experiences to lead me
to greater heights or depths in my spiritual life.
Such experiences tell me that there is more to me than my physical body.
There is another level of existence than what I am going through right now.
And my faith affirms that I will come upon it one day.
One day, it will break out in time.
Or, I will break into in time.
It may come with howling winds or thunderous eruptions.
It may come in an apocalyptic upheavals or the darkening of the skies.
It may come like a thief in the night or like mighty thunderous horsemen.
I like to imagine as the gentle dawn breaking into a new,
or like the poignant setting of the sun at the end of the day.
"Wake, awake, the night is dying, And prophets from old are crying: Awake, ye children of the light! Lo, the Dawn shall banish sadness, The Rising Sun shall bring us gladness And all the blind shall see aright."