Copyright © 2007 by Margaret Barry.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

27213

CONTENTS

Reflections

I    The Child and the Call

II    Life, Labor, and the Holy Eucharist

III    Begotten from Above, The Christ Experience

IV    The Coming of Christ

V    Reflections on the Gospel of John

VI    Where Can We Find the Christ?

VII    The Word Became Flesh

VIII    Genesis Again

X    Imaging the Creator’s Function

XI    Ways of Union

XII    Reflections on J. P. de Caussade

XIII    A Letter to Teresa of Avila

XIV    Reflections on Matthew

XV    My Favorite Way to Worship

Titles of Poems

1    Mystical Ride

2    Flight in Search of God

3    Approaching Him

4    Wildflower

5    Expectations

6    Sower of Seeds

7    Mother Sod, Angel Son

8    I Care

9    Bearing Being

10    Liberate the Spirit

11    Purple Profusion

12    Glory

13    Woman of Wisdom

14    Joy of Today

15    Doing His Thing

16    Grant Us Your Spirit

17    Journey in Christ

18    Need to Express

19    My All

20    Thanks And Praise

21    Joy of Being

22    Energy of Love

23    Uninvolved

24    What Has Happened?

25    How Far to Here

26    Love Become Sensible

27    Golden Love

28    Key of David

29    In Praise of Woman

30    Christ, Seed of the Spirit

31    My Geranium

32    God Is Being Alive

33    A Prayer

34    An Open Door

35    Seeking

36    New Creation

37    Star Gazing

38    Swelling Stream

39    Praise Him

40    For His Love

41    Creation, Heaven’s Garden

42    Welded Up Inside

43    Light Is Energy

44    Perpetual Transformation

45    Songs of Men

46    Searching

47    I Heard…

48    Original Lover

49    David

50    About Him

51    Allowing Himself

52    Fence Climber

53    Joy in Play Clothes

54    The Erotic Breeze

55    Our World, Our Universe, Ourselves

56    Spirit of God

57    Thus says the Spirit

58    The Beginning of Now

59    New World

60    Who Are You Woman?

With love and gratitude, I dedicate this book to the wonderful

women in my life, my mother Connie, my aunt Esther,

and the teaching Sisters of St. Joseph.

For those who have eyes to see let them see.

About the Author,

About the Book

The inspirations captured within these pages are a result of the personal experience of an awakening that came from deep within my self. It brought about an awareness of Being, an awareness in which I began a journey in discovering who I am and who God is. At first I did not realize how important this experience was, but over a period of time, recognition of its importance became manifest. This story, told in poetry and reflections, is not for me alone but for all searching souls who wish to know what is at the core and source of their existence.

While my background is that of a Catholic Christian, the insights expressed herein have come from the Holy Spirit, for no human being has taught me what I have come to know through my experiences in awareness and enlightenment.

Sometimes when I speak of Christ, I am not just speaking about Jesus the Christ. Christ is the anointed one who has been and is in all major religions of the world, though perhaps called by a different name. Christ is of the Spirit, neither male nor female. Christ is in the one whose eyes have been opened, the enlightened one who follows the narrow path. The Christ of which I speak is cosmic and incorporated into all flesh. It is a beneficial duty for every cell of flesh in the world to discover Christ—their self within who is waiting to awaken and enlighten every human being.

Growing up in a New England mill town during the 1940s and 50s, with multiethnic immigrants, including my grandparents, was one of the most enriching experiences of my early life. I was richly rewarded for being an observer of life around me. I saw people who worked hard, loved with quiet, unspoken intensity and did all within their power to make life good and share their wholesome standards. Then there were a few self absorbed who seemed unable to commit either to work or to love. Their passion was in being angry at the world. Upon noticing these differences, there was within me a growing conscious decision to work well, do good and try my best to love, with the hope to be loved. Thus began my spiritual journey in life, while I was not yet aware of where this decision would take me, the price I would pay, or the joys I would know for the choice I had made.

My story began about the age of six years when outstanding thoughts began to come to my mind, thoughts that were imprinted like a laser beam cut into a recording. There would be the call to priesthood, the prediction of my mother’s death, a child’s struggle to survive amid poverty and unsavory characters. There was the disbelief and rejection by priests of my religion. There was enlightenment with my experience, which gave me the perseverance to continue. I knew this knowledge was given to me from a higher power and no matter how I was treated for my beliefs, I would not give up what I had been told and knew in my soul that things would come to pass in God’s good time and in God’s way.

It was February 23, 1965, when I actually made the statement that I had become aware of Being. Initially I had attributed this statement to God and began writing down my thoughts. Upon reflecting what was written, I saw that I was writing about myself. While my concentration was fixed upon God—the other outside of me—it came about that what was being revealed was the self within. God is both within and outside of all creatures.

New insights and revelations were constant through nature and through the physical and spiritual world that surrounded me. My mind was deluged with experiential knowledge, which came predominantly by way of observation and reflection, through reason. It is an enlightenment that has changed my life forever. This is what I have written about. Writing became a necessity in my life for it was difficult to find someone with whom intimate thoughts could be shared. I have come to realize that intimacy with another person is only possible when it is reciprocal. Still, I knew that these special thoughts were not for me alone. They were the thoughts of a mystic and are to be given to the people of God’s creation. The writings began to take on a vision that became a big picture, like a giant puzzle, pieces were fitting together. They told a story. The spiritual connected to the physical, the psychological and the scientific. Ultimately everything connected to the cosmos and to God.

This is expressed in a subtle but unmistakable manner. It is expressed in the simplest terms throughout these writings. They tell a story of an evolving spirit that is at once both personal and cosmic.

The road I have traveled these past forty years has been with pain and joy. While I know the hand of God has been guiding me all of my life, I am now more eager than ever to tell all the people of God of the possibilities that lie in store for his beloved creations. When I was troubled and afraid, which was many times, there was only the Lord for me to turn to. He told me to do this, Ask and you will receive, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you (Luke 11:9). These are trustworthy words. They gave birth to this mystic, a new woman. It has given me cause to believe that a new world of people is about to emerge with a new consciousness, a new spirit of awareness, becoming the epitome of our creator’s design, the Omega person.

At this time I have come to believe that the experiences expressed in my reflections and poems are a parallel experience of the feminine of God, which is the Holy Spirit of God, who has been attempting to be in union and at oneness with human beings. She has been overlooked, ignored, rejected and even denied, by blind, male dominated, feudal, hierarchical religions. But the evolution of our species which is becoming more and more like its creator is entering a phase of experiencing the awakening or awareness of Being, which will unite us not only to God but to one another in order that a Cosmic Christ will be born.

I

The Child and the Call

My story about the call has to do with nuptials, weddings, or what otherwise might be called unions with God; and the sacraments experienced here, are internalized, deeply personal and spiritual, not ritualized. It is also a sensual story and at the same time sacred. It is an invitation from the Spirit and from nature to accept the revelation of one’s self when we recognize that God is within all and will speak to us in our consciousness if we pay attention.

It began with an innocent and naive child of about six years, in her first year of school. She really loved to listen to people talk. It made her feel like she was part of everybody around her—as if she belonged. Everything seemed so interesting. One of the things she enjoyed hearing about most was the greatness and goodness of God… how big he was and the wonderful things he could do.

Sister Carmel told the children that this wonderful person, who made the whole world, everybody, and everything in it, cared about each one of us, that he loved us and wanted to talk to us, and that he wanted us to talk to him. Sister said God would make us wise and intelligent if we listened to him. And a little girl at the age of six, who did not feel at all smart, made a wish in her heart that God would talk to her and make her intelligent. And there was a sweet voice within her that spoke and said, "When you’re older, God will talk with you." Older seemed like a long way off. She wanted to be intelligent now. She wanted God to talk to her now. There was just silence. But she did believe and trusted in what she heard. She would wait in hope to be intelligent.

One day at Sunday Mass, as she was kneeling in the front row of church and her eyes were just able to see over the kneeling board in front of her, she looked up at the mural on the church ceiling… and there was God, with his long white beard and stern look. The child needed to talk to him. But she couldn’t look at him. So she lowered her head and closed her eyes. And in the quiet of her heart she said, God, my daddy is not good to my mommy. I don’t want a husband like him. Please send me a good husband when I grow up. She repeated that little prayer many times during her young life.

And when she was older she wrote,

The Wedding

I went up to the house of my Lord,

   and upon His altar burned

      twelve innocent lights.