A Case for Logic

A teacher once told me that you can’t intellectualize spirit. I agree with this statement for the most part, because certainly spirit is experienced in the present moment only. As soon as we apply a label, our awareness of spirit becomes a construct of mind rather than the pure experience of being.

But we are human, and in this physical form we are self-aware, and we learn. We use the mind to process our experience and choose who we want to be. We are divine mind in action.

Most of you know that a favorite spiritual practice of mine is writing letters to God. A recent letter to God about forgetting caused me to make a case for logic as a spiritual tool.

God responded to me, in part, that “whether you’re remembering or forgetting the truth of who you are in any moment doesn’t change the truth. But the question becomes, ‘How do you experience your own expression in the world as infinitely good enough when earlier experience tried to teach you otherwise? How do you trust the truth of God within you when others can’t trust it either?’

“The truth stands unchanged in the midst of all; therefore, you need to question the voices that say you are anything less than God. Think about it – you are light, or you are not. You are perfect, or you are not. I live in and as you, or I do not. Since both cannot be true, which truth do you choose to serve? Your heart knows the truth and speaks it to you in countless different ways. “

Thank you, God, for appealing to logic when that was what I needed!

I’ve been facilitating a spiritual weight loss support group at Unity, following a book by Marianne Williamson. In a chapter on the importance of feeling our feelings in order to learn from and process them, she makes another strong case for logic as a spiritual tool.

Following is a delightful excerpt from her book, A Course in Weight Loss. She is talking about feeling overwhelmed as a natural consequence of failing to recognize a divine hand upholding all things.

“If you feel you must control everything by yourself – if you don’t feel you can ask for God’s help with the details – then no wonder you feel absolutely overwhelmed. You can’t exactly hold up the stars in the sky, but obviously someone does. So couldn’t that someone hold and harmonize the circumstances of your life? (I love this! Logic at its best. . .)

She goes on to say that “In fact, the entire universe is held safely in Divine hands. Planets revolve around the sun, stars stay in the sky, cells divide, and embryos turn into babies. Embryos don’t exclaim, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to do this! I don’t know how to cell-divide!’ The embryo doesn’t have to know. An order bigger than the embryo moves it forward as part of nature’s blueprint.”

If that’s not a strong (and logical) argument in favor of God in all things, I don’t know what is!

Thank you, Marianne Williamson, and may this tool be a blessing.