Finding Your Destiny - sermon Oct 26, 2014

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“Finding Your Destiny”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Oct 26, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Joshua 24: 1-2a, 14-18; Rev 21: 1-4; HH 402

There’s a gravestone somewhere near London England that reads, “Here lies Jeremy Brown, born a man and died a grocer.”

Now, this is humorous, but it is also a commentary on how one can become so identified with one’s job that one loses the self that one was created to be.

You see, every one of us hungers to live a life of purpose and meaning. But misfortune, setbacks, cynicism, or even societal expectations and pressures can silence that hunger, but it never truly goes away. We long to feel special; we long to feel that there is a reason that we were born. The book stores are full of self-help guides on how to discover our purpose in life—books with titles like: “Finding Your Own North Star,” “Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose,” “Manifest Your Destiny,” “Just Who Will You Be?” and “Excavating Your Authentic Self,”—and they sell well for a reason.

We are complex beings. We live in the space between responsibility and possibility, between duty and dreams, pulled ever and always between the two. It can be a precarious place to live in this tug of war, faced with daily choices between creative playful risk and the heavy harness of obligation. We cannot simply abandon our spouse or children or work responsibilities to indulge some impractical dream—“I will move to Hollywood and become a famous actress!” (No matter how much appeal that might have some days). Yet it is a terrible shame when we allow ourselves to succumb to the “shoulds” and judgments in our culture, letting our creativity wither and our dreams die.

There is a balance we must strike in life between time in the harness of duty and out of it, yet many of us in adult life let go completely of our ability to play and dream, and it is then that we risk “dying a grocer.”

Let me read to you from Irish poet and priest, John O’Donahue:

“For millions of years, before you arrived here, the dream of your individuality was carefully prepared. You were sent to a shape of destiny in which you would be able to express the special gift you bring to the world.

If you can awaken this sense of destiny, you come into rhythm with your life. You fall out of rhythm when you renege on your potential and talent, when you settle for mediocre as a refuge from the call. When you lose rhythm, your life becomes wearyingly deliberate or anonymously automatic. Rhythm is the secret key to balance and belonging." (Anam Cara, p 84)

O’Donahue speaks a very Swedenborgian truth here: that we all were indeed created with a special purpose in mind—that God made you and me with an eye to eternity and an intention for a unique job in heaven that will fulfill us beyond our wildest dreams. We can begin to awake to that purpose here and now, but the key lies in being willing to be open to finding a sacred rhythm to our life, and being willing to dig deep into our courage and love. Developing this awareness can require some introspection, often in the form of meditation or journaling—undertakings many of us avoid like the dentist. I personally believe in the transformative power of daily journal writing with all my heart, and yet have an amazing ability to postpone it, neglect it, and forget it all together.

You see, the journey of opening up our inner selves is work. It is not easy. But it is immeasurably worth it. Still, building time and space in our lives for our own spiritual development is like trying to convince a budget-challenged school board to keep a full arts and music program. For some reason, spiritual work is always the first to get dropped and forgotten in our busy lives.

And we do lead busy lives. All the time-saving devices we have invented have simply given us permission to cram more activity into our days. We are frightened to miss any opportunity, and even with all the things and activities we have already packed into our ridiculously privileged North American lives, we have a hard time saying no to anything. One of the hardest, hardest things for us to do today in our culture is to slow down. It is as if the speed itself holds the key to our salvation, and taking any time to simply be, can bring up enormous anxiety for souls accustomed to living in top gear.

Listen to this ancient bit of wisdom: Once there was a man exploring Africa. He was in a desperate hurry on a trip through the jungle. He had three or four native Africans helping him carry his equipment. He urged them forward at great speed for about three days. At the end of the third day, the Africans sat down and would not move. He insisted that they get up, telling them of the pressure he was under to reach his destination before a certain date. But they refused to move. He could not understand this. He tried all sorts of persuasions, yet they still refused to move. Finally, he got one of them to admit the reason. This native said, "We have moved too quickly to reach here; now we need to wait to give our spirits a chance to catch up with us."

Many of us chuckle at this quaint-seeming wisdom.  And yet I bet each one of us has experienced the consequences of not “letting our spirits catch up” in one way or another. We can become so disconnected from the rhythm of the spiritual process, that we can no longer sense when we need to stop and care for our souls. And so we get sick, or in some other way are forced to slow down, no matter how outwardly inconvenient. We know that slowing down and looking inward through yoga, or meditation, regular journaling, or perhaps attending a church that feeds our inner life will do us good, but do we let ourselves do it?  Accomplishing one more task can be so compelling….

Believe it or not, our Scripture passage from Joshua today was speaking to a similar dynamic in the spiritual journey. In fact, the more I study the Bible through a Swedenborgian lens, the more I am amazed to see that it is full of the psychology of the human spiritual journey.

The Bible says the same thing, over and over again in all sorts of ways: that this life is a journey with a divine purpose; that there will be challenges, struggles, and tremendous blessings; and that, though we seem to lose Eden, we are destined at the end of the journey for a place even better—the Holy City.

So what did I find in the scripture from Joshua? Well, let’s take a look.

Joshua assembles all the people before God at Shechem. Shechem, says Swedenborg, symbolizes ancient wisdom. He calls it our “first real inner light.” Gathering at Shechem then, is describing a time when we remember or re-collect our early, innocent trust in God. The children of Israel have come a long way by this point. They have travelled through the wilderness and entered Canaan. They have fought many battles, and are now settled in the land with a system of cities and laws, divided into tribes by region. Joshua is coming to the end of his life, and is preparing the people for life without him.

So he brings them before the Lord in a place that reminds them of all the Lord has done for them so far. He reminds them of their history—of what life was like before they began their journey following the Lord. When he says, “beyond the river and in Egypt” this is a metaphor for the time before we begin our spiritual work. Egypt means head-knowledge; it means living an external or relatively shallow life. It also symbolizes times when we think our thinking will be our salvation. Egypt is “beyond the River” because we have not yet started the true spiritual journey. God may be in our head, but is not yet in our heart. Having God in our head can be a foundation for a spiritual life, but it becomes slavery until and unless we allow God to move into our hearts.

Keeping God in our heads is the idolatry that Joshua is warning against. Keeping God in our heads can be sacrificing ourselves on the altar of duty; it can mean hiding behind our careers and our family obligations to avoid the work of excavating our souls. Are we living a role because it is safe? Are we following someone else’s formula for what being a good grown-up looks like, while slowly dying inside? That is idol worship. That is not following a living God. That is the slavery of Egypt. But God offers us the chance to come out of Egypt, from the land of slavery, any time we are ready.

To do so, we need to be willing to make some changes. It can be scary to leave Egypt. In Egypt we have structure, we know our place. Leaving Egypt requires a plunge into the wilderness, where every day we must trust God to take care of us.

We leave Egypt every time we choose to live in our hearts and not just our heads. When Joshua dies, the Children of Israel are facing a whole new journey—life without their fearless, triumphant leader. It is time for them to grow up a little more and step into a greater level of spiritual maturity. That is why Joshua calls them to assemble at Shechem. He is preparing them. “Remember,” he says, “the God that brought you out of Egypt?” He reminds them of all that God has done for them so far, leading them every step of the way. Then he says “Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve.”

Why is this story important? Haven’t they already chosen to follow God again and again? This story is here, because a big part of the spiritual journey requires a constant recommitment to the work. Our human nature, which loves safety and security, will face a repeated impulse to run back to known territory, even if “known territory” involves “slavery.”

We all long to live passionately and follow God’s call and find our inner purpose, don’t we? And yet we all long to be safe and stable and secure; and often those two things look mutually exclusive, like duty and dreams.

But stepping into the self that we were made to be, or choosing to “serve the Lord,” will become the deepest security we could ever know, if we are willing to make the journey. It is a different kind of security that trades the external trappings of security for deep spiritual peace. When we choose to pursue and excavate the self that God created us to be, we are choosing to live on a spiritual foundation, not a material one. And choosing that is choosing life.

The spiritual journey is not for the faint of heart. Yet is also invites far greater magic and joy than you will ever know in Egypt.

Who here has seen the Harry Potter movies or read the books? Well, there comes a moment of crisis in one story-line where Harry has a life-or-death task. To be sure he succeeds, he drinks a magic potion that brings incredible good fortune to the one who drinks it. After he swallows it he marches off in the opposite direction from where everyone—viewers, readers, and characters in the story itself—thinks he should go. But he throws off the protesting hands of his friends and follows the deep inner knowing of what he needs to do, following a path that makes no sense, but which ultimately brings him to exactly what he needed to save the day.

All I can say is, that when one steps into the flow of God’s providence, and truly listens to the inner promptings of one’s heart, life begins to feel and act like this. You will drink in God’s promise of abundant life, and find yourself sometimes making choices that make no sense and do not fit anything your head thinks. Yet somehow, the actions taken under this gut-level guidance can bring answers to prayers that were unanswerable. I will attest to this without reservation.

Raise your hand if you have had experiences like this.  One of my best friends bought a house under such circumstances.  It made no sense in so many ways, and yet something in her gut told her—and so many odd signs pointed to—that move being exactly what her family needed to take the next step in their lives. Many years later that move has proved to be a great blessing.  Living in that house has made many things in their life easier and has supported them through some very tough circumstances in ways they could never have anticipated.

She reports that it was terrifying to trust that gut feeling, and yet something told her she had to trust it.  And it brought good outcomes in ways she never could have envisioned.  I believe that this is a manifestation of a spiritual law or dynamic: when we follow that deep inner knowing from God and trust it, no matter how crazy the choice may look on paper, we do indeed find increasing magic and good outcomes in our lives.

First we must align ourselves with God, then we must undertake some spiritual discipline that invites our spiritual growth, and then we open ourselves up to the still small voice. When we can do these things, we will keep a balance between the health of our souls and the responsibilities of our outer life.

And that is when magic happens.  When you can do these things, the person you were created to be will begin to emerge bringing increased joy and happiness and fulfillment.

I will close with this quote from John O’Donahue:

“If someone else could fulfill your destiny, they would be in your place, and you would not be here. It is in the depths of your life that you will discover the invisible necessity that has brought you here. When you begin to decipher this, your gift and giftedness come alive. Your heart quickens and the urgency of living rekindles your creativity.” (Anam Cara, p 84)

Amen.

The Readings

Joshua 24: 1-2a, 14-18 Then Joshua assembled all the tribes of Israel at Shechem. He summoned the elders, leaders, judges and officials of Israel, and they presented themselves before God. Joshua said to all the people, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your ancestors worshiped beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord. But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Then the people answered, “Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other gods! It was the Lord our God himself who brought us and our parents up out of Egypt, from that land of slavery, and performed those great signs before our eyes. He protected us on our entire journey and among all the nations through which we traveled. And the Lord drove out before us all the nations, including the Amorites, who lived in the land. We too will serve the Lord, because he is our God.”

Revelation 21:1-4 Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea.  Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with humanity, and God will live among them, and they shall be God’s people. God will be within and among them and be their God.  And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”

Heaven and Hell 402. All the delights of heaven are brought together and are present in one’s purpose or form of service, because service, springing from one’s created purpose, is the natural result (good outcome) of the very love and goodwill in which angels dwell. Everyone feels delight according to his or her purpose and according to his or her dedication to that purpose.

“The Intimacy of God's Love” a sermon

“The Intimacy of God's Love”

Genesis 28:10-19a; Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24; True Christianity 498:1

By Rev. Alison Longstaff

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Revised For Feb 16^th 2014, preached March 2^nd 2014

“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, ‘Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not.’”

Today’s story is about an “aha!” moment.  But this isn’t your average, run of the mill “aha!” moment. This is the sort of aha! that makes the hairs rise on your arm, and your stomach drop. This sort makes one feel shaken and profoundly humbled.  We have all had such moments.  For some of us they can be as dramatic as this dream of Jacob’s.  For others they may be more subtle.  But they come to each of us.  These are encounters with the Divine.  They are moments in which we walk in a “thin place”—a place in which we can see beyond the veil—and by which we are moved and changed.

Today’s story starts out with movement.

 

“Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran.”

 

In Swedenborgian thought, Jacob signifies our attempts to live our beliefs. Jacob isn't just a desire for God (Abraham), nor an active intellectual curiousity about God (Isaac).  He is the fruit of these: the way these two produce changes in our behaviour.  The north/south continuum in the Word is describing our intellectual side, where the east/west continuum is describing our motivational side.  So, since Beersheba is on the southernmost boundary of the Promised Land, it could be said to represent a time in our faith-journey where we have gone as far as we can go using just our intellect. 

Haran, which is the direction in which Jacob decides to head, was the land of Jacob’s family of origin and so represents our spiritual state before we began our journey with God.  Beersheba is in the middle of the desert, but it has a well. Leaving Beersheba means Jacob is heading into the desert first, which represents a wandering in faith.  So Jacob leaving Beersheba to go toward Haran implies that he is entering a time of spiritual regression.  Perhaps the well there ceased to be enough to satisfy his needs, the way using our intellect alone in our faith journey eventually ceases to be enough to satisfy our spirit. 

Swedenborg describes Haran as representing “idolatrous worship” which implies that you and I at this point are beginning to revert to some old survival techniques for comfort.  This could be something as simple as avoiding facing something uncomfortable in our lives, or as serious as a full-out relapse in an addiction.  It is all the not helpful ways we seek to get away from our problems.  These are escape attempts, and not actually solutions.  We have lost our spiritual focus and have begun looking for quick-fixes to our spiritual emptiness.  In any case, in our story, Jacob is on the move. 

“So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set.”

The Hebrew word for “came” here has a definite meaning of arrival.  It has a sense of meeting or encounter.  This cues us to know that Jacob has arrived at a significant place in his journey.  The English translation here says that the sun has set, but the Hebrew word is actually more like “arrived,” or “done its thing.”  So in the story, the sun could be said to have arrived and done its thing.  Since the sun represents the Lord, this could be saying in the spiritual meaning that the Lord has drawn near and this has done what the presence of the Lord does.  It produces a change.  The Lord drawing near tends to do that.  And like most of us, Jacob doesn’t even see that anything is different.  In fact, it seems to him that the sun has “set,” and he is more alone than ever. How wrong he is.

“And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep.”

It is so interesting to see how the translators handle some of the unusual Hebrew wordings.  The Hebrew here is more literally translated, “and he took a stone of that place and used it for his head-place and lay down in that place.”  There is a using and re-using of the word for place.  It is the Hebrew word makom, which is no average Hebrew word.  The Hebrews have a way of saying “Let us go to THE Place,” and they are using this word makom.  When they say that, they are meaning, “Let us go up to The Temple.” This “place” isn’t just any old place.  This is an important place, a holy place.  The use and reuse of the word here is telling us that this is a very significant moment in Jacob’s story.

 

“Pillow” here means literally “head-place.”  There are a myriad implications in that meaning alone, but we can simply know that this story is still all about Jacob’s head, not his heart so much.  This is about the intellect-journey so far.  We are reading about a significant moment in each and every person’s faith development.  Jacob’s laying down implies a humbling in his spirit, very likely as a direct result of God’s having drawn near.

“Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it.”

Oh, this is so beautiful.  This is the beginning of an intimate spiritual moment for Jacob.  It is showing him that there is a direct connection from where he is to the very dwelling place of God.  The word for “reach” here in the Hebrew carries the meaning of arrival. The ladder didn’t just reach toward heaven, it arrived.  There was a touch down.  “Houston, we have contact.”  Jacob realizes that God is very near.  Angels are coming and going from his very location on earth to the presence of God.  And there is contact.  Jacob is touched.

The Hebrew word for angel really means “messenger,” or communicator.  Frequently in the Old Testament, angels are God’s voice and face and hands on earth.  When an angel shows up, it is God.  So God is no longer “up there” but right in the presence of the characters in the story.  This communication is way beyond prayer.  This is an encounter.

Now notice something:  The word used for the God at the top of the ladder that Jacob saw is “Elohim” which is an ancient word carrying the reminder that we once worshiped many Gods.  It is implying that, at the beginning of the dream, Jacob hadn't really understood God.  The God that Jacob knows is pretty much still in his head.  His heart has yet to meet God.  So, from Jacob’s point of view, the God at the top of the ladder is still an intellectual concept.  He hasn't actually met God.  This will be a time of significant change for Jacob.

And behold, the Lord (Jehowah) stood above it and said: “I am the Lord God….”  (Jehowah-Elohim)

Jacob sees “Elohim” at the top of the ladder, but it is “Jehowah” who speaks to him. The Hebrew word translated “Lord” here is Yod Heh Vav Heh, the four sacred letters of the name of the Divine which the Hebrews are forbidden even to pronounce.  It is vocalized by non Hebrews as Jehovah, or Yahweh.  These four letters stand for the very Divine, the Source of all, the God of Love. This is the God of our heart and soul, not just our heads.

“I am Elohim-Jehowah.” The Divine identifies Itself as the God of both head and heart, of Love and Wisdom.  Up to this point Jacob knew God only intellectually, but this encounter touches his heart.  He is deeply moved, and he realizes into every cell of his body the overwhelming intimacy of God’s great love for him.  This is about a profound shift in our relationship with God.  An encounter with the immensity of God’s love, tends to have that effect on us. 

Let’s continue. “Jehowah … said….”  The Hebrew word for “said” here holds the meaning of a vow, an absolute promise.  Let’s face it, whenever God says something, it is a guarantee.  There is no pussy-footing around here.  There is no dodging this one or interpreting it differently.  God is indelibly impressing upon Jacob that He/She is Love and Wisdom inseparable.  And God is about to promise a whole lot more.  So it is time to listen up.

I am the Lord God (Elohim-Jehowah) of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

Quick translation? The God of every step of our way, from our earliest beginnings and through all our growing, plans to use our new awareness, this realization that the God of Love is the foundation and crown of our spiritual life, to springboard us into our future. We will grow spiritually in every direction now, in kindness and fairness, in great love and great wisdom, until we are blessed beyond measure. This is the promise.

But wait!  There is more. Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised for you.

To rephrase this according to the spiritual meaning: “Now you realize that I am with you. I will never leave you.  I treasure you, and will guide and protect your every step.  Even if you wander very far from the path, I will turn you around.  I will bring you back.  I won’t leave you.  There is nothing you can do to turn me away.  I will stick with you until every good thing which I have promised comes to pass.”

Wow.  That is God’s promise.  This is God’s unconditional, unequivocal promise.  What God promises, God will do.  God will bring us home.  God will bless us.  This is profoundly personal.  This is as personal as it gets.  The God of all the universe, the Source of Love and everything Good will never leave us.  No matter how alone you or I may feel, God is always immediately present.

 

“Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

Jacob awoke.  This is a wake-up moment, a transformative spiritual event. Jacob in the story, and you and I in this stage of the spiritual journey, will never be the same. This is a new spiritual day.

There are so many layers of meaning here.  I am just skimming the surface of all that there is. Up to this point in our spiritual journey, God and faith have mostly been intellectual activities.  But this encounter wakes us up to the reality that God is not just “up there.”  God is right here, right now, in this place, in this moment.  “The Lord is in this place, and I didn't know it.”  This place.  This one.

Here is that Hebrew word makom again. Place.  It is that same word used to refer to the temple.  A sacred place.  Because if God never ever leaves us, every place is a sacred place. 

"Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”

We are always in God’s presence.  We never leave it.  We mortals decided there was a separation between the religious and everything else, between the sacred and everything else, between what is holy and everything else.  But there really isn't.  God doesn't need that.  It just makes us more comfortable to have those divisions.

And he was full of reverence and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!" Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel.

How cute is that?  God just finished declaring to Jacob and showing him that God is right with him at every moment and will continue to be with him no matter where he goes, and Jacob decides that that physical place is the house of God.  Awww.  Oh well.  It is what we do.  Of course we do!  We all have a God-hunger in one way or another, and whenever we find something or some activity or some place that evokes that sense of nearness to God— tremendous well-being, peace, joy, reverence, great beauty—we tend to want to nail it down somehow.  That way we can repeat it, you see.  It is as if we can just name it and mark it, then we can access it at will.  This is still under the illusion that it will go away.

…and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. And he called the name of that place Bethel.

Bethel means “house of God.”  Jacob names that place House of God, and sets up a monument right there.   What is fun is that there is a play on words in the Hebrew which shows up in the English too.  In English we read that Jacob’s pillow became a pillar.  In Hebrew his mer-ah-ash-aw becomes a mats-tsay-baw.

Pouring oil on the stone is yet another image of love joining with faith, of heart with head.

Jacob’s story, like every story in the Bible, contains a message for you and for me.  Jacob is lost and wandering.  He’s even kind of regressing, spiritually, because face it, we all do from time to time.  He arrives at what he thinks is a pretty empty place, with nothing but a stone for his head.  He has no idea that it is actually the house of God.

This is your story and mine on so many levels.  How much are you aware on a daily basis that God is right with you in every action and every moment?  If you are like me, the answer is: “Not aware much at all!”  In fact, I believe that many of us kind of squirm at the idea of God being right with us in the very flesh of our lives.  God is with us in church, but not in the bathroom! God is with us when we are singing beautiful Bach choruses, but not when we are burping! Right?

Well guess what, God became incarnate for a reason. Our connection with God is absolutely and always rooted in the right here, right now; in our breath; in our heartbeat.  God’s love is always with us and then deepens and becomes grounded when we live that love into action with our voices, hands, and lives.

Never forget it.  No matter where we go, God’s protecting love is right with us.  There is nothing so terrible that we can do, that God cannot forgive and heal.  There is nothing so horrific that we can suffer that God cannot transform into a greater power for love in the world.  We may give up and lose hope, but God never will.  God will turn us back and wake us up to beauty and love again and again and again, until we realize we are whole.  How is that for an aha!?

God’s immense and intimate love is right here, right now. 

Amen

Revised from a sermon called “Surely The Lord Is In This Place” preached July 10^th, 2011

Genesis 28:10-19a
10 Now Jacob went out from Beersheba and went toward Haran. 11 So he came to a certain place and stayed there all night, because the sun had set. And he took one of the stones of that place and put it at his head, and he lay down in that place to sleep. 12 Then he dreamed, and behold, a ladder was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven; and there the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. 13 And behold, the Lord stood above it and said: "I am the Lord God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and your descendants. 14 Also your descendants shall be as the dust of the earth; you shall spread abroad to the west and the east, to the north and the south; and in you and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed. 15 Behold, I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have spoken to you." 16 Then Jacob awoke from his sleep and said, "Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it." 17 And he was afraid and said, "How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!" 18 Then Jacob rose early in the morning, and took the stone that he had put at his head, set it up as a pillar, and poured oil on top of it. 19 And he called the name of that place Bethel;
Psalm 139:1-12, 23-24
O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether. You have hedged me behind and before, And laid Your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is high, I cannot attain it. Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there. If I take the wings of the morning, And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, Even there Your hand shall lead me, And Your right hand shall hold me. If I say, "Surely the darkness shall fall on me," Even the night shall be light about me; Indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, But the night shines as the day; The darkness and the light are both alike to You.

TCR 498:1

My paraphrase

True spiritual freedom resides in each person's soul in full perfection. From the soul this freedom flows into both parts of the mind—the will and the understanding—like a fountain of water into a pool. And through these it flows into the body and into the speech and action. There are three levels of life in each person: the level of the soul, the level of the mind, and the level of the physical, sensate body. All the perfection of the higher levels flows down by degrees into the lower levels, affecting them.  Each person enjoys such perfect spiritual freedom, and the Lord’s Presence can be felt by means of, within, and because of this freedom.  The Lord presses to be received without ceasing, but never sets aside or does away with our freedom, (because nothing which a person does without spiritual freedom can last). It could be said that it is this very freedom itself which is the Lord’s dwelling within a person's soul.