“I am” is the very name of God, that essence of me that I truly bear, the inner most quality of being alive. When I die it is all that is left of me. It is my reality that exists forever; the energy that can not be destroyed. It is LOVE, God’s Love in and by which we all exist; Love makes us one with each other and God. We are not alone. “…for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:21). Pat and I and God exist as one. God made us One within Himself. The real me exists in the One that God made us when we loved and were married. We live in the light of God “Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.”(― Rabindranath Tagore) When Pat first heard these word, at the end of a church service, the truth of them hit her like a punch in the stomach and she gasped and tears came welling up in her. She had seen the Light, the Kingdom of God exists within us our heart, our soul and our mind. We are persons of love – love is forever. What is this world – for that matter what is the Big Bang – if it is not perceived it is nothing. The universe exists because it is perceived by us and God – it is God knowing himself. God is the great “I am”- He thinks so it exists. He is YHWH.
“Our knowledge of God is paradoxically not of him as the object of our scrutiny, but of ourselves as utterly dependent on his saving and merciful knowledge of us. It is in proportion, as we are known to him that we find our real being and identity in Christ. We know him in and through ourselves in so far as his truth is the source of our being and his merciful love is the very heart of our life and existence.” – Thomas Merton.