The Sacred Meal of Transformation

To truly encounter what is real and enduring, truth must be received not as an idea to be dissected, but as something to be taken into the body, to be lived and metabolized. This is not about information or belief; it is about transformation. I read ‘eating the scroll’ as a poetic way of describing ‘taking it all in’: both the beauty of this awesome, moving creation and the joys and desolations of our tiny lives within it. [1] The sacred is not distant, waiting to be decoded—it is already here, waiting to be consumed (Ezekiel 3:1–3; Revelation 10:9–10). This scroll is filled with the sweetness of divine beauty and the bitterness of human sorrow, and both must be tasted. Nothing less than full participation in this life will suffice. The only response to such a revelation is to receive it with the whole being—mind, heart, and gut—knowing that it will unsettle as much as it nourishes.

Love must become the vessel that carries and interprets all that is revealed. There is a deep danger in acquiring truth without the moral and emotional maturity to hold it. Only love can handle the great truths. [1] Without love, even the most luminous insight turns toxic (1 Corinthians 13:1–2; John 13:34–35). Truths that are not softened by compassion or rooted in solidarity quickly become tools for judgment or exclusion. Spiritual wisdom, when not embraced through love, is co-opted by the ego for self-importance or control. But love—steady, courageous, and self-emptying—has the strength to carry the full weight of what is holy. It neither flinches from the suffering of the world nor clings to privilege or comfort. It simply opens, and in that opening, truth becomes a healing presence (Colossians 3:14; Ephesians 4:15).

The only way to recognize the deeper coherence of existence is through stillness and a receptive heart. This is not a matter of figuring things out but of letting the patterns emerge slowly through contemplative seeing. The deep patterns and trajectory of creation become clearer and simpler over time, especially if you are listening through what many of us call contemplation or prayer. [1] In that kind of listening, what once seemed fragmented begins to form a quiet harmony (Psalm 46:10; Matthew 6:6). Contemplation is not passive; it is the most engaged form of awareness. In prayerful attention, one begins to notice how the small mirrors the vast, how silence speaks louder than noise, and how grace hides in plain sight (Romans 1:20; 1 Kings 19:11–13). This way of seeing requires humility, patience, and an inner spaciousness that allows the truth to speak for itself.

Incarnation is not a doctrine to be believed but a reality to be perceived. Spirit and matter are not separate domains but interwoven expressions of the same source. The outer world reveals the inner majesty, and the inner world displays the outer mystery, or what we might call full incarnation! [1] This mutual revealing happens all the time, but rarely is it noticed (John 1:14; Colossians 1:15–17). The cosmos sings the name of the divine in every star and in every heartbeat. To live incarnationally is to be present to the sacred in the soil, in the cells of the body, in the textures of a life fully lived (Psalm 19:1–4; Genesis 2:7). The divine is not distant, waiting in some imagined elsewhere—it is as close as breath and as vast as the galaxies. And to see that, to really see it, is to fall into a reverence that reshapes everything.

Spiritual growth requires the digestion of experience. Joy and sorrow must both be chewed on, swallowed, and allowed to work their alchemy deep within. This might help us to understand this metaphor of eating our words and fully digesting them. The divine word conjoins with us... [1] That conjoining is not instantaneous. It unfolds through time, through reflection, through the aching work of integration (Hebrews 4:12; Psalm 119:103). Nothing is wasted in this process. The failures, the ecstasies, the betrayals, the moments of clarity—all of it becomes part of the sacred meal. What is swallowed becomes part of what is lived. And through this digestion, wisdom begins to form—not as something added, but as something remembered from within (Jeremiah 15:16; James 1:22–25).

There is a breath that moves through all things, and it is not separate from the breath that fills the lungs. To participate in this breath is to become a co-creator, a midwife of resurrection. Our love matters in this universe. Dry bones can still be remade with living flesh. [1] That is not fantasy; it is the deepest reality (Ezekiel 37:1–14; Romans 8:11). In a world often ruled by cynicism and despair, to love is an act of resistance. It is to trust that what appears lifeless can be renewed. The prophetic voice is not one of condemnation but of reanimation. It speaks to the forgotten, the dismissed, the silenced, and says, “Rise” (Isaiah 61:1–3; Luke 4:18–19). That voice carries the breath of the divine, and when spoken with love, it awakens life where only dust once remained.

But awakening is not a comfortable thing. With deeper sight comes deeper responsibility. A major dose of reality is always good medicine, yet sour in the stomach, because we realize we are now responsible for what we have come to know. [1] There is no turning back once the veil has been lifted (Luke 12:48; Hebrews 10:26). The truths once longed for now demand a response. This is the cost of vision. One cannot un-know what has been revealed, nor live as if it does not matter. The invitation to transformation is also a call to accountability (Micah 6:8; James 4:17). To live in alignment with what has been seen is both gift and burden. And yet, there is joy in that burden—a joy rooted in the integrity of no longer pretending.

And always, there is movement. The divine is not static, not frozen in dogma or confined to sacred texts. It is alive, alert, and inviting participation. The wheels are still moving, and their rims are covered with ‘eyes all the way round’... [1] This vision is not of a closed system but of a dynamic unfolding (Ezekiel 1:15–21; Revelation 4:6–8). The eyes around the rims signify perception awakened on all sides—nothing is outside the gaze of divine awareness. Everything is being seen, held, and drawn toward wholeness (Proverbs 15:3; 2 Chronicles 16:9). The movement is not aimless but deeply intentional, a flow of grace that we are called to join. To live spiritually is to live in rhythm with that movement, to let it shape perception, vocation, and community. In such a life, the sacred is not believed in—it is known, seen, and responded to.

[1] Richard Rohr, The Tears of Things