we become what we receive

At Mass today, we sang a Spanish hymn that I had never heard before.We have a seminarian with a wonderful voice who is helping with music for the summer and he belted this one out.And the words....
"The body and the blood;we become what we receive."

This line struck me and I thought about the expression, 'we are what we eat.'If that is true, then we also become what we allow to enter our minds and souls.

My family recently had a spirited discussion about religion and things spiritual.After I shared a God moment with the group, one member said that nothing like that has ever happened to him."I've been there,"I thought, "when the spiritual world seems non-existent." In my view, this is the land where I am not praying or reading any inspiring books.Just me, my mind and the "real' world.In this place, my mind is taken afield with thoughts of money,worries,and what the senses put before me.

I recently read a book that expresses this another way.The author,Melvin Morse, writes that ..."when we use our right temporal lobe,we directly perceive a reality unfiltered by input from the five senses.The input from those perceptions fuel intuition...."He claims that this part of the brain is "Where God Lives", which is the title of his book.To him, we have a choice to use that part of the brain that ,when exercised, changes how we view the world ,visible and invisible.

This is the part of the brain that felt and perceived my deceased dog Cooper, laying beside me on a gurney as I awaited a colonoscopy.And noticed a posting on Facebook ,a picture that appeared that day of the same dog ,put there by someone who had taken it five years early,and concluded that there is a Power at work beyond my seeing.

I love this encouragement from Mr. Morse...."Connecting with the Universe is my personal challenge.I do not want to wait until I die to hear God's voice."Amen.