Being Origin-al
Fully Encompassed by Lori Sweet © (see below for more info)
This week’s rhythm of loving evolution: Being
From the sacred beckoning of spirit and through our divine becoming, we welcome ways of being who we truly are in Christ.
Here and now, we offer and respond to invitations to inhabit our divine being in conscious and spacious ways.
We make space for being who we are becoming, who we truly are, who we are now.
We rest in abiding within our holy communion, our Christ union with all things.
And we open up to new and deepening habits, the in-habiting of new ways of being that authentically reflect the beauty, truth, and goodness of who we have become in our transformative work and in the grace of the mystical body of Christ.
If you haven’t yet engaged with the Beckoning & Becoming offerings, we encourage you to explore those first:
Lenten Journey with our Divine Story
During this Lenten season, we’re inviting a journey into the divine story. The divine story is not something we read in a book, but one we live every day. It is not just about Jesus, but Christ living in us. It is about our true Origin and our Eternal Life coming into the here and now.
This week, Beth Biery shares about her origin story of divine vocation, while also inviting all of us into deeper inhabiting, abiding in Origin, and Being our stories as we are living them now.
Beth has been in WeSpace and the ICN community for four years — a lifelong seeker finding home here. Family struggles and challenges within the institutional church have shaped her journey of intimacy with God. Roles in family, business, and hospitality have woven her life, including that of kindergarten teacher and spiritual director, with the study of healing and development at the heart. She finds kinship with David’s enthusiasm, the devotion of the Marys, Jesus’ healing presence, and John’s belovedness. The anatomy of interbeing is her newest passion — love, her guiding path.
Living Our Origin Stories
This month’s Beckoning article lured us with these questions:
What are your beginnings?
What are your origin stories?
Last week’s Becoming article invited us to explore origin and call more deeply:
How has God summoned you to be and to move throughout your years?
How have you received the “true names” of your most essential being—the names of your soul?
What is the deeper spiritual story of your life?
Now, we are welcomed to rest and settle into Being with who we truly are.
What might support you in this simplicity this week?
How might you release lesser stories and simply be in Origin?
During a recent ICN Sunday Gathering, I experienced a palpable sense of Spirit hovering over waters. Simply being with that—as that. Origin.
Might that be one of our shared Origin Stories?
A more specific origin story came to me earlier this year. Along with others in the ICN community, I am deeply immersed in the WeCreating of how Divine Vocation may emerge and express for us.
In this process, God summoned me to make space to listen for moments that might reveal divine vocation for myself. That is how the helix graphic introduced last week came to be; I accepted the invitation and wanted a simple way to record what surfaced. Even as these moments trace a pattern over time, they hover over something deeper—an Origin always present.
How has God summoned you to be and to move
throughout your years?
As I sat with the helix, particular moments did emerge—surprisingly convergent. One of my earliest memories is standing in the sanctuary of a stained-glass Lutheran church at age five, in bright sunlight, “knowing” God in me. With the help of the journey we are on in WeCreating, I now know that as sensing divine vitality in me. At 5 years old!
As I continued listening, other moments arose, highlighting a pattern of deep essence and call. Not in the typical testimony manner, but in this deep patterning of who I truly am.
Touchpoints included childhood resonance with an old hymn played in our home and an unbidden imaginal experience during first communion.
Something else appeared on the timeline — a work project from my early business career. In my operations role for a heavy and specialized trucking company, I coordinated a project with NASA to transport the lens of the Hubble Space telescope. The lens could see into the cosmos—revealing what had not yet been seen. When this surfaced in the helix, I was startled. Oh my goodness — this has been here all along. Even then, I was participating in something that mirrors what I love most: seeing into, and dwelling more fully in, who we truly are.
It is my hope that naming these moments for myself and sharing them with you, stirs your own recollection and spirit-led exploration of divine vocation. The pattern of events surprised me—revealing that divine vocation itself has long been my call.
During this timeline exploration, I was drawn to a book I found in a bed & breakfast in Bald Head Island, NC in the summer of 2001. I keep it handy because it has a favorite quote of mine and one that has guided me in the past. Joyce Landorf Heatherley in Balcony People, paraphrases Keith Miller:
"The church body listening and caring so expertly that church members would, in essence, unwrap another child of God to discover his or her true identity and natural God-given vocation."
Huh. And there’s more. Bookmarking the page with the unwrapping another child of God quote was a folded up printed email from a Presbyterian pastor, mine at the time, from July of 2001. I had asked him how I could know if I was doing God’s will. In his response, he included the Buechner quote which Luke has referenced and many of you know:
“Vocation is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." – Frederick Buechner
These remembrances and revelations have clarified my own divine vocation. Sharing this process in community has deepened my commitment within ICN to the revelation and inhabiting of divine vocation among us. With divine inspiration, I choose to live into our true essence — abiding as God-Being-Us.
How have you received the “true names” of your most essential being—the names of your soul?
One of my true names that I received in prayer is Union Leader. This continues to be unpacked in my life and in community, helping me release lesser stories and more fully commit to what is mine to do.
As we travel on our divine vocation journey, we may encounter unexpected affirmations. After receiving "Union Leader" during an Ignatian exercise, I hadn't embraced it very actively and would from time to time receive nudges to do so. One even came during a visit to a bunker in Normandy that had a case with an old pack of cigarettes called “Union Leader!”
In embracing our true names, we may find it helpful to create a symbolic support. I love assisting others in listening for true names, and designing "touchstones" to be with as picture, mirror, portal and simply reminder (in case you don't have elaborate bunker experiences!).
Here is one of mine:
Beneath even these names and these moments, something deeper remains.
What is the deeper spiritual story of your life?
I remember boundlessness. I remember operating in the ethos. My natural habitat. Learning to be here now was intentional, and inviting awareness of embodiment, a journey.
I remember boundlessness. My original state. I have loved learning to be in the imaginal realm. That has been close to home for me. Not an escape from embodiment but a step toward it from that original state.
I remember boundlessness. I’ve learned embodiment. I choose to live embodied and in the original at once.
I remember.
I can abide in the original. I can abide in Origin.
Being in our Origin-al Life
Will you say yes to your origin-al being?
Will we consent to being who we truly are?
Will we release the lesser stories of our lives, welcome our essential nature, and receive origin-al names?
Today, right now, may we consent to this original being
As the very root and source of our life
endless love beyond measurement
pouring into us
overflowing with the fullness of God.
And just be.
Amidst our communal exploration, as we release, embrace, and inhabit these kaleidoscopic origin stories — the once-upon-a-time beginnings — our Whole-Body Mystical Awakening and Presencing continues, and our WeSpace of Beloved Community deepens.
Today, right now, may the Mystical Body of Christ become more and more alive through us and in the world, in this great time of need.
In the months ahead, we look forward to WeCreating together the rest of the story, bringing forth and sharing more origin stories and origin-al expressions of life to the full in community.
REGARDING THE COMMISSIONED ARTWORK:
I am honored to share this commissioned artwork, WeCreated with Lori Sweet, a dear friend gifted in many ways of spiritual expression and connection. Lori and I journeyed together over many months, in a process marked by synchronicity and emergence. Her final rendering is a living creation —one that resonates, sometimes challenges, and most often inspires. As you engage the painting, may you rest in that which is already stirring within you. (Wider use is copyright protected…find out more about Lori and her divine vocation, here: https://www.lorisweetstudios.com/)
WeRevealed: Summer, 2019
Writing on the painting:
Ephesians 3:14-18-19 TPT
So I kneel humbly in awe before the Father of our Lord Jesus, the Messiah, the perfect Father of every father and child in heaven and on the earth. And I pray that he would unveil within you the unlimited riches of his glory and favor until supernatural strength floods your innermost being with his divine might and explosive power. Then, by constantly using your faith, the life of Christ will be released deep inside you, and the resting place of his love will become the very source and root of your life. Then you will be empowered to discover what every holy one experiences—the great magnitude of the astonishing love of Christ in all its dimensions. How deeply intimate and far-reaching is his love! How enduring and inclusive it is! Endless love beyond measurement that transcends our understanding—this extravagant love pours into you until you are filled to overflowing with the fullness of God!
TPT: The Passion Translation
Statement of WeCreating Authorship
This article was WeCreated with authoring by Beth Biery and editing support by Luke Healy.
All of the wisdom, creativity, and spiritual emergence in ICN comes from the communal field of wisdom and spirit speaking in and through the “We.”
All text in this article is human-authored without the use of AI beyond light editing, according to our AI policy: 1 out of 10
All Images are open-source, used with permission, or created by ICN with the use of AI