The living reality of God was already more than I was comfortable with.  As I got into the frame of mind to pray, I would feel as if His Spirit was coming into me, like the infusion of a spiritual presence—as if we were, if not one, at least overlapping.  That made me uneasy.

“Lord, what is the purpose of those experiences in which You seem to fill my soul and body with Your Spirit?”

Those moments are infusions of energy, focused versions of the energy you draw on all the time.

“Am I merging with You at those moments?”

Yes, that is a good (acceptable) way to put it.  When you open yourself sufficiently, I can enter.

“Do You get something out of it as well?”

Yes, I benefit from the in-dwelling of the Spirit in a body.  My nature is essentially spiritual—it both benefits and suffers from not being embodied.  Your spirit is embodied.  By entering your spirit or soul, I enter your body as well.

God is limited by not being embodied?  That seemed strange to me.  “Why do You need that?”

Spirit is diffuse—it is valuable to energize it.  Spirit has no sensory apparatus.  I am enriched by participating in yours.

You are both other and same (as Me).  I need you to be other so that I may encounter another self.  I am a Person and, like other persons, define Myself by responding to other persons, and being responded to (by them).

But I also need union, not distance—just as other persons do.  You and Abigail are both other and same.  You need to be different people—love is a bridge between differences.  You also merge spirits at certain moments, though not totally.  That is also a kind of completion or fulfillment.  Life, including My life, is the dialectic, as you might call it, of same and other, confrontation and union.