Art by Norman E. Masters
I love your faithfulness as much as my own. This takes into account our human condition. We may not be angels, but we can surely be saintly in our persistence to keep our faith alive. This is where my pen feels the weight of the Spirit, (indelible and unforgettable). To know this is to be forever caught by the fire's glow. Then if we should walk away from the fire we were meant to warm ourselves before we are stung by the chill to the bone. If we are to rest at all it must be before the warmth of this Light.
If we wander too far in the cold cold night we must keep moving about and be movers or we will crystallize never to know the warmth of a sun in the heart of another.
There are so many others wandering about looking for a light in the night; and they, too, long to show their own. They may want to share in your light (or treasure within) and in their need, they, like you, become the richer.
In the cold black night, the warmth of another's hand will bring joy to a kindred heart. Yes, a Joy, a liquid oil that feeds the steady burning of love, the light of which we will always hunger for until our night skies are filled with milky ways of friendly stars.
From these we shall track our course through this world to another not terribly disturbed to find we are lost in arms that have found us.
How God really loves us in this mystery of mysteries -- this I believe, is God's Presence in our midst, this is His body and blood we share in when we give each other life through the breaking of our bodies and the sharing of each other's cup. This is the bread of life and the wine that satisfies.
What a celebration of joy it is to love others, to love you.
Life has more meaning because you're in it.
It is said, "Eye has not seen nor ear has heard what God has laid up for those that love Him." I'm not so sure it has not entered our hearts. Especially when I experience the Joy of your friendship.
"But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.
"But God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God." -- I Cor. 2:9
This kind of friendship takes time, the kind of time we have shared with one another, time to see the same truth and sense the wonder of being separate and yet the same.
Now what follows is at the heart of being free. But like words of love, they should be spoken again and again until they gently permeate our hearts with a fuller assurance.
There is pain in being human; the doubts caused by uncertainty and the tears because we don't understand when we've failed at loving.
This could also mean that we have somehow failed to love ourselves, as well.
But be not dismayed when someone's choice is to prefer someone over you. We must accept their choice even when it hurts.
Love allows a lot of liberty, even if others don't decide the way we think they should.
This is a sacred, separate domain within each of us.
To want to have power over another's domain is to violate one's own freedom. So we must learn to let go because we need to be free.
What a surprise it is then when someone chooses to love us.
Whether someone accepts or rejects us should have no bearing on our human worth or our dignity. We choose to love who we will -- not that all others are less worthy.
But by loving one or more well, we may well understand our capacity to love many. To understand the immensity and wonder of an ocean -- maybe all it takes is one drop of water.
"To see a world in a grain of sand
and Heaven in the wild flower
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
and eternity in an hour"
-- William Blake
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To understand and love oneself is to undrstand and love all Humanity.
Always remember as if your golden thread depended on it --
You are lovable by God no matter what anybody else thinks -- including -- or in spite of -- ourselves. This is truly the greatest love we could assure ourselves of and nurture to a fuller realization.
To trust ourselves in this matter is to resurrect ourselves from no Vision at all.
I would consider this the Grace we need to accept ourselves in the flesh and still create from emptiness and harmony the Goodness, the Truth and the beauty only we each can bring.
For at this point in history there is a Purpose for each of us to find as all others before us have done. We should not imitate them but thank them for their faithfulness to that Vision.
We are here now, also, to bear the light of our own Vision. I see beautiful and wonderous gifts in the heart that are still without human form or expression.
There is something inside that moves me towards the greater possibilities and rewards of love. We are meant to imagine and reach out to claim that which we have imagined. (What's a Heaven for?)
We don't always hold on or make into reality our hopes and dreams. I do believe that in reaching out and trying to create we come closest to our heart's desire.
Yet my seed of faith is growing -- the one I had the choice to sow in the fullness of my heart; as a star is seen from afar. It's really the Sun, the closer we come.
"Every night and every morn
Some to misery are born.
Every morn and every night
some are born to sweet delight.
Some are born to sweet delight,
Some are born to endless night." |
There is so much we don't understand about ourselves and a lot more that will remain a mystery. But what we do understand about ourselves becomes what we possess of ourselves. It should be our honest endeavor to know and not measure our understanding.
What would you hear after placing a sounding line in a silent spring? Does this mean there is nothing there? Not even -- a Song?
How happy a heart is with its Songs (Knowing the heart -- that's where it belongs). Beyond, there are songs that can't be sung, Whispers, not knowing, when they're begun. |
Although the study of oneself has been pursued and traced by many others we should not feel all is done. I think we should experience what others have thought and felt to discover for our own the Self-Knowledge we need, to understand the Passions that influence our lives.
"To be in a passion you good may do
But no good if a passion is in you,"
--William Blake |
"A mind might ponder its thoughts for ages and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach it in a day." --Ralph Waldo Emerson
What we gain from this knowledge should be constantly remolded and reconstructed over and over.
It is no small matter, and one that requires both feelers attuned to the place that would satisfy our hunger for a better understanding about ourselves.
Where might that be, but in the realm of our own personal faith. For without faith, what good is there?
Our faith is alive in love. This is where the real mystery lies in our faith. A very lovely mystery.
To trace this mystery in a person's life is like beholding a fairy tale written by God's hand.
To labor our golden vein & mine the stardust that will neither rust nor decay is a labor of love indeed.
Who will, after seeing with Beauty's eye, separate us from the Love of God?
You are of life's Blessings.
I believe it is still possible for strangers to look warmly at each other and transmit encouragement and strength.
I want to respond more deeply to our human experience in being more vulnerable.
The Spirit we go with is making all the differences dissolve into a tapesty of inner connecting colors always with spaces between the threads.
(Like the colors that come together on a canvas that paints an image of a butterfly where once there was nothing.)
Having faith is seeing in colors; and colors have special meaning to me for without them how very dull this life would be.
The heart is like a house with many mansions. I have prepared a room for you so that wherever I am there you may be also.
"Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.
"And if I go and prepare a place for you I will come again and receive you into myself that where I am, there ye may be also.
"And wither I go ye know and the way ye know." --St. John 14:1-4
Our Journey has not ended nor the good that faith intended; and this is one present you give to yourself.
--Harvey Green
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