Tuesday, April 23, 2013

April 23rd

Two years ago, I was walking in the park after having posted another blog, having shared another experience, and because I had shared it, it had lost some of its natural and easy intimacy for me.

"Even this I gave away, and it's not the same," I said to Jesus, sadly.

I will give you more, He assured me.

Lately, I think back to that and wonder. I had no idea how much more He meant.

Yesterday, I was reading some poetry and I came across this:

This Is Love

This is love: to fly toward a secret sky,
to cause a hundred veils to fall each moment.
First, to let go of life.
In the end, to take a step without feet;
to regard this world as invisible,
and to disregard what appears to be the self.

Heart, I said, what a gift it has been
to enter this circle of lovers,
to see beyond seeing itself,
to reach and feel within the breast. 

-Rumi

This is the most beautiful and evocative description of spiritual love that I have ever read.

I'll tell you a story.

Once there was a girl. She lay down to sleep, but instead of sleeping in this place, she woke to another place.

That place is hidden in the heart of God and is everywhere at once; it is where our life is hidden with Christ in God.

In this place, there is a stone paved room with stone pillars and a green lawn and woods, and a crumbling white cliff that falls away to a distant sea.

In that room, there is the Son of God and the girl is often with Him in that room, which is their room, which is His heart.

This is a fairy tale, yes? It's as beautiful as one. I can't prove that this is true; not even to myself.

My only choice to enter the room or to pass it by. But who would choose to pass it by, if the door was open?

I always go in.

Come here, He says, holding out His hands. Just come here to Me.

And I do.

Who can explain God? Why is He as He is? His love is a profound mystery and a present reality. It goes beyond what we can ever see and it sustains us as we are.

I was lying on the grass with Him, my head on His chest, simply being in the peaceful freshness of that place. His hand was outstretched on the grass, palm up.

Moved by an impulse, I slid my hand up His arm to His wrist and as my fingertips moved over the scar, I felt something indescribable- something of awe and wonder and love and He whispered, you know who I am.

These are the experiences that lie at the deepest part of me. My deepest life is like this:

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
                                                         i fear
no fate(for you are my fate, my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

-e.e. cummings

Many times I think, what do I want to pass on?

What is the best thing that I have learned?

This is the best thing that I have learned: God is love. He created you for love. The world, for Him, was not complete without you in it.

He had so much love within Himself- the circle of love that is given and received endlessly, in the Trinity- it spilled out and over, creating the present world and we are all caught up in it.

I can't tell another story, because I don't have another one to tell. This is what my life has taught me.

The truth not something you know, it's Someone you know. We can't completely understand it, we're in a relationship of love with Him and each relationship is unique, and at some level, unintelligible to others.

We all begin in the boat; we all start off with the tutor.

But eventually, He will come walking out over the water to us. Eventually, we must leave the school room.

And how frightening is that, to let go of the certainty of the law and to fall into grace- what if we sink? It is frightening to step out of the boat and the company of the other disciples, to walk over the water to Him, just as oneself, alone.

If we don't have our tutor, then how do we know what it true, what is our place, how we are expected to live? How can we walk on the water?

How can loving others as ourselves, and loving Him with all that we have, be enough? What if we are deceived? After all, the storm is clearly raging.

But we each stand before Him alone, just as we are; we are each of us upheld by grace, whether we are in the boat or not.

He is always holding out His hand across the water.

He says, I love you. Come here, come here to Me.