If we are in any way to solve the problems of our day, we must rely on the power of Another, not on our own power. It manifests itself in the human heart as a blind stirring of love, as a living flame of love. Sometimes, this inner fire drives people into solitude where they intercede for humanity and unleash a power which shakes the universe. But the same inner fire drives others into the midst of action with a passionate love for justice and a willingness to die for their convictions.
The story of the mystics is one of an all-consuming, passionate love affair between human beings and God. It speaks of deep yearning, of burning desire for the contemplation and presence of the divine beloved. Mystics seek participation in divine life, union, and communion with God. Their desire is kindled by the fire of divine love itself, which moves the mystics in their search and leads them, often on arduous journeys, to discover and proclaim the all-encompassing love of God for humankind.
Whether your destiny is glory or disgrace,
Purify yourself of hatre and love of self.
Polish your mirror, and that sublime Beauty
From the regions of mystery
Will flame out in your heart
As it did for the saints and prophets.
Then, with your heart on fire with that Splendor
The secret of the Beloved will no longer be hidden.
While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness
That I was blessed, and could bless.
Remain vigilant! Tend the flame, the Divine Spark,
that nurtures and guides your way!
Not for drugery or duty do you awaken;
rather to delight: to dance and play within creation's wonders.
Enlightened sould know the joy and power of humble service
offered freely, lovingly, and in harmony with the universal Song.
When the flame shines brightly,
who remembers the darkness?
Remain vigilant!
Even in lonely moments, remember to be mindful;
you are never alone.
There is a realization taking place within me, as my eyes reach out through the skylight, that the deeper I go in prayer the farther out I go in the cosmos. Inner and outer are one. The mystics understood this as they went deeper into the inner experience of God. They experienced a harmonization of their lives with the greater rhythms of existence. They knew by faith what science knows empirically, that the universe is charged with the presence and reality of the Divine. These mystics allowed the fire of contemplation to transform them into a union of love with all creation. They understood that Divine Radiance floods the universe making all things holy.
Barriers are sundered, fetters are melted
By the Divine Fire,
And the eternal dawn of a new life rises
In all, and all in One.
No two hearts are on fire with God in the same way. We are all called to live this vibrant love of God in our own way, according to our own personality and temperament. In life's ups and downs, at times we will wonder if any fire remains in us. Because of our inner battles, we will at times resist the fire or fear its power. Yet, within us all, the fire of God continues to flicker even though we may not see its glow.
How do we keep the love of God aflame in us? We must stay close to the original flame of love, and draw near to the heat of God through daily prayer and through a continual yearning to be one with the divine presence. Each time we intentionally draw near to God, we light a candle in our heart.
The lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is "look under foot." You are always nearer the divine and the true sources of your power than you think. The lure of the distant and difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are. Do not despise your own home and hour. Every place is under the stars, every place is of the world.
Harry Emerson Fosdick urges the case for peaceful homes as places of nurturance. Nevertheless, he recognizes that our homes can become bastions against the world if they are not connected to work for the sake of the world outside. Fosdick affirms the ultimate purpose of peaceful homes:
O God of life, send from above
Thy succor, swift and strong,
That from such homes stout souls may come
To triumph over wrong.
Understood in this way, our homes are places of nurture but also of preparation. From such places some stalwart souls will envision the world in new ways.
HOME is not only a refuge and a sanctuary. It can also be a workshop for the creation of our identity.
He stepped back and breathed more slowly, and what he saw, lit by warning washes of honey and gold, was a respite in stillness from the unacknowledged acts of women to hallow home. That stillness today, he thought, might be all he would ever know of the Realm of Heaven.
The springs of the truest prayer and the deepest poetry, twin expressions of our outward-going passion for that Eternity which is our home, rise very near together in the heart.
Spiritual life is a response to a call. Of our own accord we would never turn away from the world and begin the long and painful journey HOME. But Someone calls to us, calls to us from within the depths of our heart, awakening our own deepest longing. This call is like a golden thread that we follow, guiding us deeper and deeper within, always pointing to the beyond. It is both intimate and allusive, for it does not belong to the mind, but to the deepest core of our being. We hear it most easily when the conscious mind is still.
Earth is our home ... the largest living creature in our solar system. The land, the water, the air, and all the things that live on and in them form a gigantic community, an enormous cell. Here fungi, eagles, toads, worms, grasses, mosquitoes, ferns, people, dolphins, spiders, oak trees, and lions — up to ten million separately distinguishable forms of life or species — share Earth's environments. Whatever happens to one part, for good or ill, ultimately affects us all, the whole Earth: our home of abundant riches and indescribable beauty.
Suddenly, from behind the rim of the moon in long slow-motion movements of immense majesty there emerges a sparkling blue and white jewel, a light, delicate sky blue sphere laced with slowly swirling veils of white rising gradually like a small pearl in a thick sea of black mystery. It takes more that a moment to fully realize this is the Earth -- our home.
It has been said many times:
HOME is WITHIN you.
You are the light of the world.
Returning Home means remembering
your own true self: Light!
The path around our home
is also the ground of awakening.
The thirst for God, the desire for unitive knowledge, is not something foreign to our nature. This desire is already in the human heart; the only reason we fail to perceive it is because it is usually covered up with petty worries and egotistical ambitions. Once these are removed, the true desire, buried in the deepest recesses of the human mind, will shine forth of itself and, like a flame, will leap toward heaven, which is its true Home.
Migratory birds fly very high, for three reasons. First, at a high altitude they can see better where they are going. Secondly, they are above the predatory birds that may prey on them. Thirdly, in that rarefied atmosphere they can fly very swiftly and easily. That is a parable of the way of prayer. Our souls are migratory souls. Our home is not here, but with God, to whom we seek to rise on the wings of prayer. We want to get high to see where we are going ... to rise above the noises, the fuss, and all the complications that distract and rob our lives of their own spiritual quality ... to pass swiftly to our true home, the communion of our souls with God.
Through the cycles and seasons of our lives' as we continue to grow in awareness, we begin to feel more at home in the world. We begin to appreciate and accept who we are... We move from periods of joyful expansion into a dark night of the soul. We seem to reap the harvest of the sustained practice of attention and compassion and come to know ourselves in a new and more forgiving light, only to forget and return to what we thought were old, discarded ways. We suffer and we experience great delight. Yet deep within is a place of understanding, and to find this place is to come home.
In this life we are to become heaven
So that Love may find a home here.
Why do I forget You, abandon You?
You who are wholeness,
You who are home, always now, always present,
giving what every cell in me yearns for--
to collapse into Your warm breath of Life;
defenses drop, naked I be,
cherished solely for my nakedness,
my void, my forgetfulness.
Silence pregnant with all sounds,
I come back, prodigal that I am--
bruised, tired, wired,
To be undone again by Your embrace.
No human being will ever have a better friend and confidant than his or her angel. Even in little things, they are always there to help you in distress, pain, unhappiness, or indecision. There is never a time when your angels are busy at something else and do not hear you; their whole concern is you and are always "on tap." Their line is never busy.
I am now an emergency physician and the medical director of a busy trauma center in western Colorado. To this day I shake my head in wonder when I look back upon the series of events that has driven me inexorably to this point. I see now that it all began the night when my life was a certain and violent death. And I also see that I have been shepherded to this place in my life for a reason. Now I speak with angels all the time.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty: believe me, an angel's hand is there; the gift is here, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys too: be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
The angels tongues are pure praise. Fire is also praise, the flickering flames are praise. Voice is praise, hearing is praise. All these images of praise are images of movement: fire moves, wind moves, tongues move, breath moves, hearing moves. In this praise there is a reverse movement toward God, perhaps mirroring. Energy moves out from God through the angels, and this movement back toward God in the form of praise is vibratory, dynamic, and meaningful.
All the angels are amazed at humans, who through their holy works appear clothed with an incredibly beautiful garment. For the angel without the work of the flesh is simply praise; but the humans with their corporeal works are a glorification! Therefore the angels praise humans' work.
Stillness is our most intense mode of action. It is in our moments of deep quiet that is born every idea, emotion, and drive which we eventually honor with the name of action ... we reach highest in meditation, and farthest in prayer. In stillness every human being is great; he or she is free from the experience of hostility; she or he is a poet and most like an angel.
Angels before me, guide and direct me.
Angels behind me, guard and protect me.
Angels above me, keep watching over me.
Angels beside me, care for and comfort me.
The angels can know us more intimately and love us when we sing, and they are not asking that we sound like the Philharmonic. They ask us simply to sing because we are harmonic. We are symphonic and in these ways we can connect with the angelic world. I think and feel that the angels wait for us at every given moment. If we alternate song and silence, consciously, with burning attention, every rounded tone carves out the possibility to bridge heaven and earth, to live the material half of the angel.
It is one of the goals of human beings to develop to the point where life is aligned to God in such a way that we behave like an angel in complete service to heaven.
A legend told by the Venerable Bede says that the poet Caedmon was once completely mute. It was a custom in his village to spend evenings taking turns reciting poetry. On these occasions, Caedmon, unable to speak, would steal away to nearby hills to escape. One evening while walking alone, an angel appeared and urged him to sing. Miraculously, he began to sing and went on the become a famous poet.
I see the angels as the creating presences within all things and all things as evidence of their presence. It is not, I believe, that all things are left on the doorstep of the earth by the angels without a trace of their source. Angels are the messengers who are also the message; they are the things of the world in their activity. Seen through spirit, all things are angel activities, and for that reason, the material world makes a spiritual difference. The work of angels takes place in the invisible; however, traces of angels always carry the mark of an authentic symbol, a uniting of what is above with what is below. As nature imitates the heavenly, so must we learn to do so consciously. The first discipline to be learned to achieve this capacity of working in harmony with the angels is meditation.
Give love to the Angel of each friend and see the Light coming forth.
I walk in a cloud of angels
I move encircled by light and glowing faces...
stricken by music too sublime to bear.
When I have gazed into a tidal pool
And seen the texture exquisite of stone,
Of life and plant, deep in the lucid cool,
It seems no greater wonder could be known.
Yet there's a cleanness I have known in dreams --
In those rare dreams that are like blessed wine --
A pure transparency wherein it seems
Is traced the form of the Creator's line.
Distinct and clear appears each one and thing,
And every grain of sand, as though I see
Through unseen water; and the angels sing
An unheard tone from heaven's melody.
So wonder grows to crystal-cut lucidity
Defining the great pattern of eternity.
As they talked together of The Way, the obstacles, the people, the signs ... you felt the great importance of the physicality of the quest. All of them stressed the power of silence: the need to be alone and find oneself in the silence. Moving alone, with silence as the single companion, seems a most profound means to register the natural balance of the world without, and world within.
The purpose of silence is to unite the world of things with the world of spirit and thus give the fairest life in all the world to body, mind, and soul.
Silence is a privileged entry into the realm of God and into eternal life. There is a huge silence inside each of us that beckons us into itself, and the recovery of our own silence an begin to teach us the language of heaven. For, silence is a language that is infinitely deeper, more far-reaching, more understanding, more compassionate, and more eternal than any other language... There is nothing in the world that resembles God as much as silence.
True silence is a key to the immense and flaming heart of God. It is the beginning of a divine courtship that will end only in the immense, creative, fruitful, loving silence of final union with the Beloved... This silence, then, will break forth in a charity that overflows in the service of the neighbor without counting the cost. Availability will become delightsome and easy, for in each person the soul will see the face of love. Hospitality will e deep and real, for a silent heart is a loving heart, and a loving heart is a hospice to the world.
Our culture is losing the art of silence, and with it the intrinsic human understanding and capacity for prayer. Silent dwellers, by creating spacious times of physical silence in their lives, slowly recover the human capacity to be with themselves in a caring gentle way. For, it is in silence and solitude that one learns – or regains – the human quality of being in God's presence always.
That which saves society is not that which can be seen upon the surface of things. It is not the power of industry, of war, of genius, of letter or arts. It is what touches its depths in a silence called the silence of good things. -- From a NY Times interview
The small truth has words that are clear;
The great truth has great silence