There is something stark and open in the eyes of those men and women who have experienced rock bottom. Their humility has been born through desperation and total descent. They know that they have fallen, and they see that they are broken.
When looking towards God from this position, the task at hand seems to be that of bridging the unfathomable distance between the depths of this pit and the seat of heaven. I now feel that God is particularly close to us here, when we crack open and shatter our false selves beyond repair. Our abyss becomes filled with the chance for repentance and the hope of Truth. He is with us in our emptiness.
The intent in the eyes of those reaching up from so low continues to be one of the most beautiful things that I have ever witnessed.
"That man is perfect in faith who can come to God in the utter dearth of his feelings and desires, without a glow or an aspiration, with the weight of low thoughts, failures, neglects, and wandering forgetfulness and say to Him "Thou art my refuge."
One night, unexpected, a meeting of two,
shines a beacon of goodness, pure, clear and true.
Six hours of honesty - minutes so few,
the depth of connection familiar and new.
In the briefest of contracts, these souls join to share
their intent to find beauty, to love and to care.
In witnessing light in this moment so rare,
they cross a fine threshold, fates parting laid bare.
With verity to the day's one divine plan,
they play their parts openly, best as they can.
The woman who sees a spark lit thanks the man
who is gifted then moves on, all part of God's plan.
For CW, a beacon of goodness.
This is a small collection of scattered notes and quotes of significance, gathered as I look through my notebook this afternoon. They illuminate themes that have become immensely important to me. As we head towards the harvest moon, I find myself asking what will be reaped. The answer, of course, is what has been sown.
BEAR LIVING WITNESS
I am here to discover through experience what I was designed to forget. In order to find the truth of my nature and origin, I was set adrift. The homeward journey begins with pain and upheaval. Yet within this darkness a fire is lit. Less fear, more faith. Forever becoming.
GOD BEFORE SELF
He said: “I am ‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness: “Make straight the way of the Lord,” ’ as the prophet Isaiah said.”
John 1:23
What does total devotion look like? What does total acceptance feel like?
PURIFICATION - EMPTYING THE VESSEL
"St Augustine says: 'Pour out, so that you may be filled. Learn not to love in order that you may learn to love. Turn away, so that you may be turned inwards.' In short, if anything is to be receptive and to receive, it must be empty."
"Indeed, the more we are our own possession, the less we are God's possession. If someone has gone out of what is theirs, then they can never fail to find God in all they do."
Meister Eckhart.
REALITY - TRUTH - GOD
"We are the flame-born sons of God, thrown out as sparks from the wheels of the infinite. Around this flame we have built forms which have hidden our light, but as students we are increasing this light by love and service until it shall proclaim us Sons of the Eternal."
Manly P Hall.
"I say this to you now as if at confession: I am unable not to aspire to the depth, the height and the breadth of comprehensive truth, to comprehension of the totality of things. I have made the sacrifice of the intellect (sacrificium intellectus) in all sincerity and without reserve, but what an intensification of the life of thought, what increased ardour in the aspiration to spiritual knowledge that has followed!
Valentin Tomberg, Meditations on the Tarot.
FULL SPECTRUM
"The art of being a warrior is to balance the terror of being a man with the wonder of being a man."
Don Juan
"If we stay trapped in the merely visible we will never inherit our lives."
John O'Donohue
"Our conscious living is part of the world's awareness of itself. We are woven into it, as it is into us. Everything we witness is a gift to the world. What we feel, it feels. When we make growth the core of our life, the world ceases to be just a backdrop, the scenery behind our day. Instead it becomes a living ally".
Neil Kramer
CREATE - PRESERVE - DESTROY
"To build up dismantle first. To expand contract first. To attain clarity allow confusion. To become civilized first live in the wild. The balance of all things is in their opposites. The truth points in both directions. Thus the clenched first holds weakness within and the open hand offers the hidden power of suns. Deny one half yourself, Stand precariously on one foot.
Being a walking question mark 