Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, and having a High Priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching”
Hebrews 10:19-25
To Whom we must give account
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
Hebrews 4:12
Graven image
I made an idol of my life - my expression, my activity, my achievement. I polished, perfected and worshipped my creations, failing to notice that my gifts were a gift. I rightly shored up my fortress from attack, with acts of independence and power. But with such armaments, my heart was incarcerated - all forms became hollow and dry. So my folly was exposed in a thousand myriad ways, as a choreographed play of counterfeit control. As the last in line of the daughters of Eve, it was strange relief to submit and accept: my weakness, my fragility, my dependence. I am now as I always was - helpless unless carried by the stream of the living Spirit. 6th September 2020, Somerset, England With thanks to the exhortation of A.Ha.
Silent giving
It is not seldom that our silence and our prayers do more to bring people to the knowledge of God than all our words about Him”
Thomas Merton, No Man Is An Island
Be a lover of silence
Many are avidly seeking but they alone find who remain in continual silence…Every man who delights in a multitude of words, even though he says admirable things, is empty within.
If you love truth, be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself.”
Isaac of Nineveh (quoted in Merton’s ‘Contemplative Prayer’)
Last orders
“Has God not made foolish the wisdom of the world?”
1 Corinthians 1:20
Yes indeed! And what an excellent job He has done. Here we are, masked like rabid dogs, falling for fear and division, and bending the collective knee to the most farcical of false narratives. The quicksands of worldly wisdom would have us descend into the darkest depths of untruth and wrongness. And yet in the timely spirit of polarisation, the tangle of deceit that has been woven through all sectors of society is becoming increasingly palpable.
It takes more than the burying of one’s head in the sand to ignore what is taking place. It requires the entombment of the entire body of logic, reason and common sense, as well as the abandonment of the organs of feeling and intuition. It seems to me that these choices extinguish the loving spark that is present within every individual, the one that invites each one of us to care about what is real and kindle the flame of what is good.
The wonderful unravelling is underway! Last chance to choose Truth. Last chance to get right with God. Last orders at the Fallen Earth Saloon.
Remember the everlasting covenant
"The rainbow shall be in the cloud, and I will look on it to remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth." And God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant which I have established between Me and all flesh that is on the earth."
Genesis 9:16-17
Hymn to matter – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
"Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock: you who yield only to violence, you who force us to work if we would eat. Blessed be you, perilous matter, violent sea, untameable passion: you who unless we fetter you will devour us. Blessed be you, mighty matter, irresistible march of evolution, reality ever newborn; you who, by constantly shattering our mental categories, force us to go ever further and further in our pursuit of the truth.
Blessed be you, universal matter, immeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations: you who by overflowing and dissolving our narrow standards of measurement reveal to us the dimensions of God. Blessed be you, impenetrable matter: you who, interposed between our minds and the world of essences, cause us to languish with the desire to pierce through the seamless veil of phenomena.
Blessed be you, mortal matter: you who one day will undergo the process of dissolution within us and will thereby take us forcibly into the very heart of that which exists. Without you, without your onslaughts, without your uprootings of us, we should remain all our lives inert, stagnant, puerile, ignorant both of ourselves and of God. You who batter us and then dress our wounds, you who resist us and yield to us, you who wreck and build, you who shackle and liberate, the sap of our souls, the hand of God, the flesh of Christ: it is you, matter, that I bless."
From Hymn to the Universe by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Travel in darkness and uncertainty
Wherever we have some sign of God’s will, we are obliged to conform to what that sign tells us. We should do so with pure intention, obeying God’s will because it is good in itself as well as good for us.
It takes more than an occasional act of faith to have such pure intention. It takes a whole life of faith, a total consecration to hidden values. It takes sustained moral courage and heroic confidence in the help of divine grace.
But above all it takes the humility and spiritual poverty to travel in darkness and uncertainty, where so often we have no light and see no sign at all.
Thomas Merton, No man is an island
Because they do not know
If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But all these things they will do to you for My name’s sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.
John 15:18-21
Being a walking question mark 