What others most need, whether they realize it or not, and most do not, is freedom through you. This is another way of saying, they most need to know Love through you, as you. They need you, not a version, an appearance, of you. What you are not is not free. What you are is already and always free. You do not have to become anything to be free, to be Love, simply let drop what you are not. This is the way of Grace, a graceful way.
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This morning at the retreat center the lighted candle on the Eucharist table spoke afresh to me. There was the living flame sitting in a little metal vase. Rising up from a wick it danced back and forth, up and down, unpredictable and wildly free. It was in constant motion, a motion inherent to itself. It lived out from its own nature. Its dance was not choreographed by another. There ws no authority saying "Do this... Do it this way." There were no "Thou Shalts" demanding submission to an alien and unnatural unfolding. Fawning servitude was foreign to the flame. It was freely itself, uniquely itself, itself by the grace and goodness of Life. It shared common traits with all fire. But it was unlike any fire that has ever been or will be, totally unique. I looked prayerfully on the skipping flame making its way into the receptive arms of the air. I waited. What will the flame teach me? What living Word will the dancing colors share. The fire became a sacred text.
*Memoir, in 1996, based on a time of Quiet reflection in the Chapel of Greenbough House of Prayer, where I was vowed into the Community on September 1996, St. Matthew's Feast.
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*Memoir, February 2016, after reading the above memoir, reflecting anew on the nature of the grace of freedom, the dancing of the Flame of Love. I present these one-by-one, for after writing this, it read more as a disjointed thematic rumination, than a consistent writing.
A friend says, words arising from our joyful sharing, "I've never heard a Chaplain talk like you." I notice I had said nothing wrong or inappropriate. I notice, also, a deeper freedom and energy of Life has been moving through me for many days, a bursting forth of a new movement of Grace. I note, also, her words reflect she has an image of how an ordained clergyperson would act, before one acts - that, in itself, is normal. Our brain, through varied influences forms patterns, with linked expectations - complex, a miracle of Life. An image, however, is never anyone - never I, or any ordained man or woman, anyone. An image is an image, no more, no less. Soul shines behind the image, Spirit is free of all images. We keep talking, laughing, and, soon, end our joyful sharing. Over the days I reflect more; I wonder if sometimes with inner, spiritual freedom, one wisely hides the expression out of goodwill for others. I mean, can we be free and know that we live among others and, so, need to be careful in how and when we express that freedom? Did not Jesus say, in the Christian Gospels, "Be wise as serpents, harmless as doves."? Now, these words do not imply my friend did not welcome my expression of freedom, even as I welcomed her expression of freedom, but her words led to my rumination on living freedom among others. After all, we are among creatures, not islands to ourselves, and, in some sense, there is no reality at all to any claim to personal freedom. If freedom does not honor that we live in Communion with others, such is not freedom, at all.
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I have often, from religious persons, been 'beaten up' - as an ordained clergyperson, I cannot recall having much of a problem being welcomed and received by nonreligious persons. Just recently, from a woman who had met me when I was a Chaplain for her grandmother, even threatened - not, however, the first time threatened, and possibly not the last. My freedom to say "No" to her insistence that she be in my life in an intimate manner - whether as just friend or more, I know not, but think I know, based on what she had said -, led to insult after insult, filled with anger, scornful, and all topped off by a threat - the threat like a cherry proudly sitting atop an ice cream sundae, apparently in her estimation. I realize, however, I was just the target of a person who needed to feed off the freedom within someone else, a person drawn to what danced from me, but who was not near prepared to receive the grace of it herself. Sad, to be so attracted to a lovely grace we are not ready to receive, and so curse and threaten someone in whom we admire it but cannot greet it. Sad, too, persons who abuse Lovers cannot see they are trying to kill Love Itself. These wounded beings are everywhere, and they seem to confuse Love with their own being abused by persons who claimed to love them, but hurt them, over and over, and over. They will never be prepared to enjoy the freedom of Grace - regardless of how religious or spiritual they are, or claim to be -, until this confusion undergoes the healing of Grace. Until then the 'victim' seems to look for someone to make into a 'victim', so his or her insane flight from freedom, from Love, can continue.
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I realize now, most persons are simply afraid of true freedom - possibly, we each are, to an extent. They may talk about freedom, but in abstract terms, often in nationalistic terms of the right to freedom in a personal sense, and often, especially among the younger, while confusing mere rebellion with freedom. But when we see freedom, like a flame dancing from the Soul of another human being right before us, are we prepared to greet it? Possibly, as I am getting older, I am learning better how to disguise the freedom - I am not sure -, for I see most persons are very uncomfortable with the freedom of Pure Love. Possibly, I have disguised it too much over my life. Possibly, I simply cannot be overly concerned about what others will or will not think about the manifestation of inner freedom, in Grace. Possibly, I will come to no final solution to these questions that, like freedom itself, freely dance within me. Possibly, these questions are the dance of Life, too. And is not Life always, already free? Still, getting 'beaten up' is no fun. Less of that the remainder of my life here would be welcome.
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Why do we humans tend to be fearful of inner freedom, when it incarnates before us and through another? Jesus was free, in Pure Love, and look at what happened to him. His freedom, meaning his Love, was seen as evil, as a major threat to society, to tradition, religion, race and ethnicity. Can any true freedom be other than seen as a threat that needs to be vanquished? We see this pattern over and over, free persons rejected and, oft, killed. Could it be we humans are afraid we, too, will be consumed by this Grace which frees us by transforming us into Itself? This means Grace consuming our very identity, so our living is through the Christ, or Love, living and becoming among us, together. So, together means, not I or you, but we and us.
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Grace calls us to a freedom from ourselves, with our attachment to our personal claims to be who we are, to find we are truly who we are, and so free, in losing ourselves in Love. We become the dancing of the Flame of Love. If this is so, to be afraid of the freedom in and through someone else, is to be afraid of Love, the power and freedom of Love. Could it be humans are always trying to kill Love? If this is so, and I believe it so, how ironic to be afraid of what we most long for - a Love that takes us out of ourselves as isolated individuals, defined by others in varied ways, into Grace as Communion, a single Communion of oneness and diversity.
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We, first, come to know ourselves through others, then apart from others, then we can become free among and with others, and love others apart from how they expect us to be, their image of us. We, then, love them in Grace, and as Grace. And there is no freedom apart from Grace, no Communion apart from that Grace creates through our "Yes" to Life.
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There is a freedom and love even beyond oneness with others. There is a freedom and love as everyone. Now, that is something that no high thoughts of equality or justice give us. I become you, in Love, only through a long, disciplined Journey. Most do not want this enough to keep saying "Yes" to Grace. This Journey requires strength and courage beyond what most can imagine, but many have followed the Call and become the Beloved in the Beloved. Most of these men and women are unknown, I am sure, and many likely not particularly religious or spiritual, in any commonly understand way. In fact, the most free and loving beings may not appear to be, for most of us have no idea of what such a being would look like. We have our ideas of love and freedom, and we would not recognize anyone free of such ideas. We see them as a more spiritual version of ourselves. They are not. They are not a version of anything, and would never feel a wish to be known as spiritual or religious, even if they chose devotion in a spiritual or religious community. They are, and that is enough for them. They are content being hidden, clothed by Life as one like others. Being nothing and no one is evidence of their freedom and capacity to love in Love, everyone. As one in Christian community, to me this is Christ. I mean, Christ is everything, first and last, and I am nothing and no one. I am in Grace, in Christ. Christ is what remains in my absence, and Christ is what leads me to become consumed by Love, Christ's Love in the Source, the One the historical Jesus called 'Father'. When seeing through the Flame of Love, you see Christ, you see Buddha, you see everyone everywhere. Love sees only Love, even in what appears to be the absence of Love. The Flame keeps dancing. Why? No answer need be given; we see when we see, when we have lost our seeing, and Grace freely, gladly, embraces Grace.
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*Move cursor over pictures for photographer and title.
