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*Brian Wilcox. "following". Flickr.
Years ago, in my 30s, I tried to stop the Way taking me onward. I mean, Life was leading me away from what I had been raised to think and do, and this meant trouble. Eventually, being carried along by the Way, and following, sometimes after the futility of kicking and screaming, so to speak, I resigned my professorship and lost my career as a pastor. What I learned is, if you truly are saying 'Yes' to Life, you can never go back, you can only move forward. I have no regrets. I feel peaceful. I am thankful for the Journey and the new friends I have met along the Way, persons I would not have met, if I had somehow turned back and found refuge in the past.
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I do not call you servants any longer, for servants do not know what their master is doing. Instead, I call you friends, for I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father.
*Gospel of John 15.15
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Even to speak of the Way or following the Way can be a distraction from the Way, from putting one step in front of the other. One matter certain is that, spiritually, what or whom we follow, or what or whom we believe in as referring to the Sacred, we need to speak knowing we cannot speak it. Even pointing the way, we are pointing the other way, and no way.
if if cannot speak who I am
how can I speak I Am
Possibly, the words of the late intellectual and Christian sage, William Law, speaks well to this, and the human tendency to prattle on and on with certainty of what one cannot be certain of.
Why all this strife and zeal about opinions? Death and life go on their own way, carry on their own work, and stay [i.e., desist] for no opinions....
*The Way to Divine Knowledge.
Hence, what we say of following and the Way, of Grace, we speak mainly to inspire an attraction to walk and to Whom we walk with. We speak so that as soon as one hears, one may drop what has been said, savoring the afterglow and postured to the inner Teacher. The insight of what is spoken, not the words, is the most subtle pointer to Truth. And, while we may listen together, we each go within, into the Secrecy; we listen again, a listening actively receptive, not actively seeking.
Continued... |
