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LOTUS OF THE HEART
Living in LOVE beyond Beliefs
We Share One Life, We Are One Life
Falling into Love does not require a special place or time. Sacredness can pull you into HerSelf with simple daily rites, like that of a quiet, devotional morning time, with music and coffee and books, and an old, cheap recliner. That recliner, small like the boat on the ocean, as I am in my particularization of this Presence everywhere, becomes a church, a wailing wall, a cathedral, a stupa, a mosque, an ashram, ... This means, no special conditions are needed to realize the immensity and intimacy of Grace. Grace, like Life, is already, always present, and our role is to become present to It with our whole being.
*Brian K. Wilcox
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This place I sit every morning ~
An angel wakes me up with a smile, every morning,
Whether I am sad or glad, it does not matter to her, smiling
Saying, "Here, here, my dear, my beloved,
How glad I am to see you!"
And I did not know
I was held in her arms all night, and that face
Awaited my eyes, like the grass outside waiting for the Sun
To kiss it in the morning; her patience like my dogs
staring out the door, readied to chase a squirrel
up that same tree, again.
This place I sit every morning ~
To me, I do not need to bathe in the Ganges,
Or bow before a wall in Jerusalem, or even go
To the sanctuary next door and kneel at the altar ~ though
to do so, in itself, would be a blessing ~ this recliner,
With coffee and books, song, and softness, becomes
Mount Tabor, and she takes my hand and me to the curtain,
saying, "My love cannot take you in there."
And, then, Someone calls me in, by name, and my hands part the purple curtains:
Oh! Should I go on and tell you what happens then? Or, should I remain silent
about this?
This place I sit every morning ~
Opens to a Holy of Holies.
I wonder: Would she who dropped
This old recliner off at that yard sale,
Ever have dreamed the mysteries of my Love that
would unfold to me by just sitting here?
God once baptized the Universe
With one drop of rain. . .
And no priest was present,
And no place to call holy. . .
Such is this common Presence.
*Brian K. Wilcox. Feb 2006.
* * *
This making love with the divine, this plunging into the truth, requires what human love does ~ a falling away of your defenses, a recognition of your vulnerability, a willingness to acknowledge that you are on the wave of an ocean far bigger than you are. Yet in the same moment that you cry Yes! to the immensity of life, you share in its power and beauty.
*Roger Housden. ten poems to change your life.
* * *
©Brian Kenneth Wilcox 2017. Brian is a Hospice Chaplain, living out his vow to serve all living beings by serving those preparing to die and their friends and family. Brian lives a vowed life, alone in a quasi-hermitic life, and integrates varied religions, but most especially the contemplative paths of Buddhism and his native faith, Christianity. Brian received a 'mystical' Christ-experience at age 9, and was introduced to a peace untouched by pain and suffering. Later, in his mid-30s, after surviving a dark night of despair, Brian was vowed to a contemplative Christian way of life on St. Matthew's Feast day, 1995, by Greenbough House of Prayer, in Georgia, USA. This began many years of ardent reading, spiritual practice, and exploration of many spiritual paths, including publication of his book An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The Journey has led Brian to the joy beyond the ache, a contentment in experiential union with Grace. Brian lives with the affirmation that Love, not as emotion but Divine Presence, transcends all paths of religion and is our Source and Destination. As St. Paul writes in the Christian Bible, "Now remain always, faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love." Peace to All!
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