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Wisdom Quote
"How few holy madmen are alive today! Our sins preclude this blessed madness. Such fools for God seem to be extinct. Where are the ones who would risk everything and perform heroic deeds for the love of Christ? ... We have forgotten the perfect love and the sublime raptures the saints experienced. ... If some people are scandalized by holy foolishness, it brings other people to their senses."
*Teresa of Avila. Teresa of Avila: The Book of My Life. Trans. Mirabai Starr. Boston & London: New Seeds, 2007: 205.
Wisdom Story
A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.
All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.
Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.
The old eagle looked up in awe. "Who's that?" he asked.
"That's the eagle, the king of the birds," said his neighbor. "He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth~we're chickens."
So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was.
Comments
Most persons live dead to who they really are. They never even seriously engage the question. Then they teach other persons to remain spiritually unconscious~often tossing in enough "logical" religion to help it be so~in the collective ignorance.
This is a grand illusion, propagated through many cultural means. Religion is a culprit. Psychology is a culprit. Education is a culprit. Politics is a culprit. Science is a culprit.
Persons afraid of embracing who they really are will be afraid of allowing others to embrace who they really are. Persons afraid of who they really are will seek to oppose and discredit apparently foolish madpersons who seek to expose the grand illusion that has been credited as true by sheer numbers and in fear of truth.
This is a part of the sinfulness of us humans. We have erred in believing a grand lie about true identity. Then we have taught that false identity~which can take many forms, based on orientation~to others as true. And we have created a "god~idea" in our little heads: one to support refusal to own and our own grandness as Offspring of God, Who Is. How can we live fully godly lives, when we have a less than fully godly appreciation for who we are and use religion to support such misrepresentation?
Here, I speak of a knowing of yourself free of all definitions in words, concepts, philosophy, psychology, theology...
God Opens Like A Flower
The word God opened like a flower ...
Do you hear the Silence?
See this Brightness?
There is a Face of you
without a picture frame
A sweet scent fills a Place ...
perfume that was before the bottle
Every sanctuary's windows
open outward to such Mystery!
"Go There!"
The words of Holy Writ
dissolve in Rapturous Bliss
Someone yelled out a name
before there existed a religion
"That is This!
That is This! Awaken!"
Fly like a bird
Wind be your guide
There is an expanse
The Beloved waits for you There
For the Sun kisses your wings ...
Fly, and shout with delight!
The day is the bread
The night is the wine
Disdain every cage
confining spirit
The way that led to burial in the Jordan
is the way that dies in this Resurrection
There is a Word
laughing at every word
Let the Fire within you consume
the box in which you tried to contain Mystery
Welcome every entrance
into this Bliss!
Someone said, "Brian, how do you know when you are There?"
"When," I spoke, "I know only one Love."
Do I sound foolish? ~ then
"Hallalujah! Amen."
Do you think getting Here is hard?
No way. "Just relax?"
Watch the Light pierce the darkness
while you exclaim "Wow!"
*Brian K. Wilcox, May 24, 2007
Suggested Reflection
How did the readings today speak to you? Explain.
See next page for Invitation to writer's contemplative village, purpose of OneLife, data on ordering author's book and upcoming devotionals 2008, and material on citations.
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