Jacob left the town of Beersheba and started out for Haran. At sunset he stopped for the night and went to sleep, resting his head on a large rock.
Jacob woke up suddenly and thought, "The Lord is in this place, and I didn't even know it." Then Jacob became frightened and said, "What a frightening place! It must be the house of God and the gateway to heaven."
[And] he called the place Bethel (lit., House of El, or God).
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you play with dice while the cosmos calls your name – when will you stop and listen?
leaf shadows dance on the path branches sway and swaying wind you walk somewhere mind nowhere, back there, or up ahead – deaf to the symphony always filling your ears
oh! how much you spend for what does not fulfill while Life offers you free Itself… what cannot but satisfy
what is the door to heaven? simply your heart open to this... here... now
*Retreat in Silence, Ferry Beach, Maine, 1.17.22 AM
* * *
"Sir, why don't you talk about our need to get ready to go to heaven?" Replied the Sage, "Why talk about going to heaven when you're living in heaven now, and you just don't know it? See, and you'll see there's no heaven to get ready to go to."
*Brian K. Wilcox. Meetings with an Anonymous Sage.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and title and place of photographs.
*Brian's book, An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love, can be ordered through major online booksellers or the publisher AuthorHouse.