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Brian Wilcox 'Sweetness of a Marigold'
On the Way, failure in our spiritual walk is not a threat, dishonesty - pride and pretense - is. When we hide in a hollow display of religiousness, morality, or spirituality, we hide from the Light. Still, as long as there is a slight willingness to live in Grace, there is space for Spirit to transmute what is within us, so that we are progressively transparent to and malleable in the hands of Life. As says the Christian Scriptures, "Humble yourselves in the presence of the Supernal, and the Supernal will lift you up" (James 4.10). Spirit is responsive to humility and honesty, and such consent assists in making way for Grace to call forth and convert even the most-hidden within us. As we grow spiritually, the Way demands more and subtler truthfulness and consent to allow the concealed to be unveiled by and to the Light.
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A jackal got into a dyeing-vat and stayed for a time. When he got out, his skin was stained with the dye. "Look! I have become the Peacock of Heaven's Heights!" he exclaimed, thinking himself to be now a peacock.
His dyed fur had a delightful sheen. When the Sun shone upon the colors, he saw himself green and crimson, russet and gold. So, he proudly presented himself to the other jackals.
"Little jackal," they said, "what is the matter? Why is your head full of such wayward glee? You have set yourself apart from us in your happiness. What is the logic for your high contempt?"
"You here!," one of the jackals went up to him and cried. "Are you a pretender? Or is your heart truly joyful? You have perpetrated a lie, so to jump up on the pulpit and make all others envious. You have toiled much, but you have experienced no true zeal. So, you have behaved with indiscretion."
The multicolored jackal moved up quietly and whispered in the ear of the reprover, "Why, just look upon me! See my colors! No idolater has an idol like me. I have become beautiful and many-hued as a garden. Do not turn your head: bow before me! See my pomp and splendor, my sheen, glitter, and color! Call me Pride of the World, Pillar of the Faith! I have become the theater of grace Divine. I have become the tablet declaring the majesty of God. You jackals, heed! Do not refer to me as a jackal. How could a jackal possess such beauty?"
The jackals gathered about him like moths about a candle. "Look, what shall we call you, you creature of celestial substance?" they asked. "Peacocks of the Spirit," they said to him, "hold displays in the Garden of Roses. Do you make such a display?"
"No," he replied. "How should I tread the streets of the holy place, never having gone there into the desert?"
"Do you sound the cry of peacocks?"
"No," said he.
"Then you are not a peacock, father of towering airs! The glory-robe of the peacock is the gift of heaven. How should you ever get it by dyes and pretenses?
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Jesus -
You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds."
*Matthew 23.27-28 (The Message)
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To an extent, possibly we are all fraudulent posers. We can exaggerate, though not necessarily intentionally, our insight into how we see ourselves and live true to ourselves. But much may remain hidden in the subconscious and manifest in ways others may see, but we do not.
Yet, to be unconsciously inauthentic and consciously false are not the same thing. There is no substitute for self-honesty in the Way. Without this willingness to be honest with others and ourselves, we will not be able to walk the Way. To an extent, we may be hypocritical, yet to be so with the intent to impress or mislead others is antithetical to Grace.
With honesty, accompanied by humility, Grace enters to bring deep healing, for we have offered all we can see about ourselves to the Light. This is important, for Spirit manifests to transform all within us into correspondence with the Light.
Hence, we choose to be real, even though we are still growing and may never on Earth find complete healing from the past or transformation of all in us that is not true to the Light. And as we are drawn more into the Light, the Light manifests more within us what needs its redemption and transmutation into likeness to the Light.
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Said the jackals to the dyed and preening jackal, "The glory-robe of the peacock is the gift of heaven. How should you ever get it by dyes and pretenses?" Likewise, the holiness of one living in intimacy with Grace is a gift of Spirit. Only in contact with Spirit do the lesser elements of the body and mind undergo transformation into likeness to the Light. Rather than posing as better than she is, the holy being, in love with the Beloved, devoting all she is to the Divine, this one lives in gratitude that whatever of Grace is within her is not her gift to herself, but the gift of the Supernal to her. Indeed, her life as a spiritual practice is to position herself to be receptive to the Divine, to call down upon herself the subtle influences of Life.
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(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2020
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