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A Love... never too late
Inn Along the Way/Chapman Farm, Damariscotta, ME
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No doubt about it, the right time is now.
This day is the day of release [or 'spiritual healing'].
*II Corinthians 6.2
18 One day as Jesus was walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers - Simon, also called Peter, and Andrew - throwing a net into the water, for they fished for a living. 19 Jesus called out to them, "Come, follow me, and I will show you how to fish for people!" 20 And they left their nets at once and followed him.
21 A little farther up the shore he saw two other brothers, James and John, sitting in a boat with their father, Zebedee, repairing their nets. And he called them to come, too. 22 They immediately followed him, leaving the boat and their father behind.
*Gospel of Matthew 4, emphasis added
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Augustine of Hippo (Africa, 354-430 CE) wrote, in his renowned Confessions, lamenting, "Late have I loved You, 0 Beauty so ancient and so new; late have I loved You!" Nonetheless, Augustine found it was not too late. It is never too late. Beauty is part of who we are. We can ignore Her, we cannot escape Her. We are born from Her. So, "Yes" right now - any now - is right on time. And, like with Augustine, all our life before that "Yes" prepared us to yield to Beauty. We are ready for Her when ready for Her. She prepares us for Herself. Such is the mysterious workings of Grace.
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A man approached the Buddha. He wanted all his intellectual questions answered before practicing the Dharma [Buddhist wisdom, teaching]. The Awakened One said, "It's as if a poisoned arrow had wounded a man, and when a physician proceeded to help him, he said, 'I'll not let you remove this arrow until I've learned the caste, age, occupation, birthplace, and motive of the person who wounded me.' The man would die before learning all this. Correspondingly, anyone who should say, 'I'll not follow the Blessed One's teaching until he clarifies all the many-shaped truths of the world' - that person would die before the Awakened One had explained all of it."
*From the Majjhima Nikaya.
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Any moment can be the moment to turn toward a better way, to say "Yes" to the inner summons. The moment, not the next moment ... day... week... year.
When the heart calls, we do not need all our questions answered; we will never have all the questions answered anyway. We must exercise some degree of trust in what we do not understand.
We yield our old selves and lives to a larger life as Jesus' first students did, connoted by leaving the nets behind and, for two, their father sitting beside the Sea. We, like them, do not ask for an explanation of the Way before starting to walk the Way.
And what about the questions? The heart knows things the mind can never know. That knowing leads us to the readiness to say "Yes" and to walk. As we walk the Way, answers become less important.
Over time, the seekings of the head dissolve in the Light of the heart. We come to a knowing, an inner confidence - not logical, but not illogical - but cannot tell how we know.
Is the first "Yes" the final one for anyone? No. The "Yes" never ends. In many ways, we keep saying the original "Yes." The "Yes" is outside time, yet is embodied in time. She never ceases saying "Yes," and, hence, there is always another "Yes" for us to reply. For Love reaches out for Love.
What is Beauty to you? What or whom, past or present, reminds you of Her presence? How do you practice "Yes" to Beauty... walking with Her?
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*©Brian K. Wilcox, 2022.
*Use of photography is allowed accompanied by credit given to Brian K. Wilcox and notation of title and place of the photograph.
*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.
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