Jesus represents for me, and many over the aeons, a Presence of Welcome, a Welcome presence welcoming, pervasive from long before he arrived on this glorious stage of Life. This welcome is spoken to me, over the years and since early childhood, especially through this word from the Gospel of John, "Come to me, all you toiling and loaded down, and I will give you rest. Receive my yoke upon you, be taught by me, and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is not onerous, my burden light." He welcomes us, through this image of the ox needing rest from being over-loaded, as all sages do, to receive the Welcome and become the Welcome. So, as the Sky, communion with the Sky naturally leads us to being Sky-Like, a spontaneous, silent welcome, a spaciousness where persons are free to come and go and without our being judgmental of that. I have had many persons come and go in my life, indeed, few have remained, as I have moved much due to education and work. Love freely says "Goodbye," as Love freely says "Hello." I can feel blessing for everyone who left, regardless of why, but it has taken a long journey to get to this point of that blessing. For many years, I tended to be resentful of those I had felt hurt by, betrayed by. Now, it is simply what happened, and is over, traceless. Life naturally evolves with persons coming into our lives, some staying for a time, some leaving much sooner than we had wished; eventually, the image of death speaks of everyone leaving, and we each, too. Contemplation is resting in that Presence, inviting that Grace to transform us into the same Grace, the same graciousness. Life is beyond and free of anyone being here or not being here. We belong together, whether apart or not; Communion is present in absence and presence, equally.

* * *

Presence, Grace, is receptive
like sky, timeless welcome

Grace never says "No vacancy"
Life knows no VIPs, deserving special treatment

Grace is offensive
to those who want to live in a world of 'the privileged' and 'the under-privileged'

that so much religion has taught "us" and "them"
only shows that much religion seeks to use religion
to buttress its own agenda based on ignorance and fear

religiousness, however, in religion
aspires to live free of prejudices, to love freely, fearlessly

other forms of social grouping often have the "us" against "them" agenda
politics and nationalism being venues for officialized divisiveness, where one
is defined by identifying "the enemy"

collective groups, then, become a hide-out from
the courage to love and be loved, to be undefined, so free ~
often the one who chooses not to identify with the system becomes "unclean" ~
scorned, outsider, avoided, dangerous, heretic, unpatriotic, disloyal

few persons display the intelligence and courage
to be an outsider for being welcoming
to forfeit the blessing of the insiders
to welcome the aloneness of being Graceful
to fly free of the cage of collective prejudices

Grace, like the sky, is a Presence for
anyone to move in and out of, freely, without judgment

nothing can un-deserve being in the Sky, nothing deserve being in the Sky,
Grace freely offers Itself, cannot be earned, nothing to do to warrant it
~ no bargaining Here!

all religion, then, and spirituality
is simply a means to return to the primal Welcome

whatever is done is to lead to not-doing
so to receive passively this glorious, ever-present Welcome

in this Sky, there is no elect or not-elect
only those who say "No" and those who say "Yes" to be hosted by Life

and to say "No" to Life
is to say "No" to oneself

to say "Yes" to Life
is to affirm the dignity and grace of being part of Being

*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2018.

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