As I grew older the things I cared
about grew fewer, but were more
important. So one day I undid the lock
and called the trash man. He took everything.
I felt like the little donkey when
his burden is finally lifted. Things!
Burn them, burn them! Make a beautiful
fire! More room in your heart for love,
for the trees! For the birds who own
nothing—the reason they can fly.
Look at this window: it is nothing but a hole in the wall, but because of it the whole room is full of light. So when the faculties are empty, the heart is full of light. Being full of light it becomes an influence by which others are secretly transformed.
In the hollows of quiet places we may meet, the quiet places where is neither moon nor sun, but only the light of amber and pale gold that comes from the Hills of the Heart.
To acknowledge the Sacred within is humbling. One's ego portrays itself as the captain of its separate destiny, like an intrepid explorer, seeing things and naming them for the first time. Ego doesn't care for the idea that MY hunger for love, MY grief, and MY thankfulness are not only mine but also God's in me. As our egos die into Love, we see that our personal stories are transparent to an infinitely larger story within us. Suffering "in God" is allowing our small stories to be like icons, transmitting a Great Light.
~ from REBECCA: A Father's Journey by Robert A. Jonas
What heals one soul, searches another soul, what comforts one, drives another to the brink of darkness; and all the while the Light gives each soul what it is calling forth. No one can withstand the Word of Truth echoing through the corridors of the soul. The Light is searching, healing, self-revealing; thus in the Light clouded conditions are revealed, self-conscious fears loosened.
In the seed, the genes whisper: stretch out for the light and seek the dark. And the tree seeks the light, it stretches out for the dark and the more darkness it finds, the more light it uncovers.
If we allow silence to open up within, we shall see the gate and be free to open it. The gate that silence opens up within us leads to light. Light exposes us with an almost merciless radiance and, in the exposure, reveals the beauty of the real.
