“We need to be angels for each other, to give each other strength and consolation. Because only when we fully realize that the cup of life is not only a cup of sorrow but also a cup of joy will we be able to drink it.”
~ Henri Nouwen ~
this sacred moment of eternity goes on infinitely on this day of stopping the world, spending this moment in soulitude and seeing inside as i saunter (walk on holy ground) along the rainbow trail, the path with heart, the pilgrimage of the soul, the pathless path for this is not only the 107th birthday of the usa’s national parks; it is also the third year anniversary of my latest close encounter with death…
still i hear the words, as i was coming back to life, of the ICU doctor standing at the threshold of the room they put me in to pass over saying to the nurse it was a miracle she was alive… at first i wondered who they were talking about and then it came back to me that i had been at a gathering with Ram Dass who had died physically 8 months earlier and he asked me if I’d like him to walk me home… i was so excited to get to spend time with this being who’s been so impactful on my life for half a century and told him that i’d gather my things and meet him right back here but when i returned a moment later he had walked on and i understood that i was to come back here to the middle world… it was not the easiest thing to find my way back meandering through vast labyrinthian canyon lands of the other world but here i was hearing this man in white coat talking of someone who’d miraculously come back to life after dying…
so, dear co-hearts of our one heart, still in the glow of the astonishing light of our being and so in awe of grandmother spider and the web of life she weaves, i now want to share this heartfelt message fra angelico sent to his co-hearts 500 years ago which expresses what i say today and everyday and hear all our relatives singing the same tune…
“I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep.
There is nothing I can give you which you have not already, but there is much, very much, which though I cannot give it, you can take.
No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today.
Take heaven.
No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this precious little instant.
Take peace.
The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and courage in the darkness could we but see; and to see, we have only to look.
Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by their coverings, cast them away as ugly or heavy or hard. Remove the covering, and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, and wisdom, and power. Welcome it, greet it, and you touch the angel’s hand that brings it.
Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, a duty, believe me, that angel’s hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing Presence.
Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.
Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty beneath its covering, that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.
Courage, then, to claim it, that is all! But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are pilgrims wending through unknown country our way home.”
~
Dear Angels, Take Heaven! Take Peace! Take Joy! Take Love! Take Wisdom! Take Courage!
We Are The Eternal Radiance of Loving Presence…
~
