Various rambles …
Time to step outside of linear time
Time that fools allow to trap their minds
Thinking time a path, when it’s a sphere
Of spheres, within and without
And around and around and all about
Flowing in all directions
turning in and back on itself.
For time is light
Composed of photons
Being created eternally
And it BOUNCES.
Everything occurs at everywhen
But we imperfect creatures
cannot experience it all at once
We cannot cope,
so we view, at light speed only
Oh, so very slow.
This Christmas, if you are going to post “Keep Christ in Christmas!” please, first make sure you are personally keeping Christ in every other day of the year (you know the stuff: caring for the poor, protecting the marginalized, alleviating suffering, shunning greed, championing equality), so you don’t look like a hypocrite.
If you keep saying “I’m right”, “I’m right”, “I’m right”, you end up in an endless circle.
Like being on a roundabout that you just can’t get off.
The worries, hurts and troubles of life cycle around, but remain the same.
At some point you must break the cycle.
You must choose the “sinister” left.
Sinister is only an impression in your mind. It may be real or unreal.
We call it sinister because we feel it is ominous, and our minds anticipate bad results.
It’s a risk.
But if you want to get off the roundabout, you must go left at some time. You must choose the sinister and see what happens.
The journey must go on.
I smile a lot when I am depressed
My cheeks ache with exertion
I do it so that you won’t see
– My smile’s a diversion
I don’t want anyone’s attention
I know you cannot help me
I’m trapped inside my world of sad
I can’t escape from me
And so I smile and often laugh
Not wanting you to know
I feel a pain I can’t express
That has nowhere to go.
Just be my friend and understand
For help, I’ll never ask
But you can remind me now and then
That this too soon shall pass
Pat my hand and say you care
A hug works wonders too
Hold me tight and say a prayer
… I’ll do the same for you.
worldling n. – One who is absorbed by worldly pursuits and pleasures.
A person who is primarily concerned with worldly matters or material things
A person devoted to the interests and pleasures of this world; worldly person.
According to Rev Samuel Lavington “On Conformity to the World”, a Christian and a worldling are two different characters.
You cannot be both for they are opposites.
If you will live for the world then you must farewell Christianity; and if you will live for Christ then you must let go of the world.
I remember visiting the church named in Lavington’s honour in Bideford, Devon, with my father when I was about seven. We were on the trail of all things Arthurian, and while I don’t think we found Arthur there, I do remember the oddly separated pews and that this was the first time I heard the word “worldling”.
It seems my father thought being a worldling was some sort of character flaw, although I’m not sure he would have been described as a Christian at that time in his life. However, he was certainly always more spiritual than practical and he managed to achieve his ambition of dying almost penniless.
There are many things my father said that profoundly influenced my life and personality (I am sure that’s true of everyone who was close to their father), but one thing in particular was a favourite saying of his:
“You can travel the world and dine with kings, but never find anything of greater interest than is inside your own mind”
(Gordon John Willoughby, circa 1965)
I had it a moment ago and now it’s gone!
Am I mad? Am I blind? What’s going on?
Surely “What is hidden will be seen”
Or so it says in Luke eight seventeen,
So why then do I panic and call it “lost”?
And invest turgid emotion – to my cost.
When I know that everything will come out right,
And every missing thing, be brought to light.
For everyone who asks (we know) receives
And the one who seeks finds always what she needs.
So even though you knock upon the door
Until knuckles seem intolerably sore
It will be opened to you, if you stay calm.
No need to panic or to feel alarm.
The sage advice is to retrace your steps,
Whether missing concepts, people or objects.
Go back to where you were when last you saw
And gain a new perspective of that door.
A number of things have happened to me today
A number of things that caused me to lose my way
Until I was surrounded by blankets on a rocky shore
Convinced that God, like me, just loves a metaphor 🙂
I burnt my fingers holding up a mirror
And possibly it made some see things clearer
But some, not keen on seeing imperfection
Blamed the mirror holder, rather than the reflection.
I was distressed, regretting impulsive action
Thinking the mirror cracked to cause refraction
Until prayers showed me what I’d framed
And then I understood why I was blamed.
Friends warmed and cuddled me with their support
And allowed me space for clarity of thought.
And God was there, (obscure but clearly there)
Listening with patience to my prayer.
The gilded mirror emerged inside a dream
I was confused, not knowing what I’d seen
A crystal mirror on a rocky shore
A mirror that must be a metaphor.
When trying to describe how God is love
I’ve thought of snugly blankets from above.
So imagine my surprise at what I saw
When I opened to the knocking at my door!
Sharon and Bella standing there with fancy
Blankets made with love by lovely Nancy.
Nancy, I woman I’ve never met
But who taught me something I’ll never forget.
She makes blankets that she gives away for free
To warm a cooling heart or arthritic knee.
She doesn’t even know me, and much less
She will never know who’s getting her kindness.
God is moving in his mysterious ways today
God is certainly hearing me when I sink to pray
And answering me forever in metaphor
As he brings a pile of blankets to my door!
For Nancy, Sharon, Bella, Libby, Vee, Jackie and Sandie,
with my love and thanks
The greatest paradox of all
Is that truth is what you believe.
I believe that,
Therefore it is true.
You may believe in your own capacity
to judge truth objectively.
In which case you will say
That what I say is false.
But is it impossible
we both be right?
Our minds are not designed
to see things just one way,
or for all of us
to see the same things.
Jesus really did
walk upon the water,
– if you believe he did.
But if you don’t believe
he walked upon the water,
– then he didn’t.
And there is a parable
to explain exactly that point.
For Peter sees Jesus
Walking on the water
and he believes
then he disbelieves
then he nearly drowns
then he believes again.
What Peter believes becomes real
but what he cannot believe
causes him to splutter and gasp
as he sinks.
Peter puts his faith in Jesus
and believes
and the world conforms
to Peter’s belief.
Just as Jesus always
promises it will.
“I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago
was caught up to the third heaven. “
2 Corinthians 12:2
Enoch will be along soon.
I’ll wait outside, and look at the sky, and remember what we spoke of last time.
I still have the broken blue egg shell.
I lie on my back and hold it to the sun.
Yes, it is the same flat blue of the sky on a cloudless day.
Today there are clouds, bringing the sky closer.
Will they come so close that the sky falls, watering the ground?
“Is the sky water?” I asked Enoch.
For it is the colour of the sea and lakes I have seen
and as changeable in its blues and greys.
And water falls from it.
Enoch says this is the first heaven that we see.
Ruled by the sun of light and heat.
Then what of night?
When the sky is drawn back,
revealing sparking treasures,
far above.
And glorious silken folds of crimson
herald their arrival each evening
and announce their departure each morn.
The sun has gone and with it its heat,
so the water in heaven turns to crystals of
ice and twinkles in the light of the solemn moon;
waiting for the sun king to return.
That, says Enoch, is the second heaven.
But there is the third heaven that Enoch knows.
Perhaps only Enoch knows.
He tells me it lies between corruptibility and incorruptibility
That it holds the Tree of Life,
the source of knowledge.
And two springs,
one milk, one honey.
But then two others,
one oil, one wine.
Which is four, not two.
But Enoch says two.
But how does Enoch know?
He says he has been there.
To argue with Azazel
about the way women
paint their eyebrows.
Which seems such a trivial matter to discuss with an archangel, but I know there was more; I just can’t remember it all.
The first heaven hides the second heaven.
Its blue veil is drawn back with a flourish,
momentarily revealing its scarlet lining each evening.
Then the second heaven appears.
Enoch says we see the first and second heavens because God wants us to think, and to realise there must be more.
The second heaven hides the third.
But we can see it only by invitation.
If I understand Enoch rightly.
Which probably, I don’t.
But oh, what joy!
To lie here on my back,
gazing at the blue above
and the egg shell in my hand
and wait for Enoch
so we can talk
and wonder some more
at our God’s creation.
“What intelligent being, what being capable of responding emotionally to a beautiful sight, can look at the jagged, silvery lunar crescent trembling in the azure sky, even through the weakest of telescopes, and not be struck by it in an intensely pleasurable way, not feel cut off from everyday life here on earth and transported toward that first stop on the celestial journeys? What thoughtful soul could look at brilliant Jupiter with its four attendant satellites, or splendid Saturn encircled by its mysterious ring, or a double star glowing scarlet and sapphire in the infinity of night, and not be filled with a sense of wonder? Yes, indeed, if humankind — from humble farmers in the fields and toiling workers in the cities to teachers, people of independent means, those who have reached the pinnacle of fame or fortune, even the most frivolous of society women — if they knew what profound inner pleasure await those who gaze at the heavens, then France, nay, the whole of Europe, would be covered with telescopes instead of bayonets, thereby promoting universal happiness and peace.”
— Camille Flammarion, 1880
