The Little Book of Life's Wisdom
Page 7
Surely you would deem this a miracle, yet
that miracle is wrought a thousand thousand
times in the drowsiness of every autumn and the
passion of every spring.
Why shall it not be wrought in the heart of a
human being? Shall not the seasons meet in the
hand or upon the lips of one anointed?
If our God has given to earth the art to nestle
seed whilst the seed is seemingly dead, why
shall he not give to the heart of a human being
the art to breathe life into another heart, even a
heart seemingly dead?
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I have spoken of these miracles that I deem
but little beside the greater miracle, which is the
man himself, the Wayfarer, the man who turned
my dross into gold, who taught me how to love
those who hate me, and in so doing brought me
comfort and gave sweet dreams to my sleep.
This is the miracle in my own life.
My soul was blind, my soul was lame. I was
possessed by restless spirits, and I was dead.
But now I see clearly, and I walk erect. I am
at peace, and I live to witness and proclaim my
own being every hour of the day.
And I am not one of his followers. I am but
an old astronomer who visits the fields of space
once a season and who would be heedful of the
law and the miracles thereof.
And I am at the twilight of my time, but
whenever I would seek its dawning, I seek the
youth of Jesus.
And forever shall age seek youth.
In me now, it is knowledge that is seeking
vision.
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YOUTH AND KNOWLEDGE
You cannot have youth
and the knowledge of it
at the same time.
For youth is too busy living
to know,
and knowledge is too busy
seeking itself
to live.
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SEASONS
What are the seasons of the years
save your own thoughts changing?
Spring is an awakening in your breast,
and summer but a recognition of your own
fruitfulness.
Is not autumn the ancient in you singing
a lullaby
to that which is still a child in your being?
And what, I ask you, is winter save sleep
big with the dreams
of all the other seasons?
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AUTUMN AND SPRING
In the autumn, I gathered all my sorrows and
buried them in my garden.
And when April returned and spring came to
wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful
flowers unlike all other flowers.
And my neighbors came to behold them, and
they all said to me,
“When autumn comes again, at seeding time,
will you not give us of the seeds of these flowers
that we may have them in our gardens?”
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TIME
Of time you would make a stream
upon whose bank you would sit
and watch its flowing.
Yet the timeless in you
is aware of life’s timelessness
and knows that yesterday
is but today’s memory
and tomorrow is today’s dream.
And that that which sings and
contemplates in you is still dwelling
within the bounds of that first moment
that scattered the stars into space.
But if in your thought
you must measure time into seasons,
let each season encircle all the other seasons,
and let today embrace
the past with remembrance
and the future with longing.
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ALL YOUR HOURS ARE WINGS
Is not religion all deeds and all reflection,
and that which is neither deed nor reflection,
but a wonder and a surprise
ever springing in the soul,
even while the hands hew the stone
or tend the loom?
Who can separate faith from actions,
or belief from one’s occupations?
Who can spread one’s hours before one, saying,
“This for God and this for myself.
This for my soul,
and this other for my body?”
All your hours are wings
that beat through space
from self to self.
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BE DARK
When night comes, and you too are dark,
lie down and be dark with a will.
And when morning comes, and you are still
dark,
stand up and say to the day with a will,
“I am still dark.”
It is stupid to play a role with the night and
the day.
They would both laugh at you.
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DAY AND NIGHT
You grow in sleep and live your fuller life in your
dreaming.
For all your days are spent in thanksgiving
for that which you have received in the stillness
of the night.
Oftentimes you think and speak of night as
the season of rest, yet in truth night is the season
of seeking and finding.
The day gives unto you the power of knowl-
edge and teaches your fingers to become versed
in the art of receiving.
But it is night that leads you to the treasure
house of Life.
The sun teaches to all things that grow their
longing for the light.
But it is night that raises them to the stars.
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SHELL-LIFE
Perhaps the sea’s
definition of a shell
is the pearl.
Perhaps time’s
definition of coal
is the diamond.
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TIDES OF BREATH
That which seems most feeble and bewildered in
you is the strongest and most determined.
Is it not your breath that has erected and
hardened the structure of your bones?
&n
bsp; Could you but see the tides of that breath,
you would cease to see all else.
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SHORELESS WITHOUT A SELF
It was but yesterday that
you were moving with the moving sea,
and you were shoreless and without a self.
Then the wind, the breath of Life,
wove you, a veil of light on her face.
Then her hand gathered you
and gave you form,
and with a head held high
you sought the heights.
But the sea followed after you,
and her song is still with you.
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FINDING FAULT
If I were you
I would not find fault
with the sea
at low tide.
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EVERY YEAR I HAD WAITED
FOR SPRING . . .
Rachel, a woman disciple of Jesus speaks:
I often wonder whether Jesus was a man of
flesh and blood like ourselves, or a thought with-
out a body, in the mind, or an idea that visits the
vision of humanity.
Often it seems to me that he was but a dream
dreamed by countless men and women at the
same time in a sleep deeper than sleep and a
dawn more serene than all dawns.
And it seems that, in relating the dream, one
to another, we began to deem it a reality that had
indeed come to pass. And in giving it a body of
our fancy and a voice of our longing we made it
a substance of our own substance.
But in truth he was not a dream. We knew
him for three years and beheld him with our
open eyes in the high tide of noon.
We touched his hands, and we followed him
from one place to another. We heard his dis-
courses and witnessed his deeds. Think you that
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we were a thought seeking after more thought,
or a dream in the region of dreams?
Great events always seem alien to our daily
lives, though their nature may be rooted in our
nature. But though they appear sudden in their
coming and sudden in their passing, their true
span is for years and for generations.
Jesus of Nazareth was himself the Great
Event. That man whose father and mother
and brothers we know was himself a miracle
wrought in Judea. Yea, all his own miracles, if
placed at his feet, would not rise to the height
of his ankles.
And all the rivers of all the years shall not
carry away our remembrance of him.
He was a mountain burning in the night, yet
he was a soft glow beyond the hills. He was a
tempest in the sky, yet he was a murmur in the
mist of daybreak.
He was a torrent pouring from the heights to
the plains to destroy all things in its path. And
he was like the laughter of children.
Every year I had waited for spring to visit
this valley. I had waited for the lilies and the
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cyclamen, and then every year my soul had been
saddened within me. For ever I longed to rejoice
with the spring, yet I could not.
But when Jesus came to my seasons he was
indeed a spring, and in him was the promise of
all the years to come. He filled my heart with joy,
and like the violets I grew, a shy thing, in the
light of his coming.
And now the changing seasons of worlds not
yet ours shall not erase his loveliness from this
our world.
Nay, Jesus was not a phantom, nor a concep-
tion of the poets. He was man like yourself and
myself. But only to sight and touch and hearing.
In all other ways, he was unlike us.
He was a man of joy, and it was upon the
path of joy that he met the sorrows of everyone.
And it was from the high roofs of his sorrows
that he beheld the joy of everyone.
He saw visions that we did not see and heard
voices that we did not hear. And he spoke as if
to invisible multitudes, and ofttimes he spoke
through us to races yet unborn.
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And Jesus was often alone. He was among
us yet not one with us. He was upon the earth,
yet he was of the sky. And only in our aloneness
may we visit the land of his aloneness.
He loved us with tender love. His heart was a
winepress. You and I could approach with a cup
and drink therefrom.
One thing I did not use to understand in
Jesus: he would make merry with his listeners.
He would tell jests and play upon words, and
laugh with all the fullness of his heart, even
when there were distances in his eyes and sad-
ness in his voice. But I understand now.
I often think of the earth as a woman heavy
with her first child. When Jesus was born, he was
the first child. And when he died, he was the first
man to die.
For did it not appear to you that the earth
was stilled on that dark Friday, and the heavens
were at war with the heavens?
And felt you not when his face disappeared
from our sight as if we were naught but memo-
ries in the mist?
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5
Paradoxical
Life
In life’s contradictions and paradoxes,
we discover the unity of all Life, a
unity reflected in the soul’s experience
of oneness.
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LIFE COMES WALKING
And Life is veiled and hidden, even as your
Greater Self is hidden and veiled.
Yet when Life speaks, all the winds become
words.
And when she speaks again, the smiles upon
your lips and the tears in your eyes turn also
into words.
When she sings, the deaf hear and are held.
And when she comes walking, the sightless
behold her and are amazed and follow her in
wonder and astonishment.
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TALK
In truth we talk only to ourselves,
but sometimes we talk loud enoug
h
that others may hear us.
PA R A D OX I C A L L I F E
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A TALE OF TWO TALES
Once upon an evening, a man and a woman
found themselves together in a stagecoach. They
had met before.
The man was a poet, and as he sat beside
the woman, he sought to amuse her with stories,
some that were of his own weaving, and some
that were not his own.
But even while he was speaking, the lady
went to sleep. Then suddenly the coach lurched,
and she awoke, and she said, “I admire your
interpretation of the story of Jonah and the
whale.”
And the poet said, “But madame, I have been
telling you a story of my own about a butterfly
and a white rose, and how they behaved the one
to the other!”
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CONFESSION
Should we all confess our sins to one another,
we would all laugh at one another
for our lack of originality.
Should we all reveal our virtues,
we would also laugh
for the same cause.
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YESTERDAY AND TODAY
The gold-hoarder walked in his palace park,
and with him walked his troubles. And over his
head hovered worries as a vulture hovers over
a carcass, until he reached a beautiful lake sur-
rounded by magnificent marble statuary.
He sat there pondering the water that poured
from the mouths of the statues, like thoughts
flowing freely from a lover’s imagination. And
he contemplated heavily his palace, which stood
upon a knoll like a birthmark upon the cheek of
a maiden.
His fancy revealed to him the pages of his
life’s drama, which he read with falling tears that
veiled his eyes and prevented him from viewing
humanity’s feeble additions to nature.
He looked back with piercing regret to the
images of his early life, woven into pattern by
the gods, until he could no longer control his