Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Secret of the Soul

The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart opens on the front flyleaf - in white lettering - on stark, black paper:
In the midst of silence
  there was spoken within me
       a secret word.

But where is the silence,
  and where is the place
     where
         the word is spoken?

It is in
   the purest thing
     that the soul is capable of,
       in the noblest part,
          the ground.

Indeed, in the very
   essence of the soul, 
     which is the 
        soul's most secret part.

Which rings of Merton's words on nothingness: 
At the center of our being is a point of nothingness, which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point, a spark, which belongs entirely to God.
It's like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven.  It is in everybody!
I have no program to seize this.  It is only given.   But the Gate of Heaven is everywhere!

There is nothing more to say.

Wednesday, March 7, 2012

The Paradox of Repentance


Lest I lose readers simply due to the title, I'll get right to the point:  If you've ever had an experience, I mean truly had an experience of God's tender care for you personally... you may find yourself left with two competing feelings (well... at least two).  One is a sense of awe, wonder, amazement, maybe even verging on disbelief or doubt.  On the other hand, you've likely had a sense of how tiny you are in the vast scheme of things, a speck in a vast universe, as well as a conviction of unworthiness, perhaps even a sense of dread.