[O]n balance, I would prefer a thousand mistakes in extravagance of love to any paralysis in wariness of fear. Our world has known too much of fear, defensiveness, and mistrust; I think we could use a healthy dose of unmitigated, mistake-making loving.
*Gerald G. May. The Awakened Heart.
Wisdom Story
A monk went to talk with the Abbot. "Father," he said, "Brother Martin seems so holy but so unhappy. Why is this?" Replied the Abbot, "My son, for Brother Martin would rather stand in the right than let himself fall into Love."
Contemplative Love Poem
A Face in wine stillness red like red world there a raindrop ... splash! ... I drowning gleefully in sweet intoxication submerged in a liquid galaxy, awakened from a long sleep I arose from the grave in Love again "Brian, you really never left for the ache behind every pursuit of intimacy shaped the labyrinthine way that led you, oft unknowing, back to my Heart" "If you'd never lost Me you would have never returned Here this time to stay" Good deaths open to Life other deaths increase the separation surrender to the right demise and say "Goodbye!" forever to your old life Become the seed that when sown grows to be the bud that rises daily in Love to kiss the Sun Give away the rope that One knows best how to tie your heart to the Beloved's, forever, ... Surrender makes everything possible in this playfulness of Love Remember, if you want to appear sane ... you'll never make this mad love with the Friend; leave behind appearances and normality, become a child again, ... no before even that before you forgot your Oneness with Life
*Brian K. Wilcox, July 10, 2007
Comments
I welcome you to answer this question for yourself ~ no one can answer it for you: Am I going to let this relationship grow and deepen according to its own mystery, or am I going to try to fit it into a structure I have been told is as it should be?
The challenge and daring of the spiritual one, as contrasted with others, is welcoming a space of pure being in which the structure that led one to that point of the question of surrender no longer applies to where one is being drawn silently by Grace.
If we choose the safety of the should be, we will remain outside the Inner Sanctum. When we remember and welcome the wonder of Union-with-Love, we release should to the unfathomable leadings of unseen Grace.
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*(C) Brian K. Wilcox, 2024. Permission is given to use photographs and writings with credit given to the copyright owner.
*Brian's book is An Ache for Union: Poems on Oneness with God through Love. The book is a collection of poems Brian wrote based on wisdom traditions, predominantly Christian, Buddhist, and Sufi, with extensive notes on the poetry's teachings and imagery.
