DISAPPEARING INTO THE FULLNESS OF JOY

 "Not only the thirsty seek water,        
The water, as well, seeks the thirsty." (Rumi, Fragments,1999)

Trade blood with me, brother and sister, 
and conspire to unravel the wrappings of our lives
To gain the consoling terror of Truth.

It might be one of those classic dupes, like the holy Grail or the Fountain of Youth ... But some things must be done out of folly or pride or sin, 
to fly into the sun to stand against the wind.

You and I
We sniff like bloodhounds through the forest of our lives to catch a scent where meaning paused, breathless and heaving from our pursuit, then plunged again into the thicket where we lost him and our youth.  And in those thickets our middle years will snag, until, down a final and forgotten trail, where at last Meaning will be met, he will suddenly turn to greet us with the bony hand of death!

But, sister and brother, we both dimly see the struggle is the goal, the search is what we know.  All the rest is Heaven! 

Then, when despair was ripe and bursting, the hand of the laughing angel pushed us over the edge of a Sunday afternoon.  Down the screaming cliffside of our soul.  We scraped for a handhold.  The dark beach rushed upwards!

There, on that dark beach, in the everlasting night, we let loose the choking grip we had on life and the thieving sea swirled around us and escaped down the sand with all we ever held in our hands.

Now of a sudden, of a sudden
In this moment of our breaking
Came an absurd dawn of Hope....
So arbitrary, so crazy
Like shooting dice for apostleship
Or listening for the Spirit in the wind.
Like some mythic Greek, astride the stars,
From an ornate urn, slung on His shoulder
Had poured a terrible beauty
Over the Earth.

And so, sister and brother, in this runaway comedy
We bungle through.
A pilgrim is stretched across the sky
And I
I will cast my lot with Him
For fellowship and more.
He is a person like me
And more
Who will scream the absence of His God and die
And then
Leave behind some Palestinian knoll
At dawn
A broken tomb.

A Prayer of Discipleship, ' The Hour of the Unexpected' John Shea, 1977' pp, 50-51