At the time of this writing, I’d only just returned from a Course of Love visit (speaking engagement) with folks at Open Doors in Boston. Two amazing things had happened.
One was an experience of stillness so great that I feared I wouldn’t be able to talk in front of the group – yet it became one of the best presentations I ever gave.
The other was reading an article in the paper, while still in Boston, about the artist Jon Sarkin. In response to an interviewer’s question about the meaning of his art, he said, “It really doesn’t mean anything. My art is simply a diary of my experience.” I knew that was what my own writing was like, and that it didn’t make it less valuable than it would be if I had set out to write “about” my experience.
I had been living a quiet writing life, and I began to question it because of the success of that presentation. Yet, as I began to contemplate a more public life, I just “couldn’t see it.” I wavered between what felt as if it could be the “start of something,” and continuing on as I was.
This was my condition when this entry was made. It was one of my last somewhat “regular” communications with Jesus.
July 18, 2006
My friend, I feel as if you are that part of me that is beyond my own control and that I need that part of me in order to have clarity about this vision. I’ve brought my laptop out to the cabin and am sitting on the stoop where I can keep looking up at leaves and sky. It is such a wonder to be able to do this.
I see a big nest, slender trees, sky shining through leaves, blue here, white there. I ask only to be aware of that which I have entered in a way that goes beyond my skin and my eyes. In this way of not following, I feel so in need of whatever it is by which I can set my own direction.
As a leaf falls to the ground – this is what you must do. Just fall. Fall from grace and come fully to earth. This too is what your woods symbolize: being fully earth bound, fully of the earth. Out of the high places. Not content or discontent. Fully here. That is all.
The song at church Sunday was Here I am Lord. “Here I am Lord. Is it I Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I am here, Lord. If you need me. I will hold your people in my heart.”
One of my favorites. Is that it? I just need to be fully here for you?
You are here to serve the truth. That is all. Not people, not causes, not suffering, not the alleviation of suffering. The truth.
What of community and connection and all of that?
What of it? What need you of it? What don’t you have? When you have truth, what don’t you have?
I know. I have everything here.
This is all anyone wants. Why would you leave it to show the way?
I don’t know. Except I’ve felt that I should. That more is asked of me. I’ve not known truly if it was coming from me or you. Has it only been me? Why does it seem selfish and non-giving, and as if I would be content with my peace alone?
The truth is a difficult and not always peaceful companion.
So, the orientation has not changed? It is one of solitude?
You are beyond orientation now. Beyond solitude. Beyond but not immune. Orientation and solitude are too lofty. Be the leaf. Fall to the earth. Be fully here. That is the truth.
Forget everything else? All the aspirations or whatever they are? The idea of mission? The idea of more to do?
Absolutely. Make this shrine. That is all. If you see a little bit of sanity in an insane world you have not fully awakened. But if you are a bit of sanity in an insane world, then you have.
This feels loftier than anything you’ve ever asked of me.
Don’t let it. Fall to the earth. Fall like a meteor sent from the heavens. Land. Be here. With no irons in the fire. Let it all go. It’s over. Be done with it. Live with the birds and the mosquitos and the heat and the cold.
You have left the world. Turned your back on it. From this place you can be new, fall to earth, be fully here. If you can keep your irons out of the fire and not use this as a place to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire. As long as you project onto the future you aren’t fully here. That’s why you must forget everything. Yes, all your aspirations.
That sounds hard and disloyal. But also relieving and freeing. Truthfully, I don’t know if I can do it. . . .
This very thing I have given the world through you is your last stumbling block to being fully here. You have felt it often enough.
Yes, I have. I remember crying out here before Boston. Saying “I’m done.” And hearing, “It’s up to others now.” But Boston was wonderful. Not more wonderful than here, but wonderful. Are you saying No more Bostons?
If you don’t begin to live “out of the world” and to make sacred place “out of the world” in the world, hell will remain. It is as simple as that. But I am not asking you to lead with a new kind of example. I am asking you to be here without irons in the fire – to be here – not as a launching off place to get somewhere else, but to fall to the ground and be fully of the earth. Stake out your sacred place upon this earth. It is all that will save her.
This sounds a little scary now.
If you want to “make something” – make sacred ground outside of the world in the world. Make places of peace to anchor peace. Make a place of union to anchor union. Nothing is more important. Nothing else will make the world sacred again.
Has something changed? I just had a flash vision – like of in the days you walked the earth – of opening a door – Peace to all who enter here. Is that what it is like? No more “doing things in the world” in the world’s way?
Why does it seem too physical? As if peace should not be of a physical place.
It seems too physical because you have not fallen fully to the earth. If you were fully of the earth you would realize it is physical.
Okay. So I stay here and share sacred space with my woods and birds and mosquitos. I follow my vision of letting that “other world” go more and more. I let go of my aspirations. I make this shrine. I anchor peace. With no irons in the fire. That will be the hard one. And my friends. What of my friends?
Forget your friends – this kind of worry about them. This is like making them irons in the fire too. They are not that. Let them be. . . . You asked for what is beyond Mari, beyond the thinking mind. Now you are free to experience it and make the shrine from which blessing beyond the world will flow into the world.
(I hadn’t remembered this message until I reviewed my old journals. Now it feels to me like a prelude to the writing of “Creation of the New.” Jesus had begun to speak to me less regularly and prod me toward finding my own voice. The mystical vision of Creation of the New was not what I expected. (It is available as an e-book. I am currently reformatting the paperback and it will be available again soon.)