It is the mind that is always creating objects, always creating an external reality. We do this continually; and because we do so we need, in our prayer, to go deeper than the mind. We need to go to that level of our being, the heart, the spirit, where there is nothing outside us, where we understand that we are in relationship, in communion, in the dance of being, with everything that is, in God. [ . . . .]
Our eyes are opened through meditation to see how much the power of love is present in the midst of all our imbalance, all our own waywardness, all our own distractedness. Even in the distraction of our meditation we are able to feel more and more deeply the presence of peace. And as it teaches us to love ourselves, to love others, and to love God, it also teaches us that all relationships are really aspects of one relationship.
After meditation: “The Verge” by Annie Lighthart in PAX (Newberg, OR: Fernwood Press, 2021).
The Verge
Reason is a fine thing, but remember there are other ways
to live: by instinct or passion, or even,
maybe, by revelation. Try it. Come around again to the verge –
that place of about-to-open, near where we comprehend
and laugh and see. Why shouldn’t something marvelous
happen to you? Take even an occasion like this:
A man reading at night looked up at the window to find
a moose looking in, interested and unafraid
with quiet dark eyes. He reports he has never been the same;
he finds the ungainly and miraculous everywhere.
He said it started the next night in the empty window
as he watched his reflection looking right back through.
He said he saw his own beauty, how even in his same old face
the quiet eyes were curious and ready to be true.
