Come

So let me come back to you, the stones
in my pockets, the vast width of flowering life
shining in my eyes, the coughing, shambling
animals arriving in my gait.
Let me come with the human being
rising out of my limbs, ascending
to the prayerful spaces. Let me come
and welcoming be welcomed in my turn.



A very happy Christmas,
Jay

 

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

 

Picture: Adoration of the Shepherds by Gerard van Honthorst

The Holy Family

The uncompromising need for humanity - that is the theme that the final week before Christmas sets before us. We want to be loved and understood; we want someone to take our hand and lead us through the dark, unpredictable world history has bequeathed us. Why me? Why now? Why should I go through this? I'm just a traveller in time who has landed here - I have no special gift to bring; I can't heal the world.

What a strange thing to be a time traveller. That's what we are. We set the dial, spun the wheels and arrived here. In the whole history of time we are just people who chanced - or chose - to be here. And the world is cruel, untidy, pitiless. Alas! Who is going to sort it out for us? Jesus Christ?

I'm parodying the mindset of the world today. Yes, truly people are suffering and caught in the cogs of time. But the cogs are human created and can be human solved. Why should we call out for a supernatural being to come to our aid and take all our sufferings on his shoulders? Be careful what you wish for - the supernatural being may not be the one you think he is.

Whose humanity is called for? Someone else's? A divine being's? Every tear that falls becomes a torrent in front of you; every unkindness a cutting forest; cold thoughts are a moonless night; a lack of charity is a winter without cheer. Not one more step can I take on my own path unless I dry the tear, awaken kindness, warm the thoughts. The torrent will turn back in itself, the forest open, the bright moon shine its light ahead. What chance do I have then of continuing? The chance that saves the world, that lets me out here at this point in history. The path is not for me alone -it is for any holy family which chances to be coming this way.

Jay

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

You are welcome to quote from PageLight on the condition that you cite the author and the source:

Author: Jay Landar

Source: www.pagelight.blogspot.com

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The First Call of Love

The improbable thing about instincts, in a self-conscious world, is that they have a life of their own. This is one of the basic conundrums of existence. Why was the world made this way, that while consciousness and self-knowledge want to grow, evolve and ascend, our instincts remain zoological? It's as if we have the whole herd of animal life tucked inside our individual human forms. How can we hope to change when we always want to eat the leaves of the highest trees or wallow in the deepest muddy swamp? What use are high-flown sentiments when the tongue will flash out and wrap itself round the nearest passing fly? Animals are surely one of the greatest pleasures in life, but the bestiary within is a different proposition.

I propose that at one time of year the instincts behave differently: they become anointed with light. This is portrayed in all those wonderful paintings which show the ox and ass - and maybe other animals - in attendance at the Nativity. The human heart melts and feelings pour into that place. Everything that was purely bodily is tinged for a while with the light of heaven. The heart melts - this is the clue to the animal kingdom overcoming itself in a self-conscious world, and the key to this basic conundrum of existence. The instincts are placed, by right, beside the crib. And, without a doubt, heaven shines down and loves the animals too.

This rarefied light is something we can only experience for a short time and then must come away again. We must go back to our fields and our houses and wrestle once more with the recalcitrance of the instincts. We can marvel again at the giraffes, the hippopotami and the long-tongued toads who live among us - perhaps within us. But something has changed: the human heart has become attuned to the sound of angel voices and nothing can completely change it back again. This divine-angelic being is within us as surely as the beasts of the field or the birds of the air. No amount of asceticism and mortification can turn us into saints without the presence, for a few short minutes in the longest night of the year, of that angelic child.

Now instinct loses its well-trodden path,

while sun and moon are flung in disarray.

I must rise up and journey to the compass

cross - the place where no directions start or end.

I'll look there for a nothing which is all,

a heart which starts to beat and holds all time.

I'll find there what my instincts understand:

the home, its firelight, the first call of love.

Jay

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

Picture: Rembrandt, The Adoration of The Shepherds

You are welcome to quote from PageLight on the condition that you cite the author and the source:

Author: Jay Landar

Source: www.pagelight.blogspot.com

For other permissions please contact the author.

The Birth of Light

As the year grows darker - and, by analogy, life grows darker - it's natural to look in unexpected places for meaning and hope. As I mentioned before, the low angle of the sun's rays highlights corners and edges of things which normally remain hidden - for example, crystals in tiny caves and openings. By analogy, in life itself there are lines of force visible at this time to those who look. Passing on from the mineral to the plant world, you can't help but feel that nature withdraws into itself to its deepest point in order to let the inner meaning of its existence shine out: the flower which is the essence of its being. What is most concealed is most radiant. And again, by analogy, you look for the truest, deepest image of life in yourself. Then - perhaps with a little trepidation - you move on from the mineral and plant worlds to that of the animals. What does the darkest time of year mean for them?  At this point we're talking about sentient creation - awareness, consciousness which tingles with life but which is not notably self-conscious or self-aware. The senses therefore lead the way. Animals in the dark and cold will look for shelter, for warmth, for nourishment and - more importantly - they will instinctively look for the guiding wisdom of the world to provide them with what they need. Our human senses and instincts then, by analogy, form a line like the animals and move towards the source of replenishment. Our consciousness does not even play a part in this - the instincts have a wisdom of their own.

The human being will finally arrive - the fourth of the kingdoms. There is no human analogy for this kingdom - it is its own analogy. The structure of life, the flower of life, the instinct of life and - finally - the Self of life. These are the four stages which are traditionally represented in the four weeks of Advent or - in pagan terms - the month leading up to the rebirth of Light at the midwinter festival, and which play themselves out as if in a great dream.

Jay

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

The Progression of Light

Light is our first-born child and longs to make its home with us while still remaining free. Thus it makes its hearth in each and every living thing but stills its restless urgings through the night. It leaves us our freedom too and walks silently in the darkness so as not to disturb us. So when the embers die down to a glow, it flowers on every bough and honest mind.

This is an image of the path of light which is the being-hood of every living thing. This is light before it has become sentient or self-conscious. It relates to plants and to human beings and animals while they sleep. Light is like the hearth burning low which nevertheless spreads its pattern across everything that lives. We can experience it in dreams and in the deeply withdrawn boughs of the trees in winter. It is like the image of a child coming closer. Only the evergreens stay awake, pure nocturnal creatures. They bend their minds towards the first flowering of life.

Everything in the world is an image of the progression of light. It longs to lay its head on those evergreen boughs and experience with us the stages of growing, flowering and dying. It wants to heal what has fallen from its first pure conception. Do we welcome it - let it in - or present only the bare, frozen surface of our branches? Is nature going to close its doors or remain open to its earthly origins? Nature is ourselves.

Jay

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

Faith, Hope and Love

It is not true for one minute that plants live for earth, for sun, for wind, for rain, or tremble before the far-off ravaging fire, lightning, storm or flood. They live only for the flower which has existed in them since birth. In vain we wait for sap to tell its truth, for life itself to divulge its secrets. Its sole aim, its only goal, is to make itself an image of the truth it was born with. To this extent earth, water, air and fire are only contributors to the purpose life has in mind; any attempt to make the four elements the cornerstone of either natural or moral philosophy will always come to nothing. They are only servants. The attempts to peer into the mysteries of nature by breaking it down into its component parts will simply yield more component parts, and still more, until we are left with a fractured mosaic of something which was once a grand image.

But even the grand image itself is nothing compared to what the plant knows when it feels the gentle wind stirring about it, the sun's low rays enkindling it with warmth, the tiny streams of water circulating around its roots, and the cold earth preserving it for spring. It gives itself completely to the flower which is to come. It cannot tell what it knows and we cannot ask it to do so. And that is why philosophy must bow to faith. It is why all rigid truths must give way to hope. And it is the reason why all creation springs up for love alone. Faith, hope and love - but the greatest of these is love:

Through the shining patina on the stones I come,

thirsty as a pilgrim for what seeps and stills,

to where the silent sap conceals its will.

There beside a fountain of rest I wait

for sap to share its mind and heart with me.

Instead I hear tales of ancient pine,

of springing boughs of fir, and long, in God's name,

for the flower which will winter on that tree.

Jay

© landar 2011. All rights reserved

You are welcome to quote from PageLight on the condition that you cite the author and the source:

Author: Jay Landar
Source: www.pagelight.blogspot.com