To
the lover of God all affections go up and become enclosed, as it were, into one
affection, which is Himself; so that we have no love for anyone or anything apart
from Him. In this is included, in a most deep and mysterious fashion,
marriage-love in all its aspects. In every way it can become a sacrament: there
is nothing in it which is not holy, in no way does the marriage bond of the
body separate the spirit from acceptableness to God.
But
I was some time before I could arrive at this, and could see marriage as the
physical prototype in this physical world of the spiritual union with Himself
in the spiritual world. And this was arrived at, not by prudish questionings
and criticisms, but by remembering that this relationship between men and women
is His thought, His plan, not ours. We are responsible for our part in it only
in so far as to keep the bond of it pure and clean and sweet, and submit
ourselves in all things as completely and orderly as possible to His plans,
whatever they may be. In this attitude of unquestioning, unresisting
submission, the Holy Spirit finds a swift and easy channel through us. It is
our opposition to the passage of the Holy Will which causes all the distress
and uneasiness of life. He has no wish to impose distress and suffering upon
us. His Will towards us is pure joy, pure love, pure peace, pure sweetness.
This bond of earthly marriage is of the flesh and can be kept by the body, and
yet the heart, mind, and soul remain in lovely perfect chastity; and I found
that this exquisite freedom—after prolonged endeavours on the part of the soul
and the creature—was at length given them as a gift by act of grace, and
remained in permanence without variation.
* * *
We
know that these things are deep mysteries and largely hidden; but this I know:
as the heart feels love in itself for God, in that same instant comes God into
the soul of the lover. Now, where God is we know that there is neither evil,
nor sadness, nor unhappiness, nor any recollection of such things; therefore,
to be a great and constant lover to Him is to be automatically lifted from all
unhappinesses.
This
is our wisest and our best desire, to be a splendid lover to our Most Glorious
God.
The
more I see of and talk with other people, the more I see how greatly changed I
am. I am freed. They are bound. I find them bound by fears, by
anxieties, by worries, by apprehensions of evil things, by sadness, by fears of
death for their loved ones or for themselves. Now, we are freed of all these
things if we keep to the Way, which is the Road of Love. This change we
do not bring about for ourselves, and do not perhaps even realise that it can
be effected. For myself, I seemed to be lifted into it, or into a capacity for
it, on that day and in that moment in which I first loved God. This is not to
say that since that moment I have not had to struggle, suffer, and endure, to
keep myself in, and progress in this condition; but my sufferings, struggles,
and endurances, being for love and in love and because of love, were and are in
themselves beautiful, and leave in the recollection nothing inharmonious. They
are the difficult prelude to a glorious melody.
Another
thing—we become by this love for Him so large that we seem to embrace within
our own self the Universe! In some mysterious manner we become in sympathy with
all things in the bond of His making.
Are
these things worth nothing whatever, that the majority of people should be
content to spend their lives looking for five-pound notes and even
shillings—and this not only the poor, but the rich more so? I am far more at a
loss to understand my fellow-men than I am to understand God. We have need of
the shillings, but of other and more lovely things besides, which cost no money
and may be had by the poorest. It is rapidly becoming the only sorrow of my
life that people do not all come to share this Life in which I live. How that
parable knocks at the heart, "Go out into the highways and the hedges and
compel them to come in!" To know all this fullness of life and not
to be able to bring even my nearest and dearest into it: what a terrible
mystery is this!—it is an agony. Now, in this agony I share the Agony of Jesus.
This is a part of the Cross, and only the Father can make it straight. I see
Heaven held out, and refused; love held out, and refused; perfection
shown, and killed upon a cross. What is the crucifix but that most awful of all
things—the Grief of God made Visible? Perfect Love submitting itself to the
vile freewill of man and dying of wounds! My God! my God! and did I ever
have a hand in such a thing? I did.
* * *
What
is it that seems more than any other thing whatever to throw us at last into
the arms of God? Suffering. And this not because it is His will (for how much
rather would He have us turn to Him in our joy and prosperity), but rather that
it is our will, that in our earthly joys and prosperities we turn away
from Him, and only seek His consolations when we see the failure of our health
or happiness. And having by His mercy and forgiveness found Him, we too often
and too easily think to glorify ourselves and name each other saints! Did Jesus
call us saints? These glorifications mankind would appear to bestow upon
itself. He spoke of His flock, and of those who through Him should have life
eternal, and of those who, because of the road they take, have their joys in
this world only.
* * *
When
I was being taught to pray for national things and for other persons, and found
these prayers answered, I was inclined to be afraid; thinking, What am I that I
should dare to petition the Most High? But He showed it me so, which, as in
everything, is for all of us: "It is but a cloud which reflects the
glories of the promise of My rainbow; so can the dust, such as thyself, reflect
yet other fashions of My will and glory. There is no presumption in the cloud that
it should glow with My power; neither is there presumption in thy dust that it
should be My vehicle. Both the cloud and thy dust are Mine."
* * *
As
we progress in this new way of living we find an increasing difficulty in
maintaining petition; for on commencing to petition we will almost invariably
be instantly lifted up to such a state of adoration that the whole soul is
nothing but a burning song, a thing of living worship. At first I was inclined
to blame myself, but now I know that it is acceptable for us to pass from
petitioning (no matter who or what for) to high adoration, even though it is a
great personal indulgence (and the petitioning is a hard task)—an
indulgence so extreme that I cannot call to my mind anything in any experience
or time of my life, excepting actual raptures, which could, or can, in any way
compare or be named in the same breath with this most marvellous joy; for out
of this joy of adoration flows the Song of the Soul.
And
all these previous years of my life I have lived with the greater part of me
dead, and most persons the same! The more I think of it, the more amazed I am
at our folly—working and fretting, and striving and looking for every kind of
thing except the one thing, beautiful, needful, and living, which is the finding
of the personal connection between ourselves and God and the Waters of Life.
Looking
to my own experiences, I see clearly how I never could have found without the
most powerful and incessant assistance. We are, then, never alone. But first we
must have the will to seek these waters. This is the secret of the whole
matter. He can turn the vilest into a pure lover—if the vilest be willing to
have the miracle performed on him! This is the grace of God, and what does it
cost Him to pour out this mighty power through us? For everything has its
price. My Lord! my Lord! we are not worthy of it all.
This
I notice, that when He removes this grace, very shortly the mind goes back to a
false, uneven, inharmonious state; so we become like an instrument all out of tune,
and are caused indescribable sufferings, like a musician whose ears and nerves
are tortured by false notes, whilst his unmusical neighbours feel no pain! The
musician pays a price for the privilege of his great gift; so the lover of
Christ.
Again,
there is a price to pay for the immeasurable joy of prayer, for prayers
are not always sweet nor life-giving. The prayers to Christ are always a
refreshment, but prayers to the Father may suddenly be turned without any
previous thought or private intention into a most awful grief for the
abominations of the whole world of us, a terrible wordless burnt-sacrifice of
the soul, of unspeakable anguish. And high petitioning is a fearful and
profound strain upon the soul and the whole creature.
* * *
We
say that we have need of the purification and conversion of the soul; but
rather it is first the conversion of the heart, mind, and will that we have
need of. For this would feel to be the drama of our life—the human heart,
intelligence, and will are the ego of the creature. Our soul is the visitor
within this creature, containing within herself a pure, holy, and incorruptible
sparkle of the Divine, and lies choked and atrophied in her human house until
revived and awakened by her holy lover; and this awakening is not given to her
till the heart and mind of her human house (or the will and spirit of the
creature) is in a state of regeneration, or condition to go forward towards
God. Which is to say, the creature has been touched by repentance and a desire
for the pure and the holy. For if the soul should be awakened to an unrepentant
creature, this Will and imperishable worm of the creature (which is of greater
coarseness and lustiness than the delicate and fragile soul) will overcome the
soul; and this is not the goal, neither is the death of the creature the goal,
but the lifting up of the creature into the Divine—this is the goal.
After
being awakened, then, in her human house, the soul finds herself locked in with
two most treacherous and soiled companions—the human heart and mind; and so
great is her loathing and her distress, that for shame's sake these two are
constrained to improve themselves. But their progress is slow, and now comes a
long and painful time of alternation between two states. At one time the soul will
conquer the creature, imposing upon it a sovereign beauty of holiness; and at
another the creature will conquer the soul, imposing upon her its hideous
designs and desires, and causing her many sicknesses. Hence we have the warring
which we feel within ourselves, for the soul now desires her home and the
creature its appetites.
Until
this awakening of the soul takes place, we mistake in thinking that we either
live with our soul, or know our soul, or feel with our soul. She does but stir
within us from time to time, awaking strange echoes that we do not comprehend;
and we live with the mind and the heart and the body only—which is to say, we
live as the creature; and this is why on the complete awakening of the soul we
feel in the creature an immense and altogether indescribable enhancement of
life and of all our faculties, so that in great amazement we say, "I have
never lived until this day." When first the will of the creature is
wholly submitted to the lovely guidance of the divine part of the soul, then
first we know the ineffable joys of the world of free spirit. For to live with
the mind and the body is to be in a state of existence in nature. But to live
with the soul is to live above nature, in the immeasurable freedom and
intensity of the spirit. And this is the tremendous task of the soul—that she
help to redeem the heart and mind from their vileness of the creature and so
lift the human upwards with herself to the Divine from whence she came. This,
then, is the transmutation or evolution by divine means of the human into the
divine; and for this we need to seek repentance or change of heart and mind,
which is the will of the creature turning itself towards the beauties of the
spirit, that Christ may awaken in us the glories of that sleeping soul which is
His bride.
When
the soul is fully revived we can know it by this, that we are not able any
longer to content ourselves with anything nor anyone save God. Neither are we
able to love any save God, for all human desires and loves mysteriously ascend
and are merged into the Divine. So, though we love our friend, we love him in
God, and in every man perceive but another lover for the Beloved.
Source: Project Gutenberg
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