Sunday, January 29, 2017

On the Mountain of Blessed-Be's, Update 22/2/17


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I stood on the Mount of Beatitudes, and I "saw a thing", which is the family understatement for !WOW!, beyond the ordinary.

It might be a hawk, a hummingbird, a wild night of lightning, a dawn.

I had travelled to the Holy Land, land of Uzis, Crusader battlements, gold- and jewel-encrusted churches, footprints of saints and armies. A portal of blazing transformation and of darkness.

A curious journey, I'd accompanied a group of people who move through life aware of more than surfaces and present time.

Sturctures, land, sacred sites can pulse with energies of long ago, a saturation of intensities, whether awe-filled stillness, or cruelty.

Castle dungeons feel radically different than Chartres, Stonehenge, the high Himalayas or the Dome of the Rock.

We saturate places and doings with our thoughts, frenetic energies or our quietude. We, here and now...

Saints and avatars, Light of the World, have cleaned their own houses; looked darkness in the face, their own and the world's. They've gone still, a beneficence of wide radius and beyond time.

On the Mount of Beatitudes, I fell through time.

The Pastor who led us eyed my wafting self and handed me the Blessed Be's to read aloud. My eyes begged him, no. He looked unblinking at my free-fall.

Standing in the garden, by yet another huge church, I read aloud. Light opened on the mountain.

I seemed to glimpse otherwhere, far away in time, when the slopes were terraced with vineyards, olive groves, figs and pomegranates.

The Sea of Galilee shimmered with intense desert light. At further distance to the right, arid mountain wilderness led far into mystery.

A vast gathering of families, fishermen, craftsmen filled all the nooks to far below the summit. Children made mischief; the people waited, shuffled feet and looked up.

Just to the left of the garden where I seemed to waver in and out, a blinding light reached out and settled to all gathered there long ago. Blinding but kindly, a golden white nimbus on the mountain.

Though the teacher spoke in a normal voice, each could hear him as though chatting together alone. The air quaked and shimmered a great communal heart attack. Armored hearts burst their bounds, an inrush of love.

"Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God..."


I have often wondered how the Beatitudes morphed into power structures and domination. It seems to be the human condition.

In the centuries which followed simple, luminous teaching, second sons who could not inherit Robber Baron lands, instead became Princes of the Church.

Bean-counter mentality contrived ever more convoluted impositions on illiterate peoples.

In a history of infinite reprise, the greed of the priestly class led to Borgia Popes and finally the Reformation, wars upon wars and self-righteous violence.

And yet, time is not fixed, nor outcomes. We still meet simplicity and mercy among like-minds and quiet doings.

Though perhaps not in mind-manipulation of wide radius and not benign.

A reading aloud:
https://youtu.be/PsSytuDv2S8



Google-gorilla note to readers: 

Given the pro bono nature of these stories and the feastandfamine.blogspot articles, I went with free, with the google template.

1) For quite some time google has been messing with stats
2) It's become difficult to access the sites. 
3) It's been rendered impossible to post free pix. 
4) Here at wayfaringtraveler, the font was suddenly made so small as to be nearly Illegible. 
5) Hack-attacks prevail when I'm trying to post new wellness info or do wayfar storytelling.


With these apparent interference patterns, the standing body of work is still freely given, with thank you to readers for a grand adventure. If ever you read the Wayfaring Traveler books, big high-five to one and all.

1 Comments:

At January 29, 2017 at 7:27 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Comfort comes from knowing the air still shakes and shimmers, and armored hearts still burst their bounds in spite of the greed! From the Light that promises to be with us forever if we only would believe! Thank you for sharing straight from the heart! You are so good at it! Love you!!

 

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