Subtlety

Robert Melius, Jr

Subtlety, like laughter, is treasured most when it is shared. A happy thought may fly like a freshening breeze when the curtain parts. And if rich wholesome sunshine bursts through your window as the new day bids you to step from your door, will you go forth to greet it as an old friend? Or will you linger, amid dust and debris of the day past, wishing it would depart as so many others? Would you make of it a past-tense, quiet ache? And if rich, red life comes and beckons you, will you hearken to its call, or resist a temptation, which demands you to live? You know there is but today, and that tomorrow will never reveal its shining promise, as it hints and whispers of things to come. Will you join in the song that arises at your doorstep, as in days old, when voices rose to greet each day in a wish for Kingdom- come?

I speak to you of things for which I have no answers, for which I seek. It is a daunting task to seize the day, as we've been told to do since the Roman fathers were young. Old voices whisper, "Linger in the past, it is safe". Others say it is only wise counsel to anticipate what yet may be. The moment can never be seized, it is too fleeting. Tempus fugit, et carpe diem. This is wisdom? And so the joy is in the seeking? How then do we look upon the man who has sought and proclaims to have found? Surely he must be insane, for he no longer seeks. I say to you this very day, that I seek, and that I've found, and that they are both the same.

Never will the quiet forest, nor the roaring sea, nor the shining sun bear any greater gift than what you find today, now. Lost and found, who will tell us one from the other?

No comfort, save that which we find in each other, as children in the face of God. Think you to storm the citadel of Heaven and by force or supplication assume grace? Look better to the crunch of the apple in a Garden, to know what looking into the eye of God may be, and let that be a comfort to you when the storms of your life threaten to tremble your abode. For it is enough to look upon what is and be glad there is beauty amongst that which you see as ugly. And know this, truly. A fool's folly cannot be less in the eye of the One who sees than the work of the wise.

Fear is a guide, but let it not be a master, in the search. Joy also is a way. Think no ill of either, but be glad to know them, each with a gift to bring you. The journey is long, and we do not know if there is a destination. I think there is not. What is time in the face of eternity, except the touch of a friend's hand on yours? Do you not tremble in fear and joy to reach out your own hand to another? Let it not be a mockery that the breath that escapes your lips is the same breath that the Kings of Men have breathed. Will it, for it is so.

And if I'd speak of God, I must know my life will fly away. To know of that which is eternal destroys Time, yet how can there be knowledge, how can there be understanding in Eternity? Is this what we seek? Surely, it will not make the day longer or shorter. It will be the end of all things, as you live in the eye of God. Will it be holy communion, as one with the eternal, or rather, will it be the Void? There is your proof, Children of God. It lies in the Void. Who among us has ever looked upon the Nothing and not recoiled, knowing without even looking to God that this cannot be? Awareness forbids it.

Would you see this with gladness? That you cannot fall from the grace of God, for you are the grace? Of course it frightens, for how can you be the grace that is to be given to all that is? Such is the gift given you, terrible though it may be. Let the sand be the sand, and fear not to be part of it. There is nowhere to go. Today you live in All That Is, and there is nothing to fear. Would you sleep?