WRITTEN IN THE BOOK OF LIVES

We’re all technicians in life’s laboratory today. We know how things work. We can spot the best deal, move our funds around online, manipulate the market. Hedge funds operate like a plague of locusts, stripping resources internationally and moving on. We have the systems at our fingertips, the nuts and bolts. And then, within that, I stop and ask myself, ‘Am I understood? Do I understand you?’ Well, I understand how things work, to be sure, but do you, at your computer terminal, know what makes me a complete person? Do I know you?

 

I feel understood if something shines on me, a light which illuminates. But I’m only as good as that light, as warm as the sun, if I shine back on it – if things will grow and turn because of me. A true light will never need to teach or prove its expertise. It is content to hide itself in the earth, find the seeds which have died there, and let them be true again. If I love those seeds I can lead them back to the sun, just as I have been led and freed to the light.

 

In the mere show of truth, in the pride of faith, I will only conceal my heart and lose my way. Let me turn away from the praise of good things and read, instead, my own name, where it is written in the book of lives. There it rests without any aspiration, without clamour. It will be, to the nature of things, light. It is ancient in itself, deep in syllables, remembering where truth and faith were at the beginning.

 

All our skill in life’s laboratory will not help us find the essential. However much we shift things around we will not be able to invent what really matters. I can – and I have – spent many hours and days trying to do that. Guilt is the consequence because there are not enough hours in the day to create the essential out of its pieces. But show them your being, your heart in its wholeness, and the words will work, the things will inspire. Then the days will know what they were made for and every hour will learn it is enough.

 

Freed

If something shines on me let me shine back

on it – I’m only as warm as the sun

when things will grow and turn because of me.

My light will never need to teach or prove

but only to hide itself in the earth

where seeds have died and will grow true again.

Those seeds I will love and lead to the sun

as I have been led and freed to the light.

 

Syllables

In the show of truth, in the pride of faith,

I have hidden my heart and lost my way –

let me turn from the praise of all good things,

and read, in the book of lives, my own name.

There, where it rests without aspiration,

it will be, to the nature of things, light –

an ancient name, deep in its syllables,

remembering where truth and faith began.

 

Enough

Can you, in small words, paint the essential?

Can you invent it out of many things?

I could count the hours and days spent trying,

and name the guilt that those days weren’t enough.

But show them your being, your heart in whole,

and the words will work, the things will inspire.

Then the days will know what they were made for

and every hour will learn it is enough.

 

Best wishes, today,

Landar

 

© landar 2010. All rights reserved