2nd November Trinity 2009, Trials to Pearls

2^nd Trinity November

Rev. 3, 1-6, (Sardis) or

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

Rev. 3, 14-22 (Laodicea)

And to the leading angel of the community at Laodicea write: Thus speaks the Amen, he who strengthens all spiritual working with his own being, the witness trusted and true, the ground of all divine creation:

I see through your deeds. You are neither cold nor hot. You should be either cold, or hot. But since you are lukewarm, I am about to spew you out of my mouth.

You say: I am rich, I have my fortune, and I don’t need anything else. But you do not know that you are wretched and pitiable, a beggar blind and naked. I counsel you to acquire from me

gold that is purified in fire, that you may become truly rich;

and garments to clothe yourself, so that the shame which lies in your nakedness may not be revealed;

and a salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.

I AM he who disciplines all whom he loves, calls them to account and refines them through trials of destiny, thus drawing them into the stream of cleansing.

I stand at the door and knock. He Qi

Therefore generate warmth [be eager] [strengthen yourself] and change your heart and mind.

Behold, I stand before the door and knock. If someone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him, and share the meal with him, and he with me.

He who overcomes, to him I will give the power to sit with me on my throne, just as I have been raised to the throne of my Father through the victory of the spirit. He who has ears to hear, let him hear what the spirit would say to the churches.

2^nd November Trinity

November 8, 2009

Revelation 3: 14-22

 When a grain of sand gets inside an oyster’s shell, it irritates. The oyster responds to the pain by surrounding the sand grain with layer after layer of the smooth, strong substance of its own shell. Through this, its pain becomes transformed into a round, luminous thing of great beauty and value.

The painful episodes in our destinies have at their core a positive intent. They

are God’s way of stimulating us to arouse our creative forces. God says, “I am he who disciplines all whom he loves, who calls them to account, and refines them through trials of destiny.”  Rev. 3:19

Our trials are the sand grains in our lives. At first they are irritating, painful. But gradually our souls go to work. Through reflective thought, through awareness of our own failures in loving, through our will and intention to do better, we surround our pain with soul substance. We create a substance of strength, luster and value—a pearl of the gods.

God gathers up the pearls of our pain. With them he creates a salve with which he anoints our eyes. He says, “I counsel you to acquire from me a salve to anoint your eyes, that you may see.” Rev. 3: 18  For the purpose of pain is to create organs of perception, organs of enhanced awareness.

Our pearl-anointed eyes begin to look at the world with a heightened awareness, a broadened awareness. We begin to see—the world, others. The poet says:

        We tended toward the Place but no signs led there.
 

…May the gentle mountains and the bells of the flocks
Remind us of everything we have lost,
For we have seen on our way and fallen in love
With the world that will pass in a twinkling.[1]

www.thechristiancommunity.org

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[1] Czeslaw Milosz, “On Pilgrimage”  in New & Collected Poems, translations by Czeslaw Milosz and Robert Hass)