Take Heaven!

Take Heaven! 

On yesterday's Facebook post, I posted a reading we used last night in our monthly Voice in Silence contemplative service at Suquamish United Church of Christ.  We also read Fra Giovanni's letter from 1513, a longer reading.  Sitting in silence in the presence of this level of tender wisdom is quite an experience. I keep thinking of my friend Aiya's term, "Soul Spa".  It did feel a little like a heart massage. 

Letter from Fra Giovanni, 1513

I am your friend

and my love for you goes deep.

There is nothing I can give you

which you have not got,

but there is much, very much

that while I cannot give it,

you can take.

No heaven can come to us

unless our hearts find rest in today.

Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future

which is not hidden

in this present little instant.

Take peace!

The gloom of the world

is  but a shadow.

Behind it,

yet within our reach

is joy.

There is radiance and glory

in the darkness

could we but see-

and to see we have only to look.

I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver,

but we, judging its gifts

by the covering,

cast them away as ugly,

or heavy or hard.

Remove the covering

and you will find beneath it

a living splendor,

woven of love,

by wisdom, with power.

 Welcome it, grasp it,

touch the angel’s hand

that brings it to you.

Everything we call a trial,

a sorrow, or a duty, believe me,

that angel’s hand

is there,

the gift is there, and the wonder

of an overshadowing presence.

Our joys, too, be not

content with them as joys.

They, good, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full

of meaning and purpose,

so full of beauty

-beneath its covering-

that you will find earth

but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it,

that is all.

But courage you have,

and the knowledge that

we are all pilgrims together,

wending through

unknown country, home.

And so, at this time,

I greet you.

Not quiet as the world

sends greetings,

but with profound esteem

and with the prayer

that for you

now and forever,

the day breaks,

and the shadows flee away.

Fra Giovanni Giocondo (c.1435–1515) was a Renaissance pioneer, accomplished as an architect, engineer, antiquary, archaeologist, classical scholar, and Franciscan friar.  Today we remember him most for his reassuring letter to Countess Allagia Aldobrandeschi on Christmas Eve, 1513. (Wikipedia)

Here's to our living into the wisdom that we trust that all of life offers gift, that we look under the covers of the good, the ugly and hard and find the better gift the divine is offering.  Here's to rowdy excitement over profound esteem for you!  Sue.