Remember. That you would remember me--I have made this request so often. But you and I share the powerlessness of being suspended, nailed up together between heaven and earth, darkness and light, past and future. The silence--which was both heavy and divine-- echoed "remembrance" back to me in a voice that increasingly sounded like yours. In the end, I could no longer tell--as I still can't tell--who was requesting it of whom. When the whole body becomes an eye, I know where the hearing is: and so you say "be present, remember your liabilities, take my yoke and learn." So when I rise before the sun and the silence prays "morning by morning he wakens me, wakens my ear to listen as one who is taught"--I can't but allow myself to be opened by the hearing.
Remember. The "I who remembers"--the ego that has to work to be present--feels small next to someone like you. You, who have always been the fullness of presence made flesh. But I hear you saying to me that you have ascended, are ascending and will ascend to a heaven that is only being, only here, only now. Where else, after all, can it be? And it renders all the words true. You are the gate for the sheep, you are the bread of life. You are before all things, and in you all things hold together. I am absolutely a Satan, absolutely the thief that breaks in and steals. And the whole thing is silly: because experience is the key of knowledge that I've never not held, and the confusion is holy and righteous and good. I am in you and you are in me so that I can be completely one. I don't deserve it, but it's true. But neither is thiswhy I love you. Not at all.
Being present, remembering my faults, remaining with you--when I'm caught up in ego at the expense of all else, this is impossible for me. But the "me" for whom it's impossible is nothing more than a collection of deadened emotions, frustrated expectations and rejected psychological shadows. Just as Melchizedek, (priest of an unfamiliar deity,) spoke God's words to Abraham, the words I heard, (though coming from an unfamiliar source), were no less yours: "Thoughts aren't yours" they said--and the sound moved so deep that it dug under the roots of my fruitlessness. It is not I who live. It is you, both Lord and Christ, who lives in me. And that's still the case when I'm dying in my sin, when I'm averse to what's happening in life, when I feel, through my own most grievous fault, more like a worm than a man.
"Have mercy on me, God, have mercy: for in you my soul has taken refuge." (When the words come from my mouth, I cannot tell who is saying them.) "In the shadow of your wings I take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by." Guruji, HaShem, Jesus-- I love you because, though the mystery of remembrance between us is bigger than I am, you have consented to hide in each moment as my true self. You have made my whole body an echo chamber for the Word. I hear you pray "I was not rebelious...I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked out the beard." I hear it and everything in me begs for the shelter of your humility. I hear you pray "God himself will fight for you, you have only to keep still" and every anxiously fidgeting part of me weeps that it takes the nails of a cross to comply. I grieve all the ways I find following you unpleasant--but then I remember: I'm dying daily anyway. Grieving, then, is as important a skill as prayer. If the life being lost is both yours and mine all at once, let me mourn till my eyes become a fountain of tears.
You and the Father are one--and the energy of the Spirit ascends and descends my spine just as it does everyone else's--with the increasingly pressing request that I point my intention and attention on the bodily sensations that you've said are the hinge of salvation. I love you--let me decrease, as I say it, so only you will increase. Whomever this hour belongs to, whether to light or to darkness, allow me to follow you alone, and become you in the doing of it.
May I grow only more certain of you, who hears the sound of the wind through my ears. When I sit, clothed and in my right mind, allow me the silence that will proclaim the good God's mercy has done. Emptiness speaks of fullness, I know: so help me to be more patient with how often the fullness of time feels empty. I believe, help my unbelief! Whether you die or rise, I am yours. Even if my attention runs after all the voices that say 'here he is,' or 'there he is.' I will be here. Still, and for you.
