In this beautiful meditation, Betty shares with us how she learned to open her eyes to the beauty of God.
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Transcript
Transcript
Here I am writing about the experience—actually experiencing this—I haven’t . . . It’s not coming from what I have read or what I have heard. It’s coming from . . . It’s not coming from what I sometimes call second hand theology if you will. Second hand. I am in the experience itself. Now, I am just walking again in the mountains—a beautiful meadow—and suddenly I just transcend myself and I put it on paper this way and I’ll read the first verse. I call it Open My Eyes. I walked out of myself today Into a light so pure, so bright. It gilded my meadow in a mystical way As to make it a paradise, a place to pray. I had never been bathed in such love before. Here’s the connection. Now, this is what I am seeing as my eyes, in a sense, merge with the eyes of the Beloved. The shadow lines stretched long and westward, Mountain upon mountain upon mountain. My eye, the only moat in the endless beams Of grays and of blues and of greens. Mountain upon mountain upon mountain drawing me into the transcendence, the beyond; taking me way beyond. Until we go beyond, we can’t bring the Beyond into our midst. Now my work, as the Spirit of Love is taking me beyond, is to endeavor to bring it back and share the experience on paper. This is the Beyond in our midst. This is the immanence of God. Not only is God transcendent, something we’ll never be able to understand or put our finger on-nor should we try-we just go with it, but there’s also the immanence, the Presence with us now. So, I look at a twisted old log amid fragmented webs—a spider web was attached to the log there, and it spoke to me of God’s mercy, the moss of God’s mercy, its brokenness treads. A scattering of wire grass, tall, full grown, gone to seed, Graceful, silver, bending in the breeze. A bee too busy, too distracted to detect The beauty, the fragrance of the golden buttercups. Bluebells underneath a sagging, white pine bow. Grace derived their lodging in this lowly place The weight each tiny bloom could bear. All this is talking about a spiritual journey now. How much weight? God knows how much we can carry—how much weight we can bear. Now this last verse is the cry again out to God— the longing of my heart. O love, struggling to break through. Why am I so blind to simple things? The hush of Your Presence that the meadow brings Are but fragments of infinite loving, never my own. The depth of Your secrets are still hidden from view Way beyond mountains, meadows, and skies. Please, love, embrace me; open my eyes. Burn in me brightly. Light the whole world.