Castalia 372
Life in Him
Dear Friends,
Openness to God’s presence, reluctance to feel what one is feeling — these do not go together. To welcome Him, I must welcome all. This does not mean it all is good, does not mean that black is white, but it means it all belongs, all belongs to the story, and that in all, His face is shining. All things, all people, have a higher life, their life in Him. When something or someone disappoints me, I may pray, “May it be as it is in my Lord!”
Mother Teresa knew of this; it is why she would not oppose war: she would be for peace.
So what about walls? is one allowed to have them? or must one allow strangers to wander in and out at will?
When a few years ago, “No Walls” became a slogan, I knew this could not be right, for I had tried it. But walls too, I have tried, and walls too, are not it. Demons are kept at bay, not by walls, but by salt, garlic, the cross; here is the answer, I think.
A friend says that on emerging from Reiki treatments, at first people accosted her on the street. They could sense her openness. But after further treatment, she began to give off light; then they left her alone.
Bringing forth what is sacred is far more effective than combating the fallen. In ourselves, too, His face is present.
Florence Scovel Shinn writes,
There is for each man, perfect self-expression. There is a place which he is to fill and no one else can fill, something which he is to do, which no one else can do; it is his destiny!
This achievement is held, a perfect idea in Divine Mind, awaiting man’s recognition.
And again:
Christ was both person and principle; and the Christ within each man is his Redeemer and Salvation.
The Christ within, is his own fourth dimensional self, the man made in God’s image and likeness. This is the self which has never failed, never known sickness or sorrow, was never born and has never died. It is the “resurrection and the life” of each man!1
In A Little Princess, Sara Crewe has fallen on hard times. She remembers the Christ in her by thinking of Marie Antoinette. What Marie Antoinette would do, she does.
“Haven’t you had any dinner?” said Sara.
“No dinner,” more hoarsely still and with more shuffling. “Nor yet no bre’fast — nor yet no supper. No nothin’.”
“Since when?” asked Sara.
“Dunno. Never got nothin’ today — nowhere. I’ve axed an’ axed.”
Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and faint. But those queer little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was talking to herself, though she was sick at heart.
“If I’m a princess,” she was saying, “if I’m a princess — when they were poor and driven from their thrones — they always shared — with the populace — if they met one poorer and hungrier than themselves…”
Many years ago, I was introduced to a Sufi practice — in essence, the same practice; one walks as that person who embodies the quality one seeks2.
The “little princess” has become a drudge; yet all she does, she does as a princess. We too may live as who we are in truth.
This “living as”, C. S. Lewis also advises, though his vision of our relationship with Christ is different3; he points out that, in saying the Our Father, we are standing in the place of Christ, speaking as Christ.
Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.
Thank you so much.
With every good wish,
Ishmael
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Both quotes from The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925).
This requires no effort; one is being that person.
For him, we are not of God’s blood, though we may become so; we are like toy soldiers who have the chance to come alive (see Mere Christianity, Book 4).