A Song of Love and Peace
Hi everyone.
In the morning Chrisoula and I visit the garden to harvest what's ready to be harvested and take note of any work that needs doing. The garden is always a marvel to us. It's incredible how full and vibrant a patch of earth becomes, given seeds, water, sunlight and attention.
To be in the garden is to be in relationship with life in a way that reminds us that we are not the author of life. We did not invent sunlight or rain. We do not tell seeds what to do when planted in the earth.
We simply relate to these aspects of the world in an attentive, care-filled way. The result is a beautiful and nourishing abundance, a cycle of giving that has neither an end nor a beginning.
In this way, we are - with the sun and rain, with the plants and bees and butterflies, with the neighbors with whom we barter - among the many notes that together comprise a song of living, a song of Life. It is in giving our selves to this everpresent harmony giving itself to us that we learn of a happiness that is not conditional, and a peace that surpasses understanding.
What is Heaven but a song of gratitude and love and praise by everything created to the Source of its creation? (T-26.IV.3:5)
In this line, A Course in Miracles suggests that Heaven is neither a place nor a future event but rather a present experience given wholly to "gratitude and love and praise."
Moreover, it suggests that when we are truly aware of creation and creation's source, the only possible response is "gratitude and love and praise."
Indeed, the course suggests that "true prayer" is to perceive this song of celebration (S-1.I.3:4) - to listen carefully for it, to give all our attention to it. This "gift of attention" is integral to the song, for without us, "[t]he song of prayer is silent" (S-3.IV.10:2).
The song is a metaphor. It points to an experience that cannot be reduced merely to physical experiences. It's not just the reds and oranges of Swiss chard nor the yellow of towering sunflowers.
It's not just the bees and butterflies always at work, nor the sweet smell of basil, nor the horses watching from a distance.
It's not just the friends and family members who talk gardening with us, suggest new books or articles or recipes, trade garlic for apples, come by to help when we are unable, and who ask for help in turn.
Rather, the song is the way in which all of this coheres. It is the way in which it all flows together, informing and supporting itself, rendering it a unified experience no single aspect of which can be removed lest it all collapse.
When we notice the integral whole, we cannot help but notice that while we are included in it, we did not make it. We aren't the smartest part or the biggest part or the best part. We're just here - like the bees and the kale and the weeds.
We can call this wholeness - this dynamic flux - life. We can call it creation, as A Course in Miracles does. We can call its source God or a mystery or the laws of physics. But truly, the naming is a minor detail before the glory and abundance forever expressing to, through and for us.
I do not suggest that we are morally obligated to view life this way. I do not suggest that doing so is the only or even the best way of experiencing peace and joy. I don't even suggest that there aren't other ways to think about A Course in Miracles.
I merely suggest that it is a clear way that - in the context of A Course of Miracles - can undo our reliance on self-centeredness, reawaken an abiding sense of wonder, and reveal again the Heaven that is right before us because it is us.
As the course points out, notwithstanding its conceptual rigor and metaphysics, it is not about "the play of ideas" but rather "their practical application" (T-11.VIII.7:3).
It directs our attention to the living that we are doing right here and now - the specific and particular lives we lead in the world. The deeper we go into this life - the more willing we are to see it as it is, rather than how we would prefer it - the clearer the underlying Love becomes.
And the clearer that Love becomes, the more it is brought forth through our living.
In this way, our lives become "forgiving dreams" devoted not to judgement of our brothers and sisters but rather love for them.
. . . in these dreams a melody is heard that everyone remembers, though they have not heard it since before all time began. Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness that never left the altar that abides forever deep within the Child of God (T-29.IX.8:4-5).
Naturally, the love we offer is the love we are given. How could it be otherwise?
I cannot share my garden with you - send you home with zucchini and potatoes, weed with you for an hour in the hot sun while we talk about God or kale smoothies or what horses think about when they watch humans go through the garden on hands and knees.
Yet in another sense, the garden is our shared experience for it is merely a symbolic memory of the Love forever harmonizing us. My happiness is yours; your peace and insights are mine. That this mutuality remains unclear or merely intellectual is not a problem! The symbols are given so that we may - in time - see past them to what they symbolize. Love and inner peace don't go away. They merely wait on our acceptance.
Thank you, as always, for reading and sharing with me.
Love,
Sean