49. Earthwords

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You have been hired by a Master Gardener to weed out the vices in your soul. Do that, and only then do you deserve to see and admire the virtues He was planting in the meantime.
Your soul now is in its prenatal stage. A swollen head will make passage through the birth canal of death a torment. A stunted heart might require a long spell in that incubator called Hell.
The exercise that best prepares you for a happy birth in the Everafter is prostration. It strengthens humility as the ground of your being, and in it your heart is closer to heaven than your head.
This world is full of first impressions, the hors d’oeuvres of reality, so restrain yourself. Leave room for the main course of the Everafter, where sober second thought is savoured and celebrated.
The earth tells you where you are, but the sky tells you who you are. Combine, then, the ideals of an angel with the skills of a geographer to lay well-laid plans with the most beautiful results.
Those who think they can affect this gigantic financial-military-media machine by voting and protests are like visitors at an aquarium who pound on the glass when the killer whale swims past.
Various absolutes enter into each situation, so make sure in handling it you have access to all those absolutes in your portfolio of thoughts and feelings. No one provides all of them but their Owner.
Any relationship with GOD should have these five attributes of Paradise: felicity, diversity, continuity, intimacy, and eternity. Each can be entered into, tasted, and observed at leisure.
One can make a living out of telling lies, or telling tales to entertain, or even telling and selling the truth. Only GOD lives by being True; He loves those who know truth must be told but never sold.
Your creation was a miracle, so be grateful. Your spirit, mind, and body comprise hierarchies of value, so respect their order. You were made symmetrical, so be impartial in your judgements.
Suffering feels like a fact as vast as an ocean. To cross it, put out a barrel to store your sweetest values, cast your net to catch fresh ideas, and raise your heart high and wide for every gust of hope.
In this world, ethics and ontology go their separate ways . . . until the Everafter. It is there that our lowly wants govern what we get (Hell), or what we get is as high as the One we wanted (Heaven).
If you find it hard to love GOD more, start by loving things less. As your love of GOD grows brighter, the things you cherished come back to you, as conversation pieces between you and Him.
The job of a scholar is to add to the joy of not being a scholar. Like a candle, he lowers himself so that ordinary folk can dance in his light and bathe more freely in the glow of knowledge he affords.
A scholar who squirms for other scholars’ approval is like a worm that feeds upon the droppings of other worms. Where is the knowledge or giving to a higher good in such a low and selfish life?
In worship, forget yourself – a dark, bottomless mess. Nor can GOD be your object; He is the Real Subject. Rather dwell in the endless joy of coming home – the feeling that binds you to Him.
Every setback reminds the believer that this world was not for him . . . and that the Everafter is. No wonder, then, that he meets defeat with fortitude, and responds to failure with a secret smile.
True faith always opposes the falsehoods of society. When those lies prevail, believers must prove their love by struggle, alienation, and disgrace – the price of being loved, in turn, by the Truth.
Reacting emotionally to events is natural, for GOD designed the world to produce such events and creatures to have such reactions. Decide, then, what creature you want to be before you react.
Everyone has his god and his desires. A strong god opposes base desires and gently replaces them with enjoyment of the truth. A false god is weak, and shelters in those base desires for its survival.
Know you have been cursed by GOD when you think that your survival depends on lying, then condoning evil, then committing evil, and finally being evil. At that last step, you become a devil.
Seeds, eggs, and wombs face pain, rupture, and damage in giving birth. If your habits, ideas, and self-respect cannot be hurt, your spirit will remain an embryo, unfit for life and unready for death.
Many sinners remain so, and miserably so, by refusing a forgiveness written and ready for them. They would rather struggle vainly to justify a little error than to resign it forever to GOD’s Mercy.
If you would only give up obsessions over your past and pride in your present identity, GOD will make His reality, which is Forgiveness, a constant present to you in place of your worrisome future.
GOD is so caring, close, and communicative that any intercessor or saviour you could think of would not help gain His Forgiveness but only hinder your acceptance of it . . . at your insistence.
In the ruins of these times, do not forget the Timeless and His hidden springs of solace. Will you not take a sip from One Who rises over ruins so that you might spring for joy from them to Him?
Pleasure and information can be produced, but real happiness and true knowledge are gifts with preconditions. Though we toil for those conditions, we often fail to seek a connection to the Giver.
Did you think that your True Love would let you live forever separated from Him? If your devotion is real, you will weep – or leap – for joy when He calls. It could be any moment now; get ready.
When an evil plan is proposed in your presence, voice your opposition to it immediately, lest your silence be taken as consent and actions then are taken that implicate you when they are discovered.
Body and spirit were blessed and married by the two Hands of GOD that each might learn from the other – from the body, patience and good order, and from the spirit, courage and freedom.
Reduce your share in the half-life of fleeing and chasing things. From this tiny antscape of endless fears and desires, escape aloft, where love of truth reveals the original vast Godscape of your birth.
How much in us is waste, and how little is there worth saving! GOD shakes the two apart by death, then sets them side by side on Resurrection Day. So do not fail to take the side of what He saves!
Most spiritual exhaustion and religious excesses stem from trying to stuff feats that saints are said to have achieved into vessels many sizes too small for them. Know your capacity and respect it.
There are things in this world that are not of this world. If you live, fight, and die for such things, you are one of them. Look for them in this world, and in yourself, and you will find blessedness.
Femininity and masculinity are distinctive treble and bass notes that can only delight the ear by contrast. The war against them is an invitation to a symphony where the only sound is white noise.
Do not choose a religion by how much you, in your corrupt state, like it. Select your faith as you would your parents; you need a mother to nourish your virtues, and a father to chastise your vices.
Your duty is not what GOD compels you to, but His Desire that you compel your hands, tongue, and heart to serve your love of truth and mercy as He has compelled the sun and rain to serve you.
The path to GOD is infinite in length, so simply being on it means more than how far you go. A few easy steps in the right direction are infinitely better than brilliant victories that end in the abyss.
A decision that ignores Divine Authority and Judgement is null and void. Believers, therefore, may not legitimize decisions ostensibly based on majority rule or custom (i.e., decided by money).
GOD is the Truth. His revelation is likewise known as the truth. It is His greatest gift to mankind, and so must be free equally to all. One who sets a price for teaching it earns the wrath of the Giver.
When GOD wants to open your heart to Him, He may turn a key of guilt in you. Repent and be forgiven, but do not seek some consolation project to effect ‘closure’. It is the openness He wants.
With each bitterness of failure and success denied, the worldly may learn again to miss their home in GOD. The wise few, however, hasten to the Giver even more when tasting joy than feeling pain.
Envy not the rich, the mighty, and the famous. Success has swollen their souls like balloons; to keep their height above you, they must turn with the weakest breeze and fear the slightest pinprick.
One who prayed for aid believes that GOD came when the aid arrived. But GOD was nearer to her when her voice was breaking; her cries of need were better for her than her sighs of relief after.
To worship GOD is the acme of rationality. Why? We know not what is just in each situation, but we know that GOD is Just. We do not know what will work out best for us, but we know that what GOD does is for the best. We do not know everything, but we know that GOD is All-Knowing.
This world’s pleasures are cheap and fleeting; GOD scatters them like overripe fruit. His promises, however, are seeds for an orchard; faith plants them here, and harvests their fruit forever, hereafter.
Self-awareness is a fine art. Be too exacting, and never leave port. Be too self-confident, and storms of hubris will sink you. Fill your sails with hope, but know your ship, your cargo, and the weather.
If you have honesty, you have enough. Do not pursue happiness, for it already has too many suitors. Rather seek what happiness itself is seeking, namely the truth, and you will find it waiting there.
You cannot love honesty without an equal hatred of lies. If there is any lie you treasure in your heart, then know that GOD will not appear to you until you cast it out and see that it was Hell.
When you come up against a sea of woes, turn to GOD for help; He may part the sea for you. But if He postpones its parting, know that your turning to Him far outweighs the woes of that sea.

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