The Bird Cage & the Fish Bowl... & Paradise Restored... the glorious liberty of the children of light ...

   If we should be compared with birds, then were we winged creatures of the sky and of the realm of Heaven; and if with fish, then were we restful creatures of the sea, and of the realm of Earth. As both, we were free spirits in our native habitat. Arrayed with the morning we were clothed in delight: our raiment was light. And that not of ourselves; no toil or spinning was in its making, we were perfectly provided for. …Then if our native habitat should be compared with a Garden, why, for food, there was all around us its delicious fruit! All growing of itself; it neither fell to the ground nor decayed, nor was any gardener seen. As for drink, that was the air we breathed of love’s perfect care; immersed in it were we perfectly provided for!
   Yes! There was a time before when all the ‘birds’ flew at liberty, and all the ‘fish’ swam free: taking no thought for their lives, for what they should eat, or drink, or with what they should be clothed. And neither was any fowler or fisher there, at all: no lack, no want, no things, ‘in part:’ so not a single superficial form of anything, there! Having nothing outside of our selves, there was nothing to steal, there: all the figures of things fulfilled, all was real! Most truly did we once walk in the air, and breathe in the sea, and there was no realm in which we did not belong. …We were free! Born free!
   Then a wonderful thing happened! Suddenly it fell upon us, and we were changed, within! It was glorious! We saw things differently; and the whole world was turned to us, upside down! Everything was, new! We thought to ourselves, ‘What should we do now? How ought we to live in this world? Surely we were meant to DO something now, for we are different? And what of all these others changed likewise; what shall we do for their wellbeing that what they have might not be lost?’
   Trusting to our own goodness we answered our questions, and out of our own firstling understanding: we did that which was right in our own eyes: we judged after the appearance of the thing, and made our decisions of what we ought to do, according to our own way of thinking, was there any other? After the imagination of our heart we devised wonderful ways to protect and contain the ‘new thing’ we had. Of course we did not want to lose anything; losing was for losers. We thought we were changed, but we were not: for we must control and organize, and secure and keep, and make efficient order; just as we had always done so we did. We were essentially no different: for we functioned by the same principles as we had before. Well, why not? We had always found them effective. They gave us what we wanted didn’t they? And what we wanted must surely be right: for we were good! So, we had no need to look again, and see a second time: we were good: therefore our ideas must be right!
   In our ‘goodness’ we thought up ‘good’ things; and then invented ways to increase them. We made marvellous cages for the birds, and beautiful glass bowls for the fish. For these holders were not just for the safe protection of our catch, but also to show them off to their best advantage, or ours! Well, after all, they were to our credit. They were the fruit of our labours. So they were our rightful reward; and we wanted to take very good care of our catch. Were they not our prize? Had we not won them fairly? We were soul winners weren’t we? And so we should do everything and anything to protect what we had won, and protect our interests, of course; why, it was only natural.
   According to our taste we made ‘the bird cages,’ and ‘the fish bowls.’ They were of all descriptions! There were elegant ones, beautiful, splendid, and awe-inspiring. And some were even so huge and magnificent that they took a long time to build; but in our passion for ‘holders,’ to contain our catch, we would spare no effort or expense in their making! Oh, we did make ordinary ones, too; undecorated and plain; and some so simple they gave the illusion that they were not even ‘there’ at all; though in essence, and underneath, these proved to be no different from the elaborate ones.
   As to how we would stock our ‘holders’ that was, never a problem for us, for out of our imagination we thought up fabulous plans and strategies for their filling. Our tactics were impeccable: for they came out of our goodness, of course. And so, for a few thousand years, millions of birds were caught in our snare, and millions of fishes in our net; and they were all very grateful: we told them so; they were happy for their capture: we made them so. Why, they could hop about in their cages, and bump about in their glass bowls and have a marvellous time; what more could they want?
   Then a wonderful thing happened, the second time; in ‘second-sight:’ spiritual sight. Suddenly, it bubbled up from inside us, and we were changed! Wired cages, snapped! The bird cage, opened! Glass bowls cracked! The fish tank tipped out! And all the freed captives flew beyond, or swam away. Set at liberty they filled the air, their native realm; set free they replenished the sea, their true habitat. The snare of the fowler was finally broken; the net of the fishers torn to shreds! ‘Surely, he shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler!’ ‘In vain the net is spread in the sight of any bird!’ Any flying bird, that is! A seeing one: having working wings: a loving faith which carried us aloft. Safe! Far and away above the fowler’s net! Away to re-inherit our inheritance! Freedom restored to soar through love’s endless skies!
   But, sadly, the cage makers among us were left behind. Timid, fearful, our never once having had working wings, we must remain grounded; blind captives of our own snare. Greedy of gain caught in the net of our own making; seeking glory for our selves captured by that snare which takes away the life of its owner. We were caught clutching desperately to our own pride, hanging on tight to our own goodness defending our right to our own tyranny!   Oh! But how the brave, life’s winged-ones, laughed and played; and ran and danced, and as cartwheels, turning over and over! Their joy knew no bounds, for there was no ending of it: for there were no walls where they lived, no cages to contain them! Not one! Nothing could curtail their free spirit, and no contrivance of humankind would ever imprison them, ever again! Set free, they were complete! Sufficient in their glorious liberty they needed no added form, or structure, that ever man could fabricate for their instruction, they had inherited the Earth! The whole world was their playground! No more bird cages, to hop about in: a whole sky to fly in! No more glass aquariums, to bump about in: a whole ocean to swim in!
   ‘Our soul is escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we are escaped.’ …It is because the snare is broken that we are escaped. When the snare is revealed, and clearly seen, it no longer has power to catch men, and trap them. Our help is in having ‘a right spirit,’ the right ‘name:’ the right character underneath: true awareness of what we are really like beneath the surface of our pretense. It is not by our words we are known but by the spirit which is in us.
   There is no evil as great as our own goodness! …Because it takes us prisoner! Organization of the good kills the spirit of it! What lovely thing that might have begun spontaneously, but which at some stage turned into an organized expression of it, that thing will stagnate and die, as water does which cannot escape its ‘holder.’ That structure we made, which was originally meant for the greater good of our catch, becomes the very thing which hinders it; for as water un-escaped, putrefies, so the spirit, stifled, makes corpses of its catch.
   As water lives only by its release, so truth lives only by its ongoing opening up; by its release from our well intentioned clutching! The ‘new thing,’ and ‘first-love’ of life, is as the dew which is only in the beginnings of day. It soon evaporates and disappears from sight, as it is taken up into the air and turned loose there, where it is meant to be. Even so must love and truth, if it would live, in spirit and survive. Spiritual things must stay in spirit to be spiritual. A hand can no more touch a thought than can a cage contain a prayer. Earthly things go in earthly structures; heavenly things go in heavenly structures; and the two are poles apart: being intrinsically utterly different. As a captured thing is clearly the opposite of a free and living thing, so is good the enemy of the best.     Although all along Love in wisdom knew what we would do; how that being still back-to-front we would do the opposite to her, and build cages and glass bowls for her light of life, she suffered long, awaiting the day of light when we would be delivered from the bondage of our corruption: seeing ourselves in ‘the twinkling of an eye’ as we really were! And yet, seeing too, that we knew not what we did and were forgiven. We know not what we do; so each and every one of us is utterly forgiven; Love made it so.   Though her winged little children still call out in their innocence: ‘The Emperor has no clothes!’ they see that they are themselves no less perpetrators of ‘the dead thing,’ if they were in his shoes! So they turn themselves about, and walking backwards, and with their own mantle clothe the naked ‘Emperor’ and good ‘Noah;’ and covered find in him no fault at all! Love reveals their ‘nakedness’ to themselves alone, and then dies to cover them with her own.
   Oh, if once we had had need of holders to hold us in we had need of them no longer! Only those of us who had been born inside the cage and bowl, and who knew nothing else, would still be needy, and need holders. Our wings and fins having never been used, beyond the narrowest of dimensions, we would struggle outside. We were made needy by the existence of a holder. All caged creatures become dependent upon their holders eventually. Conformed to it made fit for it. And for us it had become our habitat; albeit a sub-natural one and we cried out against its pending destruction! But, it wasn’t impossible to escape; nothing is impossible, in and through love. And always all ways, the free and the strong would be only too happy to help where they could and lend a hand.
   The day had come! In joy the winged-ones saw they lived in a fairytale come true! In a new realm of liberty! The glorious liberty which was all foretold! Ancient prophecies have come to pass where all things are become ours in paradise restored! A portrait had emerged with the power to clarify. One which transcending all time and place was sent throughout the universe; Love’s patient children now understood the mystery ‘hid from ages and from generations.’ The Law, the ‘Schoolmaster’ its work was complete! Life’s plan to lead us through the first ways of doing things, and on to the next, and beyond, was made manifest. We were growing up! And as in the magical story where right triumphs over wrong, all was made well where we live! For the ‘magic’ is real, which by the power of the love that is come unto us has made its own home in us. Love is become our food! Our drink! Our garb! All the things we could ever desire could not to be compared to this. Love had triumphed over un-love; love had conquered death. Winged birds, escaped! Restful creatures were, renewed. To the sky...! To the air...! To the Spirit! To Love! To the sea, and free flowing water! As free spirits we were released – into our native habitat!
   Arrayed with the morning we were clothed with delight; having flown to the truth our raiment was light!
 

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_________________________

   ‘For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time, when it falleth suddenly upon them.’ ‘They lay wait, as he that setteth snares; they set a trap, they catch men.’ ‘They catch them in their net.’                                 

'The Unknown...'

 

                                                        

  On an amble through the fields of the farm near Twin Bridges I came across a boundary gate I could not open. It’s fastening chain and hook was so rusted, it had become rigid, and I could not undo it, or even move it at all. The day was warm, and with the excursion of my walk, it made me feel sleepy; and I leaned against the old lichen covered gate, my arms spread over the top rail and I rested there awhile. Behind me was the steep green field I had just walked up, and before me was the dark pine forest, which was the boundary of the farm, running along the brow of the hills. As I looked about me, I noticed the rough track, beginning on the other side of this gate, disappeared through the pine forest after only a short distance. I looked at everything. And, as I sometimes did, I looked without thinking that I knew what I saw.
   After a few minutes, I think I must have begun to daydream; and of the things drifting up inside me, as I waited, leaning on the gate. I had been finding, lately, that everything I needed to know was known for me, in me; and I was coming to an understanding, that I learn nothing except in moving from the known into the unknown. As I drifted in reverie, there came, at last, a clear inward vision; and I began to understand things which before had been in me only half-hidden truths. The eyes of my heart seeing, I saw the coming of light, rising from out of where it once had been dark; the light having been formerly considered as darkness.
   Before me a gap was made between the trees of the forest, and the trees were people, and the gap between them was a path. It was opening up in their midst, and going right through them, as though they were not there. Then the path, having gone through them, left the forest people behind it, and it entered into a land laid open, a wide grazing land, green and lush. As I watched, I saw the visible track of that inner path, looking fainter and fainter. Near what seemed to be the end of it, shining ones stood, and before them the path was fading even more, until it disappeared altogether, and there was no longer any trace of it. They all hesitated there, and none stepped forward, and not one went onward; and the light which had been shining in them waned. These had all been thus far led by trust, in what love alone had taught them; but now love would take them even further, and beyond themselves.
   My vision of the scene misted, and altered; and now it was like I was looking at it through a tunnel, or, through a telescope. For what I could see now was all within a circle; outside of which things was blurred. In the pause there was in this timeless time, I was left to ponder this strange picture, and before it vanished.     As I watched I became aware of the thoughts and intents of the hearts of the shining ones, and why their glory was waning: they were afraid. The light by which they had been bravely walking was changing. It was no more exactly as it had been; and they were confused; and so they had slowed their pace. As they did, the path before them dimmed. The more they slowed, the more it dimmed; till they stopped, and the path disappeared; and before them all was dark; and the darkness became larger and larger for them, the more they looked at it.   The circle picture blurred. The vision changed; and turned around! Now I was on the other end of the telescope, looking back. I was on the other side of the picture; on the ‘wrong end’ of the telescope. I was looking back at the shining ones from inside the Unknown before them, which they faced. I was now seeing them from the dark that was in front of them, which they feared. And from where I was standing I could see what they saw back-to-front, which was really the right way round! I saw what we cannot see, and from where we think we are not; and it was Everland.
   God had commanded the light to shine out of darkness, and I was in the darkness, from where the light shone; which to the shining ones on the other side, looked dark; even black! But turned around, I was ‘converted;’ and I saw where they stood it was dark. In the place where I was standing looking back at them, it was all light – the light which they called darkness! And that ‘darkness,’ which was light, it was firm and sure, and full of delight and secret discoveries; ‘...the treasures of darkness!’   Instantly I perceived the picture. I realized that that which I can understand, out of my own earthly mind, I call ‘light;’ but, compared to God’s understanding, my ‘light’ was darkness!  I got it back-to-front...! I saw dark where really there was light; and too afraid to go on, I got no closer to God; because to me, where he lived, was in the Unknown; and that, was dark! To me the Unknown was darkness rather than light; even though God is light and so, of course, where he lives is light! In one glimpse, in one coming of his glory, came the completeness of the picture. One instant there truth evident! But I opened my eyes, and it was gone. And once again I was looking at the pine forest before me.  Astonished at the things I had seen, I slid down, and sat on the ground in the warm grass, leaning against the gate, needing to sort out my thoughts and feelings, to understand more clearly what I had seen.
   The shining ones, the children of love, they had so faithfully followed hard after love that she would bless them and reward them, and so she had led them to the place where they could not see the path one pace ahead of them, except as they took the next step forward, where it seemed to them there was no path at all! Yet I saw so clearly, that the instant that they should take one step – and to them, as though on nothing firmer than water – there was the path! It was as solid as anything! I saw it! I had been standing on it! I had been to ‘the other side!’ I laughed; and wrapped in love’s embrace my heart burned warm as fire.
   I could see that following my heart, it was all in stepping forward, walking onward when my light changed its form; when it seemed to me all black ahead! It was in facing the Unknown without fear; taking the next step forward, without relying upon my own understanding, until the path was only there by stepping into the Unknown! Love’s glorious unknown where God lives, who is love!
   Quietly happy I sat leaning against the forestry gate, as pieces of the puzzle in my mind all fell into place. I could see I worship that which I know. I give it everything. I put all my confidence in it: the known is safe. The known is secure. I do not take kindly to change. But I had seen The Unknown! And I had experienced the fact that it was more real than the Known! Safer! For it depended utterly upon the stability of the one who was stability, himself: built upon the substance of the one who is there: the Unknown was the ground upon which God walked. And where he walked was all love. Of course! And, it was more real, more certain and sure – safer – more bearing of my weight than anything I saw as ‘certain’ or ‘sure:’ i.e. my own darkness which I called ‘light!’ I saw. I can receive none of the true light but in moving from what I know to what I don’t. For in the moment, I know, the path becomes something ‘seeming,’ which isn’t; and the true path fades, and more and more...until it disappears!     The real thing wasn’t ‘to know,’ but to walk forward; and in the courage to do so was the surety of an inner path of integrity made visible! ...I never really know, anyway! How much happier it was to make a joy of it; for then I could never be disappointed!

                                                                            *

'Out of Darkness into the Light...and Beyond...'

'A Message in a Bottle...'

   There are moments in our lives, there are moments in a day, when we seem to see beyond the usual. Such are the moments of our greatest happiness. Such are the moments of our greatest wisdom. If one could but recall his vision by some sort of sign. It was in this hope that the arts were invented. Sign-posts on the way to what may be. Sign-posts toward greater knowledge.                                                                                                     (– Robert Henri.)  

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'We Were So Nearly there...'

We were so nearly there 

For further fly all our cherished aspirations 

Than we could ever imagine

Our bright hopes

Though they be only thought and so briefly seen

Have breath and life                                                         

                                                         

What we once conceived of virtue and true living

Of beauty beyond all our fondest dreams

That which came so close and was so real awhile  

Went softly streaming by

Veiled in silken clouds and airy wine

Oh, but we were so nearly there  

I felt the flicker of life’s wings

Living things brushed past

But reaching out to touch

We lost

Oh, had we only known then

How to enter in  

But before we knew it

The vision had slipped on by and fled us  

                                  

What had seemed so possible was now only a dream

And, oh, the emptier we felt for having seen

But no bright purpose was ever lost that once has been…

Truth’s star’s still there

As deep inside as it is above 

Where night’s endless light is                                                      

                                                      

Our mansion’s kept, our heart’s voice mapped

Upon Love’s palm our place

And the everlasting vision etched

Out held, kind, ever offering

Love’s hand is always there...

We always may be what we might have been.

                                      *

'A New Song...' from the handwritten book...

The Everland Cipher Key...

'The Writing in the Shell...'

       IT WAS CERTAINLY A WINDY DAY, BUT WARM. And it was on a distant beach that it happened. I had been collecting shells, the fragile outsides of fair creatures that had departed this world. I found an especially large pink scallop shell with its two halves still joined. It was nicely empty, except for some sand. So I bent down and washed it where I stood in the little lacy waves of the sea lapping at my ankles. Then took it up to where we had been sitting and had left our towels. I didn’t swim; the water was far too cold. So I lay down in the sun, and after awhile I fell asleep. I dreamed. I think. Although it was so real, it could have been some sort of picture-vision. Such things happened to me, from time to time; and I never really knew whether it was my imagination gone ‘riot,’ or creativity gone ‘crazy,’ or the gracious gift of Everland; which of course it was, anyway; for it was not of ‘me.’

       Dreaming, I was looking at the scallop shell; only it wasn’t the same; it was much larger, and pinker. Inside it, I saw some pieces of something. I looked again, a second time; and saw clearer. The things inside looked like small slips of ancient parchment, written on. There were twelve in all. I reached in, and took them out. But when I tried to read them, I could not, for they were all written in an alphabet or cipher that ‘I’ could not understand. They were in the language which I knew and spoke, but in Everland’s communicating of it through the Spirit, the shape of the letters of it had become entirely ‘other;’ …strange, beautiful, complex; and impossible to read! Yet as I held them, I knew they were being given me, to give; and that whoever could bare them, and their message, would be able to read them. I saw that wherever desire to own knowledge for my own gain, was let go of, I was granted another gift; and this time, the ability to understand the writing in the shell, and by the invisible influence of love, in the moving of the Spirit within me.

       Looking again, the third time, I saw something else within the iridescent pearl-pink shell: a scrap of lambskin; and inside it another small slip of parchment. It was the key to understanding the strange writing, which I immediately perceived could no longer be hidden from the world, as it had been for generations through the fear inherent in human nature. What would set me free I unknowingly hid; the price of freedom, too costly. In my fear of any loss I hide from the light what I know the light will expose in me to set me free; though, of course, I don’t realize that! But I am my own hinderer; not of my self only for as that influences others, has it not hindered them? I put my hand in the shell, and took out ‘the key of knowledge;’ and put it with the twelve other parchment fragments…in; …in my heart… Suddenly I couldn’t see them anymore. I woke up and saw that I was holding strands of seaweed, ‘Neptune’s beads,’ which I had collected earlier that day, and the scallop shell, which looked so very dull now.

        Later, when I was alone, I wrote down the inscriptions that I had seen, (they were in the memory of my spirit,) and I wrote them on pages of paper, one copy, in Everland’s own beautiful cipher. And I waited to see if anyone would ‘hear, through ‘the falling,’ the sound of them,’ and be drawn to read them, and understand – and enter in. I put the cipher key with the inscriptions away amongst the leaves of the light tree in the shoebox; and waited for that happy day when ‘a peculiar people’ would be abundant upon the Earth, bringing light for all, no longer any walls to shut it in…!                                                            

                                                                      *

'The Tear Flask & the Jewels of Heaven...' from the handwritten book..

'The Stone which the Builders Refused:' Part Two: the stone of stumbling the path of the Holy Grail...

Continued /

     Why did we first, refuse Jesus? Why was the first stone sent to us, rejected? Because ‘self’ in us always rejects the Truth; innately and unconsciously suppressing the truth, lest the knowledge of the true GOD should spring up and sting it, forcing in us a change of allegiance, and an altering of our ways. Self’s dreaded altar! The cross! Dreaded, because ‘self’ evades its own exposure at every juncture, at every point in its ceaseless defense of its own wicked life: our utter corruption, thereby, manifested! Our original sin self, in us, is set to evade and to fight and even to kill any attempt to expose corruption and sinfulness in it. Truly, we “oppose our own selves.” (2 Tim. 2: 25) We seek our own destruction!!  For we are fighting against Jesus as we fight against “the sting ;”( 1 Cor. 15: 56) and in refusing the offence we are refusing him: fighting against that very thing which will help bring us freedom!

     We do this all unknowingly, of course. Because we don’t comprehend the stone which was sent to us first. The capstone that lies underneath everything and which is the true foundation. The heavenly ground above upon which all must be built for our house to stand and not fall. The spiritual stone/offence that ‘self’ in me is opposed to the truth.  Being as it is on the same side as the serpent, having been made one with the serpent through deception, through my first sin, my original sin; and that, therefore, I really am, absolutely corrupt.

     And because I don’t have the capstone in me, first, from the beginning: that ‘self’ in me is always opposed to God, I naturally don’t realize that of myself I will naturally reject the truth: Jesus; naturally refusing the saving truth that self rejects God, which is the first stone and the last stone that makes complete:  ...that naturally I hate the light that stings me; and that I run from all that would force in me a change of allegiance.

     And this is the truth that saves! And the only truth which could save us! This is the one pearl of great price, which once you have found, you sell all that you have, and buy it. (Lest you were left behind; cast off, thrown out of the wedding, for being inappropriately dressed, and thrown out of the kingdom where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth.)

     This is the stone he lays in Zion, for a foundation; the chief stone which offends, the most costly of all pearls. And truly, it is the gift of God. “Disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God: elect and precious.”  This is the door to heaven this is the stone of stumbling, and the rock of offence: JESUS. Whose inner working in us is like a hidden gin, and a snare: a shepherd’s crook. That we might stumble and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken. That he might expose to us, in us, the deceitfulness of our own hearts, creating in us the need of him: that we no longer turn to ‘him’ from out of a fascinated intellectuality, but truly turn to him, from out of a true and pure perception of our deceitful hearts. From out of an over flowing grateful love, that he should come to us to save us from ourselves!! It is from our selves that we need to be saved. (For ‘self’ in us is absolutely corrupt; manifested by our natural refusal to believe that it is. And this is the precious stone he lays in Zion; and our rock of offence.)

     Only once I am broken, am I snared, and taken of my beloved: wooed, and then raptured by the ecstasy of his own love in me tearing me down to make me free; and turning my humiliation and suffering in it to joy all unspeakable. Only then shall I not be confounded, nor found to be rejecting him. Only then shall I not be brought to confusion or to defeat in not comprehending the good purpose of the Thief; his glorious intent having been made evident to me in me. And so I shall recognize him and know him; in recognizing and knowing that he is the precious taker of ‘my’ life; my own wonderful thief: the LORD, my beloved; ‘thieving’ from me to bless me.  For the very stone sent to make me fall is the blessing to make me rise. Truly, the stone I reject is the gift of God; and the one pearl of great price.

     When I finally come to comprehend this, which is only after I have fallen upon the stone, and been broken, I am no longer confounded. I am no longer found floundering in darkness and defeat; for I perceive the truth that Jesus, the stone, he is both the problem and the solution, at the same time.  He is the first stone and the last. For only within a problem is the possibility of a solution.  So he shows up my iniquity inside of me first that I might be delivered of it at last. Maintaining the beginning firm unto the end that at the end I might be saved.

     For it is only as we see our corruption that we can be delivered from it; if we didn’t see it we couldn’t be saved from it; and it would remain hidden in us and we would not be saved.  So ‘the Stone’ which offends, which we continually reject: “the sting of death” we don’t want to feel, it is really a good thing; a most precious stone! A marvel! And a wonder! A living stone: a life-giving problem! Despised and rejected by us; but chosen of God, and therefore precious; most precious. And it is all the LORD’s doing: it is marvelous in our eyes. For only by means of the problem, the offence, the stone, can we be taught of him “in the inward parts ;”  that in “the hidden part” (Ps. 51: 6)  we can be changed. And changed, there, freed! Only there, truly saved! For only in the inward part is the place where salvation is real. Knowledge in my head doesn’t save me.

     What if I shut my eyes to the truth; how could I see? If I shut my eyes to the offending thing, how could I know that that is darkness within in me? So if I am not brought to see my darkness, how can I possibly be saved from it? Why it would just lie buried in me! And I would think, “I see.” (John 9:41)  But darkness remaining dark in me, I actually wouldn’t, truly. And the stone will come and take me unawares. It will come and fall on me, and grind me to powder.

     But in coming to Jesus in the spiritual house, the inner sting of truth which once we so vehemently refused, is accepted; and once accepted, the possibility of its being found precious. And the stone which we at first refused becomes to us a delight! Made the glory of God, inside us:  as he turns “the sting” of the problem – the grit in the oyster – into shining pearl, within us. And the offence of the truth is become unto us the most wonderful gift. The chief cornerstone, the chiefest thing to us. ‘The head of the corner,’ first our crown of thorns, becoming our crowning glory: as we come to rejoice in the exposure of the stinging offence within us. Perceiving great value in it no longer perplexed by our problem. Rejoicing in his wisdom in turning the world to us upside down; and us back to front, and inside out!

     Not that which seems good to us has God chosen to use to transform our life, but those things which are an affront to us; things we naturally don’t like God has chosen. Things despised by us, he has made precious to him. He chose to use the things which seem to take away from us, to take away those things which we think we have of him: those things which have given us the illusion of the knowledge of him; but, being not, him, himself, they are deceitful things. All those pieces of knowledge, all those figurines of mine are beautiful, but they can’t breathe!! So in his love he comes as a thief to me, and he takes them all away! Stealing them from me, to give me that which does breathe: JESUS, himself, life! And the painful offence, in his stealing and taking away from me, he has turned to glorious joy in his own life in me! “The LORD, our righteousness!” The LORD, himself!!

     Truly, the stone most despised and rejected of men, generation after generation will be found to be the most precious stone in the whole temple of God; whose temple we are; because the foolishness of God, which confounds the wise, is wiser than men; and the weakness of God, which is the glory of God, is stronger than men. And in his wisdom it will be those things that the world has belittled and refused which shall be found precious at the end; as he restores all things, and unravels the truth: “even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints.”

     And the mystery of God shall be finished. And he shall appear to our joy, and to their shame that reject the sting of death.      For the sting of death is sin: our refusal of any piercing light, exposing us to our own selves, is sin.  And it is sin, because it is a going away from the light…a running away from him, not a coming to him...it is a rejecting of JESUS.

     And so the last stone was delivered to the builders first; though it was put in place last, and at the end of the age. For in the heavenly house, the last stone is the first stone. The stone that bruises our head the foundation to bruise our heel that we might truly walk in the LORD; (only the lame walk ;) and this is the foundation stone upon whom the LORD builds. So, both come at the same time; that we might be built a complete house, a heavenly house, from the top down, right from the beginning. Complete, right from day one, even as babies are. Complete from the day they are born. Behold, I will do a new thing.

     My beloved, he is both Alpha, and Omega: the Beginning, and the End.  He is both the hard Question, and the joyful Answer. The stinging Offence, and the glorious Remedy; for when we comprehend the offence we stand in the truth: and there, and only there the possibility of being saved. Fused. Married. Complete.

                                       *

‘I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these thingsfrom the wise and prudent, and hast revealed themunto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.'

'The Stone which the Builders Refused:' and the stone of stumbling from which we cannot withdraw the sword... we refuse it...

'The Stone which the Builders Refused:' Part One: the Stone of Stumbling: the Path of the Holy Grail...

                THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REFUSED

                              

                               (Psalm 118: 22 / Matthew 21: 42 / Mark 12: 10 / Luke 20: 17)                                       

  [Isaiah 28: 16 / 1 Peter 2: 6 / Romans 9: 33 / Ephesians 2: 20 / Revelation 2: 17;  21: 11]                              

     There are two parables which paint a vivid picture of the truth of the stone which the builders refused. One is a parable of Jesus, ‘the parable of the householder;’ (Matthew 21: 42 / Mark 12: 10 / Luke 20: 17); the other is ‘the parable of the rejected stone,’ an old rabbinic tale written to explain a scripture in the Hallel Ps.113-118  (Psalm 118:22.) This rabbinic legend was well known to the chief priests and the elders of the people, to whom Jesus addresses his parable as he was teaching inside the temple. It is written here to help us, also, to understand inside us, in spirit, the saving truth of the stone which we builders reject.

     ‘The Parable of the Rejected Stone:’ the Building of Solomon’s Temple.

“THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REFUSED IS BECOME THE HEAD STONE OF THE CORNER: THIS IS THE LORD’S DOING; IT IS MARVELLOUS IN OUR EYES.” (Psalm 118: 22 / Matt. 21: 42 / Mark 12: 10 / Luke 20: 17 / Acts 4: 11)  “The house, when it was in building, was built of stone made ready before it was brought thither: so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house, while it was in building.” (1 Kings 6: 7)  So the huge twenty ton stones, destined for the building of the house, were quarried and fashioned some distance away; and then, when they were finished, transported thither.

     Legend has it that the first stone to be delivered was the head stone of corner, the capstone. The builders could not comprehend it. To them it was nothing they needed to begin the construction of a house. And as it did not fit in with their plans, the builders found no use for it. And so they rejected it; they cast it aside.

     The years passed, and the capstone lay buried beneath the grass that grew up over it. For the grass grows, and our heart waxes gross: covered by the flesh grown up over it. All flesh is grass that obscures the truth. But in the fullness of time, as the house was near finished, the builders sent for the last stone, saying, “Send us now the capstone, the head of the corner.”  “But we already have!” came the word from the fashioning place. And the builders were confounded: because they had not believed that he had already come.

     Then spake one from the least among them, and told them what they done with chief cornerstone. How that they had rejected it. And in joy not their own, it was taken from its despised and rejected place, where they had put it, where it had become covered over by neglect; hidden by flesh, weeds and grass; and raised up and put in place it was found to fit perfectly. It was indeed the capstone. This peculiar stone, set at nought by the builders, was the corner stone of the whole temple. And the day of its restoration from obscurity to glory, the day which the LORD had made: for this surely was the LORD’s own doing. And his building plan, which had confounded them, was now marvelous in their eyes.

     The last stone, “the head stone of the corner,” it had been sent first. And it was not a mistake. The ‘head’ stone had to come first, because in the spiritual house, which Solomon’s Temple represented, we must initially comprehend something in our head before we can stand on it as a foundation. We must perceive something in our mind, before we can walk in it. We must understand the truth, before we can possibly live in it.  First I must learn to recognize, and accept the offence I refuse, ‘the rejected stone,’ by the renewing of my mind, before I can walk in the light of it and become complete; and be a complete house. Else, I am left in the dark. Left forever seeking my own delusion, in my own unconscious rejection of the capstone of the truth and the offence in my head: Jesus, when I am backed into a corner. And I am found to be hating him whom I profess to love: rejecting the offence (the stone) I am rejecting…Jesus. 

     ‘The Parable of the Householder: the Vineyard Owner:’  “Hear another parable: there was a certain householder, which planted a vineyard, and hedged it round about, and digged a winepress in it, and built a tower, and let it out to husbandmen, and went into a far country: And when the time of the fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the husbandmen, that they might receive the fruits of it. And the husbandmen took his servants, and beat one, and killed another, and stoned another. Again, he sent other servants more than the first: and they did unto them likewise. But last of all he sent unto them his son, saying, They will reverence my son. But when the husbandmen saw the son, they said among themselves, This is the heir; come, let us kill him, and let us seize on his inheritance. And they caught him, and cast him out of the vineyard, and slew him. When the lord therefore of the vineyard cometh, what will he do unto those husbandmen? They say unto him, He will miserably destroy those wicked men, and he will let out his vineyard unto other husbandmen, which shall render him the fruits in their seasons.

     'Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THE SAME IS BECOME THE HEAD OF THE CORNER: THIS IS THE LORD’S DOING, AND IT IS MARVELLOUS IN OUR EYES?'  Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof. And whosoever shall fall on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him to powder.”  

     Just as the builders felt the capstone did not fit with their idea of how things ought to be, in beginning the construction of a house, and rejected it because they felt they did not need it,  so also, the husbandmen of the vineyard did not recognize the good purpose of the son and heir, nor that of his servants sent before him, but instead, beat them, and sent them away empty-handed, treating them shamefully, killing some and wounding others; so they also, cast out ‘the stone:’ killing, the owner’s son.

     For these seemed like thieves to the husbandmen. These did not fit with their plans for the vineyard. Why, the owner’s servants were wanting to take from them! Wanting to take what the husbandmen felt was legally theirs: their own righteousness, by their own works in the law. Why these servants were stealing! Wanting to steal from them their harvest of iniquity. And so, they slew them. Not realizing that these servants had been sent to relieve them by taking from them; they had been sent to bless them, by ‘stealing’ from them. For all righteousness, and all the harvest of righteousness, belongs to the owner of the vineyard. But this was an offence to the husbandmen. So they did not see the good purpose of the owner in it: their wellbeing: their eternal life; in the giving up and surrendering of their righteousness for his: for their joy: for their eternal good. But this was just an offence to them! Because they didn’t want to give up anything! And the glorious purpose of the owner, they “set at nought.” Therefore, they did not perceive that to their minds he would seem just like a thief. They had no idea that to them he would come “as a thief in the night.” So they rejected, and killed, the Thief: the owner’s Son.

     And so the vineyard is taken from these husbandmen, and given to others, “which shall render him their fruits in their seasons:” those who understand the offence of the truth, and embrace it, instead of rejecting it. Those who willingly and joyfully surrender ‘their’ life, to find his: who “love not their lives unto the death.” And just as the “fig tree” that would yield no fruit to Jesus was cursed, so the vineyard: the kingdom of God is taken from those who steal his fruit and given to people who do not say they own it: a nation which is no nation.  The kingdom shall be given to the ‘Gentiles.’ To the ‘heathen.’ To those people whom we call ‘non-Christians;’ those who have not so much ‘righteousness’ to lose as we do! For they have no (‘Christian’) culture to draw it from. They have no (‘Christian’) system to hide in. They have nothing to clothe themselves in. They have nothing at all except the indwelling Spirit of God: the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world.

     So, the kingdom is taken from us! …from us who call ourselves “the Church.” And it is given to a people which have not the law, but who by nature do the things contained in the law; which show the work of the law written in their hearts, (their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another ;) in the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ.

     For we who followed after the law of ‘Do this!’ to be right with God: the law of righteousness, have not attained to the law of righteousness, because we sought it not by faith, but by our works. And he will provoke us to jealousy by them that are no people, and by a foolish nation he will anger us. For he was found of them that sought him not.  He was made manifest unto them that asked not after him. It is to a nation that is not called by his name, that he says, “Behold me! Behold me!”   

     In Jesus’ own restoring of the offence we refused, (for this can only be the LORD’s doing.) I need to understand that I am set to reject the piercing truth, and those who preach it, lest I lose what I think is mine: my life. We builders of our self would rather dress ourselves up, and preserve our filthy rags, than have them taken from us, and be bereft of them! I’d far rather disallow, and even get rid of, anybody, or anything, that might expose me to myself, than allow it and face the piercing truth sent to free me! Sent to free me of my harvest of iniquity in the vineyard of God! But, no, we’d rather kill the rightful heir and seize on his inheritance, that the inheritance may be ours; ours, for us, and for our own pleasure, than surrender our righteousness, for his, for his pleasure! I’d rather cast out the truth than surrender any part of my hoard of ‘righteousness’ for it. Truly, “the spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy;” for envy we crucified the LORD of glory. 

   Even so, when Jesus comes to us the first time, we do not recognize him. We reject him. We cast him aside. Naturally we cast aside the capstone of the gospel; in our not comprehending it. For it makes no sense to us! It is just foolishness! Because it’s opposite to our way of thinking. Opposite to what we think we need to begin the construction of a building. From the top down? Why, that’s crazy! So we have no use for it. And to the husbandmen’s way of thinking, the householder’s purpose was equally just as nonsensical. Taking the whole harvest from them till they had nothing left for, themselves; they were to think this, good?! The owner taking everything from them, the best thing for them?! But that’s foolish! What would they live on?! Why the owner is insane! His ways are just crazy! …But God’s foolishness is wiser than men.

     For “the head stone of the corner:” the owner’s son…is the stone which bruises our head; and he is good in that he bruises our head. For he is the most wonderful stone, that single stone, that slays the ‘Goliath’ of ‘self’ in us, to set us free. So he is most precious though he be the stone which fells us! The precious offence, backing us into a corner: pressing us unto the obedience of the truth; truth we’d rather not see: the winepress of the LORD. No wonder we builders of ourselves reject him; for his way of saving us, hurts! And we don’t like that! So in our building of our ‘house,’ after our own ways, we have not perceived that the truth slays to bring life. The truth steals to give. The truth cuts to circumcise. The truth tears down to restore. The truth offends to bless. Truly, the stone we reject is the offence of the truth: a stone 'disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God: and precious.' And until we learn the paradox of the truth, we will continually reject it: and reject him.

     We are afraid of losing what we have. But if we could only see his goodness in it, we would run to lose whatever it was he touched. Finding in its former lodging place in our hearts, a gift more rare and costly that far excelled it! Our rubbish for his treasure?! …Yes! Our loss for his gain! And we’d see it as such a good exchange, we’d rejoice in its loss, and wonder why we ever clung to it in the first place!

     So, I need to see that the piercing sting of the offence of the truth that rises up in me, seeming to steal from me, actually is a gift, the LORD’s gift: …that my buried darkness might be brought to light in me, exposed to me, so that I might be saved from it: changed on the inside.

    And this is the truth and the stone which we builders continually refuse:                      

THAT SELF IN ME IS

ABSOLUTELY CORRUPT:

THEREFORE I AM

UTTERLY  UNABLE

TO SAVE MYSELF.

This is the truth which we naturally reject: because, of ourselves, we can’t and won’t, believe it.  

Continued /