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!
 

                                                         *

_________________________

   ‘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.’