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!
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