enjoy the vision bright...

I am struggling with a sermon to be delivered tomorrow. I have a vague idea of where I want it to end up but cant seem to come up with words that will get it there.
A part of it is expressed in this hymn (found in the 1865 edition of Hymns of the Spirt) which will serve as the prayer...

"The light pours down from heaven
And enters where it may
The eyes of all earth’s children
Are cheered with one bright day.

So let the minds true sunshine
Be spread o’er earth as free,
And fill our waiting spirits,
As the waters fill the sea

The soul can shed a glory
On every work well done
As even things most lowly
Are radiant in the sun

Then let each human spirit
Enjoy the vision bright
The truth which comes from heaven
Shall spread like heaven's own light

Till earth becomes God's temple
And every human heart
Shall join in one great service
Each happy in our part."

Blessings

another channel must be opened...

Thomas Treadewell Stone rises to transcendental heights in this excerpt from "The Rod and the Staff," It is an impassioned plea to "open new channels" to the spirit:

"When we contemplate the person in himself and his relations to the material order, we scarce think of doubt; man is here with his wants, of which the greatest is Divine comfort. When from the person we go forth to contemplate society through its several relations, we have no more doubt: the wants are felt at once, happy when the supply comes in the presence of God. So far a childlike trust goes with us. The Church meets us as threshold, nay, more than this, in its whole significance, as temple itself, for worship in another form. An hour may come, to some it comes inevitably, when either the Divine consolation must die from their hearts, or another channel must be opened for it, another sphere revealed into which the soul enters, thenceforth seeing the presence of which it had earlier heard and accepted the tradition. We stand as yet but at the entrance. The realm of spirit spreads out to infinitude. The shrine of its worship expands and ascends and shines out to the opening eye brighter and higher than the sun. The Deep is before us; and though no dark inscription repels us from the gateway, no hopeless sorrows threaten us if we dare to pass within, yet nowhere more than here, and through this entire process of the Regeneration, do we need at every step the strength and guidance from above. We are still partakers of the earthly nature, souls living in the form of the first man: and such as he, so weak, so ignorant, so sinful, we must essay to know and interpret the characters of the Lord from heaven. If so far we have striven to follow the Divine voice in our earthly relations, now that the quickening spirit is revealed, we are to strive, deeper within the new mystery, to pass into its own higher sphere, obedient to the greater word which it speaks, alive with the purer inspiration which it breathes through heaven and earth.

Let the celestial life of Jesus furnish the perfect symbol."

Blessings
(On a more personal note, I would sure appreciate everyone's prayers today for Judy and Carrie-many thanks)

the mystery which makes it what it is...

More on the sphere of the spirit from Thomas Treadwell Stone:

"The practical difficulty which meets men of believing tendencies and devout affections is the apparent distance of this mysterious sphere from human perception. We see, they may say, the system of nature. By day, the sun is out in fulness of splendor, and the numberless forms of earth dwell amidst its beams. By night, the moonlight calms the air and sky, and sleeps on field or forest or water, and stars stand out, indicating worlds upon worlds. But the sphere of spirit! We see no such thing; no sun, no moon, no star, no earth or sea. We try to look upon it; only one immense void, one everlasting abyss, meets our asking eye. It is as when we stretch our sight from the deck of a ship in mid-ocean; nothing meets it but empty sky and sea; nay, more, the void is such as we might dream if sea had no surface or form, sky no circle or color, an infinite vacuity. — When such doubt comes over us, let us gather our thoughts and examine the case, how it really is. If to the mind opened only on the side of the world, nature seems nearest and most real, yet to the mind once opened fully on the side of the spiritual realm, spirit becomes nearest and most real. The world, no longer all or continent of all, becomes a transparent medium of the creative light which contains, encircles, penetrates, the whole. But the power itself, the everlasting substance, of both the seen and the unseen, is always invisible. The very tree there on the hill-side, red with the gorgeous hues of this rich autumn,—who can tell those elements and powers combined, away from all perception of the five senses, which have worked through it so many years, through such changes of season, to bring it where it is now, — to constitute its very nature, to be the essence and ground of its growth and its whole form ? That one red leaf, who can describe its internal history from the first green through summer to this bright October? The question goes deeper than the sense, and leaves the naturalist pursuing an entirely different course of observations. It suggests to us, that, after all, we know, we perceive of even the tree merely certain appearances within the compass of sense, not the mystery which makes it what it is, which lives and grows through it. But as much as this we are able to know, and the enlightened mind does know, of the grander, the pervading, creative mystery, the appearances, the developments, the fruit, as the Apostle terms it, of the spirit, its natural growth into the order of life and action, — love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance. As really as the fruit of autumn expresses the power working into the processes of nature, so really virtue reveals and bodies forth the power working through the greater processes of spirit."

Blessings

the bosom of the infinite mystery...

T.T. Stone speaks this morning of the world of the spirit and its uses and abuses. The two primary"fruits" of that "sphere of the spirit" are true prayer and trust:

"Every man knows there is a real existence apparent to us in the boundless forms of nature. As surely, though many may sneer or deny, there is a real existence apparent to us under the boundless presence of spirit. There are deceptions and mistakes in the reports which sense brings us of nature; there are enthusiasms and errors in the visions which thought accepts of spirit. But nature is not less a fact, spirit is not less a reality. And spiritual existence, to say the least, is just as certain as natural existence. It were a waste of words to spend them in demonstration of an existence surrounding us; if our inner sense were as thoroughly exercised as our outer senses, it would be just as much a waste of words to spend them in demonstration of a grander sphere and order of existence transcending nature, pervading and quickening man and the universe. The demonstration, in fact, can hardly be other at any time than, as the word imports, a showing of the reality to the eye of the mind...

Prayer, if it be prayer, is itself emanation of a spirit into the sphere of spirit. It is not a posture, it is not a word, it is not a form, it is not a modification of body or of nature; it is spiritual effluence and experience. Trust, the deep, calm, unutterable repose of the man in the bosom of the infinite mystery, — the childlike look out into the measureless universe, nothing presented to the sense, but the soul taking an inspiration as from a father's soothing presence, — this is as really a spiritual experience, — one fact of the spiritual order...

The caution... is, not to destroy, not to deny, not to neglect, the power or the organ, but to train ourselves to discrimination of the false and the true, of the delusion which plays off its tricks upon us, and the reality which belongs to the majestic and permanent order."

Blessings

"shall I not drink it?...

Just as pleasuse has its prayer (see the last few posts), so too does pain. The words of T.T. Stone continued...

"Pain has also prayer of its own. The utterance may be suppressed; or it may be made up of extorted aspirations and broken sentences, and, in extreme states, even of agonized words. But there are intervals of alleviation, longer or shorter, when the mind is able to collect for a while its thoughts, and, beyond the piercing cry for rest and mercy, can go forth soaring from its own depth and darkness through serener air toward the gates of heaven. Then, we may think, such meditations and prayers as these gush out from the full heart: —

Father, I raise unto thee my cry; in thy mercy hear me. Only thou knowest the necessity; I feel but the bitterness of the draught. My very soul is oppressed by my sufferings. I am faint in body and feeble in mind; I am pained without and within. Only thou canst support me; only thou canst lift me up. Suffer me not to complain or become impatient. O let it be that I may have such relief, and so constant, that I shall never lose the power of unbroken thought; that I shall never fail of controlling my temper, my tongue, and my conduct to those about me. Let not others suffer from any restlessness or unkindness of mine. Strengthen me to possess my soul, to preserve faith in thee, to be gentle and loving to all.

I have learned in this painful experience something of my capacity to endure. When pain is violent, so that it seems intolerable, yet I cannot sink wholly. Thine arm, Almighty, holds me up. When pain gives place to exhaustion, and I feel myself penetrated by weakness, so that it becomes a faintness through my whole body, still I live. Thy life, Eternal, flows through me. Empower me, Lord, to look now to thee for solace and peace. For every relief I thank thee; for these supports in the past, for these consolations of sweet and tranquil rest, for the love and trust which thou breathest into my soul. If I am again to bear the severities of pain, again to faint in weakness, I beseech thee still to comfort me. Carry my thoughts back to thy Son in his deeper sorrows; and impart to me something of the trust which was with him in his lonely grief, which gave his soul rest in thee when he bowed heavily to the earth, which renewed his calmness when his enemies laid their hands upon him, which remained with him when he bare his cross and stood before the judgment-seat, and which broke from his lips as his spirit arose to thee. Make me like this dearly beloved Son of God, a lowly child of thine; and now and always, with him, enable thy feeble one to say, The cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it ? Blessed be thou, Father, for ever. Amen."

Blessings

holier fruit...

The words of Thomas Treadwell Stone have been my companion the past few days and will continue for a few more. Today, the "flip-side" of the last few posts from the"Pleasure" part of his chapter "Pleasure and Pain" in the book ""The Rod and the Staff" T.T. Stone on Pain:

"But that which we chiefly seek now is not so much the method of escaping pain, as the spirit with which we should meet it when it has come and can no longer be avoided. We may not despise the Stoic, but stoutly with him deny that pain is essentially evil, so holding for ever of the soul and of virtue. We may not despise the theologian or the philosopher, but admit with each that pain grows of some known or unknown disobedience to immutable law, so deriving from it lessons of wiser conduct for the future. With neither of them, however, let us stop. Holier fruit than either may grow from the hard experience. We may learn unfaltering trust. We may learn to look from the depth to the height, seeing how the stars shine never more brightly than when we are hemmed in by dark walls which seem to make even the sky black.

The great end of man's existence, if we look only to himself, is virtue; if we look to his higher relations and destiny, it is communion with God. To each, let it be our effort to render all pain subsidiary. Amidst weakness and languor and harsher pain, to summon the soul into noble and generous activity; to rise into peace and bless God for his love; to maintain sweetness of temper and welcome all who visit us with kindlier affections ; to go through the whole with calmness and with care for those about us, — will be found not only virtue, but the parent of virtue. So much strength and beauty of soul have been won: they have formed their home in the heart; they shall produce new and growing fruit, asking only culture to become richer and fairer for ever. Then contemplate the same spirit amidst these same infirmities, as thus finding its rest in the bosom of the Father, — we may close our lips ; we may still our thoughts; we may soothe the beating heart; there is no less than the peace of God."

Blessings

revelations of new heavens and a new earth...

This morning, the conclusion of a prayer by T. T. Stone found in his book of 1858, "The Rod and the Staff." (find the rest of the text in 2 posts made yesterday)

"When I leave the vision of thy day and thy night, and rest in lonely thought, thou art with me still. Thy sun and moon and stars, thine earth and skies, dwell ever fresh within me. Thou hast planted their image in my mind; thou renewest the creation to me with every sun that riseth, with every evening as it soothes me by its peace. And in them all, and in my soul which loves them, thou hast engraven a holier image, so that neither in nature nor in myself can I for a moment live, but thy benignity surrounds me and fills me. In thee, Father, I live; in thee, Power of powers, I move ; in thee, Lord of existence, I have my being. My heart overflows with joy; thine the joy which makes me glad; from thee, the heart which drinks it in. Let heart and joy, and all I am and all I have, rise, returning to the supreme fountain. Even if changes come, and clouds gather over me, and pleasures wither in my hand, let no thought of repining dwell in me; fill me with that trust which shall give me revelations of new heavens and a new earth. Thy Sabbath fold me to its rest!

Father! save me, that I do not wander or fall. While I feel thee near, all pleasure is pure to me, sweet and heavenly ; so soon as I am away from thee, pleasure is corrupt and becomes bitter, and I am earthly and know nothing but earth and earthly things. Keep me so near to thee; so quicken my sight to see thy presence ; fill me with such fulness of thy spirit, that I shall never lose thee from my soul, that I shall never see the world void of thy life. There is no darkness with thee; there is no light without thee. For ever, thou life and joy of all, let thy child find the path to his home, and come to live and rest and rejoice, as thou givest him now to rejoice, in thee. Amen."

Blessings