The Forgotten Threshold Part 3

August 19.

On the dunes this morning toward Wonder Island ... Eternity is infinite speed. Time is the dragwheel, nothing more. Hence the significance of "when eternity reaffirms the conception of an hour."

Flame is the symbol of time as dew is the symbol of eternity. They meet in Christ and through Him in the human race. The moon properly loved is the kindness of time, as the sun is the reflected love of Eternity made Flesh in the Host on the altar. ... Tonight I desire only silence to love.

August 20.

On the dunes toward Wonder Island this morning I lost s.p.a.ce and walked upon the blue ringing a cycle of stars in either hand. But I felt no sense of distance and the seed of the sands blew on the wind which carried me. It taught me how to walk softly through life, and coming home I had the sand in my hair. I know now what clouds are, softer than the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of doves. G.o.d's flying sorrows are the sandals of the soul. They make us His angels, Mercuries of Light. The sun has not bled for many a night, but has slowly descended in silver splendor, always a second dawn with its fresh, keen, cool surprises. Today was the grace of last night's desire. The wonder of it this morning was my complete surrender, the a.s.surance with which I moved on the singing skies as my native element. I know that only the appearances remained, as in the Eucharist after the Consecration we seem to see the bread and wine. Life was the poise of infinity, and I knew of no horizon, for I could look down upon the dawn. It came two weeks ago Sunday in my heart. I see the mystery of the Resurrection in its beauty, and why white lilies are its deepest symbol. How can there be a prison or a cage? Every twilight is a white horizon. The gulls know that and the sea tonight has lost its sorrow.

August 21.

By sailboat to P---- and G---- with the silent man, returning with the stars. Their hosting was like the flocking of wild geese, and they followed St. Francis of a.s.sisi as a leader, the captain of the morning stars. In the silence I heard the operation of the divine mathematics.

I loved those Chaldean seers to whom G.o.d talked directly and wrote His message upon the stars. I lay p.r.o.ne on the deck looking upwards and fell into the Divine Ocean slowly. The moon rode serenely to the southwest, and humanity was with me in the boat. Navigators are now the only men left wise enough to follow the stars. The sunpath was Jacob's ladder, and the Aran islanders know its secret when they see Tir-n'an-Og in the west on calm sunset evenings. The sea had my trust, eternal through yesterday's experience, and I believe that if faith and good works required it of me, I could walk softly over it. If the soul is to control the body, surely spiritual gravity should be able to overcome material gravity. Certainly it would take more than the sea to quench my flame, if G.o.d made me worthy.

August 22.

I looked down from great heights today on all the little smiling intimacies. They are like happy babies to me, and my speech should play with them, if I can ever become worthy of their simplicity. The rhythm of all music is the systole and diastole of the Sacred Heart, which is the ebb and flow of an infinite ocean. This is the meaning, I think, of the old Gaelic rune, _Ri tragadh s'ri lionadh, mar a bha, mar a tha, mar a bhitheas gu bragh ri traghadh s'ri lionadh_. (The ebb and the flow, as it was, as it is, as it ever shall be, the ebb and the flow.) The resolute gaze of the soul toward this in love const.i.tutes prayer in its only form. It shows blood to be the most rich and beautiful of human things, and its salt waves purify the flesh, as the salt waves of Gethsemane and Calvary redeemed the soul and its singing stars.

August 23.

My life so far has been a word, and not a deed. But the world was not redeemed until the Word BECAME FLESH--AND DWELT AMONGST US. Mary S---- met us on the roads today and said, "I hope that we'll be meeting in Heaven, we seem to meet so often now." I sleep at night in a cruciform position adoring beauty with every faculty save my will, the most necessary of all.

August 24.

In the open today amid a hurricane of wind ... I walked with a childish old man with a pleasant soul. The wind brought meteor showers of beauty to the body. It rained grace in the sky of noon.

I could carry overflowing happiness now even to New York. Today reminded me of the sunlight on the roar of Broadway. G.o.d is on the wind tonight, and is beating down my will with his wings.

August 25.

I lay through a night of tempestuous wind with the open window at my head. I awoke and saw myself face to face in my weakness. It rained all day. ... I can hardly bear my love today. It is a terrific dynamo of silence. But it will be very long before I shall fulfill my worthiness. If one could always remember that he is a saviour, and carry humanity with him, his will would be inflexible and every act an exulting humility. All nature is but a mantle which the wind of my spirit disposes in folds about me, and humanity is the chalice in which I may communicate with G.o.d,--a chalice woven of our singing flesh and heart and brain and will, wherein the will is its depth, the Atlas which bears the Sacred Body and Blood when it is given to us.

August 26.

Sorrow has come at last. Full moon, and life is at the flood. The precept of all adversity is of course that the ebb tide of fortune is our flood toward G.o.d. Even the lamp tonight is singing in the room.

August 27.

The experience still turns inward to the heart of life. I now see the core of it. It burns, of course, but think of the wheel it carries. A few days ago I was on the circ.u.mference. Now I have found the center.

A day of rain and wind and exterior disturbances. But I have found my cenacle.

August 28.

A victory for the will. ... It is strange that every vital lesson that experience teaches can never be expressed in words. The past few days have taught me more than the rest of the summer. There will always be a secrecy of the soul, and what this contains const.i.tutes G.o.d's image and likeness. Life sings tonight in every atom its marvelous chemistry of change and prophecy. Nature knows no elegies, since it may never triumph over aught but dust. But the highest dream is less worthy than the simplest deed, and we must forget the knowledge of good and evil.

I would exchange all the knowledge I have gained for the grace to perform the slightest act of St. Francis. G.o.d has made our opportunity infinite by giving us an eternal standard of values,--that is all.

August 29.

I am afraid to write further for fear that I shall soon become self-conscious. ... It is strange that the will did not come home to me as a complete experience before. I simply had the foreboding of it.

This summer on the 9th of August I heard the Fourth Syllable in its awfulness for the first time, and understood the mystery of the Redemption. The time has now come to close this book, for the record is complete, and may not be reopened until I redeem my will.

_They departed into their own country another way_.