#taize

Lift Up Thy Heart

If you are struggling, embrace Him...

"I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me.

If you're not european and christian, you probably never heard about this place. It's a little village in the french countryside where a community of brothers are living and offering a safe space for thousands of young people from all over the world to meet up, connect and discuss whatever matters to them (that being religion or philosophy or life in general).

I first went there when I first finished school. Legally I was already an adult but I didn't feel that way. My future was still uncertain, I didn't knew if uni would work out. Even so, I didn't have many questions. I found the answers anyway.

I came back while studying. I knew what I would be doing in the next three years, how my life would look like (at least I thought so, this was in 2019). I had even fewer questions. I still got more answers.

Last time I went after finishing uni and I stayed a bit longer as a volunteer. I had a job that I could probably start after coming back, but nothing for certain. My whole life was changing again. This time I had more questions and I got answers to most of them.

In days long past, my school did a pilgrimage to a small land of peace and reconciliation, that lay in the nation of passion and revolution. As a community from nations near and far, we all ate simple food in the daylight flavouring the fresh air, allowing us all to discover joy in pearls hidden in fields. I listened and sang hymns of honey given by the monks dressed in white. Through the songs on my tongue, I tasted gladness of heart and peace in mind, though sometimes the words were a mystery to me. I spent my personal time in the chapel, sitting in silent worship amid polished stone with orange windows. I listened to the peace of flowing milk around me, and the occasional drip touching my tongue. I did not understand the divine flowing all around and within me, though I felt its gentle touch. It was a mystery to me, incompressible and veiled by my shackles. A mystery that I had not comprehended at that time, till I took a bit of fruit in years after. But the hymns of sweet honey and the flowing milk was but a faint taste to me. I was not a Christian back then as I am now. I was still led along by the hope of a New Age back then. Though the milk and honey were sweet to my tongue, I could not have swallowed the medicine they contained within. Yaldabaoth had chained my neck tight by his words and by his mirages of the desert, until I found the Tree of Gnosis that unlocked my neck and heart later in life. As such, the milk, honey or any beverage of the spirit were not my found treasure there, but the friends that journeyed with me. They were a mountain filled with greenery for me. Birds were tweeting in laughter, and the trees were rustling in chatter. Wind was playing games in the branches, and the sun was shining over this all. We all slept and hung out in tents at night when there was no blistering sunlight showering us. That was a mountain of friendship I never climbed before and never climbed up again. Only memories of the mountain peak of shining white remain. I can no longer see that princess of moonlight now, though I was closest to her on the mountain peak. I felt her cool breath amidst the stars, and I heard her laughter among the trees at daylight. 

On the green mountain

With honey and pearly milk

“In  this world filled with noise, we must make time for silence, for God speaks to us in the silence of our heart. This seeking after silence is not world-denying but world-embracing.”

~Abbot Tryphon

THE POET THINKS OF THE DONKEY by Mary Oliver

On the outskirts of Jerusalem the donkey waited. Not especially brave, or filled with understanding, he stood and waited.

How horses, turned out into the meadow, leap with delight! How doves, released from their cages, clatter away, splashed with sunlight.

But the donkey, tied to a tree as usual, waited. Then he let himself be led away. Then he let the stranger mount.

Never had he seen such crowds! And I wonder if he at all imagined what was to happen. Still, he was what he had always been: small, dark, obedient.

I hope, finally, he felt brave. I hope, finally, he loved the man who rode so lightly upon him, as he lifted one dusty hoof and stepped, as he had to, forward.

TAKING IT FURTHER

Read the poem prayerfully a couple of times. Sit with it in silence for a while. Read it again and then pick the one verse, the one image that strikes you the most.  Carry that one verse or image with you throughout the day.