Unveiling the Heart
Deep snow. A marvelous morning (early in the night hours) in which, among other things, I suddenly wrote a French poem.
Curious dimension of time: in four hours (besides writing this poem, getting breakfast and cleaning up) I reread a few pages of Burtt's book and perhaps twenty pages of Kitaro Nishida. That was all. But the time was most fruitful in depth and awareness, and I did not know what happened to all these hours.
Later I could see by the deer tracks that sometime in the dark before dawn a couple of deer had jumped the fence right out in front of the hermitage--but I did not notice them. (Too dark, and with my desk light in front of me I do not see out when it is dark.)
As regards prayer--in the hermitage. To be snowed in is to be reminded that this is a place apart, from which praise goes up to God, and that my honor and responsibility are that praise. This is my joy, my only "importance." For it is important! To be chosen for this! And then the realization that the Spirit is given to me, the veil is removed from my heart, that I reflect "with open face" the glory of Christ (II Corinthians 3:12-18). It would be easy to remain with one's heart veiled, and it is not by any wisdom of my own, but by God's gift, that it is unveiled.
January 23, 1966, VI.10-11
II Corinthians 3:12-18:
ReplyDeleteSince, then, we have such a hope, we act with great boldness, 13not like Moses, who put a veil over his face to keep the people of Israel from gazing at the end of the glory that was being set aside. 14But their minds were hardened. Indeed, to this very day, when they hear the reading of the old covenant, that same veil is still there, since only in Christ is it set aside. 15Indeed, to this very day whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their minds; 16but when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. 17Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18And all of us, with unveiled faces, seeing the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord, the Spirit.